My part in the success or failure of the World Cup

When Gabrielli tells me that the Germans, of all people, expected a bit more World Cup fever from us I decide to oblige her.

Although I had thought that that I had done my bit when I flagged my sister's car, I can now clearly see that this is far below what is required ... so I buy two lighters ... ever-patriotic, one with the SA flag on and another with a soccer ball motif.

I also launch an awareness campaign about the flags, asking all and sundry where their damn flags are.

To test the efficacy of my campaign I ask Charles Moore and his son Kieran to help me spot flags on the way to Kieran's school and further on our way to work.

They jump to the task at hand with diligence and here are the first results:

Yesterday we counted 24 flags up to Kieran's school and a further 40 to Randburg for a total of 64. That is our baseline then.

I counted a further 16 on during the day but that will not be part of the official statistics ... Ok I like counting stuff so what?!

I like to keep stuff scientific, so the only numbers that will count here is that of the early morning trip between Melville and Randburg with a slight detour to Parkview to drop off Kieran.

I only do this trip on Wednesdays and Thursdays so I will give you a weekly update on Thursdays.

But the early results are heartening. This morning we counted 26 to Kieran's school and a further 49 to Randburg for a grand total of 75 ... My efforts are clearly paying off.

A further bracing sign that World Cup fever is taking hold of South Africa is that my friends spontaneously started talking about it on Tuesday evening.

The talk began about who we think is going to win ... Germany got a couple of votes ... to who are our favourite 'second' teams. Jan likes Holland, Vince likes Germany, I like France, Carol likes ... I can't remember and John does not express himself ... as is often the case with John.

Then the conversation inevitably turns to the chances of Bafana Bafana. Carol says that she's sure they'll surprise us by reaching the second round. I secretly hope that she's right but my brain tells me otherwise. Jan says he'll bet her R1000 that they would not.

In fact, he says, he won't even bet her that ... he will GIVE her R1000 if they reach the second round and Vince pitches in that he would GIVE her a R100 for every goal they score ... he stipulates in the contract that this offer excluded own-goals.

So yes all things considered it would seem that my efforts to make the World Cup a success are on the right track and I'll keep you posted about my progress.

But do not expect too much too soon. I pointed out to Gabrielli that we South Africans of all colours tend to be 'last minute people'. Our history is full of telling examples of this tendency.

Just take our recent history to begin with. In the early '90s we found found ourselves on the brink of civil war many a time but we always turned away from it at the last minute ... we decided to take HIV/Aids seriously at the last minute (some would say way beyond the last minute) Julius Malema got disciplined by his party at the last minute ... some would say way beyond ... the government started to focus on our looming electricity crisis at the last minute ... some would say ... most World Cup preparations will only start functioning at the last minute ... and some way beyond the last minute .... but you get the drift.

So I am convinced that by the time most WC visitors arrive WC fever will be in full swing and everybody is going to have a great time.

Germany rejects my use of the word 'darkies' and race relations in South Africa

I share my office with three darkies. They are Ntoks, the darkie female anchor of the show, Fortune, I don't know exactly what Fortune does, but he is the only darkie follower of my blog and he laughs a lot so I quite like him ... and then there's the Erudite Mister Zee.

They are all much younger than me and probably earn much more money than I do. (There is a reason I mention this.)

Mr Zee is the marketing manager of 50/50, the environmental show that I work for. He wants to be called only Zee but screw him ... he is a Mister.

The reason for this is that it was him who helped me through my ordeal of the first two weeks in my new job.

I once told him in that time: "Zee if you cheat on your wife ... just tell her that you have a helpless Boer in your office and he is taking up all your time with ... well requests for this ... HELP! And Mr Zee saw my pain and helped.

So after Gabrielli complained about my usage of the word 'darkies' I felt that I needed to consult them before writing this.

You must remember that I worked for a blue-collar working class newspaper, Daily Sun, where the word darkie was common currency as in: "Hey Temba is this a darkie word?" Meaning will darkies understand it ...? That is how we speak here.

You must also remember that English is the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th, or 13th language for most people here.

So I poll my three darkie office companions about Gabrielli's complaint.

Ntoks says no it's not offensive.
Fortune says no it's not offensive.

The Erudite Mr Zee is on the phone, so I wait for him to be done before I publish the result of the poll.

Finally, I get Mr Zee's erudite attention about the question in question and he explains to me thus (and I paraphrase): "I don't find it offensive in itself ... that's how we speak here. But you must remember where the Germans are coming from ... you know the holocaust and so on ... but their collective feelings of guilt is for a past sin that was committed by their forebears with very few of the victims still in evidence. Germany has apologised and that was good.

"But here in South Africa the former oppressed and the former oppressor are dealing with each other on a daily basis... in your face ... and we must just get on with it."

Mr Zee also pointed out to me that it would have been offensive if I wrote about 'white people' and then 'darkies', but since I talked about whiteys and darkies in the same sentence ... it is how we speak here.

Meanwhile I trained Madelein to do my job because they need a back-up for me because the program (computer programs are spelled like that ... even in non-American) that we work on is full of snags and i don't want anybody to go through the same ordeal ... being dumped into a very deep pool of not knowing anything. The worst fate possible with tight deadlines.

Madi is full of nervous energy and she has not had a structured job for a long time ... she calls Zee... Doctor Zee ... you see ... race relations in South Africa ... they are really relations ... not issues.

And then again I spotted 34 flags on cars today ... I do not count those covers on the rearview mirrors of cars ... just flying the flag and more and more people are flying the flags of their 'other team' because the consensus is that our team ain't gonna makew it past the first round.