The J&B Met is being run this Saturday and it is one of the biggest horseracing occasions, aside from the July Handicap with the Summer Cup running as the third of the big races.  The one advantage that the Durban July and the J&B Met have is that they are grand social occasions whereas the Summer Cup is not.  I have a runner in this year’s J&B Met, being the Summer Cup winner, Master Sabina.

Unfortunately, the J&B Met is run at different weight conditions, so it does not suit him and I don’t think he is good value for money at 12/1 as the fifth favourite.  Quite honestly, considering his draw, he should be about 40/1 and while 40/1 winners happen every day at racing, they don’t normally in a field like this.  It is hard to look past the top three, namely Legal Eagle, Futura and Legislate and certainly lawyers will take note of two of the names being legal in nature!   I do have three other runners on the day in different races and hopefully one of them will win, as it is always an honour to have a winner on such a big day.  I have not had a winner on Met day previously, although I have had a second place finisher twice.  Master Sabina has previously won on Durban July day, although he did not run in the July itself after he was controversially left out two years ago.  The best of my runners who probably has the best chance of winning his race is Baritone and in other races I also have Captain Swarovski as well Masterly, who has been a revelation in Port Elizabeth, is taking part in a big staying race on the day.

Whenever the petrol price goes up we talk about the effect of the Rand.  The Rand has certainly collapsed, as have the currencies of most emerging economies in the last year.  Most people for example would not know that even a strong country, like Canada, has seen its Dollar drop 20% against the US Dollar in the last year.  The effect on the petrol price though is not as dramatic as we always think it is.  

Sure, petrol would be a lot cheaper right now if it were not for the rand collapsing, because it is at record lows all around the world.  However, the actual fuel cost is approximately 45% of the total price we pay at the moment and the rest is largely taxes.  The current landed cost of the fuel, and bear in mind that this changes every day, is approximately R5,50 per litre and we get the whole way to the R12,09 that 93 unleaded is currently retailing for (and there is no reason to use 95) via taxes.  The Road Accident Fund levy is at least a worthwhile one, but pales into insignificance compared to the general revenues, taxes and profits that the Government has put onto petrol.  Before we are all up in arms, in countries like the UK, the government has added on far more taxes so that 1 litre of petrol currently costs £1,09 – which translates into approximately R25,60 a litre.  So, in that respect, South Africa is very cheap.  

At the moment, and obviously the figure will change from day to day, we are looking at an 8c increase on the petrol price at the beginning of February and if it were not for the Rand, we would in fact be getting a 45c decrease.  One could speculate that petrol would probably be about R3,00 a litre cheaper if it were not for the weakness of the rand, but the real culprit in the price of petrol is not the rand, it is general Government taxes.

The Department of Trade and Industry has published national norms and standards relating to the national liquor requirements.  They deal with, amongst other things, a minimum drinking age for South Africa and on 20 May 2015 the Department issued a general notice outlining the national liquor policy and inviting public comment.  In this document the legal age for drinking is raised from 18 to 21 and apparently this is causing a lot of consternation.  I could only imagine it would put half the nightclubs in town out of business, because in South Africa there seem to be very few people past the age of 21 who go to clubs even infrequently, although it is more common overseas for people to continue to go to nightclubs occasionally.  I am not sure if it is because everyone grows up too quickly in South Africa or what the reason is, but there are many countries that have a drinking age limit of 21 – the United States for example, where people only start going to clubs after 21.  

I wonder what your opinion on that is, because my personal opinion is that although it is a good idea, it is unworkable.  We need to recognise that alcohol is a drug and it is just as dangerous as many drugs that are “illegal”.  There is a reason that they try to prohibit it in the United States in the 1920s, but they could never succeed with something like that.  I don’t think you will be able to stop an 18 or 19 year old drinking, but you will certainly be able to make it harder for them to buy the alcohol and you will certainly be able to make it harder for them, for example, to get served drinks in a nightclub.  It will no doubt reduce many deaths on our roads and so there certainly would be some benefits.  The negatives to me are just the fact that it is really unlikely to be controlled and it is going to be yet another example in South Africa of the most amazing legislation where we tackle every problem under the sun and spend half of our lives looking at attorneys’ fees and other issues, but where we are not actually tackling the real problems of the country.  In addition, it will be impossible to enforce like many of our wonderful laws.  I took my niece out to a nightclub in the heart of Sandton last year and left after about 20 minutes, because I think she was the only person above 18 in the club, apart from the bartenders, the bouncers and management.  So I don’t think we are doing a very good job right now of enforcing a no drinking under age 18, because from what I saw in the heart of the most powerful economic city in South Africa, with no shortage of police, was not 19 years old drinking, but a whole bunch of 15 and 16 year olds drinking alcohol in a nightclub.

I have not been on Facebook for a few years, and I really found that it is a little bit intrusive.  I was quite interested to read though that rather than only have a positive side to Facebook where you can like other people’s posts, Mark Zuckerberg has announced that in future you will be able to dislike a post.  

A lot of people make idiotic posts, but it will be interesting to see whether or not their so-called friends on Facebook will indicate their dislike for a statement when they make an inappropriate statement.  I think probably not, but I can see the potential for people saying, “You were friends with X, so why didn’t you dislike it when they made a racist comment on their Facebook profile?”  

Porsche recently made an announcement that they are producing an electric car which is going to be better than the Tesla. Better in that it will travel further on its battery and faster than a Tesla. Why my heading then? 

The problem is that this is the second time that Porsche has made a similar announcement, determined to let everybody know that they have an amazing product coming out, but in both cases they have revealed that this car will only be available in 5 years’ time in 2020. It beggars belief that they really think that Tesla, in another 5 years, being way ahead in this game, will not produce an even faster version. As it is, in the last 6 months they already upgraded their top speed from “insanity mode” to “ldiucrous”. We now have a company saying, and feeling so threatened that they have to tell the world, that in 5 years’ time they will have a better product than the current product of the company run by the former South African, Elon Musk. 

That is almost like a competitor in my particular industry announcing that in 5 years’ time they will have better computer systems and give better service to clients than we currently give. I cannot see what the relevance of that would be, and it is amazing that any company can think that time will stand still for their competitors and that while they improve their competitors won’t! What is even more troubling is why Porsche can give the statistics of the car that they will be producing in 2020, but are going to take 5 years from now to roll it out! When companies make statements like this, it means that they are feeling tremendous pressure, and indeed feel threatened because they have to weigh up making the statement which makes them look ridiculous to anybody with half a brain, against, I am not sure, but perhaps they are saying the average Porsche owner will be reassured by that press release. I am not sure actually who they are trying to reassure with the press release, but I worry 

tremendously for the mental capability of whoever their target market for this information is! 

My blog about the movie Spotlight highlighted the gripping tale of investigative journalism that led to a sex scandal in the Catholic Church in Boston being exposed.  Investigative journalism is the kind of journalism where reporters go deep into a story and expose corruption or abuse that has not been exposed already by someone else or the Courts.  It’s very important in any society and often leads to investigations by other bodies.  In South Africa one would think of the arms commission, which seems to be going nowhere, looking into the purchase of weapons and bribes received by people and of course of Nkandla.  Investigative journalism though would also involve reporters investigating smaller local stories, such as corruption at a Court and court officials selling court dates or files.  

I think the investigative journalism in South Africa is appalling, by and large, and there is very little of it.  Only a few newspapers, often with a very limited readership like The Mail & Guardian, actually have investigative units that ever break any stories and for the most, much of what you read in the newspapers each and every day is press releases where different newspapers quote different paragraphs out of the same press release, whether issued by the Road Accident Fund or any other company. There is very little actual reporting done.  It’s amazing, when you see the media from the vantage point of a press release and see how they basically all cover it, using different paragraphs but very seldom actually looking into the story, investigating the other side.  A press release is just reprinted in the name of a journalist and that is now a story – but it’s the same document somebody at some company just typed out and sent to a whole lot of newspaper companies.

Spotlight is the early favourite for Best Picture for the Oscars to be held in Hollywood in about three months’ time.  It is too early to say whether it is going to be the favourite at that time still to win the award, but it is certainly a movie worth watching. It tackles a controversial topic, that of the Catholic Church and its cover-up of Priests involved in molesting children – both boys and girls.  In almost all instances they targeted people that had problems – such as making moves on young boys just after their father had died and the Priest came to comfort them!  

It details how the reporters of The Boston Globe did a proper investigation, revealing that approximately 6% of all Priests are involved in molesting and sexually abusing children and they eventually exposed how a Cardinal had known of all the abuse and covered it up and repeatedly lied to people when he denied that there were any other Priests involved in the abuse.  He lost his position – but was lucky enough to be relocated to the Vatican, so there was no real punishment for him and his role in the cover-up.  It also features lawyers and plaintiff lawyers who, for example, to keep the issue out of the media, it would appear, would never actually issue summonses, but simply send letters of demand to the Church and then settle the cases quickly.  This allowed the abuse to carry on for far longer and far more people to be victimised and it illustrated how lawyers sometimes use their ethical code of keeping quiet as an excuse and don’t really fulfil their role in society – which is something that can be said for many lawyers as well during the apartheid era in South Africa.  It is not the kind of movie that you may want to watch with your 13 year old child, as there are topics that some would consider sensitive, but it is the kind of movie that you should watch with them, because children need to be aware that there are predators out there in all sorts of guises who will prey on them.  As sad as it may be, they cannot be brought up in a world where they believe that they can absolutely trust that doctor with the examination that he or she is about to do of them, or that everything that a Priest does with them is “right”.  

I think that we live in a world where you can believe that most people are good, but that you have to be aware that in every field and every profession and in every corner of society there are people who will abuse or take advantage of children who cannot make proper decisions for themselves at times, and children need to be aware that no matter who it is that starts behaving in a funny way with them, that they should be able to approach their parents with confidence about it.  Sadly movies like this, which have an important message to convey, are never particularly popular and I am sure that there are staff members in my office who, as there are all over, if they went to this movie would say, “It is not my type of movie at all, and I will certainly never go to another movie that Michael recommends.”  The reality is, and I enjoy rubbish movies as much as the next person, a lot of the time we want light entertainment, and this is not light entertainment.  It does tell a gripping story about what journalism should be about, how lawyers can also be a part of the problem, and I would hope more journalists in South Africa would watch a movie like this. I will touch on that in my next blog.

In short, this is a serious movie for serious people and even the Catholic Church is obviously aware as to how damaging the movie could be, has come with a very clever approach – welcoming and encouraging the movie and saying that it is factual and correct.  To come with any other approach would be suicidal and of course, as with all companies, organisations or groups that are ever involved in a scandal, they assure us that things have been cleaned up, largely as a result of this particular newspaper,  In reality we all know that that cannot be true, no matter how sincere the efforts of the Church are, because any organisation will always have rotten apples, we can at least know that the more people that see movies like this, the more likely the next time a Priest puts his hand on a young boy’s pants and starts squeezing his leg a little bit, that the boy might feel more encouraged to speak up.

Country Playden is a nursery school run by Bridget Jones in Fourways.  You can find the website at www.countryplayden.com.  It is a nursery school in the Fourways area, right next to Dainfern, very close to Steyn City and not too far from Blair Atholl.  My children have all gone to the nursery school and it has been a tremendously happy place for them.  

It is sometimes sad to hear how education has become such a for profit centre that schools now, not content with having one’s children from Grade 1, are trying to march into the profitable nursery school area and early commercialise it like little factories as well.  I am told Country Playden continues to lose pupils because parents at the school are told when they apply for their children to enter Grade 1 at local schools that unless they go there for kindergarten their child will not even get into Grade 1!  In most cases it is absolute nonsense, designed to try and get even more money out of you from an earlier age at more money than a school with fewer kids in each class and charging more reasonably.

We heard the same stories and never struggled to get one of our four children into Grade 1 at the school we selected – who also told us the same stories, which we ignored.  It really makes me sad that a school that put so much into the children, not to mention love, with small classes of 7 or 8 children, starts losing all its pupils, even at 4 years old, to the bigger schools in the Fourways area that already have 14 or 15 four and five-year olds per class!  It is certainly a nursery school that I can wholeheartedly recommend to anybody in the Fourways area.  

I have not written about Tiger Woods or golf for quite some time in my blog, largely because I know most people who read my blog are not interested in golf.  Tiger was certainly the reason I started playing golf – and that would not be a surprise for most people.  Even the players will tell you that they made much more money during the area when Tiger was at his greatest from 2003 to 2008.  TV audiences to this day go up 50% when Tiger is in contention.  

I was quite impressed with the very good interview with him on Time Magazine which you can read at time.com/tiger/ and where he points out a lot of people have been incorrect when they always believed that he has an obsession with Jack Niklaus’s record.  He says that he has always targeted what Jack Niklaus achieved at different ages and that that was the most important thing to him.  He says you cannot compare one era to another, but I believe that you can – and that the era of Jack Niklaus was certainly at a time when there was less competition than there was during Tiger’s era.  There are so many more athletic-type individuals who play golf now than there were in the good old cigar smoking, unfit golfers waddling around the golf course and Tiger changed all of that.  

He happens to have a higher winning percentage and better average scores in any event than any other major champion in golf.  The strange thing with him is that, perhaps because he has done so well, earned so much money and being so spectacularly successful, there have always been a huge number of Tiger haters out there who will find any reason to criticise him.  The problems he had with his wife were one of those reasons and whereas typically the average man could not care less as to who a sport star is sleeping with or is not, it became a major issue in his case.  Who really cares every time we read about some famous English soccer player being named by a few more prostitutes that he slept with?  It never matters and nobody ever says that that soccer player is any worse for it, but when it came to Tiger Woods, it suddenly became the major reason.  Interestingly enough, in the interview he says that the modern players, the one who asks him the most questions and speaks to him the most is Jason Day, a player who, when he is hot, simply cannot be beaten.  I think the interview is very interesting for anybody who has ever followed golf or Tiger Woods, and it shows a different side to Tiger Woods than anybody has ever seen and deals with the fact that he is more interested in keeping his back in a good condition so that he can play with his children than he is worrying about golf.  The Tiger haters will no doubt find things in the interview to criticise him for, the first of which will probably be to say that he has changed what they believed his target has always been in terms of Jack Niklaus’s 18 majors.  At the end of the day, it was his bedroom wall where he wrote his targets, and the haters can say what they want, but only he can say what his targets were and like everybody in the world, he is entitled, if those are no longer his targets in life, to change his targets.  

The funniest thing, when you talk to the Tiger haters, is that they are never aware of what he said in any of his interviews and they have very little regard for anything he says – unless they believe it is controversial, and they can nail him for it – because they are not interested in hearing anything or reading anything that does not fit their perception of him – and I suppose it is true of many people in respect of many other people and issues.