It is bad enough that we cannot eat chocolates, we cannot have anything with sugar in and the experts have now switched their attacks to artificial sweeteners! New research indicates problems with artificial sweeteners.  A recent news conference by the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel indicated that scientists have discovered that artificial sweeteners can disrupt the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar. That in turn leads to metabolic changes that can be a precursor to diabetes and of course we are not just talking about the artificial sweeteners that you put in your tea, it may well be those that are in your sugar free or low calorie soda can.  

One of the lead scientists involved in the study said that he used sweeteners extensively in his coffee, but that the research that they did was so compelling that he had made the personal decision to stop all use of artificial sweeteners.  The mice that were fed artificial sweeteners developed intolerance to glucose and of course intolerance to glucose, where the body is less able to cope with large amounts of sugar, ultimately leads to illnesses such as type 2 diabetes.  Future research that they are going to do, and this is going to be awaited with interest by most people, will include aspartame as well as alternative sweeteners like stevia. The current research does not relate to them and I am hoping that something at least passes the test of the scientists!

This is certainly not a topic that I am an expert on, although obviously I have more experience than somebody who does not have children.  I doubt that there are many parents who would claim to be experts, and there are situations you come across, almost every day, that you are not sure how to deal with.  I find myself buying lots of books on parenting, most of which I have not read, and then researching issues on the Internet.  

One of the issues would be exploring a child’s talent.  All children will invariably have a talent for something, but how to you get them to advance in that particular field or area?  On one hand, a dedicated parent helping them and coaching them will certainly ensure that they get ahead – Tiger Woods would be a perfect example.  There are many superstars who have been coached by their parents from an early age, but it becomes a very delicate balance between the parents’ ambitions and the child’s ambition.  My mother for example pushed me into tennis, making me go to two separate coaches a week, and I was pretty bad at it.  Bad at it, relative to the money that was spent on me anyway, although I do think that my golf is now better as a result – I played second team tennis at school, which really is not good enough considering how much coaching I had!  I have not played a single game of tennis in probably about 20 years, and to a large extent it is because of the way I was pushed into it at the time when I had no real interest in it relative, for example, to cricket.  I was also sent to rugby lessons for some bizarre reason, for a short while, until they gave up on that.  

So my parents were doing their best for me, but they were choosing the sports that they liked and that my mother thought were important to play – probably because we lived opposite tennis courts, and she felt that it was a far bigger sport than reality has shown it to be, especially compared to sports like golf, which are far more international, competitive and have far more money in it.  On the other hand, I think of an interview with a South African golfer who has succeeded overseas, despite physical problems with his arms, by the name of Tim Clark.  He was asked as to what you need to do to get your child to be a successful golfer and his answer was that is exactly what you don’t need to do – you don’t need to do anything because they will only achieve it if they want to and if they are motivated.  I guess in some ways it means you need to help your children to explore as many different fields as you think they are talented in, give them gentle prodding and as much assistance as you can, but ultimately you cannot give them a work ethic in that field, although I certainly think I have the same work ethic as my mother, and you cannot force them to continue with something even if they are incredibly talented in that field, but don’t have self-drive. 

Lithium is a soft silver-white metal which can be found in small quantities in water.  It has been used to treat bipolar disorder and is apparently helpful with schizo affected disorder and major depression.  This came to mind when I read an interesting article in the New York Times asking if we should all take a bit of lithium?  That is, as they always say, the plot of science fiction movies and terrorists when they always say something will be put into the water to control the people.  Because lithium is naturally occurring, it does appear in one’s water in any event and interestingly enough recent studies have shown that areas with low lithium in their water have more behavioural problems.  27 Counties in Texas with low lithium in their water have significantly greater levels of suicide, homicide and rape than areas that had more.  A similar Japanese study of 18 Municipalities confirmed the same thing about 20 years ago, that the more lithium in the water, the lower the suicide rate in the Municipality. Apparently, there are also corroborating studies in Greece and Austria and lithium, while this idea would definitely not be popular with the major pharmaceutical companies, because they would be competing with what is essentially an almost free product, it may just be something that requires more studies because of suicide being the 10th leading cause of death in the United States, and no doubt similar figures apply to most countries, it may well be beneficial to put just a little bit more of it in the water to reduce violent acts in some areas!  That, together with a bit of the fluoride that they already put in for your teeth!

The Ryder Cup takes place this week at the Gleneagles Resort in Scotland.  It is the every two year event between Europe and the United States for golf and it attracts hordes of passionate fans.  The Europeans are the defending champions, having won in America the last time and now they are defending in Scotland and are favourites to win.  I generally support the United States, because I am more familiar with their golfers from the PGA Tour, which I prefer watching over the European tour because more of the best players in the world play the PGA Tour, including the best European players.  Strangely enough, many of the players that will be representing the European team actually live in the United States most of the year, largely in Florida, included Henrick Stenson, Rory McIlroy, Lee Westwood, etc.  

I played the exact course that they will be playing when I went to Scotland in July, and it is certainly going to look dramatic on television and there are some fairly tricky holes because if you either hit the ball too far or too short disaster awaits.  I was having one of the rounds of my life there, until about the last three holes, when I double-bogeyed everything to end up with an 81 but I was on track for a score of about 75 before those last three holes.  The resort is about an hour’s drive from St Andrews, considered the home of golf and it has a few other golf courses as well, so it is extremely popular with tourists, especially American tourists, and it is extremely expensive to stay at.  The golfers are really going to be ensconced in a luxury environment, playing a course which, after a month of no play on it, is going to be in an immaculate condition and is going to make for excellent viewing and I am just going to hope that the United States team can upset the Europeans although based on the betting they are very unlikely to do so!

The United States recently announced that they are going to commit up to three thousand troops to assist in the fight against Ebola in Africa.  The troops are going to go to Liberia and they are also going to assist in building 17 Ebola treatment centres in Liberia.  America has quite a close relationship with Liberia because after the slave traded ended in America there was a campaign that many of these slaves could choose to return to Africa and so land was bought for them, named Liberia, and those that chose to return, returned to this land.  They named the capital - Monrovia - after a President of America who had been quite active in proposing the return to Africa plan, namely President Monroe.  It is heart warming to see that they will take this action because frankly, from what we read, these parts of Africa need a lot more assistance and sophistication from the outside world if Ebola is to be defeated – and it is certainly in the interest of the rest of the world that this breakout is contained.

We all get good advice, from time to time, some of which we only realise is good advice long after we have ignored it!  I would like to know who has given you the best advice in your life, or just a recent example of great advice you received and what it is?  I think the principles that I learned from my mother is that honesty is the best policy and with hard work you can get anywhere.  I feel that too many people sit and moan about how others were lucky, or sit and whine at children’s birthday parties or dinners about more successful people, and always have nasty comments to make.  

The reason that they are not there themselves is that generally they have not put in the extra work.  I think that the lazy generally prefer to believe that some people become successful simply through luck and there is nothing they can do about it – and by the way, can they have the afternoon off?  I have never been scared of hard work, don’t consider the weekend to be my time “off” from work and so that is something that I have learned.  We all receive different advice from different people and so let us know the best advice you have received, or good advice you have received recently and who gave it to you – was it your parents or a friend?

I think it is fantastic that the spy tapes are finally in the hands of the DA.  These are the tapes, on the basis of which charges against Jacob Zuma were dropped, by the then Acting National Director of Public Prosecutions, Mokotedi Mpshe, on the basis that they allegedly show political interference. The interviews with people at the time and the comments that we are getting from the DA who cannot release those transcripts, until such time as one would imagine the discovery process in the review litigation, seem to indicate that there was not an actual basis in those transcripts for Mpshe to take the decision he did.  

I don’t know if anything will ever come of it, because even if the DA succeeds with every part of their case, and eventually Zuma is charged, one would not be surprised to see the next President of South Africa giving Zuma a Presidential pardon, but I am just speculating.  The reality of the matter is we are going to see, sooner or later, and I would speculate that it will be in a time frame of 6 to 12 months, what these transcripts said, and whether or not there was a basis to withdraw the charges against President Zuma as a result of political interference.  Is it going to be real political interference, or is it simply going to be people saying that it would be a very bad time to charge Jacob Zuma before the Polokwane meeting of the ANC, because it would have led to riots – which is what some people allege what the conversations are about?  In other words, simply saying, don’t charge him before the December ANC conference at the time, because it is going to cause political instability in South Africa and if you are going to charge him, please just wait until after the ANC conference, which one could hardly describe as being political interference.   The transcripts will reveal all and quite frankly, as most have said, if there was something dramatic on the tapes, one cannot imagine the President and his legal advisors would have put up such a fight that they had to go back to the SCA twice to avoid releasing those tapes to the DA.  The legal strategy, other than possibly just playing for time, would seem to suggest that there is nothing of real consequence in the transcripts that is so damaging to the case against Jacob Zuma that would have justified the case being withdrawn.

My quest to win a big race in racing continues and the next one, where I have a runner and have a chance, is the Emerald Cup.  It is being run on Saturday, 27 September 2014 at the Vaal Racecourse.  It is a sandtrack, but this is the biggest sand race of the year in South Africa and Jet Jamboree, who is now 7 years old, will be fancied by many to win, despite the fact that he is carrying the top weight.  That will add extra pressure of course, and I have never ever had a horse win four races in a row and that is one of the things that concerns me.  Ever since he was gelded, he has been a new horse altogether, but to win four in a row is just so exceptional and so unlikely that I cannot help but think that it counts against him.  What does count in his favour however is that he has a very good draw – he has been drawn number 2 and on this track, and starting on the bend, that is an incredible advantage with one of his main opponents, Uncle Tommy, having been drawn badly.  There are unknowns in the race such as White Line Fever, being a horse who has run in all the top races in the country, trying the sand for the first time and it being the top race for sand horses in South Africa, it has obviously drawn a very talented field.  The first prize is R625 000,00, so I will be holding thumbs that it is finally my turn to come first and not have another second or third in one of these major races of the year.

It seems that there are no limits on the attacks on the Public Protector at the moment.  She has been called anti-Zuma, anti-ANC and now apparently she is even possibly a spy for the CIA!  

Unfortunately for us, these allegations did not come from just some moron in the street, but in fact our Deputy Defence Minister, who only withdrew his comments after being threatened with legal action and after the US Ambassador to South Africa made a decision to lodge a formal complaint with the government.  Nobody in the government has come out and censured him or condemned him and even his apology was half-hearted because in it he still said, “The behaviour and conduct of the Public Protector remains a source of concern to us.”  The Law Society of South Africa issued a press release calling for an immediate cessation of unwarranted and scurrilous attacks on the Public Protector but one doubts that that will be even noticed by the powers that be.  It is terribly sad for us as a country that leaders are attacking this independent office and not a single senior person in the ruling party speaks out.

I love it when the weather starts warming up, because I have always preferred hot weather to cold, but I also hope the rain comes earlier this year.  This really is the allergy season, and those of us who suffer from allergies can frequently be seen with weeping eyes, sniffles as well as sneezing. There is so much dirty air around on the Highveld at this time of the year and dust and pollen and it makes an absolute unpleasant combination for anybody who has any allergies.  In recent years we’ve had to wait until about the middle of October for the rains, and I only hope that they come faster this year.  

The judgment in the Oscar Pistorius trial started on Thursday and may wrap up today or tomorrow.  I would love to hear your thoughts on what you have heard so far and your reaction as soon as we do have the judgment.  This has certainly been the most talked about trial, not only in South Africa, but in the world for the last year and while whoever loses will no doubt appeal it is time now to hear what the court has to say!  

I am always interested to read about the advertisements that are apparently the most popular with the public.  I think that the surveys are definitely biased towards the big media agencies, and they seem to only list adverts created by them.  A survey done by MillwardBrown suggests that the most popular advert in South Africa at the moment is the Samsung TV advert, where the father and son apparently are in the Roman Colosseum and the Mini Cooper chain reaction advert, both of which are in fact adverts produced overseas and are not South African made ads.  The most popular advert at the beginning of the year, which was done in South Africa was the Gumtree classifieds advert.  Other popular adverts at the moment include the new Mercedes C-class advert, the Mercedes C-class no alternative advert as well as the Melrose cheese moustache advert.  I would be interested to hear which adverts on television have caught your eye, other than of course our own advert.

Almost three years ago I moved into my own house.  That was about six months later than I was meant to move into my house and if that was the only problem I had endured, that would have been just fine.  It is amazing that so many people have a vision of building their own house, because when you do, people say that it is the most stressful experience that you will go through, apart from divorce.  That sounded a little bit exaggerated, until I went through it and three years later, I wake up every single morning to hordes of workers arriving at my house to start digging and filling holes while they try to ensure that the drainage system is working perfectly or repair parts of the garden and lawn which have been damaged by the drainage people.  

They appear to have burst a pipe to the pool so that has to be fixed too so the filtration can work.  When I sit in my home office, I have workers walking past me most of the day and the fun is only just about to begin with fixing the latent defects in the house.  That has taken many hours of meetings with builders, lawyers, advocates and friends who have helped me with the task, but soon I will have the added pleasure, three years after moving in, of waking not only to workers and plumbers in my garden, but builders inside the house as well attending to repairs!  It is no wonder that so many people choose well-built second-hand houses to buy and don’t go through all the teething problems that one gets with a new house (which one would have imagined would be perfect) and sorting it all out.  There is always a litany of new nightmares – the person who seeded your garden with winter grass, promising you that your lawn would remain green the whole of winter for three years at least, was lying.  The person who put in your irrigation system in the garden did not use proper insulation cables from point to point, but to save money, and that seems to be a common trend in the building industry, instead used inferior telephone cables in certain points just to maximise profits.  That also all has to be redone.  Eventually, and especially after three years, you become almost immune to it.  You are used to strangers in your house every day, it seems quite normal to hold one or two meetings every single week about different problems and when people tell you that everything will be fixed in three months’ time, although you would like to believe it, you know it is probably really in six months’ time.

We have all seen or read about the disruption with the EFF and the Gauteng legislature and now with Parliament.  I would like to know what your perspective on this is, and what you believe it is achieving – if anything.  On the one hand, for a party that does not have too many policies and does not issue many policy papers, this is an easier tactic than actually standing up in Parliament and giving a point of view.  There is also the counter-argument that so many people are so sick and tired of the President and his nonsense, in particular around Nkandla, that even if they don’t identify with the EFF, they identify with what the EFF did with regard to this issue.  Is a disruptive policy like this going to turn into votes?  

I believe it would, if elections were to be held in six months’ time, but whether or not one can keep up that approach for 4 ½ years until the next election, and still gain votes, is a debatable question.  Personally I do think that disruptive behaviour has to be curbed, and one must treat the institution with some dignity, but by the same token, the President and Parliament need to start treating Public Offices, such as that of the Public Protector, with the same amount of respect and not say that on the one hand they are not criticising her, but on the other hand imply nonsense like that she is in cahoots with the EFF, and was seen wandering around Parliament on the same day, as if we are meant to read something into that.  The bottom line is that most of the country knows that we have been fleeced when it comes to Nkandla, and the ANC needs to replace the President sooner rather than later to stop this embarrassment.

I try to bring up my children on the basis that when they have done something wrong, they learn to say sorry.  We all make mistakes and the best and quickest way to deal with a mistake is to apologise for it and to say sorry.  Some people seem to live in a world where they don’t believe that they ever make mistakes, and are continually trying to blame others around them, rather than accept responsibility for their own mistakes, learn from them and move on.  Quite frequently those people will in fact be the first to say that they always apologise when they are wrong but as luck would have it, they are never wrong – although they don’t say that latter part!  

There is no doubt with modern communication we all get ourselves into even more problems than we should or would have in the past.  That instinct to reply immediately to a rude or aggressive e-mail that angers us so often leads to a reply that we would not have sent in years gone by when we had more time to reflect on what you were doing.  I, in particular, get very worked up on occasion by some of the e-mails that I have received in the past from clients.  It upsets me no end that some people, in an effort to achieve whatever their goals may be, are quite happy to absolutely ignore the truth of a matter, the facts as well as possibly their own actions in a matter and simply try to threaten to damage one’s name or reputation in an effort to achieve a result.  Lawyers are often threatened by clients or people where there is no real effective remedy for the lawyer, because the client has no money, and suing them for defamation is not going to achieve anything because of that.  I know some major firms have made policy decisions that they will not react to any complaints, for example on Hello Peter or on social forums and I sometimes think, even though we get very few of those, that that would be the appropriate way for me to deal with them as well.  Invariably, people who have genuine complaints will either sort it out with the firm themselves or go to other attorneys and it is somewhat frustrating trying to deal with somebody, who is totally to blame, but will not see it, and who tries to put a one-sided version up on a website in an effort to embarrass or extort you into taking certain steps. 

The iPhone 6 and a new iPad are meant to be coming out quite soon and are expected it to be announced at a presentation on 9 September 2014.  The substantial improvement with the latest iPhone is apparently going to be that it will be the biggest iPhone ever, and unofficial photographs of comparative sizes between the current model and the new seem to indicate a massive difference in size.  

The mock-up picture indicates that the new iPhone, in particular the larger 5.5 inch rumoured version, is far bigger than the current iPhone and perhaps for those whose eyes are troubling them, like mine, it might well be more useful.  The current iPhone has a 4 inch display, so a jump to 5.5 inches is obviously substantial being a 37,5% increase in size.  That no doubt will be fantastic for applications and photographs, but the phone is not going to slip as easily into your pocket in the future.  The new iPad is apparently also going to be about 2 or 3 inches bigger, so again it is not going to be something that you necessarily walk around with all the time.  The trend is clearly towards bigger screens and those who already have the phones with bigger screens say that they are far preferable to the smaller screens.

The leaked photos of Jennifer Lawrence and other stars illustrate again the dangers of selfies.  It is not necessarily who you send them to – just having them on your own phone, and saved to the cloud, can be dangerous.  Insiders say the photos, and a censored one of Jennifer Lawrence appears alongside this article, were hacked off Apple’s iCloud.  Other speculate the passwords were picked up at another site and then used on iCloud but either way saving photos and files to the cloud clearly has advantages – and disadvantages.  The reality is from the person next door, to the most famous and desired actress of the current time, the majority of people have photographs that could prove embarrassing in the wrong hands.  Experts recommend changing passwords and using a password manager because the more sites you use the same password with, the more you expose yourself to these hackers.  I have had attempted hacks made on my Gmail account and the hackers showed interest in items that only a lawyer or competitor would have any interest in.  Once I changed my password I immediately got sent a fake phishing message allegedly from google requiring my new password.  In recent times other systems at our firm have come under attack until certain additional systems were put in place.

Its terribly sad that people have their privacy violated, in some cases just because they are famous or powerful and it’s a disgraceful reflection on the people that hack the information and then leak them.  I certainly hope if the offenders are caught they get a stiff prison sentence as cyber criminals needs to start getting whacked hard.  I don’t think though, however much the various actresses are squirming now, that they should think people think less of them.  I don’t think the pictures of Jennifer Lawrence are going to do her career any harm or that any normal man or woman will think anything other than sorry for her, but identify with her that she is just like them and has private pictures she was taking for someone special in her life or herself.  She isn’t the exception in terms of the photo’s she had – except for her exceptional looks.

We have lived, for a long time now, in an environment of very low interest rates across the world.  This obviously followed the 2008 financial disaster that saw markets slump and governments dropping interest rates to try and boost the economy.  It has always been a question of when the rates would go up, and in America the hints have seem to be that one would be looking at interest rate increases early next year, but minutes of the meetings of the various countries controlling interest rates in various European countries, seem to indicate that the rates might rise even faster there.  Our interest rates are naturally typically higher than overseas countries, but when they do raise their rates, and one would imagine there will be a series of smaller, incremental rates, that will lead to our rates rising as well.  That affects people badly if they have debt on motorcars or houses, but obviously old-age pensioners for example then get more interest on their money and that helps them in their retirement.  

High interest rates helped me purchase my first house in Parkhurst, because although people forget now how quickly rates can rise, they rose to about 28% at one time, just when I was in the market for buying a property and as a result of those high interest rates, the property prices had slumped.  Shortly after I bought, the rates started going down dramatically and that led to house prices going up – so, the timing was very good for me, at that time, and allowed me to get a house for far cheaper than I would have one or two years earlier.  The main lesson to be learned is that rates always go up and they always go down, and if you borrow money at the lowest rates, and one must certainly be aware that one has been borrowing at the lowest rates, for example over the last five years, that you have enough money to pay off those loans when the rates increase.  Hopefully of course we will never see that 28% type rate again!

African Bank has reconfirmed my suspicions that the best business to be involved with is banking.  After all, once you obtained a licence from the government to run a bank, there is very little that can go wrong for you.  If you are cautious and manage your bank carefully, you will make decent money over the years or alternatively, you can borrow money from your investors, lend out millions to people who do not secure it in any way – with a car or a house – and hope that they pay you back later.  If they don’t pay you back, that will not really be a problem but more of that later.  In the meantime, on the basis of all the loans you are making to everybody you can project your future profits and you can pay yourself healthy bonuses, huge salaries and give yourself share options so as to buy your shares more cheaply and make money on the market as well.  

If the worst comes to the worst, and all of those bad loans come back to hurt the business, if you have advanced money to enough people, the government, and this is true of governments all around the world, will have to step in to save your bank, rather than risk further damage.  You will not have to return any of the bonuses or huge salaries you have paid yourself while running the business into the ground and as one executive told the Sunday Times recently, “f*** the poor”.  He left out in this particular case that it was actually “f*** the public” because the R50 million in bonuses that he received, while running what was clearly a very bad business, will never have to be repaid by him – because of course that is just business – and we as taxpayers will pay it.  It seems that there are a very few businesses, like law, where you actually have to take personal responsibility for your mess-ups and in many Stock Exchange listed companies, those who make the poor decisions that lead to so many people losing so much money, never ever pay a price.

I was reading an article about the current governor of Texas, Rick Perry, who tried to get the Head Prosecutor in Texas to resign because of the fact that she was caught drunk driving.  By the way, in her case of drunk driving she was seated in the passenger seat in a stationary car in a church parking area, where she was drinking by herself, so she was not driving at the time.  The article related to some political intrigue and how he is now being charged with certain offences relating to action he took against the Prosecutor’s office in an effort to get the lady to resign, which she did not.  

The part that I found so interesting though was the very fact that she went to jail for 45 days for this offence!   I know that many countries have stricter laws than ours and I decided to read up on the rules in that particular State in America only to discover that if anybody under the age of 21 is found with any alcohol in their blood, because they are not allowed to drink younger than 21 in most States in America, you are automatically found guilty of driving under the influence – regardless of whether you’ve had half a glass of wine or five glasses – as long as there is alcohol in your blood, and you are under 21, you are guilty.  For adults the limit is 0,08, but what is interesting is that for the first offence there is a minimum sentence of three days in jail and up to 180 days in jail and for second and third offences the time period is of course much longer.  You also get a penalty as well as your licence suspended for a period between 90 to 365 days.  A second offence has a minimum of 30 days in jail up to one year and on your third offence you get a two year jail sentence.  That explains the 45 days the prosecutor got in jail for her first offence.  When you have laws like that people will of course be forced to take a much more serious approach to drunk driving and arrange taxi’s or friends to give them a lift when they do wish to drink and no doubt that is yet another reason why countries like this have far lower death tolls on their roads than South Africa has, relative to the population size.  I don’t think it is the kind of law that will find favour with most people here, because we are used to be treated in a much softer, more gentle way (which leads to far more accidents) but it is something we should consider if we are serious about bringing down the death toll in South Africa because as long as everybody knows that you are more than likely going to get a fine, it is not as terrible a deterrent as a guaranteed time in jail for exceeding the limits once.