We are now in the sixth season of Idols in South Africa, and once again we are down to the final few contestants. I think Idols is one of those shows that have a huge audience, but a lot of people will claim that they don’t watch it, and no doubt it is extremely popular with young people in particular. At the moment, in terms of betting, the favourite is Lloyd who is 22\10, followed by Sindi at 28\10 and Elvis Blue at 28\10.

I see that Multichoice is launching a new HD channel, channel 175 which will be M-Net movies in HD, with all day HD movies starting on 30 September 2010. HD is clearly the way of the future, and it is very good to see that what started as one channel has very quickly grown to what will be 5 on 30 September 2010.

I must say I find it very frustrating if I am watching TV and Super Sport has put a logo over the channel indicating that the golf is live, to realise that I am actually being had, and that whereas a player has been shown on the 8th hole for example, he has already completed the 11th hole and is on the 12th hole in reality – a difference of about 30 to 40 minutes. To make things worse, if I go straight to the PGA Tour website, I can watch the coverage live and see what is going to happen on Super Sport in 40 minutes’ time - now! I don’t have a problem with programmes being transmitted as delayed, if they have to for some or other reason, but I think it is patently dishonest to pretend, as they did during the US Masters last year, that they are broadcasting something live when in fact they are not and whether they are doing that because play has been suspended due to inclement weather which has affected The Tour Championship, does not matter – it is about telling the truth.

Rain is one of my favourite topics at this time of the year, because every year I cannot wait for the September rains and every year they seem to take longer than usual. Some people believe that the longer they take, the more rains we will get during the season, but for allergy sufferers you really want one or two days of fairly decent rain to clear the skies and your nose! Besides which, I am tired of this Photoshopped grey sky, which we’ve had for about 6 weeks now.

I see that once again there is another Twenty/20 tournament taking place in South Africa. I really do think that cricket is somewhat saturated, with events and tournaments taking place all day long, every second month, and it must be very hard to keep marketing a product where it does not have that a limited aspect to it – it is not the one day game between Australia and South Africa that you wait a year or two before it takes place in your country again. I wonder if that does not have something to do with the SABC deciding not to cover cricket anymore – I just don’t think there is such a demand for it in any event, in the first place, anymore.

The other side of the coin is that hardly a week goes by without a new betting scandal, and you are now left wondering, when you watch cricket on TV, if a no ball was bowled, because a bet has already been laid on that no ball being hit or if a run-out takes place in a certain over, because some illegal bets have been laid to that effect.
 

I did a blog article on Sharemax a month or two ago, referring to the expression about where there is smoke there is fire, and it was up for a day or so, when I read about the company’s latest plans that the main director would be stepping down from his responsibilities and assuming the responsibility of suing everybody in the media who had something bad to say about the company, which led to me taking down the article for some editing.

Very quickly however, those media articles seem to have come true – the investors in Sharemax, who are largely elderly Afrikaans people in rural areas, who have invested their pension money, are suddenly not getting paid and there appears to be one disaster after another. 40 000 Investors are now looking at different scenarios from getting their money back to maybe getting almost no money back at all and I certainly hope the various authorities are going to make sure that all of the brokers who recommended that people invest in this unlisted product, are going to be made to come to the party and pay out compensation to the people that they advised.

Sharemax were paying extremely high commission and while I am sure that never affected any brokers’ decisions, it is amazing how often, when a product collapses later, you hear that those referring work to it were being paid commissions that would exceed the commissions paid, for example, by Unit Trust companies to brokers. The moral of the story, once again, is stick to the big banks, stick to well-known blue chip listed companies and don’t invest in risky products which by definition are basically products that pay more “interest” or “returns” and Stock Exchange listed shares or the big four banks.
 

I have enjoyed some of the recent episodes of Celebrity Apprentice and think that a lot of staff, in many companies, could learn much, especially from the boardroom sessions, where those with good ideas, but who cannot get on with others, sometimes are fired. At the end of the day, your value to a company is about the work you can deliver and if you go into any job with a whole lot of preconditions about who you can work with, who you cannot work with, and all sorts of ego issues, you diminish your worth. Being a great worker is about getting a job done, and not about stroking your own ego or pampering yourself!

The person on Twitter, who identifies himself as “pigspotter” has made a lot of news recently, due to the fact that he gives out information as to where police are trapping. There are different cases with regard to this scenario, and I certainly think he will be treading on dangerous water if he is doing this for any other reason other than trying to urge compliance with the laws. Having said that however, a name such as “pigspotter”, calling police “pigs”, I think is extremely offensive and it is no wonder that they are so upset about him. If he had come up with something like a “copspotter” and emphasised that he was simply drawing to people’s attention where roadblocks were taking place, because he feels that people should drive safely and comply with the law, then I don’t think he would have the problems that he is currently going to have now.

In this age of Facebook and Twitter, you really have to be extra careful about what you write – and probably err on the side of having less followers and saying less controversial things. Type a few words quickly and it is transmitted to all of your followers instantaneously, and cannot be taken back. Australian Olympic swimmer, Stephanie Rice, tweeted “Suck on that faggots!” just after the kick that saw Australia beat the Springboks in a recent Tri-Nations rugby test. The consequences for her have already been quite expensive with the car manufacturer Jaguar terminating her contract and taking back the courtesy car they had given her. Of course, you could also say far less offensive things, but which undermine the position either of the company you work for or the interests of one of the many organisations or sports clubs that those people belong to, and the consequences, while less dire, can be equally embarrassing. I think many young people, in particular, may regret some of the things they write as I notice, especially on Facebook and Twitter, some younger people really go into the very intimate details of their life, even raving about the night before, and keeping victory of on whoever their latest ex-boyfriend or girlfriend is.

Various advertisements were recently published in the media proclaiming that new Regional Courts have been established and they will be handling cases with the value of up to R300 000,00. The only problem is that the Minister made the announcement on 29 July 2010 in terms of an Amendment Act that had not yet come into operation! In the circumstances, he never had the power to make the announcement, at the time that he did make the announcement. He also made announcements that the Regional Courts would hear matters between R100 000,00 to R300 000,00 whereas the Act only provides for the Minister to lay down the jurisdiction up to a certain amount – and not exceed that value – so it would not actually authorise the Minister, as he purported to do, to fix parameters in the first place. The English and Afrikaans text of the Act also differ and for example, the English text does not even authorise the Minister to determine any amounts whatsoever!

I think that the Greek Islands would ideally suit someone who enjoys sun tanning and a partying holiday. They have beautiful towns, beautiful beaches and a wonderful Mediterranean climate together with very good basic, fresh ingredients in the meals at the local restaurants.

Is that a wonderful recommendation? I am glad to have seen them, but it is not my type of holiday, and if you are not going to be spending a lot of time on the beach, I think you would run out of things to do on these smaller islands. Quite frankly, I enjoy big cities, and places of historical or business interest and most of the islands, while they do have some history, do not have ancient Rome or Ephesus, and when you think about it and appreciate that for example, the town of Santorini is only open during the tourist season, and when it is over, many people head off to the mainland in Athens, it is all a little bit plastic and yes, they are selling plastic toys, trinkets and generally a load of junk while complaining that due to the recession, they cannot sell much.

I do sympathise with them, because I saw very few tourists even paying to sit down and have a cup of coffee, or maybe that is because a double Greek coffee will keep you awake for 36 hours! In any event, I would probably prefer Corfu, which is obviously far more north than Santorini and has a completely different climate and is covered with wonderful forest of trees and Olive trees. Understandably, while Santorini has a population of approximately 10 000 out of season, Corfu has a year round population of 140 000 as apart from tourism its economy also relies on agriculture and fishing. In other words, when the tourists do home, they don’t have to close down every single one of those shops and restaurants that we all consider to be a vibrant little village, at the top of a cliff, and go away for 4 or 5 months.
 

Details about the latest golf handicap system can be found at www.saga.co.za . Handicaps are essentially calculated now, by taking the 10 best scores out of your last 20 scores and then reducing that by 4%. You have to have played at least 5 games in the last 12 months to have a valid handicap and in the event that you have more than one really good round in your last 20 scores, then your handicap will be based on the best 8 scores, less 4%. This is in terms of the exceptional performance provisions and this kicks in where essentially you score 3 or more shots better than your current handicap.

A recent edition of Finweek indicated that of the top ten suburbs in South Africa, only three or four of them are actually seeing an increase in property prices and that includes Hyde Park, Clifton and Westcliff. Sandhurst, by comparison is down 36% on last year whereas Hyde Park is up 9% showing that the adjoining suburb to Sandhurst, offers far better value than Sandhurst itself. The average price of a property in Clifton at the moment is R16,2 million but if you prefer Camps Bay, you can get it for half the price at R8 million.

I found Turkey to be a very vibrant country, filled with (certainly amongst those who I have met) intelligent people who are very eager to stress the same message over and over again – that is that they are “friends” as they are members of NATO and largely, they want to join the European Union.

Travel advisories sometimes indicate that Turkey, with its 60 million plus Muslims, is becoming a more dangerous country to visit, but I certainly did not get that impression and they came across to me as more like a nation of hardworking traders, who are very eager to get in foreign currency - although the Turkish Lira is quite strong - and to welcome the world.
 

I found an extraordinary kitchen shop recently, approximately one kilometre from the Lanseria Airport, which has every amazing gadget under the sun, hug gas stoves, pots, pans and all sorts of kitchen paraphernalia spread over four showrooms. After all of that, being a health fanatic, I only managed to buy an ice-cream maker, but you can end up making the most delicious and fresh ice-cream yourself at home.

Markus Jooste, the CEO of Steinhoff, often used to tell us during meetings at one of the entities of which I was a director, that when you become engaged in an argument with a fool, you cannot win and end up looking like a fool yourself.

There is no better illustration of it at the moment, than the celebrity fight going on between Oksana Grigorieva and Mel Gibson where she claims he hit her in the face and he claims she tried to extort money from him. At the end of the day, and given Mel Gibson’s previous ranting and ravings a year or so ago, he walked away thinking that she is a gold digger, and that he is some ego-inflated, aging star, who simply cannot control himself. In short, you have a poorer opinion of both of them. It is a tremendous pity that more people cannot solve their problems more quietly and out of the public eye.
 

If there is one development that has got my interest, in terms of discovering about its size, how many houses there will be and all of those questions, it is the Steyn City development just outside of Dainfern and Dainfern Valley, Fourways. It has a golf course which is currently being designed by Golf Data and apart from that nobody seems to know very much – other than it is a project of Douw Steyn and rumours range from the fact that it is going to have 15,000 houses, which seems improbable to me, to the fact that the golf course will allegedly be ready in 9 months’ times. Normally in the bigger developments you can find something to read about and I am hoping that this blog will lead to some suggestions and comments where I can find some information.

I was most impressed by the Gautrain. It is clean, professional, operates smoothly and it gets you to the airport very quickly. Once it goes the whole way to Pretoria it is going to be even more of a hit than it already has been.

Like the World Cup critics, who were so vocal before the World Cup, the Gautrain critics have also shut up after 400 000 people caught it in the first month – way more than ever expected. The train, and using it, will run even more effectively when people preload their Gautrain gold card and preferably are able to top it up via the Internet. The only queues I had to stand in were those to buy their card and to load it up – although they really had super friendly, efficient and helpful staff. Inside the train it was clean, secure and perhaps to be expected at R100,00 a ticket, there were no “dodgy” characters wandering around.
 

Big is not always better, but I think when it comes to cruise liners it most probably is. The bigger the boat, the more amenities they have and, in doing research, I have certainly been told by one of the major lines, that that is the policy to follow when taking children with you.

The bigger boats will have more for the children to do and these days, on massive ships, such as the Oasis of the Seas, that would include wave riders, ice rinks, basket ball courts, etc, in addition to all of the usual gyms, swimming pools, theatres, etc. The Oasis of the Seas is so large that it can only visit countries that have ports set up for it, and that is largely the Caribbean. Child friendly it might be, but the 24 or so hours journey time to the Caribbean would certainly not be child friendly!
 

Golf is a gentleman’s game and as a result it has very strict rules. This past week, Jim Furyk who was coming third in the FedEx Cup, and who wants to maintain his position in the top 5, so that he stands a chance to win the $10 million bonus, was eliminated from a tournament before it began – because he missed the warm-up, more social pro-am where professionals play with amateurs on the Wednesday. The PGA rules provide that if you miss a pro-am, you cannot play in the tournament and because he woke up late, he was disqualified from the entire event. It could end up having very severe financial consequences for him!

Golf is a game that you cannot possibly try to play well, if you are not feeling good about life and arrive at the course in a calm and relaxed state. For all of those people who have written off Tiger Woods, they will no doubt be in for a surprise when as time moves along, and the divorce and all the drama fades, he is able to relax and to calm himself more and turn into the player he once was.

There are many sports where anger and aggression might suit you well, but a sport that takes 5 hours to complete a round, and is filled with strategy, and is as much mental as it is physical, does not allow at home. The professionals always stress long before Tiger’s dramas began that his strength was that in the mental aspects of the game he was a league above everybody else. Now, too many people are writing him off and not remembering what it would be like to have gone through the year that he has had, and now a divorce.
 

The best-selling author of “Hot Commodities” as well as “Adventure Capitalist” has a new book called “A Gift to My Children – A Father’s Lessons for Life and Investing”. Jim who now lives in Singapore, also has a daughter studying Mandarin, and such is his confidence in the fact that the 21st Century belongs to China. There is a lot of investment advice in the book but also practical advice such as that girls should not get married until they are at least 28 and they know a bit about themselves and the world. He also tells them that they should be wary of men who look old enough to be their father or grandfather – because such men will not be thinking of them as their daughter or granddaughter!

One that has always appealed to me because I always decline to go to party functions for the office is what he tells them in that respect, “It is vitally important to maintain boundaries between work and life. Skip going out for drinks with the gang after work every night. You will notice that the boss does not do it, which is one reason that he is the boss.”