A different view on current affairs & history
First we had young Julius, who had forgotten the good manners that his mother had taught him as a wee youth, profusely apologising to various people for his uncouth, slanderous & disparaging comments that he had made when he in charge of the ANCYL. He politely explained to Thabo “he with the pipe” Mbeki’s aged mother that he had been young and immature when he spoke those despicable and insensitive words.
The Rhino’s Horn is not one of those hikes that many people are aware of except for the ardent hikers. I only became aware of this little-known gem of a hike in the Drakensberg because a member of our Hiking Club, Clive Cameron, had hiked it many times as a youth having been raised in Kokstad in the southern Kwa-Zulu Natal.
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Aspartame is an artificial, non-saccharide sweetener used as a sugar substitute in some foods and beverages. After being first synthesized in 1965, it was initially sold under the brand name NutraSweet. After the patent expired in 1992 the consumption has increased exponentially.
Since the sixties there has been a consistent campaign of vilification based on the premise that it results in cancer formation, neurological problems and migraines. All of the claims are based on anecdotal evidence which has never been substantiated in the hundreds of tests performed since the sixties.
A Personal View – May 2014
The cellphone industry has reflected all the attributes of a rapidly expanding industry. Like the automobile or the railroads before it, initially there was insatiable demand for their product which created a bubble of overinvestment and overgenerous returns on investments.
These industries appeared not to conform to the script of other industries where low margins, excessive competition and continual cost cutting dominated the playlist. Making a buck became possible only to the most cost effective and efficient.
On reaching maturity, the bubble in these revolutionary products ineluctably bursts. A plethora of competitors are no longer sustainable where only the top three make money: the top performer – super profits, the second placed performer – above average returns whereas the third placed is marginally profitable with the remainder never making a satisfactory return on their investment.
Prologue
For me, the recent debate within the DA about race-based BEE work practices brought this issue to the fore. Whilst acknowledging the iniquities of Apartheid, the methods employed by the current ANC government to ameliorate the situation stuck in the craw. Maybe my hopes for a colour blind future in South Africa were derailed along with the debate.
An advert that I received last week encapsulates the progress that has been made with TVs over the past ten years. But I expect even more dramatic advances in the following decade. Hold onto your seats as technology takes off and rockets into the sky of our imagination.
The TV industry is currently in the throes of a revolution which I provide the appellation the 5th iteration which comes hard on the heels of the 4th which was the discarding of the cumbersome CRT and its replacement with the flat screen high definition screens. My crystal ball only conjures up this imminent revolution and then one more. For reasons to be explained and which will become self-evident, nothing is possible subsequent to that. The TV set as we know it will no longer exist in its current form.
Quite frankly by rights Kurt Radzom should have accepted a formal leadership position in Quo Vadis on George Malan’s hasty departure from the Club after the 120km Amatola Hike in 1989. Instead I naively accepted the role. Not that it conferred a large stipend or prestige, but insofar as the duties were involved, it was more akin to that of an Executive Secretary’s role.
A not so benign start
This hike was always going to be one of those hikes during which frequent comparisons would be drawn with our previous attempt. That hike had been particularly memorable for a number of reasons but as hiking tends to spring surprises on one, nothing was a given. Nothing precluded this one from also being as dramatic as that one.
What a superb canoe trip! Personally I rate it as the best such excursion for a number of reasons especially for the personal gratification that the Cameron/McCleland team experienced in NEVER capsizing not even once during the five days much to certain attendees’ chagrin. As always, the main reason for such an agreeable trip was undoubtedly the camaraderie amongst all the guys. That factor alone is what indubitably makes Quo Vadis Hiking Club such an exceptional Club.
Notwithstanding that, it was not all beer and braais as we experienced two hard paddling days due to flat water and gusting head-winds but more on that later. At least we have a legitimate claim when we declare that it was not all plain sailing (sic) and that we had to do some exercise!
Amongst other things when one is paddling down the Orange, one has to learn a number of things apart from how to paddle – and rapidly. One also has to assimilate a new language, the unintelligible risible language of the Gariep River People. On previous excursions we had commenced learning the vocabulary. Everyday words such as sun and wind could not be uttered. There were Verboten! Banished from our lips. Instead they were replaced by the avant-garde words “spike” and “spoekasem”.
A Personal View – 9th May 2014
Barring a dramatic event, the final outcome of the 2014 Election is already known with the ANC retaining power but with a reduced majority. The Democratic Alliance made substantial gains by increasing their share of the vote by 29.8%. Many of the smaller parties were all but eliminated with the Cope’s tally being reduced by 90%, the once powerful IFP by 44.4% and the ACDP by 33.3%. Even the much favoured Agang did not make an impression as it only gathered one seat, that of Mamphela Ramphele.