I understand that the contract with the Outsurance pointsmen has been cancelled. It is a pity that the Johannesburg Metro is not doing anything, if they are cancelling the contract, to replace those pointspeople. I had a nightmarish experience in the traffic, as did most people using William Nicol, on Monday 21 November 2011.

I covered 14 kilometres in 1 hour and 10 minutes, before heading back home. Heading back home for a few hours is one of the luxuries of having your own business, but I understand from some friends that it took them more than 2 hours to get to work, simply because two robots were out of order following all of the rain. That of course boggles the mind that they cannot come with waterproof robots and wiring for those robots, but if they cannot, having put two pointspeople at the areas it could have cut down the average person’s travelling by more than an hour. Multiply that by 30 000 or 40 000 people and the cost to the economy is evident. I don’t know why the project has been cancelled, but it worked pretty well, and if they are going to cancel it they at least need to replace it!
 

The National Planning Commission under Trevor Manuel recently announced its target of creating 11 million jobs by 2030. I think one of the keys is to relax the labour laws is South Africa, which are really far too one-sided and it was interesting that the plan said, although they referred only to labour intensive manufacturing, that “Labour laws are not conducive to such industries.”

Amongst the aims are to simplify the dismissal procedures for performance or misconduct. Quite frankly, I think it is time we understand if we are to move forward, there needs to be far less tolerance of the lazy and the incompetent because there are far too many people who simply have no appreciation of good honest hard work.
 

The headline of The Star newspaper a week or so ago really got my attention, because there is a picture of a good friend of mine, Alec Hogg, under the headline, “My first emergency landing”. I am not sure if Alec is a sucker for punishment, or he is just enthusiastic after surviving it, but I am not sure what the reference is to “first”?

I certainly would not want to have a second or third landing and you can read the article directly on his website here. He details how they were told that the landing gear for the aeroplane would not come out and as a result they had to fly around Johannesburg while the plane reduced its fuel load. Then they had to do a low pass-over the runway so that the staff on the ground could see whether or not the landing gear would come out.

When they one realised that the landing gear was not going to come out, the pilot, who they obviously all adore and worship, considering how well he handled the situation, told them all to brace themselves for a crash landing without wheels. Then they hit the ground and as Alec describes it, “… the bottom of the plane hit the tarmac and a loud noise like skateboarding on a gravel road filled our ears. For the longest 30 seconds in my life, the plane skidded along on its belly, smoke and the smell of it rising through the floorboards.” Next time he will drive home!
 

It’s Summer Cup this Saturday at Turffontein racecourse.  Its Johannesburg’s biggest race and when I finally relax and stop focusing on the hectic week I have had, I will then think about the race.  I have had a runner in the Summer Cup before, my very first horse who was really very talented, Sabina Park.

This year I have two runners out of the field of 20 and obviously that gives me more chances.  Racing at this level is highly competitive and anything can happen so one cannot go expecting to win.  I believe the more talented of my 2 horses is Soul Master but he is drawn very badly and his form is erratic.  The “correct” one this time may just be Jet Jamboree.  Jet Jamboree is trained by Dominic Zaki and ridden by Pierre Strydom.  Soul Master is trained by Geoff Woodruff and ridden by Felix Coetzee. 

For 2 minutes at about 5:15pm on Saturday my heart is going to beat a lot faster – R1.2 million on line for 1^st place and the 2^nd horse wins R400 000 – so its big money and big prestige and the one thing racing does is encourage you to dream!

I was quite impressed with the new offering from FinWeek called NewsNow. It is weekly magazine, costing R20,00, and it basically summarises all the new for the entre week. I think its concept has been copied from overseas countries and it is only in its early editions, but it is certainly well worth the money for someone who would like a nice detailed read during the weekend, and it has a little bit of everything ranging from personal finance to property to interviews and a summary of the news of the week. I would most probably subscribe to it and if I have any problem with it, which is probably a good selling point for it, but not for me, then most of the articles are a little bit too short and too much of a summary. I generally prefer more in-depth articles.

If you told me 20 years ago, I could have told you what dates each cricket match would be played on, what the venue was and have thoughts and predictions about them. I have lost so much interest in cricket now, and it was a sport that I was best at when I was at school, that I would not even be able to tell you the name of the Australian captain.

I know that we tied the one series and lost the other and that some had criticised the fact that there are only two tests. Cricket has really been plagued by one scandal after another, with bowlers running into bowl deliberate, no balls, so that gamblers somewhere can win a bet, and obviously those bowlers have so little faith in the umpire being able to spot a no-ball, that on those cases they generally seem to overstep by half a metre! There are times when you watch a game and think that somebody is playing so abysmally badly, especially when it comes to bowling that you wonder if something is not on the go, and the second you realise that so much of a sport is manipulated, it taints your viewing of it and you ultimately lose interest. The players will pay eventually for all this corruption with reduced salaries and contracts, because less people attending matches will ultimately translate into smaller profits and smaller contracts and if at that time they try to remedy it by taking even more money from bookmakers to rig games, they will only send the sport further into decline.
 

The SA Golf Open takes place this week at Serengeti golf course, just past OR Tambo Airport. It is the first time that the Open has been inland in a few years, and hopefully that will give a lot of people from Johannesburg the chance to go along and see some of the action.

I have no doubt that Serengeti is going to look fantastic on TV, because the views that you get from the clubhouse, which are similar views to the elevated camera positions they would use, really are quite stunning. Many think that the course is easy, but for the tricky greens. When the wind blows, and it frequently does in that area, it can be an extremely difficult course to play and in fact I personally do much worse there than I do at allegedly easier courses. I certainly look forward to seeing the coverage.
 

I am glad to see that Cedar Square is trying hard to make a shopping centre work, which probably should have, but has not succeeded so far. Firstly, and that will increase the traffic flow past the complex, the road has been widened from two lanes to three lanes, but more importantly, it previously had a bizarre entrance. You had to drive to the end of Cedar Road and then turn left into a small road and then turn left again on a road you would never have noticed before you managed to get into the shopping centre.

The centre, which has major chains like Virgin, Woolworths and used to be more famous for late night activities in the form of FTV and other popular drinking spots, has never had a parking entrance in the front of the centre and that is now being designed. I am sure, as soon as they have finished building it and work is on the go as I write this, it is going to encourage a lot more passing traffic into the centre and it is going to start doing much better than it has. Now all that needs to be done is to widen both Cedar Road and William Nicol past Dainfern and considerable backup in the overall traffic will be reduced.

I was quite fascinated to see when I went into a local branch of Nedbank that between the two security doors that you have to enter through into most banks, they have a fingerprint machine. Essentially, only once this has taken your fingerprint does it let you into the bank and I asked the manager about it and while I have not verified the information it appears to be that the system holds a data storage of all known bank robbers and criminals, but does not store the actual fingerprints of those going into the bank, so long as they are not involved in any fraudulent transaction in the bank. In other words, if you try and pass off a fraudulent cheque, as I understand it, you will struggle to get into a Nedbank again. I am not super keen about all of these invasions of our privacy, but on the other hand I do think that leads to more responsible business, as well as to an enhanced security and safety and so I believe that that mitigates against the privacy concerns.

I have a built-in GPS in my car, which is extraordinarily difficult to work, and I sometimes wonder why car manufacturers cannot allow you an option of one of the recognised brand names, instead of putting in their own.

I have also been a big supporter of Garmin over the years, until a friend of mine told me I should really give the TomTom a try, because of its traffic ability and that it is generally more accurate than other GPS’s. The TomTom’s advantage is certainly, as I alluded to in a previous blog, because some of the information is available on their website, its use of traffic information. It selects the fastest route for you based not only on the distances, but more specifically on the traffic that you will come across, and it continually updates that information live indicating for example that you have 8 minutes of traffic delays ahead and that 5 minutes of it will be at one location and 3 minutes at another location. In the week that I have been using it, it has certainly taught me some new routes and saved me, I would guess, on average about 10 minutes a journey which makes investment in it as well as the ugly wires dangling over the dashboard to the cigarette charger, worthwhile.

I have always said that the road back for Tiger Woods would start when his world rating position stops dropping, and turns around the other way.  Before this week’s Australian Open, he had slumped to No 58 in the world and following his third place finish there, where he would have won if he only had a half decent fair day, he is now 50th - so he is up 8 places.  This is the first time in 18 months his position has improved and I think this is the start of his upward climb.  We are going to see a few victories from him during 2012.

It seems that the toll roads are going ahead, because we are all getting urged to go and buy our e-tags and get ready for them, even though the public consultation has not even finished taking place! An interview I heard indicated that the public consultation will be taking part for other roads, but some of the roads have already been financed by borrowings, those moneys have to be repaid and so the tolls have to start. Ultimately, however they disguise the payments, they are all additional taxes, and although our taxes are not as high as many countries in the world, they are already very high. This puts more and more pressure on all of us and together with escalating petrol prices leading to the cost of transport rising – and ultimately the food in the shops, which has to be transported there, is also going to cost more.

The President’s Cup is taking place in Australia this week and it is the golf tournament between America and the rest of the world, excluding Europe. Why exclude Europe? Well, the Europeans take on the Americans in the Ryder Cup every two years, so this is the chance of the rest of the world to try and take them on and beat them.

It is a tournament that has taken place in South Africa previously at The Links in Fancourt. This year the event is taking place in Australia which will make for interesting broadcast times, but may well suit the international team because it has a number of South Africans and Australians in the team, in addition to those from South Korea, etc. It is certainly a huge golfing event and something that all golfers compete for, firstly to qualify for the team and then to try and be part of the winning team and all the usual huge names are going to be there, including the biggest name of them all – Tiger Woods.

I was staggered to hear some statistics on the radio recently that the average South African drinks a bakkie load of alcohol a year! Forget about what that does to your brain, the effect on the waist must be staggering! Apparently one-third of the people in the country starts drinking on a Friday afternoon and keeps drinking the entire weekend, only stopping on Monday morning. It is really frightening to hear such horrifying statistics, and I can only assume that it is down to the high unemployment rate, and the weak economy, because it is tragically sad that so many people could be abusing a substance so badly when there are so many organisations that exist to help out those with alcoholic problems.

I was personally very happy with the Malema decision. After The Star reported, with all that wealth of evidence as to his various statements, that he would be suspended for only 1 year, I was quite worried, but 5 years seemed more appropriate. He may of course appeal, but listening to the judgment, it really seemed a comprehensive case and at the end of the day I think he has no prospect of success at all on appeal.
No doubt we will hear more, in time, of the other investigations going on, and I would personally be surprised if he ever re-emerges as a force in our politics of any significance.

The Tomtom website at www.tomtom.com/livetraffic/  is very useful in terms of seeing traffic delays in and around Johannesburg. Using the latest GPS and satellite information, as well as accident information, it provides a summary as to routes that have traffic difficulties and allows you to access this information from the web, but of course you could do it from a Tomtom GPS unit in your car.
It is always useful before leaving the office and sometimes one is persuaded to stay, to see what sort of traffic is ahead and personally I find if the traffic is going to be heavy, that I would rather work longer at the office and wait for those problems to resolve themselves than head out onto the roads and have no prospect of getting anywhere fast!

When I was a youngster and collecting was a big thing and I notice now that most people don’t even put stamps on envelopes, preferring the franking machines rather. I wonder if anybody still collects stamps, and ultimately whether that will mean the value of old stamps will go up, because of it being used less and less, or the lack of interest in stamp collecting, assuming there is a lack of interest, will see the bottom dropped out of that market. I guess I only have to speak to a stamp dealer to get the answer, but I would suspect that that is coming to an end.

Agreeing to a golf game that begins early in the morning, is always something I regret. Something that I have learned is that I must find out what time the game is, before agreeing to be there, because in golf it is very rude to cancel at a later stage. A game that starts at 7.30 am, depending on where it is played, and traffic, could mean you get up at 5 am and what should be fun becomes more effort than work itself!

If there is one thing I should learn is that there is a lot of valuable information on Twitter, not only from people like @Pigspotter, with his updates about the traffic police, but more importantly, where there are accidents. A number of other people on Twitter give information as to various routes and congestion or robots that are out of order.

On a few occasions, when I have been caught in a traffic jam, I have realised that I really should have had a look at Twitter first before beginning my journey as in almost all instances there was already information indicating that that road was slow or had problems – and usually before there is any mention of it on radio stations. Of course, after the rain, there is always a lot more chaos to start with.
 

This is a website that a lot of attorney golfers would probably look at on the first day of every month or soon thereafter. Every golfer’s handicap is the basis for scoring in all competitions, and on the first of the month, those handicaps are recalculated.

The website www.handicaps.co.za is the place to get that handicap, although I am somewhat surprised that they have not turned it into more of a commercial enterprise with auto e-mails encouraging you to log in and the like, because it could be a fairly decent business with the number of golfers in South Africa. There are a number of notifications on the website as to proposed changes with the handicap system – some of which makes sense, and no doubt we will be hearing about those decisions.

For example, at the moment, even if you are playing badly, you can only drop one shot per month on your handicap and they propose to eliminate that. That would make sense to me but I would still like to see some sort of limit as to how many shots you dropped, because otherwise you can have a good golfer with 20 scores in one month and automatically dropping his handicap from say 5 to 15 just before the club championships, so I would be in favour, for example, of a maximum drop of no more than 3 shots a month.
 

I am shocked to read, but I guess not surprised, that police bungling has caused some damage already to the case of the 5 joggers who were killed by Sibusiso Langa. A blood alcohol test to be valid it has to be taken within 2 hours of the incident, because otherwise the reading gets even higher, and one would think that after an accident where 5 people were killed, they would make sure that the tests were done within 2 hours.

In this case, apparently they were done 4 hours later and so that evidence would not be valid. It does not mean of course that they will not succeed on other aspects of the case, because however much the police have bundled the case, this is going to be a case which is very hard to answer, but it is still shocking that after 5 people are killed the Police cannot do the test in time allegedly because they were arguing about whose jurisdiction the accident fell under!

I notice, from comments on my blog, that a lot of people have really become somewhat bored with Facebook, updating their status, or reading about other people’s status updates. I wonder if the phenomenon is not a bit wider than that, and that more and more people are becoming disenchanted with what was initially exciting, but is now something that where people either delete their accounts, or log in once a week or once a month just to see if there are any messages or new people who have found them from 10 years before?

Personally, I don’t add most of the people who ask me to be added, because on Facebook you get a lot of people that you have never met asking to be added as a friend, and one has to have some concerns about privacy issues. Likewise, for privacy reasons you will not necessarily update everyday where you are at that precise time and what you are doing. I think it is useful, just like a business card is, for people to find you or to be able to contact you, but I have always struggled to understand the “economics” behind Facebook, because I don’t believe that it really is the place where people refer each other to different businesses or that having a special Facebook page for your company is really going to produce any results - but maybe I am wrong, and I would like to hear your thoughts.