If you’ve got murder on your mind, come to South Africa

Hmmm. I’ve just read that our Tourism Minister, wants to promote South Africa as a great destination for shipping cruises. May I suggest (dis)honourable Minister, that we’ll make more money promoting this country as the ultimate murder destination.

Yes, that’s right. If you’re thinking of knocking off someone, bring or lure them here. You will not find a more beautiful, accessible, murder-friendly destination in the world. Forget about Mexico, Afghanistan or Iraq; you need to do the deed without having to worry about getting knocked off yourself.

Your chances of getting caught are pretty slim; the incompetence of our police (dis)service is legendary. They’re however quite good at forming blue-light flashing, motorised convoys to escort our self-important, fat-arsed politicians around at break-neck speed on our soon-to-be open-tolled roads, forcing tax-paying citizens out of the way. That, and turning a blind eye to the looting of the treasury by our elected (sigh!) politicians.

However, you need to take cognizance of the following to ensure that your chances of being arrested are eliminated or minimised:

• Don’t plan your murder or hit in any area that is run by a competent Provincial Administration; that is to say, don’t do it in the Cape Province. Rather select any one of the other corrupt ANC-governed Provinces. Polokwane and the Eastern Cape are a good bet.
• Don’t hire shifty, good-for-nothing mini-bus taxi drivers as part of your hit squad. They’re likely to get caught after boasting about it in the local township shebeen (unofficial bar, to you foreigners). Don’t hire drug-peddling Nigerians either; they’re just good at extortion, fraud and peddling drugs off course. Don’t approach any of our politicians either; they may like stealing, and don’t give a hoot about crime, but I don’t think they’ll be party to murder.
• Don’t ask that cougar from Pretoria, who planned a hit on her rugby-playing boyfriend or anyone on honeymoon, for advice.

Now that you’re all set to get away with murder, please consider first spending some of your Euros and Dollars on normal touristy things; even visit some of our idle World Cup stadiums, or take a cruise. We could sure do with the money, and so could our politicians.

Our roads full of potholes, our government full of ass…..

I sense a song in there somewhere; maybe someone can come up with the rest of the lyrics…

Potholes have been much in the news recently, all over South Africa. We used to have arguably the most advanced and highly developed road network in the whole of Africa. But our tar is mysteriously vanishing, leaving gaping holes all over the place.

I just took delivery of a new car; and it’s become imperative to not only keep a keen watch for mini-bus taxi’s and tow-trucks gunning to wipe you off the road, but to also hone my pot-hole-avoidance skills. And I think I have discovered the trick to avoiding them (the potholes, that is) – obey the recommended following distance from the car in front of you (you know, the 1001, 1002 rule?). That way you will be able to see any potholes clearly behind the car in front; and enjoy a laugh watching it occasionally hit them.

However, having just discovered that trick, could someone tell me how to prevent the mini-bus taxi drivers from filling that gap between me and the car in front, which they think I have left for them to squeeze into? It’s a riot when they hit a pothole in the process, but not so funny when I happen to hit one they have obscured from my view, by brazenly appropriating the following distance I was meticulously maintaining. You just can’t win, can you?

While the disappearing tar is something of a mystery, why the holes left behind are not fixed, is no mystery at all. Where is the money to come from, with the government expropriating tax revenues for more important things like luxury cars and houses for themselves, tenders for their friends and family, roads for their country houses, re-naming of mostly potholed streets, lavish parties, useless conferences, even more useless advisors, hiring of common thugs for personal protection, more lavish parties, overseas trips, dictator-style motorcades, hiring of incompetent CEO’s to run state utilities, golden hand-shakes for self-same CEO’s as and when they’re fired, and the list goes on…

Our asshole politicians! What I wouldn’t give to see them all disappear forever down a massive pothole?