I know a lot of PDF versions of this book are floating about.  I do think it is the wrong way to read the book or to “support” any author. Authors and publishers don’t make money out of illegal copies of a PDF and quite frankly, with the book not having being banned, there is no reason to circulate the book at this point.  It does not look like it is going to be banned either, although there will probably be criminal charges against the journalist Jacques Pauw.  

The book has become the fastest selling book in South Africa since they started collecting data in 2004 and I discourage anybody from reading the PDF version when the book is available on the shelves.  It is certainly a book worth reading, I have finished reading it after having bought it on my Kindle, and I can only say it is just one revelation after another and if only 20% of it is true, and of course there is reason to believe a lot more of it is true, then South Africa is not in a good place at the moment in terms of Government bureaucracies, the weakening of the police force, the loss of talent and capacity in the South African Revenue Services, etc.  

There are so many allegations and they are not just all about President Zuma – including the fact that for example it is alleged that even after he became President he continued to receive money from a well-known horserace owner, Roy Moodley, of R1 million a month for another 4 months after becoming the President, etc, but there are just revelations as to all sorts of breakdowns in the police, agendas, etc and I hope everybody involved in politics in particular is reading it and trying to work out where the problems are and what needs to be done about them.

Time Magazine recently had an article listing a number of ways for people to make themselves happier.  It includes letting go of grudges as well as paying somebody to do something that you normally would do to give yourself some more time.  That apparently will give you more happiness than spending the same amount of money that it would cost you to pay that person on something for yourself, because having more time is more important to most people than new things.  

One of the bigger points they make though was how the constant exposure to social media is really beginning to wear people down.  Some studies have indicated that people who use Facebook frequently have poor physical and mental health and much less life satisfaction.  They also found that the more people look to social media, the more likely they were to be anxious.  On sites like Instagram they say it allows us to compare and there is no doubt that sites like Facebook and Twitter have a constant stream of news, some of which is presented in a very stressful way.  The advice includes limiting yourself to one social platform only and also taking a short break – people who apparently cut themselves off from Facebook for a whole week reported feeling far more positive compared to those people who keep using Facebook as usual.  

I myself went off Facebook and I wrote about it in this blog many years ago and I am really glad I did.  I think social media addicts really toss away far too much time which they could spend more happily and productively actually living their lives and doing things that make them happier.  If you are a social media addict, try and limit yourself to one platform for the next week and try, if you can, to take yourself off Facebook for one whole week – even if that requires deleting the app off your phone.

Master Sabina has won the last two runnings of the Summer Cup.    Its run this Saturday at Turffontein.  He is now 8 years old and he is also going into the race carrying more weight than ever before, so he really cannot be expected to win this time.  His trainer, Joe Soma, tells me that although he suffered a bout of colic which put his training back quite a bit, he is showing incredible enthusiasm and looking younger than his age!  It is important to understand, for those of you that don’t follow horseracing that most horses are at their best at 3, 4 and maybe 5 years.  

To still be running at Master Sabina’s age is a feat and quite honestly it is absolutely unbelievable that not only did he win in 2015 and 2016, he was a second favourite in 2014 when he could not run because he was injured and in 2013 he came second by a nostril.  The Summer Cup is the biggest and most prestigious horserace in Gauteng, Johannesburg, and while the money is not as big as the July Handicap or The Met, it is still extremely prestigious.  

Master Sabina owes me nothing.  He is really the best horse I’ve ever had, apart from his mother, Sabina Park, and I just hope he enjoys the race on Saturday.  I don’t expect him to win, but honestly if he could even make the top 4 or 5 I think that would be exceptional.   

While things are not very clear at the moment as to what is going on, it certainly looks like the end of Robert Mugabe’s reign in Zimbabwe.  It is interesting that only a few weeks ago it looked like South Africa had a chance of a wife of a President being the next President, or ex-wife, and Zimbabwe our neighbour, would also have the President’s wife taking over.  It really does not look good, even if they are the most talented people, and I am not saying they are.  

In any event, threatening Zimbabweans with Grace Mugabe, who our Government gave a free pass for assaulting a young lady in Johannesburg, seems to have finally triggered off the Zimbabwean army to do something.  I am not in favour of military coups, but, and it is terrible to use that word in the same line as the word “coup”, you cannot help but feel that this time it is something good.  Nobody ever wants the military to take over, but what is going on in Zimbabwe some 37 years after Mugabe came into power is just ridiculous and if the people really don’t have an opportunity in free and fair elections and the army can pull this off peacefully, then I believe it will be a good thing.  Attorneys believe in law and order, but you don’t actually have real free and fair elections in Zimbabwe in any event and so the people don’t have an actual say anyway.  The situation is very fluid at the moment, so who knows what will transpire, but I do hope that it is the end of Robert Mugabe and that he is not allowed to leave the country and that he and his wife are investigated in terms of what their assets are.  Hopefully, it is just a modest amount, like any President of any country would receive, and we don’t suddenly discover that somehow miraculously he is worth hundreds of millions of Dollars – and it is yet another corruption story.  It does appear however that trying to set the stage for Grace Mugabe to become the next President of Zimbabwe was a huge tactical error by Mugabe.   

I have read quite a lot, mainly in business publications, about the generation of cord cutters today.  That is people in their 20’s and early 30’s who decided that they don’t want to pay for all the channels that you get on, for example, DSTV.  Instead, they rely on downloaded movies, and a much smaller limited set of channels.  This is beginning to worry some of the companies, including for example Disney, because one of Disney’s big investments is in the ESPN sports channel and ESPN’s audience is reducing just as NFL football is down this year, but it was down last year as well.  People have simply decided, in many different countries, that they just don’t want to pay the full costs of whatever the bundle of TV channels cost at the moment.  I wanted to ask what your viewing habits are and whether you are one of the cord cutters or whether you have the full range of the DSTV channels in your house?  How and on what devices do you watch movies or TV programmes?  Would you be watching for example a downloaded episode of Game of Thrones or are you watching it on a TV channel?

I have been reading, and seen programmes recently, on the Arctic.  It seems that Russia in particular is beginning to build up naval bases all along the Arctic and build up a military presence there so that they can try and control the Arctic later.  Apparently, amongst the other possible reasons to do this, is that it will allow much faster access for commercial ships to travel the oceans.  What I found astounding is that these bases that are all built on ice actually move quite a bit each day, because the ice moves.  So, for example, a pilot who has to fly in from one day to the next can be given a different destination, as much as 14km away from the previous day’s destination, to land!  The base has not moved, just the ice on which it is built has moved.  Russia recently opened a new base which holds up to 150 soldiers in a special temporary structure on the ice, and has announced that they plan four more structures like it.  It is a little bit worrying that they seem to think, or are trying to, claim some sort of ownership of the Arctic and it shows you that while the Cold War is over, you can never ignore the Russian Bear and what they are up to.

I tend to update all, when it comes to updates on my apps, but sometimes I read what has been added to the app.  I think that is normally when I am sitting at a coffee shop and I have finished something else and I am perhaps slightly bored.  It is quite interesting to read how some of the updates are described or how they read – for example, the YouTube update of 26 September was described in the App store as follows:  “Fixed bugs, improved performance, took out the garbage, mowed the front lawn, and now we need a little map.”

In other words, the programmers are having quite a bit of fun describing what they have done sometimes, it is not all just about what they have updated and sometimes they give you a sizeable update with a description like that that tells you nothing about what they have actually just updated!  Other times it is quite interesting, for example, the Uber update of 22 September said that it gives you more control over when you share your location with Uber.  It goes on to say, “Now you can choose between ‘while using the app’, ‘always’ and ‘never’ in your location settings.”  It is obviously informative and you will not always know what has happened with an app if you don’t read that.  Most often they just describe it as bug fixes and performance improvements, but they do often have more information about what new features have been added or what has been changed.

I know it is not flu time, but with another winter having passed, I thought it was just time to write again about something I really believe in and that is the annual flu vaccinations.  I provide it for all of the staff in my office, I cover the costs myself and I think it is something well worth having.  I have the flu vaccination myself every year and have really not had flu for many years now.  

Many people get a cold and say they still suffered from flu, but that is because they cannot distinguish between the common cold and flu.  Flu is much worse than a common cold and it normally would include a fever, headaches, chills and body and muscle aches, which you do not get with a common cold.  You can get a fever or a headache with a cold, but it is extremely rare and almost never happens.  So, the basic difference between flu and a common cold would be that you would have a temperature or fever.  Ever since my staff members have been getting the flu vaccine we never had a bad case of influenza spreading throughout the offices.  I think it also helps to keep them safer at home for their children and my own children get the seasonal influenza injection.

I am not sure how long this book will remain on the shelves.  It is a book I think that everybody needs to buy and to read.  The publishers have already received a letter from the State Security Agency – the SSA – ordering them to pull it off the shelves because they say it is contravening the Intelligent Services Act.  

SARS has said they will be suing the author, because it obviously violates the Tax Act and reveals the private details of the tax affairs of various people, not only President Jacob Zuma, but also Cape gangsters who have not paid taxes they have been assessed for.  I think it is a book that, if you don’t buy it fairly soon, you may not get an opportunity to buy – of course in this day and age taking something off the shelves does not mean you will not be able to buy it via Amazon and read it on your Kindle, but it is always nice to have a book in a hard cover version.

The world economic forum’s latest global competitiveness index came out recently.  They listed Switzerland as the most competitive country in the world and the United States as second.  When they talk about competitiveness they are talking about the embrace of technological change and how countries compete with each other and help their citizens be able to compete in business.  In other words, if you make it hard for somebody to do business in your country, then you will not be as competitive as another country.  

South Africa ranked 61st in the survey, which is not bad, but it is unfortunately down on our previous position when we were 47^th.  In other words, we are becoming less competitive than the other nations who we compete with and that obviously is problematic.  Just to give you an example of some of the countries that are close to us, in the rankings, but beat us would include Kazakhstan and Rwanda.  Yes, those are countries that are more competitive than us.  Some of the countries that are less competitive than us include Iran, Morocco, Armenia, Brazil and Ukraine.  Our neighbour, Zimbabwe, is not doing very well coming in at 124^th and Mozambique comes in at 136th of the 137 countries that are rated.  Yes, we are doing well, but there are a number of Eastern European countries who used to lag behind us that are now past us and we obviously have to look at trying to make South Africa more globally competitive and able to grow better.  That is particularly important when we know that to try and get full employment in South Africa we would need a number of years of growth at 5% a year – and as you will recall, from recent blog articles of mine, we are looking at about 0,5% instead.  Making South Africa globally competitive should be the number one focus of the government – the jobs will follow once we approach that – and yes, if I can just have a dig at them again, the CCMA rules don’t really help us.

I was a bit disappointed to read recently that the victim’s family of the accident that took place by the M1 South off-ramp to Grayston Drive in Sandton, only received R5,000 from the Taxi Association.  Apparently, the accident was caused when Duduzane Zuma, the President’s son, drove into the back of a minibus taxi and Phumzile Dube died and others were injured.

The Road Accident Fund has been taken to court in this matter with the court date in February 2018, but the National Prosecuting Authority has made a decision not to prosecute.  The family was apparently not advised and some legal experts were surprised that there was no prosecution, given that the Magistrate of the Randburg Magistrate’s Court, who heard the inquest, held that he was negligent and that “he failed to conduct himself in a reasonable manner under the circumstances.”  Zuma apparently told the inquest that he lost control of his Porche after it hit a puddle in rainy conditions.  AfriForum is asking for a certificate from the Director of Public Prosecutions for a nolle prosequi certificate.  This is a certificate that allows you to privately prosecute somebody for a criminal offence if the State declines to prosecute and so we will see what develops next with this matter. 

The iPhone X, which has been available for pre-order in the US from 27 October, becomes available for the first time today.  No doubt there will be long queues to get it, even though it is the most expensive iPhone ever brought out.  It is certainly the one that I plan to get, because I always go for whatever has the best camera, but I am a little bit disappointed that they did not increase the picture size from the 12MP that the iPhone 7 Plus already had and in fact kept it at the same size.  That does not mean they did not improve the camera, they have, but I would have thought that size, and the quality of the image and number of pixels, would have increased.  

Everybody knows all about the new amazing technology involved in the design using the Oled screen, which apparently has the most accurate and stunning colours.  Most people know that the home button has been done away with and the phone now uses infrared facial ID to unlock itself, authenticate and even for you to use the device to pay people.  The Face ID apparently analyses 30,000 invisible dots to create a precise depth of your face – although I do find that my Microsoft Surface laptop cannot recognise my face most of the time these days!  

Where the iPhone X - you apparently pronounce the “X” as “10” - does have some important new features including the fact that the 4K video can now be shot at 60 frames per second which obviously is far better for people who use their phones to capture, for example, their golf swing or a sports event and would like more in-depth slow motion.  At normal HD you can get the slo-mo in-depth as 240 frames per second with obviously a lower quality.  There is also a new beta form of portrait lighting that will give you what is allegedly a studio light, although I very much doubt it will match or replace studio lights.  The chip has been upgraded and is now the A11 Bionic chip.  It is amazing when you read that it is capable of 600 billion operations per second and you will be holding in your hand a computer that is more powerful than the American government would have had 20 or 30 years ago.  

The new CPU is 70% faster than the A10 chip – the one that is currently in the iPhone 7 and (I should probably leave that for another blog) most importantly, they allege that the battery will last 2 hours longer.  The new iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone 8 will not last as long.  Whether that is true we will see, but once I have mine, I will let you know more – not to mention the fact that of course you no longer need a charging cable for the iPhone X because it now has wireless charging, just as the iWatch has.

I was interested to see the statistics on how many blogs I have put up – and remember, that excludes my blog at www.lawblog.co.za.  This particular site has over 1,560 blog articles and believe it or not, more than 390,000 words.  If the average book is about 80,000 words it means that if you have been reading the blogs over the years you have almost read 5 books just from reading this blog!  

I am sure some of the blogs have not dated well – in other words, including predictions that are completely wrong by me and probably lots of comments by BlackBerry supporters about how they will never be parted from their BlackBerry, etc as well!  It is quite interesting when one sees the statistics of what countries the various readers come from and only a very small percentage of those who read the blog on a daily basis actually contribute comments.  My most prolific year for blogs was 2010 when there were 278 blogs, but in terms of words, in 2014 there were 67,700 words across 227 articles.  The average blog, when you take all of those statistics, works out at 250 words long.