You know Jack ....

This week I adopted a cross Schnauser/Wire Head Terrier - abandoned by his previous owner because there wasn't room in her new relationship for him.

I met him about a month ago - the shelter had brought him with them to their 'open day' at a local nursery, and I was buying snail pellets and plant food. He was grieving; almost catatonically depressed, not making much of a good impression on potential adopters, lying listlessly in his cage like a beached seal.

I rushed straight into 'rescue mode'. But Mark wasn't impressed with my story, or the pic. He had his heart set on a Jack Russell.

So I left Jack amid the succulents, and started researching what the America Kennel Club call: "the bad dog". The research left me shell-shocked. Our friend Ryan's dog, Storm, was nothing like the small domineering tyrants depicted in story after story on the internet. It couldn't possibly be true.

Then a breeder warned me: be very sure, and sent me an article on Jack Russells that described a family life turned upside down. The writer owned a working farm, had kept dogs his while life and bred Dobermans. Yet, the terrier had taken over. He described insane escapades, and closed saying their challenge now was to get their dog through the next 10 years without it escaping, killing itself in the traffic, or challenging their dominant Doberman in an effort to become pack-leader.

I shelved that idea.

Somehow my search for terriers brought me back to Jack. The cautious breeder sent me a photo of him ... not knowing we had met. I saw it as a prompt from the Universe: Listen here, you were looking for a Jack and I have provided one. So what if it isn't the one you were anticipating. Get on with it.

I still had doubts: What if it didn't work, what if we didn't like him, what if I couldn't manage the dog - we could hardly take him back. My pragmatic friend Claudia put me straight: "Go for it", she said... "you know how to manage rockstars and children - please, it will be a doddle."

So I called the shelter: "I'm coming to fetch him".

Jack loves his new home, he follows me everywhere, likes going for walks and tests his boundaries constantly. In a gentle doe-eyed way. He chances his arm every night: trying to get onto the bed. I use a Supernanny technique, moving him back to his bed over and over: "You're not going to win this one Buddy. I've watched the TV show".

He goes to lie on his blanket: looking at me reproachfully. But I can see the glint behind all that hair. And I know, as far as he is concerned, this conversation is to be continued.

Then there's the eating: rather the non-eating. That is making me anxious. Jack is bloody finicky. My mom checks in regularly, chuckling: remember what you used to say to me when the kids wouldn't eat: "leave them be, they'll eat when they are hungry".

I refuse to get involved in a battle of wits with a small hairy creature (a few of whom bested their experienced grandmother!). Caesar Millan (my new guru) says tough love is needed: "No dog ever starved itself". I'll follow his rules, and I am sure it will work out fine. (And just to be doubly sure, I picked up some delicious "real meals for dogs" from Woolies.) Besides, Jack needs to lose 2kgs, off a 9kg body - so by the time he is hungry - there may be an unexpected up-side for him.

The other test is the poop: my brothers and friends find it hilarious that I am picking up Jack's scat ... they never thought they would see the day. Especially as I gag at the smell and Jack has the semi-runs at the moment, so is squirting it out in a circle.

Hey: I can hold my breath for 90 secs, I've learned to quash my gag reflex, and I'm a fan of double bagging. Claudia was right - my experience has prepared me well. It's going to be a doddle.

Miss (im)Mortality

I've been thinking about the end of days these past few weeks. In part, because my parents were in CT and much of our conversation concerned their imminent move to a retirement village. And, in part, because R.E.M. breaking up has really drawn a line under my 'youth'. My father laughed heartily when I informed him I was now officially middle aged: "Middle aged? You planning to live to 102?" Ha, ha indeed, Dad; your mother lived until she was 94, and Gramps until his early 90s. I'm not ruling out the possibility.

One rainy, jet-lagged London morning in the early 90s: I came face-to-face with my ghost of Christmas future. She was a tiny old lady, humpbacked. Muttering and shuffling along the freezing Stockwell pavements in her slippers. Dragging a leaky daschund behind her on a string. As I passed her, I caught a whiff of old cigarette smoke, human pee and general unwash.

I spent the journey to work imagining her life: 25 stories up a council block with a broken lift, alone in a cold water flat, surviving on pot noodles and cup-a-soup .... oh the horror, the horror.

Fast forward twenty years to last week's head wobble: maybe I 'retired' too early. That wasn't the plan when I left NY. I was always going to work. And I do. But, I earn nowhere what I 'should' be earning in order to bolster up my retirement funds. And, nor am I likely to. 55 is the first stop on the retirement train - and that's only 4 years from now.

I asked Jeremy, the family's financial 'safe-pair-of-hands', to run a pension scenario for me. Against what I have right now. What he showed me has put my mind at rest somewhat - but has also put actual figures on my twilight years. Sobering.

My mom loves Oprah Winfrey and is always telling me about things she saw on her show. I find O somewhat unsettling - but perhaps that has more to do with my wariness of people with money and power - than the actual show content.

Glennie was ambivalent about Tal Ben Shahar, Positive Psychologist and Happiness Guru. She was impressed by his approach to gratitude (very Catholic). But nonplussed by his urging that she live "in the moment". Not a concept that we Wildish women embrace with any confidence. We're fatalistic pragmatists.

I asked her one of Shahar's famous questions: "what would make your life 5% happier?" Mom responded immediately: "If your dad and I could go and see Chris in London." Can you afford to? "Yes we can, but we can't because what if we need the money in 10 years time and we wasted it on the trip?

"What if we wasted it on the trip?". That shook me out of my wobble. My mom is in her early 70s and she is worrying about the same things I am fretting over in my 50s. Things neither of us can control - even if we do nothing and go nowhere.

Jeremy's pension forecast covers me until my actuarially predicted death at age 85. What happens after that - I have no idea. But I'm not going to worry about it now.

My new BFF

The many wonders of my day are now enriched by a twelve hourly encounter with a bottle. No bubbles in this one. Only salt and water. Oh how times have changed.

Post-operative musings ....

So I had the op on Friday - great surgeon. Excellent and affordable clinic. Paid for by my not-so bad and affordable health care. Recovery day three finds me feeling and looking like I went on a date with Mel Gibson. My great friend 'Big D' exhorts me to "keep the faith" - his sinus op was his most favourite op ever, after his vasectomy. So I have big hopes.

Apart from unblocked sinuses and a straight septum, what the operation has given me is ample time to mull over what is going on in our fair land. Rampant & shameless corruption, the slow hanging of Julius Malema (ANC Youth League leader and resident big-mouth-Trust-Fund-baby), tragic Springboks playing embarassing rugby, rowdy, smelly municipal strikes and an excruciatingly inept search for the new Chief Justice. So, business as usual.

And then there is the Bish - and his "guilt tax"

Bishop Tutu (who is my celebrity crush and Number 1 fantasy dinner party guest) has suggested that as wealthy white people in SA benefitted most from Apartheid - they should pay that benefit forward. He sees this happening in the form of regular conscience donations - paid into a fund, that will be used to eradicate the awful, awful poverty in this country.

Interesting thought.

We whites did all benefit from Apartheid - most specifically through the excellent education and the sense of self-worth and entitlement we grew up with. An education that allowed many of us to go out into the world and prosper. A sense of self that taught us to be wholly sufficient, determined, capable. That gave us an incredible work ethic.

Not the same education that was offered our compadres.

Nope, that system, the so-called 'Bantu Education System' was aimed at keeping our countrymen uneducated and in their place. Which the Apartheid Government believed was as a manual labour force. Thankfully - brains, tenacity and ability triumphed and we have been blessed with great leaders, great thinkers, great activists, great artists and great business minds from that 'system'. People who prevailed over Apartheid and helped bring SA to this place of freedom.

But who do you pick to pay Bish? To give you this money? There are very rich white folks, no doubt at all. There are also very rich Black, Chinese, Indian and Coloured folks. Who became rich before '94, who continue to grow richer. And then there are the folks who have taken their new positions in our government and grown rich through pandering and corruption. If all of us who benefitted from apartheid are paying forward our bonuses and blessings - surely it would be wholly inappropriate to leave them out?

And what's the start figure. A billion Rand, two billion? A million? Do we start at the top of this food chain, or with the middle-class. What would be offered in return? This is Africa - there's always a trade.

You've suggested a group of 'elders': comprised of financial, moral, commercial and social leaders should administer the fund. Now, I like that idea. People with proven track records - who have been around the block and earned their stripes. Not the ANC's hiring current criteria: marriage, kinship and "what have you done for me lately"? Can I request that some of them come from other countries - and that they should be richer than any of our home grown billionaires? It will help keep everyone honest.

I want it to work, but I can't help but wondering: could this create a parallel government of sorts. A government apart? And could that encourage our already out-to-lunching ANC to see this as an opportunity to do even less about ending poverty, and even more about leaving it to someone else to solve?

Over to you now Bish. By the way - please know that I am entirely aware of the irony in my musings. And that they are happening from a hospital bed in a private room paid for by health insurance that I can afford because I was educated, able to travel, pretty damn tenacious myself and white.

A day on ...

The operation is off - seems like there are various complicated attachments to the 'premium level cover' that I have through Momentum Health Care.

It's all about bulk, apparently, they've negotiated discounts against footfall - so you have to go to the hospital of their choosing, and use only Surgeon who operates there. Or you can pay the shortfall - over R10K in this case (..."and the rest", as the Hospital admin lady put it ...). Shortfall I thought would have been covered by the top-up Insurance I took to fill any gaps in the Momentum plan. Insurance on insurance - I should have read the small print. So I will have to start again. Meantime, I can only hear from the left now.

Drove into a riot today - tyres burning, people hurling stones, baton charges by no longer genial police. Guess the civil as become uncivil. Still no evidence of Plasma screens, though. However I fear it may just be a matter of time/opportunity. I may well end up apologising to the oiks.

Risotto was a success. Garden is blooming. I'm sitting outside as I write - bathed in the fragrance of Jasmine.

Reasons to be cheerful

My friend Claudia asked brusquely - "why is that ugly dog shaved like a lion still on your blog". Good question, as ever, Wah.

I've been lazy. And pre-occupied. But mostly lazy. And now I am back. And as for the cheer:

Reason 1: I got caught in the middle of a stick wielding mob today. Running through a nice part of town followed by policemen on horses (the mob, not me: though I tried to keep pace for a while). Three ways I could tell I wasn't in London: no-one was carrying a plasma screen TV, no-one was wearing a hoodie and scarf to hide their face and some of them were carrying vuvuzelas - which they tooted and sawed at the police. Who were mostly laughing. All of them were protesting their low municipal salaries - proof that they actually have jobs. Why this made me cheery: civil disobedience is good. Hooliganism isn't. Watch and learn thou oiks from blighty.

Reason 2: I'm going to have an op on Wednesday to sort out my sinuses and deviated septum 'once and for all' the specialist assures me. The most expensive "well it started as an earache ...." ever. Reason to be cheerful: I have medical aid, I can afford the co-pay. Lucky me.

Reason 3: I'm making risotto for dinner. With spring vegetables, great parmesan, lemon zest and nicely ripe avo. Reason this cheers me: it's my recipe, it's risotto, it's going to be delicious, I have all the ingredients I need. And I know how to make it really well.

And as a bonus - spring is here. The washing dried outside today. The garden smells of jasmine, the lemons are big and juicy. All feels well - not perfect - but good enough - in my world.

You'll find me with no reason to complain today.

This is the story of a man who used what he had to hand.

South Africans are endlessly inventive.Especially people who have to figure out how to survive. A Garage Owner in Mitchell's Plain, an area subject to the aquisitive habits of tik (crystal meth) addicts, was sick of thugs breaking into his store to steal tools, etc. So he put the word out that he had a lion which would attack anyone that tried to climb over his fence or break into his business.

He has had no break-ins since.

A whole new level of foolishness

Design fault?

Willow Smith - daughter of Will and Jada - 9 years old, front and centre at couture shows. Being hailed as a new style icon. Will, Jada - take your kid home and let her go play outside with her friends. Vogue, Vanity Fair, Bazaar .... she's 9 years old, people - chase some reality here.

A little on the small side?

Abercrombie and Fitch making padded swimsuits for 7 year old girls. Just in case their boobies didn't look big enough to attract male attention at the beach. Removed from children's department after complaints by mothers. Jada Pinkett Smith just couldn't understand the problem. Will Smith was heard complaining that every girl should be able to use what she has to get ahead.

Half the half a man you used to be?

Charlie Sheen: Drunk Druggie ex-actor: who cares, honestly - who cares?

I'll race you one ...

Slapping down the race card is a much loved pass-time in South Africa. Usually it is the ANC hysterically denouncing honest criticism as a racist attack. Occasionally it is the white population responding in kind. This week it was the mixed race population's turn to bear the brunt.

In her column 'Bitches Brew' (Miles must be spinning), Kuli Roberts, a journalist (ahem) for the Sunday World - think The National Enquirer meets the News of the World - wrote a charmless, humourless piece about Coloured women in which she characterises them as toothless, alcoholic, trailer trash, sex addicts. Her rationale: It's OK, I can say this because I'm black and anyways I was raised in Athlone (a coloured suburb in Cape Town) by coloureds and besides my children are coloured.

And it was game on ....

Deal in government spokesman Jimmy Manyi, a man who should know that no-one in the public eye is ever out of it. A comment he made in an interview last year - that there was an "over-supply of coloureds" in the Western Cape; resurfaced this week (surprise surprise). Prompting Trevor Manuel, one of South Africa's most respected and powerful ministers, to accuse Jimmy, in Parliament, of: "the worst order of racism".

For the record - the coloured population has been part of our fair province ever since the first lonely sailors landed at the Cape and eyed the local lovelies. The Nationalist Government (aka the architects of apartheid), in a breathtaking demonstration of collective denial, reclassified their forefathers' offspring as being non-white. Presaging Shaggy with their own version of "It Wasn't Us".

Manuel, our ex-Minister of Finance and current Head of SA's Planning Commission is not a man to mess with. He is a struggle veteran, an ANC stalwart credited with saving SA's economic ass by furiously resisting the quick buck of sub-prime mortgages ... and he is of mixed race.

A full-house of bad taste and bad judgement. But in both cases - freedom of the press worked just as it should have. Both of these people got to say what they thought. Both got the result they deserved.

Jimmy was very publicly rebuked by Manuel: "I now know who Nelson Mandela was talking about when he said from the dock that he had fought against white domination and that he had fought against black domination - Jimmy, he was talking about fighting against people like you" (ouch). And Kuli, a single mother, was fired.

An anecdote about Winston Churchill comes to mind. A woman once accused him of being drunk. He responded: "Yes Madam, I am drunk. And you are ugly. But in the morning, I will be sober."

Kuli, Jimmy - it's time to look in the mirror

It's not me, it's you

I've had a frustrating few weeks.

People not honouring their promises and responsibilities. Volunteers for Positive Heroes suddenly attaching a price tag. A highly uncomfortable meeting with a professional colleague, in which I was treated disrespectfully and dismissively. A friend not standing up for me. Another turning a potentially joyful gift into an awkward discomfort. The list goes on ... the upholsterer who never quotes, the fencing guy who never pitches, the casual business colleague who mis-addresses a spiteful email and tries to fix it in a 'ha ha-oops, what I really meant was ..." follow up. I'm sure you get the picture.

And - I have smiled and gritted my teeth and made the acceptable, polite, expected response. And then I've wondered: Is it my fault? Is it me?

At gym on Tuesday I realised: it is me.

The last few minutes of a yoga class involve a headstand, a breathing exercise and a short relaxation meditation. This section lasts (tops) 10 minutes. Our yoga studio backs onto the free weights area and there is a loud thunkathunk going on - like a heavy weight hitting the wall repeatedly. The yoga teacher comes back from her foray to discover what the noise is, only to tell us that the guy who is doing it refuses to stop, was aggressive and ... well we will have to deal with it.

Only that's not possible - it gets louder and thunkier and I think 'Fuck It' - and go out. The man hurling the ball at the wall is sweating all over the floor. He pretends not to see me. So I move directly in front of him, look him in the eye and ask him sweetly if he will stop his tossing until we finish our meditation. He takes out his gumguard (who knew people wore these to gym), wipes the spit on his shirt and tells me NO. I won't bore with the whole discussion but let's just say he felt he had paid to throw the ball at the wall and didn't give a shit that twenty other people had paid to meditate inside a studio.

I had a choice at that point. To do what I have been doing these past 5 years and deal. Or to stand my ground. My tipping point. So I told him I wouldn't be moving. And if he wanted to throw the ball against the wall - then he would have to throw it at me. Because I was going to make sure 20 people got their (now) 6 mins of relaxation. He said fine - he would do just that and feinted the 5kg ball at my face. I stayed quite still and pointed out that this would be the most expensive gym lesson of his life. And he moved to throw it at me again. I stood my ground. He shifted sideways, I shifted too. Eventually another guy came over and offered to catch the ball and sweat-boy had to back down.

Enough! If you are out there just waiting to project your shitty: mood, day, life, upbringing, relationship, hangover, manners, behaviour or attitude onto me: I issue fair warning - I am not taking it any more. I will be speaking out. I will be even more frank, more blunt and more forthright than I have been in the past. It will not be my intention to act with malice or cause hurt. But I will say what needs to be said.

Not because you deserve it - but because I do.

A rekindled love

I bought my Kindle to take along with me on a trip to Tanzania. I'd picked a place on the coast, near Tanga where there was very little, certainly no Zanzibari-type tourist stuff. To get there I had to take a tiny 8 seater plane - and I didn't want to lug a whole lot of books with me. Plus Maurits has one and the way his voice softened every time he talked about the device made me think I had to get one for myself. (Hmm just reread that - sounds a little suspect ....)

The kindle is the size of one side of a paperback. It can fit 100s of books, that you buy and download from Amazon. The books cost less than half the retail price in South Africa. And the selection is vast. I downloaded 10 books, a poker tournament game, a word game. Took my charger and off I went. The Kindle cost me £100, but for ease and breadth - worth every penny. I love it - and will be taking it on every trip with me from now on.

Some of the books I read were fantastic. Sitting on the porch of my tiny rondawel, and in my big old zanzibari bed, under the deet sprayed mozzie net: clicking the page turner. The most modern of experiences in a place that was really Africa. So here they are.

The Help: Katherine Stockett

Set in Jackson Mississippi - domestic workers tell about their lives - through the pen of a 23 year old, plantation owner's daughter. Every word of this book held me. There were no bum notes, nothing was off tune. It was a long, well crafted bluesy song.

In the afterword, Stockett quotes from Howard Rainer's Pulitzer Prize winning article, "Grady's Gift" http://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/01/magazine/grady-s-gift.html:

"There is no trickier subject for a writer from the South than that of affection between a black person and a white one in the unequal world of segregation. For the dishonesty upon which a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism."

Sums 'The Help' up perfectly. And, if you add Africa to the quote, after South - the story becomes even more poignantly relevant to this country and old wounds. This book is a must read - it's about women and how we think and the cruelties the popular inflict on the not so popular.

Room: Emma Donoghue

A kindnapped woman brings up her son, in a small room. The life Donoghue has created for the two of them inside this tiny space is quite incredible. And then they get out. The real world becomes the real threat. Stopped me in my tracks. Just incredible.

Water for Elephants: Sara Gruen

Easy read about the Benzini Brothers - a travelling Circus in just-post depression US. Loved the circus bits, did not like the bits in the Old Age home. Unnecessary device

I also read - and didn't hate but didn't love:

The Great Rock'n'Roll Novel: Life - Keith Richards

A bit like a 'not so good' Rolling Stones song. You know what it could be - but it doesn't quite hit the mark. Main things I learned are that Keith loves bangers and mash, Mick has large potatoes and a small sausage. Keith loves his wife. Keith loves to play guitar. Keith loved heroin. Best quote in the book came from Tom Waits: "I think nowadays there seems to be a deficit of wonder". Sums the book up perfectly

The Great British Novel: A Week in December - Sebastian Faulks

Apparently Faulks was almost knocked over by an unlit cyclist at night. A device he uses throughout the book to indicate moments of epiphany. I would love to have known what Faulks' own learning was. I can't put my finger on it in the book.

The main protagonist, a genius financier called John Vere, sets about to bring down a bank. And in so doing ruins a banking system and loses hundreds of African Farmers their businesses. But he is so one dimensional, we never understand why he decides to do this. There are so many other characters - too many possibly - and they all end up having dinner together. Though by the end of the book I couldn't remember why. Faulks also comments on alternate realities: Second Life and Reality TV - he creates a gameshow where people with psychiatric disorders compete for treatment, resulting in the predictable tragedy. But even that doesn't go anywhere.

I finished the book for the al-Rashids A couple who had made their fortune from Chutney, and their "almost-was-a-jihadist" son. Especially for Farooq, the father, who was being awarded an OBE at Buckingham palace and thought he would have to make conversation with the Queen. So he hires a complete prat to teach him about books. When all this sweet man needed was to read a couple of Dick Francis novels and to trust in himself.

Perhaps that was Faulks' ephiphany.

The Great American Novel: Freedom - Jonathan Frantzen

I loved The Corrections - all of it. The people, the situations: I cringed to recognize so much of my own life in them. I didn't feel the same with Freedom. No-one seemed real. The sex was just odd, the rockstar a parody, the husband completely unbelievable ... And, as for Patti - couldn't see her at all. The long bits on logging and drilling and birds seemed forced. I still am not sure why I finished this one. But I was relieved when I did.

Next up is The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Muhkerjee. It's a biography of cancer. The Great Medical Novel

Much ado about Bono

I'm back. And I am wondering why people interpret "Freedom of Speech" to mean - "You are free to say the things I want to hear."

U2 are in South Africa - traversing continents in a big boat with a giant claw and one heck of a live show. Their frontman does a series of roundtable press conferences and is asked what he thinks about the song "Shoot the Boer" (A Boer being Afrikaans for Farmer).

A loaded question that he would have been wise to swerve.

(As Background: The song has been used by the ANC Youth Leader Julius Malema to exhort his colleagues to action. Resulting in some people taking it literally. And in Malema getting what we call here "a good klap" from the senior ANC stalwarts: who know that this won't end well for anyone. However the old boys have a problem controlling Julius. See, they have been using him as a mouth to freely say the things they aren't brave enough to say themselves. So he just gave them the finger and took himself off to Harare to sing a duet with Bob Mugabe. Who just loved the whole idea. "Been doing it for YEARS, m'boy ...")

But I digress. So - the reporter asks the question, Bono shoulders bravely up and responds that there is a time and a place to sing these songs. In fact he and his uncles used to sing Irish Republican Army songs round the kitchen table when he was a wee lad. And, he continued, while struggle songs had a role to play it would be "pretty dumb" to play them in a "certain community".

Everyone immediately gets their broekies in a huge tangle ... and there's lots of throwing of tickets into rivers and howls of disapproval and slapping down of the race card ... how dare this upstart rockstar support the ANC's resident sayer of the unsayable. It's tantamount to a call to arms.

Steve Hofmeyer, a South African recording artist who is Afrikaans and a pretty argumentative fella, takes it all to heart. And, after ditching his tickets in the Jukskei, writes a parody of U2's Sunday Bloody Sunday (http://stevehofmeyr.co.za/website) and everybody's knickers take another twist as they turn on Steve. (Who once poured cold tea over a journalist because he blamed her for breaking up his marriage ... there's a civil protest for you)

And off all the aunties go again ... Round Two.

I am thinking about all this silliness last night as I am watching U2 show Cape Town the meaning of a good time; and I realise I really respect both of these men. Steve and Bono say what they think. And each puts his money where his mouth is. Bono into his charity. Steve into the river.

Freedom of speech and expression is freedom of speech and expression. And must include all aspects of that spectrum. Sometimes provocation and incitement are dangerous. Sometimes provocation and incitement are necessary to bring about freedom. Look at what has just happened in Egypt. Wouldn't have happened if everyone had just shut the hell up and stayed home.

If we determine what is allowed to be said and who it is allowed to be said by - however distasteful we personally might find the sentiments; that is censorship. Censorship and Freedom of Speech are incompatible bedfellows.

Any country that allows for Freedom of Speech, is then able to formulate laws to govern unacceptable behaviour that might arise from individual interpretations of that freedom. So, sing a song because you are pissed off with the way things are - we aren't going to jail you. However, we reserve the right to keep an eye on your behaviour.

Shoot anyone, regardless of why ... and you will be tried for murder.