I recently spent some time in Scotland and the topic on everybody’s lips, and it will soon be in the media as well, is that of the Scottish Independence Referendum on 18 September.  There seems to have been a natural conflict between the Scottish and the English over the years and while they have separate sports teams, they all form part of the same country, the United Kingdom.  A referendum, for the first time in its history, has been held in Scotland where the people will vote as to whether or not they remain a part of the United Kingdom or in fact to create an independent and separate country.  

It will, by necessity, ultimately have its own currency and so you will not use the British Pound in Scotland if it does become an independent country and that will also have ramifications for its financial and economic sector.  At the moment, people seem evenly balanced between being in favour of independence and being against independence, and the campaigns are obviously going to hot up as the August referendum date draws closer.  To think of it in South African terms it may be similar, although not entirely, to the Western Cape holding a referendum to be a separate and independent country and so obviously it is a major issue in the UK at the moment.  Many of those who receive benefits from the State are obviously very nervous about independence feeling that a new independent Scotland may not have the money to continue to pay the benefits or to pay them at the same rate and my guess would ultimately be that those against independence will win on the day – but it is certainly – by all polls – going to be a close call.  

In South Africa we place a lot of emphasis on the high rate of crime.  The truth for most people though, living in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg, is that they are far more at risk of dying in a motor vehicle accident than they are of crime.   It is for that reason that the choice of car makes such a difference because there are obviously cars that are safer than other cars and as a rule, generally the bigger and heavier your car is, the safer it is likely to be.  A 2,500 kg car, such as mine, is less likely to crumble in an accident than an 800 kg small passenger vehicle, although of course it depends what you hit – or hits you and how.  If you both hit a truck, there will not be too much difference.  The reality though is that not all vehicles on the road are trucks, and most of the time you are going to be involved with a vehicle of either a similar size or slightly bigger than your vehicle, and if you are in a vehicle that weighs more and has more and better safety features, you are more likely to survive the accident or to survive it with less severe injuries than you would have if you were in a passenger car.  

When I was a candidate attorney my boss’s wife used to drive a Golf, and on the one day when she borrowed his Mercedes, she was swiped from the side and straightaway he got her a new car saying that if she had been in the Golf on that day, he thought that things would have gone much worse for her and the children in the car.  Obviously, a lot of people will immediately say that they would like to drive car X or Y, and I am not really talking about brand names, but more the design and weight of the car, but cannot afford to.  That is true for many, but all cars do have safety ratings and before buying a car, one should look in one’s price range and then look up the various models on a website such as www.euroncap.com to see the relative safety ratings of the car as these ratings are considered most important in Europe, for example.  I expect all the usual fatalistic answers as well as the “I cannot afford that car” answers, but it is something one should consider and I think most people would find that their budget suddenly could stretch a bit more if they knew for certain that they are about to be in a certain accident and in the one car they are going to die and in the other car they are going to survive it perfectly – and of course there is always the second hand market as well where for less money than the more sporty look you may well get a safer car.

I decided to trademark some of the terms used by my firm, and it has taken an incredible amount of time.  The first trademark that I obtained is our website address www.accidentclaim.co.za and because it is now a trademark of my firm, Google will have to prevent any competitor trying to advertise against my website address – which, sadly, a few attorneys have tried.  Google is not interested in complaints from people outside of America about your “ownership” of your website address unless you have a trademark, so that became important.  

The other trademark that we have obtained and there are some others pending on other phrases, is the phrase “Trust the name you know”.  In other words, no other law firm may use the phrase “trust the name you know” in any of their advertising.  My concern though about the process is that it really takes a very long time to obtain a trademark, and businesses need to be able to protect themselves and foreign businesses need to be encouraged to get involved in South Africa and their intellectual rights need to be capable of protection and of far speedier registration.  The trademark I have been awarded, which incidentally is back-dated, was applied for as far back as 2011.  Trademarks such as this have to be renewed every 10 years.

I am often asked by candidate attorneys or young attorneys as to what advice I would give them.  I am not quite sure why they necessarily ask me for advice, but I am always happy to give somebody my advice, although that does not make it accurate or correct!  One of the things I always say to people is to know what your limits are and to surround yourself with people who have more knowledge than you in those fields.  

I have probably two people whose advice I rely on, on different issues, and that is apart from the advice that my wife gives me on every issue, and that would be my programmer and one of my advocates.  I have never been afraid to acknowledge that some people are far cleverer than I am at certain things, and I would rather seek advice from them, on things they know much more about than me, before making a decision.  In that regard I think too many people in the legal profession think they are masters of all fields of law and can give advice on all issues.  Ego, or a lack of perception of one’s strengths and weaknesses can lead to people giving inappropriate advice and people proceeding with cases that they should leave alone and never be involved with in the first place.  

I recently had to renew my Visas for the     UK and the USA.  What impressed me was the very thorough way in which both the Consulates work and that they were both able to see me, approve and give me a 10 year Visa in one day!  I know of people who have been through the South African Embassy in Italy who have taken 2 or 3 weeks to get a Visa and that is also true of the Embassy in Moscow, Russia.  I understand a lot of people are obviously declined to visit the UK and the USA, and so they will not have the same positive feelings, but when something can be approved that quickly it is generally a sign of a well-run organisation and of course these countries are very aware the tourism is a vital part of their economy.  

In fact, tourism is far more important to South Africa than both of those countries who have many other parts of their economy that are running more smoothly and successfully than ours, and it should be South Africa that is approving Visas faster than anybody else and not making it difficult for foreigners to visit our country.  We need their money, we need foreign currency and we have so much to offer ranging from the beauty of Cape Town to the one feature that truly sets us apart from what tourists can get in their own country - and that is the Kruger National Park and the private game parks around it.  If you look at it from an external perspective, that is what sets South Africa apart from any other country and is a huge revenue driver for our country in terms of tourism.  We however have to make it easier for people to get their Visas approved and to get them approved far faster than we currently do.

One thing that I have learned, after working with lots of people in the same office for many years, is that people have a very different understanding of what they eat compared to the reality.  In other words, if you ask somebody they will explain to you that they are on a diet, that they are eating healthily and that they are reducing sugar from their diet.  That same person however will be sitting at their desk with a carbonated fizzy drink which probably has 50% of your calories which you are allowed for the entire day together with a packet of chips.  It is amazing how many people, who claim that they are either on diet or working on what they eat, seem to have no hesitation to eat bars of chocolates, drink Coke and eat chips all the time while professing to be working on a diet.  

What is also interesting is to watch the moods of such people, because there are many people who don’t realise that many of their moods are triggered by either a sugar rush that they are having or the fact that they are coming down not having had sugar recently.  Sugar is an incredibly powerful addiction, one that I also struggle with, and I think the first key is to accept that firstly it is not a natural thing, your body does not need it and your craving for it is indeed nothing short of an addiction.  That addiction is no different to that of an addict to cocaine or a smoker to cigarettes and you have to try and get yourself off that hook, because sugar is not something that your body requires.  You don’t need to cook vegetables in sugar to make them taste nicer or put it in your tea and coffee and nor do you need drinks that are basically supplying you with what is an overdose of sugar.  Look around your offices today and see what your fellow workers are eating.

An e-mail discussion in my office recently about equality in sport, in terms of prize money between the sexes, has prompted this particular blog.  It is a controversial topic, because it is one of those topics where people tend to come in from their own perspective and depending on whether you are male or female, you may have a very different perspective.  My viewpoint is much more of a commercial one and so I will start with Wimbledon, which is one of the few events in the world where the women’s winner wins the same amount of money as the men’s winner.  The women’s winner only plays the best of a three set match however and the men play the best of five sets, which of course allows for a lot more advertising to be sold during what would typically speaking be a much longer game.  There are those who say that that is unfair and there are those who say that all sports should be that way.  For example, some of my staff members say that women’s golf should be covered much more on television and that they should win the same amount of money as men.  I understand ideologically where people are coming from when they say things like that, but I do believe that the market dictates.  

We don’t after all say that all attorneys should be paid the same salary or that the lead attorney in each firm should be paid the same amount as the lead attorney at another firm in the same field.  Women’s golf cannot afford to pay as much prize money because there are not as many sponsors or advertisers who are interested in women’s golf as with the men’s golf, and it starts with the people watching television.  It is one thing for women to say they support equal pay for women golfers, but the best way to guarantee it would be for all women to start watching women’s golf on television, which of course would send the ratings sky-high and make advertisers want to pay more to be associated with women’s golf.  The second they did that, the Ladies PGA Tour would then be able to sell the television rights to a broadcaster for much more money than in the past and thus have a lot more money for prizes.  

In short, what I am saying is that there are not that many people watching women’s golf in the first place, let alone women, and that is why the prize money as well as the sponsorships are not close to being the same.  

Do we, while thriving on living in a capitalistic society paying people what they are worth, now make new rules and say that to promote equality, we will give the same prize money to both the men’s and women’s winners, regardless of the interest.  For that matter, and to give an example not involving the sexes, why should we then treat sports differently – why should hockey players earn a small fraction of what rugby players?  It may not matter then that hockey is not popular in South Africa, and most people do not want to watch it and that a full stadium might be 3,000 to 4,000 people compared to 100,000 people at FNB Stadium.  Hockey tickets also cost a fraction of the price compared to a ticket for the Springboks vs the All Blacks.  

It’s so easy to say put the money in, market it and then the audience will follow, but like many things saying something is not the same as doing.  If it was your company and there was a sport where you believed more equality was required – whether that be for children, for women, for men (in the case of modelling where very few people have any interest in male models) does one then spend one’s money advertising on a programme or a sports event that you know not many people are watching, because they have no interest in it, and then double up your losses by also sponsoring the event and sponsoring some of the individual players in that event?  It is a difficult debate, and it is not just about male versus female because it is about different sports against each other.  At the end of the day, unless you are going to tax everybody extra, so as to be able to give unpopular sports or lesser watched sports more money so that everybody can be equal regardless of the interest or lack thereof, you have to leave it to the market.  The market already decides right now by paying the prize money and advertising rates that they want to on certain events.  For me, the solution is quite different and that is it starts at grass roots and if you cannot get the interest at grass roots, then you are flogging a dead horse, as they say.  In other words, to take women’s golf, if you cannot get lots of young women to go and walk on the fairways of golf courses on the weekend, and march up and down, watching their favourite female golfers and to turn off the rugby or the movie on M-Net and switch over to ladies golf instead, you are never going to get the money.  You have to get the interest first and when the interest is there, the money will follow.  

Much has been made about the decision by the new Gauteng Premier, David Makhura, to look into the e-toll situation.  The problem, before people get too excited, is that this is not something that actually falls under the Gauteng government and in fact SANRAL falls under the Department of Transport, so it is a national issue, and not just a Gauteng decision.  There is no doubt that Gauteng will certainly have influence and persuasion, but it is still a long shot that the e-toll system is set aside.  

One can certainly imagine that it is unlikely that the e-toll system will expand to any other areas, given its unpopularity, but I don’t think that one can bet that it is about to be scrapped in a year or so.  Another problem of course is that SANRAL has signed an agreement with Electronic Toll Collection, known as ETC for short, for them to operate the e-toll system.  SANRAL may well be in a position that they cannot get out of certain aspects of the contract now, other than at a prohibitive expense – which ultimately means we will pay for it one way or another. 

I enjoyed reading the editorial of the Financial Mail of 27 June 2014.  It is some time ago now, but what it said is still relevant.  It dealt with the ANC’s announcement that 6 million jobs will be created over the next 5 years and points out that in 2006 we had just over 13 million employed in South Africa and some eight years later that is the same number of people that are employed in South Africa.  Against that background they say the possibility that we can create 6 million jobs by 2019 “verges on laughable.  This is especially so when you consider in the past three years, in a notionally improving economy, only 250,000 jobs have been created every year.”  

The editorial went on to again point out that until such time as the government removes restrictions on hiring and firing that management of various companies around the country are going to remain dissatisfied with the current balance of power in labour matters.  Big business, as I have written many times, do not want to put up with the overly employee-friendly labour laws in South Africa, and given that they can take their business to any country in the world, and do, jobs are not going to be coming to South Africa any time soon – which in turn gives rise to disaffected youth and the people that are voting, for example, for the EFF.  Sooner of later somebody is going to have to bite the hard bullet of understanding that we cannot leave all the power in the hands of Unions, and some of that power was illustrated in the AMCU strike, where the strike continued for months longer than it probably would have, if secret ballots had been allowed.  Having everybody in a stadium, all looking at each other, and then voting on whether or not the strike should continue, was one of the reasons that the strike went on for far longer than it would have if there had been a secret ballot on the strike.  Things need to change before jobs are created.  

I enjoyed an interview with Martin Kaymer, the German golfer, ahead of the British Golf Open.  He won the US Open this year and referred to the German victory in the World Cup, which I think was fairly predictable from a betting point of view, and said how proud he was to be German.

He said "…I think the values we learn in our country help me a lot on the golf course.”  They asked him what the values are the Germans learn and here is the lesson for all of us, “We are very much on time always.  We do a very good quality of work.  When you tell us do something we not only get it done, we get it done to last a long time.  If you build a house in Germany, it lasts 1800 years.  It’s not going to fly away when there is a storm.  You see that in the cars we build.  They last.  It’s the quality of the work.  It is permanent.  It lasts.  I like that because at the end of the day it’s not about talking and hoping and believing.  It’s about delivering.  You can rely on us."

That not only summarises how to win at sport, but at business.  There is so much that all of us can learn from the German approach.  I have written so often about those who talk, and those who get it done.  I have always been a get it done person, and I must say the talkers, the hopers and the "believers" drive me nuts – because you don’t achieve results or success that way.

Cell phones are going to become far less likely to be stolen in the future.  The big manufacturers are now producing a so-called kill switch on the phones which is a software application that allows you, once your phone has been stolen, to lock down your phone and the phone can only then be reactivated with the correct password or pin number.  

That of course removes any market value of the phone, because it becomes a paperweight for the papers on your desk and can no longer be used as a phone and it should bring thefts right down.  This would take time to implement, but some of the phones have only recently had these applications installed but six months after Apple introduced its activation lock, iPhone robberies have fallen by 24% in London and by 38% in San Francisco.  During that same time frame thefts of Samsung phones went up 51% leading to Samsung introducing a kill switch for its Galaxy S5 device in April.  Consumer bodies do hope though that the cell phone companies take this a step further and that instead of making the device an optional added extra, that it is automatically activated, as at the moment it is not, even on those phones that have the option.  On the iPhone you set this up by downloading the Find my iPhone Application.   

There are a number of best-selling books internationally at the moment, as well as a book in South Africa by Dr Tim Noakes which deals with a similar issue with regard to what we eat and should be eating.  It seems that there is now a clear understanding that our diet, which we have been encouraged to eat over the last few decades, has been incorrect and based on faulty research and data.  One book after another is coming out largely with the same theme and that is to almost totally remove carbohydrates from your diet, eat more proteins and cook your food where possible in more natural fats such as lard or butter and avoid the various sunflower oils, etc.  

The evidence seems to be incontrovertible, and some of the books detail at great length precisely how we have been misled in the past, sometimes without any scientific basis at all or incomplete research, and it is quite frightening how many big companies essentially make a living out of catering to our food addiction.  I think it is clear that there is going to be a bigger swing in the future towards dealing with overeating and incorrect eating as an addiction, because it clearly is, and we are unfortunately hooked by sugar and salt into eating a variety of food that is not good for our bodies.  

I am going to get back to this issue again in my blog and deal with some of the specific books but for now I will name just two of them, starting with Grain Brain by Dr David Perlmutter.  He is a neurologist who has written a very important book, and a very detailed book, which sets out chapter and verse with over a hundred pages of footnotes and references to precisely how misinformation about saturated fats gained pound in a scientific community, how those beliefs have been overturned and how the Mediterranean diet is not the healthiest.  The second book is called The Big Fat Surprise by Nina Tiecholz and I will hopefully deal more with that at a later stage, save but to say that she says go ahead and have juicy steaks whenever you want, and don’t cut the fat off and that bacon and eggs are far better for you for breakfast than a carbohydrate-based cereal.  What I find most impressive by both of these books is, like the book Every Shot Counts for golf, that once you’ve read them they really do give you chapter and verse as to precisely how some beliefs came about, how they have been scientifically rubbished and that like old wives’ tales about eating fish when you are pregnant, they have no factual basis at all.  Many companies and “experts” have major commercial interest in you continuing to believe that drinking that drink in a can, or eating those chips and biscuits are not that bad – but they are - and you are poisoning your system and being exploited by those companies who are selling you rubbish and which you are paying for.

I would be interested to hear about the most useful app on your phone, and which apps you feel that you cannot live without.  I generally look at the Bloomberg app to see the latest currency rates, and I use the application for my step counter band quite often as well.  I thought of this the other day when I got a quote that for R399,00 per month I could have an application on my phone which allowed me to do dictation and send dictation directly from my phone to secretaries.  

I immediately went and searched on the Internet and the application that the salesperson quoted my staff member on is in fact available for free on the Internet, although he did try to toss in a lot of hardware that we don’t need either.  Allegedly the version you pay for allows you to use the clouds and record in a smaller format but at R399 a month it’s not worth it.  One of their competitors, Olympus, whose dictaphones I have, also have a free dictating app and so that is one more nice application to add to my phone because you never know when you may need to dictate something most urgently on your phone, and send it through to a typist on an urgent basis.  I have probably made the mistake of looking into all the apps that I needed a long time ago, and have not really looked since then, which is why I have never thought of such an application in the first place, until an advocate friend of mine recommended the R399,00 a month guy to me.  Have you come across something that somebody tried to sell to you that you could obtain for free?  What are your favourite applications?

The Supreme Court in America recently ruled on the question of cell phones and privacy.  By a unanimous vote of 9-0 they ruled that the police would need a specific warrant in America to search the cell phone of a person that they arrested.  In other words, even if you are arrested, they would not be entitled to look at your cell phone unless the warrant specifically provided for that.  The Chief Justice in his judgment said of cell phones that they contain “a digital record of nearly every aspect of their lives – from the mundane to the intimate”.  He said that he was aware that cell phones are used by criminals and by making this rule it would make law enforcement more difficult, but that privacy is more important and unfortunately that is one of the costs of privacy.  The Justice Department in America tried to argue that cell phones should be allowed to be searched, because they are no different to wallets, purses of address books, all of which can be searched and the Chief Justice disagreed with that and writing, ‘That is like saying a ride on horseback is not materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon”.

The Unemployment Insurance Fund is advertising on radio about their new U-filing.  It is their online system allowing you to claim benefits, for example when you are retrenched or take maternity leave.  The advert features a lady claiming she is doing her maternity leave online monthly and makes it sound extremely easy to claim.  It is not the experience of some of my staff members who have told me that it has taken months to claim, and other staff members have advised that they had to call in other companies, who take a percentage of one’s money, to help with the process.  

If any of you have any advice or tips on dealing with the UIF, please feel free to write in the comments section.  I wonder if anyone has tried the U-filing as yet and look forward to hearing whether this is a more effective way of claiming.  I would guess that part of the key to making sure, in particular with maternity benefits, that you get them in time per month, is to begin the registration process before you give birth and get all of your paperwork in order so that once your baby is born, you do not have to spend time trying to sort out and facilitate government documents at that time.  

The Rural Development and Land Reform Minister recently published proposals which will require commercial farmers in South Africa to give over half their land to the workers.  The farmers are not going to be paid for this and have approximately 10 months to comment on it.  It does sound, as somebody remarked to me, very much like Zimbabwe, and although everybody seems to feel that there is a need for land reform, there is no doubt that something like this will terrify foreign investors and it is certainly going to touch a raw nerve in South Africa.  

I must be honest when I hear stories like this, 20 years into a new democracy, it really does sound like a vote getting tactic so that you can appear that you are the party that is trying to sort out the land issue.  If this was a burning issue, you can rest assured that Nelson Mandela would have dealt with it somewhere between 1994 to 1999.  One can imagine all manner of fights breaking out with the 50% of the farm that is meant to be divided according to how the workers have contributed to it.  In other words, how long they have worked on that farm and what work one assumes they have done.  It really does not sound to me that laws like this could be constitutional, particularly if the farmer is not compensated.  One can only imagine that there are better ways of achieving this goal and one could possibly start with land that is owned by the State.  It is not just about land rights for everyone, even though that is an important goal.  What is also extremely important is to ensure that food production remains constant and cost effective in South Africa. 

For those lucky enough to avoid motor accidents and violence, the leading cause of death is by heart attack.  Two research groups, in independent research, have identified mutations in a single gene – APOC3 - that lead to one having less heart attacks.  The key is to keep the triglycerides, which is a type of fat in the blood, very low and this mutation of the gene does that.  Drug companies will now try to manufacture drugs that copy the effect of that mutation.  The experts are convinced that the high triglyceride level, as opposed to a cholesterol level, is the factor that ultimately leads to heart attacks and so anything they can do to lower the triglyceride levels means that fewer people will die of heart attacks in the future.  That of course is many years away, if not more than a decade, because they would still need to work out how to copy the mutations and test the drugs that they create.  People who have the mutation in the APOC3 gene are much less at risk of a heart attack than other people.  A company by the name of Isis has already developed a pill that can reduce triglyceride levels by 71%, and while that has not been tested as to how it affects heart attacks in the general population means that clearly there is a lot of progress that can be made in this regard.  

A recent City Press article revealed that everything is for sale in our prisons.  In this case they focused specifically on Leeuhof Prison in the Vaal Triangle.  Apparently, a cell which is built for 20 prisoners holds 52 people and prisoners provided them with proof, in cell phone pictures, of horrific conditions showing that everything is for sale. 

The toilets are filthy, disease is rife and young boys are brought from the juvenile section so that male prisoners can have sex with them, up to 8 prisoners at a time, for which the juvenile is then given R50,00.  All of this has been facilitated and arranged by the prison wardens who march the person who is about to be raped, from the juvenile prison to the area where the awaiting trial prisoners are.  On a daily basis Mandrax pills, Swazi dagga and heroin arrive and all the prisoners take drugs and do what they want.  It is little wonder that whenever we want to extradite people from other countries to come and stand trial in South Africa, that reference is always made to the appalling conditions of our prisons.  We are never going to rehabilitate anybody if life in prison is all about taking drugs and gang-raping young boys.  Let’s see what the Correctional Services Minister, Michael Masutha does about this.

I love the list that Forbes put out every year, with the top 10 highest paid athletes in the world.  Their earnings are obviously made up between their salaries or winnings as well as endorsements and in the case of golf, for example, the endorsements would be probably 90% of what they win.  The leading earner in the past year was Floyd Mayweather who is a boxer and who won $105 million and he is followed by Cristiano Ronaldo, the soccer player, who earned $80 million.  A basketball player, LeBron James comes third followed by Lionel Messi, Kobe Bryant and Tiger Woods dropping down to sixth position, only having earned $61,2 million but still out-earning the top tennis player, in terms of earnings and not ratings, Roger Federer and then another golfer, Phil Mickelson who at $53 million was earning approximately $1 million a week.  What is clear is that the sports that generally have two or three players with super salaries are all American sports and generally include American Football, basketball, golf and tennis and from a European perspective the money is in soccer.  

A year ago I had a runner in the July Handicap and who, according to the experts had no chance, and she ran third.  Do You Remember is currently in the UK on the way to Australia.  The July Handicap takes place tomorrow in Durban and unfortunately this time I do not have a runner, even though Master Sabina came second in the Summer Cup and he has been made the third reserve for the July Handicap meaning he will not get a run and these three horses don’t take part in the race – which is unlikely.  If the July field had been 20 horses as it is every year except this year when there are 16 only, he would also have made the field.

For the July Handicap I am expecting one of the horses trained by Geoff Woodruff to win and I think it is going to be between Louis the King, who won the Triple Crown and Rake’s Chestnut.  Of course, it is a handicap, so in theory every horse has an equal chance and it gets down to luck in running.  The third race of the day takes place at 12:55 and that is commonly known as the consolation July because they run it over the same distance as the July Handicap, with the horses who never got into the July, and that is the race that Master Sabina will take part in.  You can end up in a situation where your horse wins that race, and at a time faster than the July Handicap, and instead of winning the first prize in the July of R2,1 million, you have the fastest horse of the day but in the wrong race and only win R312 000,00 for first prize.  On the plus side, the first prize in the consolation July is equivalent in terms of stake money to third in the July Handicap and second place in the consolation race pays out a little bit more than fifth place in the July Handicap itself, so while it is not a prestigious race, the money is not too bad.  Master Sabina has a good draw in the race, he has a top jockey in Anton Marcus and I think he is better than his current rating meaning he is well handicapped and if he is in a running mood I might finally get a winner on July day.  I really do think his second in the Summer Cup was good enough to be in the July and I am terribly disappointed that he is not running in the race.

It is terribly exciting to see that Gautrain has been such a success that they are planning on expanding it.  Recently the bids for planning and designing the new phase of the Gautrain route closed and there are going to be extensions to the East Rand Mall, Boksburg, Westgate, Ruimsig, Roodepoort, Sunninghill and Fourways.  People will be able to catch the Gautrain, for example, from Fourways to Pretoria and be there far faster than they could ever be in the traffic.  One would also be able to catch the Gautrain from Fourways to Rosebank and the Gautrain will finally make it to Soweto as well.  At the moment these are just proposals and there is obviously a chance that some of these will change, because it is just in the planning phase for now.  If the Gautrain is going to come to Fourways one would hope that it would also go to the Lanseria Airport as well given that the airport is expanding and building a second runway for increased air traffic.  In terms of their plans the rail link between Sandton and northern Johannesburg will be the first phase of the project. 

The Road Accident Fund recently held what they called a public consultation on the Road Accident Benefit Scheme.  The golden rule of legislation is that anything that is called a Benefit Scheme generally has no benefits at all, or much less benefits than you had in the first place and that is certainly the case here.  Public consultation equally turned out to be a laugh.  

The Road Accident Fund advertised in the Sunday media on 15 June 2014 that members of the public had until 17 June to register for the meeting.  16 June was of course a public holiday which made it extremely hard for anybody to actually register by that deadline.  It would be fine, if it was not for the fact that members of the media could still happily register until 18 June, the day before the meeting.  Members of the media were also offered one-on-one interviews with the CEO of the Road Accident Fund, Dr Eugene Watson.  It was disappointing to see that the Road Accident Fund was more interested in telling the media about the benefits of the new system than they were with meeting with the members of the public and that the media not only had an extra day to reply to the invitation, but that they were given two e-mail addresses to reply to as well as two cell phone numbers that you could phone, whereas members of the public were only given one office number, which was not answered half of the time, and one e-mail address to write to.  

I was denied access to this meeting, as were many other attorneys and individuals that I became aware of and one hopes that at a later stage proper effort will be made to actually consult with members of the public and the legal profession so that valuable viewpoints can be heard by the Road Accident Fund.  The meeting that took place in Pretoria on 19 June was certainly not a public consultation and by all accounts, of those who attended the meeting, it was simply a publicity stunt with no real interaction whereby the Road Accident Fund and the Department of Transport tried to explain how fantastic the new system will be, which gives people very few benefits, and that by introducing a no fault system, there will be no need for lawyers in the system anymore.  That also of course means that benefits are being reduced to a large extent because the drunk who drives through a red robot and smashes into somebody’s car, paralysing them, will now qualify for the same compensation as his victims, because it will not matter in the future anymore who was to blame for the accident.  Before I get questions on my blog, which often turn up 6 months  or a year later – and it is always better to e-mail us then – laws are not retrospective, so if you have caused an accident in the past, it will not allow you to be able to claim in future should the law change.

I have read quite often that Game of thrones is the top TV show of the moment.  It certainly is the most illegally downloaded program, with downloads of the latest episodes often dominating bit torrent sites like Pirate Bay.  As fast as I am on some new things, this is a series I really know nothing about.  I watched an episode the other day and what was clear was that a lot of money was spent on producing the series with big sets and great filming.  It’s a fantasy drama series which has won numerous awards but has also been criticized for excessive nudity and violence.

The episode I saw certainly was filled with action.  A sister confessed her love for her brother to her father and then went off to conduct her affair with him.  The same father was murdered a little bit later by another child of his, this time a dwarf.  I am not sure it always moves that fast, or half the cast won’t last more than 3 or 4 episodes but it certainly is filled with violence and dramatic story lines.  I also noticed that advertising during the show seems to sell well.  Every 10 or 12 minutes they break for another 4 minutes of advertising!  For those who are more familiar with the show let me know if that is a typical episode and what attracts you to it.  Have you seen it?