Paul Janisch

Joseph "Shaka" Nkadimeng

Let's say you came across Joseph "Shaka" Nkadimeng and were tempted to do business with him. Try to fight off the temptation

Pyramus and Thisbe 10. Oliver hits double figures

Meet DJ Divide - known here as Oliver Janisch.  If I had my way he would have been Peter Green Divide - but I have learned the hard way that your children will do what they will do and no amount of Zapparing or Peter Greening will change that state of affairs.

Every year brings different aspects to Oliver's childhood and every year he excels at something else.  This year was extraordinary for him.  He has found his rhythm at school.  And is just the most amazing (opinionated I stress) child.

Where do we start with this year?  So much has happened, the last 8 months have been so fluid that I don't think I can look back much further than that. Maybe I can go back as far as December where the young man decided to walk down a banister whilst we were on holiday.  We rented a house in Scarborough which is not known for its cellphone signal - in fact it has no signal at all.  I asked Oliver what his plan was here - he said to me he would jump down.  He slipped immediately afterwards and broke his arm.  His mother was out with the the car and I couldn't find a signal to call her.  He's a brave little kid and sat in pain until his mother came home and schlepped him over the mountain to the nearest hospital.  He earned a few bragging rights as a result.

But it was rugby that liberated him.  Oliver is a very broad shouldered kid.  This is because he spends hours on the trampoline (and he has two) with his Playmobil man.  This man is a very important part of his life.  It's like a kid's teddy bear.  He wears them out and then he'll get another one.  They are this conduit for his imagination.  Every night we get "have you seen my man?" routine, it seems as if this toy is a sleep inducing placebo as well.  Back to rugby.  The school offers rugby from Standard one (I know it's called grade 3) and Oliver made the E team.  It's chaos on the field - Oliver just picks up the ball and runs and everyone runs towards the runner.  He was the top scorer in the grade and eventually made his way up the ranks to the C team.  No sooner had the rugby season ended when the soccer season started, but he wanted to play rugby.  His mother had heard of a few kids at his school who were interested in playing rugby at Pirates,  the only issue was that practice was held on Wednesday and Friday nights with games on Saturdays.  Oliver and I went to Pirates on a cold Wednesday night just to check it out.  Oliver was kitted out in his soccer boots and school rugby kit.  After about half an hour he said he wanted to go out and play.  We asked the coach if he could come on the field and Oliver got stuck in, he had to take his shoes off because they play barefoot.  The thing is that club rugby is at a very different level to school rugby.  He ended up playing with kids from a wide variety of schools, many of them Afrikaans speaking who are fantastic players, better than anything his school could field.  But he got involved and was accepted by his teammates.  And my god he got fit - there they just run.  He also learned to play 15-a-side rugby and in positions too.  He found his home as a flank. Because there is a clash between club and school sport we were just happy that he came and practiced with the other kids.  But he made the team and he played a lot of games - not only did he get stuck in but he stuck it out.   None of the other kids in his grade got as far as he did, I don't think any of them actually pitched for a practice.

And it was the rugby that brought on a love for sport.  He's got a long way to go but the seed is sown and he loves it. He is also starting to understand the importance of practice and hard work - he's more than happy playing for a lower team and enjoying the game and accepting promotions when and if they come.

Why then the title "Pyramus and Thisbe"?   There was a Shakespeare quiz that was really for highschool kids.  Oliver's teacher decided to enter a team from his school who just happened to be about 8 years younger than their fellow competitors.  His team mates were given extra lessons and we bought as many Shakespeare books as we could find - Oliver read the lot.  He also spent a lot of time on YouTube researching.  The four of them went to the childrens' theatre in Johannesburg and set themselves up.  They were leading the points after the first round.  And then the questions became very technical and specific about different plays.  There was one question which was about Midsummer Night's Dream and the play within the play - and Oliver blurted out "Pyramus and Thisbe".  I almost burst into tears - I'm quite tearful writing this actually.  They came sixth out of eight teams and his school and parents and grandparents were ecstatic.  They got a special mention at school assembly the next morning.

Oliver is a fantastic child, a very loved and special son and somewhat inflammatory brother, but a protective, inflammatory brother.  He got his first speaking part in the school play and delivered it with guts and aplomb.  It’s been a year of finding his feet, both at school and home.  These last ten years haven the most amazing decade of my life.  And I can't wait to see what the next year brings. One thing is for sure - it will involve reading more books than the school library has to offer him.  We've had to join the public library to keep up with his voracious reading appetite.

Thank you my wonderful son, thank you for being you.  You are the most amazing you I have ever known.

Now let's not stray from tradition.  It's my tradition that is not specifically appreciated by my son but he can start writing his own blog posts and putting up his own music.

 09 - Peter Green - Little Dreamer

Happy birthday Peter Green.  A track taken from the seventies, his very lost period (the eighties were worse for him).  But Oliver is a little dreamer, it's very apt.

10- The Blues

It's also Denny Laine's birthday.  It's sad that history is in the process of forgetting Denny Laine.  McCartney's Wings success was very dependent on Denny's consistency.  Happy birthday Denny.

14 - Tempest - Yeah Yeah Yeah

Ollie Halsall's closest brush with commerciality was with Tempest. Not his birthday but tradition dictates that we include an Ollie song every birthday.

Happy Birthday my wonderful, talented and stunning eldest son.

Maslow was right - the anc are clueless

Abraham Maslow's theory has been accepted, criticised and lambasted.  The anc government hasn't bothered with any of that, they've just plain ignored it.  I believe there are some people within that cabinet with a modicum of competence,  but such competence is negated by the overwhelming stupidity of the legislators.

Maslow's assumption is that human beings need to satisfy a series of underlying needs before they can move onto the next level.  In order to be safe you need to be alive, to be alive you need food and water.  Once you've got that you can move on.  

And yet our patsy abagig sings his smug song about the lack of transformaysheein in the economy, as if it wasn't his fault. 

According to the mini budget announced by Finance Minister Malusi Gigaba on Wednesday, the persistent weak economic growth is "reinforcing" the country’s socio-economic exclusion.

More than 30 million South Africans live in poverty, and unemployment is at its highest rate since September 2003, at 27.7%. Wealth also remains highly concentrated, with 95% of it in the hands of 10% of the population, said Gigaba.

Quoting OR Tambo in his address, Gigaba reiterated the importance of achieving economic transformation.

"The issues as to how the wealth of the country is redistributed for the benefit of all our people, how the economy is remoulded in order that all South Africans may thrive and prosper, are of prime importance and should find their solutions in the context of democracy."

I want to plug his populist mumbojumbo into Maslow's hierarchy.  The economy would probably reside at the Safety level (orange in the graphic), transformation sits just above that at the Love/belonging level.  Your success in the economy is achieved as each of the underlying needs are realised.  Therein lies the problem - the economy is broken.  Transformation as per bolshie bob's vision (strong like mother Russia) is doomed to fail under these circumstances.  There is no money for education when the government has broken the education system.  Supplier development is an expense that few can afford, because it takes away from their core focus.  Corporates cannot afford to train employees at the level the codes would like because the company would be operated by white folk as all the black people would be on courses.  And let's face it, you learn everything you do on the job.

That's why that smug moron (killer of our economy) went for the financial sector, it's a soft target.  It's also a target that isn't going to easily pander to his toothy wishes - that makes it even more of a target.

I might have said this before.  I don't see black economic empowerment going anywhere soon unless of course the EFF (even they get to be addressed in the uppercase) takes over.  If they get the government there'll be nothing left to transform.  The anc (in its current guise) need BEE because they need it to fail.  They've fucked up the country so badly that they now need to blame the wealthy 10% for their own ineptitude.   The DA on the other and need BEE and they need it to succeed.

The sooner we get rid of these idiots the better.  

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abagig the orator and budget speech deliverer

Not the most eloquent of people.  But I listened to it and I thought it was well delivered. He seems to have balanced zuma's pilfery well with a country that hates him.  But this is not a platform to comment on gigaba's speech (and yes he will remain in lowercase because he is in fact a zuma/gupta patsy).  However he did speak (just like Johnny Rotten would) about the transformaysheein of the financial sector.  He says he and bolshie bob are in favour of the latest draft of the FSC and that some NEDLAC meeting will happen net year to align this with the joke that are bob's revised codes.  And I quote

Honourable Speaker, we also need a transformative financial sector – a sector that is not only transformed, but is transformative to the economy. The Standing Committee on Finance has done excellent work over the past few months holding hearings on all aspects of financial sector transformation. There is consensus that more can be done in transforming the sector. Their draft report carefully balances the competing interests of the nation as a whole, foreign investors, borrowers, lenders and ordinary South Africans.

This report will assist in preparing for the Financial Sector Summit that we hope will be convened early next year, so that we can take stronger steps in developing appropriate targets for the Financial Sector Charter which accelerate broader transformation.

In the interim, Minister Davies and I support the latest version of the financial sector charter all stakeholders have developed in the last two years, to comply with the latest BEE codes. The development of Sector codes is an integral and strategic vehicle to advance transformation in the economy at sectoral level. Sector codes provide sector stakeholders an opportunity to develop a common vision for the growth and transformation of their sector.

The new financial sector code, supported by all stakeholders, sees transformation as being about not only ownership, but also skills development, targets for empowerment finance, access to credit, management control, and the provision of services to previously underserved areas.

I don't know which draft that is - but this one has been doing the rounds for the last couple of years.  If asked - I have no idea where and how I got it. It's a Word document - that makes for great editing.

Let's see where this takes us 

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David Kalmin - a very sad loss

David Kalmin was one of those people whose glass was more than half full, it was positively overflowing.  He was the person who would look at adversity as an opportunity.  In fact adversity excited him.  

I met David about five years ago.  I needed a company to do my BEE certificates that was closer to my offices. I went onto the IRBA website and found a company in Bompas Road.  I called him up and he was so accommodating.  He knew what the rules were and knew what interpretations were beneficial for the client and ran his business like that.  David was always about the client.  When the new codes came into effect a few years ago David called me before 8AM telling me how we would solve all the BEE problems of the world and sort out issues and shareholders etc.  My take was "David, the fundamental principles are wrong - how can we advise and provide solutions when the whole thing is wrong?".  David was never like that - rules and legislation meant solutions. Every time another rule was promulgated David was figuring out how to solve these issues.

I know very little about his private life, he had a few children in Australia and the US who are all professionals.  And he spent a fair amount of time in Australia with his family and I believe he recently met his first grandchild.  I could never figure out what kept him in South Africa other than his mother, who he lost a few months ago.  The truth was that David was committed to South Africa, he had looked at business opportunities in Australia (which is what you would expect from him) but he told me often that South Africa is the land of opportunity and he was going to stay.

David succumbed to cancer early this morning.  I had no idea that he was sick.  He kept it under wraps.  The last few weeks were apparently really hard for him. He would come into the office for 30 minutes and then would have no juice left.  His last meeting was on Friday.  He has however left a business in extremely capable hands - another thing that you would have expected from him.

David was a brave man, an inspiration to me and probably to many people.  I am really happy that I got to know him and to learn at the knee of the master.

Thank you David.  Thank you from all of us - my kids know you as the Oreo man.  I am going to miss you terribly.