FOR Guluva and many other South Africans, 2010 was a particularly bad year, despite the Fifa World Cup.
To see what 2011 had in store for him, Guluva did what he seldom does - he checked out the horoscopes. His star sign had this to say, in part, about his prospects in the New Year: "You will be a social butterfly. This year is about expanding your world with new ideas, friends and relationships."
Well and good, but the thought of Guluva rubbing shoulders with so-called celebrities such as Khanyi Mbau and Theuns Crous, sharing sushi with ex-convict and self-made millionaire Kenny Kunene, networking with Khulubuse Zuma and chewing the fat with Prosper Mkwaiwa and DJ Sbu really scares the hell out of him. Can someone please fast-forward to 2012?
Like father, like daughter
Guluva has deep distrust for statistics because anyone can easily manipulate them to suit their own desired outcomes.
But when he read somewhere that between 25 percent and 30 percent of drunk drivers who were busted by police during the festive season were young women, he had to sit up and take notice.
If these statistics were true, he reasoned, it meant that of the 1 050 motorists who were nabbed for drunk driving in one week alone, between 262 and 315 of them were women.
This reminded Guluva of a bumper sticker he once saw on a Soweto minibus taxi many years ago: "Gone are the days when girls used to cook like their mothers; now they drink like their fathers."
Return of the intellects
At one stage Guluva was made to believe that the country found itself in the mess it was presently in because of intellectuals whose lofty ideas were said to be at variance with the mood, aspirations and needs of the people on the ground.
This variance, real or imagined, was largely the reason the Tobacco Pipe Smoking Intellectual was unceremoniously hounded out of office and replaced by the Machine Gun Man, the smiling, singing and dancing president; a man of the people.
"He thinks he's too clever for all of us he won't engage us," the Woodwork Boy, at one stage the Machine Gun Man's number one imbongi, said of the Tobacco Pipe Smoking Intellectual during a private conversation with United States embassy officials before the Polokwane coup in 2007, according to Wikileaks.
Just when Guluva thought the intellectuals were history and the country's future was now in the hands of ordinary folk, the Machine Gun Man announces that he wants the country's black economic empowerment (BEE) policy to be reviewed.
Guess who he is going to invite to "debate and define" it?
It is "the intellectual community", the same crowd that "debated and defined" the current BEE policy that put us where we are now.
OFFSIDE: Despite overwhelming evidence that Shrien Dewani has a case to answer in connection with the murder of his wife Anni during their honeymoon in Cape Town two months ago, his out-of-sorts publicist, one Max Clifford, continues to be out of touch with reality.
Commenting on a letter written by Anni's friends calling on his client to return to Mzansi to clear his name, Clifford said it was highly likely that the missive was authored by members of the SA Police Service. Even he can't believe that.
Email Guluva on: thatha.guluva@gmail.com.
Now girls drink like their dads
FOR Guluva and many other South Africans, 2010 was a particularly bad year, despite the Fifa World Cup.
To see what 2011 had in store for him, Guluva did what he seldom does - he checked out the horoscopes. His star sign had this to say, in part, about his prospects in the New Year: "You will be a social butterfly. This year is about expanding your world with new ideas, friends and relationships."
Well and good, but the thought of Guluva rubbing shoulders with so-called celebrities such as Khanyi Mbau and Theuns Crous, sharing sushi with ex-convict and self-made millionaire Kenny Kunene, networking with Khulubuse Zuma and chewing the fat with Prosper Mkwaiwa and DJ Sbu really scares the hell out of him. Can someone please fast-forward to 2012?
Like father, like daughter
Guluva has deep distrust for statistics because anyone can easily manipulate them to suit their own desired outcomes.
But when he read somewhere that between 25 percent and 30 percent of drunk drivers who were busted by police during the festive season were young women, he had to sit up and take notice.
If these statistics were true, he reasoned, it meant that of the 1 050 motorists who were nabbed for drunk driving in one week alone, between 262 and 315 of them were women.
This reminded Guluva of a bumper sticker he once saw on a Soweto minibus taxi many years ago: "Gone are the days when girls used to cook like their mothers; now they drink like their fathers."
Return of the intellects
At one stage Guluva was made to believe that the country found itself in the mess it was presently in because of intellectuals whose lofty ideas were said to be at variance with the mood, aspirations and needs of the people on the ground.
This variance, real or imagined, was largely the reason the Tobacco Pipe Smoking Intellectual was unceremoniously hounded out of office and replaced by the Machine Gun Man, the smiling, singing and dancing president; a man of the people.
"He thinks he's too clever for all of us he won't engage us," the Woodwork Boy, at one stage the Machine Gun Man's number one imbongi, said of the Tobacco Pipe Smoking Intellectual during a private conversation with United States embassy officials before the Polokwane coup in 2007, according to Wikileaks.
Just when Guluva thought the intellectuals were history and the country's future was now in the hands of ordinary folk, the Machine Gun Man announces that he wants the country's black economic empowerment (BEE) policy to be reviewed.
Guess who he is going to invite to "debate and define" it?
It is "the intellectual community", the same crowd that "debated and defined" the current BEE policy that put us where we are now.
OFFSIDE: Despite overwhelming evidence that Shrien Dewani has a case to answer in connection with the murder of his wife Anni during their honeymoon in Cape Town two months ago, his out-of-sorts publicist, one Max Clifford, continues to be out of touch with reality.
Commenting on a letter written by Anni's friends calling on his client to return to Mzansi to clear his name, Clifford said it was highly likely that the missive was authored by members of the SA Police Service. Even he can't believe that.
Email Guluva on: thatha.guluva@gmail.com.
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