Saturday, June 12, 2010

I am back on my old hobbyhorse again. Sometimes this world makes me really sick. The world cup is on, South Africa rejoices. Evidently the WAGS as they are called, footballers’ wives and girl friends of the English team, the camp flowers, having been forbidden to camp out with their males are camping instead in Sun City. Camping? A room costs £5000 a night and should the desire strike they can purchase a designer handbag for the same price while right next door there is the direst poverty. What does one make of it? What can one make of it? This is not envy because my government pension only comes to about 5000 a year, let alone a month, let alone a week, let alone a day! No, it is not envy, we have been living quite comfortably on what comes into this house, a fraction of a footballer’s earnings or the money his girl friend spends but it does make me wonder whether or not these people have any conscience about the state of world affairs or the state of the Africans around their luxury. Enough, enough. Much as I would like to I can’t change the world but I would like to think if those girls gave just one twentieth of their nightly costs to the local community what a difference that would make to a lot of lives.
How important is the world cup to South Africa? Very important I would imagine though, when it is all over, with all the millions that have been spent on infrastructure and the building of these wonderful stadiums, what will be in it for the poor people already mentioned? Will it have made any difference to their lives? One certainly hopes so. There will be those of course who, in a position to do so, will have grown even richer because of it.
What a great shame that Mandela at the age of 91 could not attend the opening ceremony because of the death of his thirteen year old granddaughter in a car crash.
Have extended a couple of scenes in the play and am going to go through it one last time today to make sure there are no mistakes. We sent it to Ceri Wiercx to read and she came up with half a dozen neither Douglas nor I saw. Proof reading as I have probably said before is truly an art. Well, let’s hope they have now all been eliminated.

2 comments:

Lewis said...

Napoleon encouraged his generals and new aristocracy to spend lavishly, so that their wealth should trickle down to the suppliers, artisans, servants.
Let these useless drones spend their money in Botswana, where it's needed, rather than in Dubai or New York. OK, much of it goes to the hotel owners, but you can't win all the rounds.

Anonymous said...

Football is boring. Kick the ball ... then kick some more ... then kick a little more ... then the kicking is finished and the game is over. I'm supposed to get all in a dither over a kicking a ball.
I'd rather watch paint dry.