Popups From Hell -1

This is is from Windows Explorer in Microsoft Windows XP. I used a right button drag on a mapped drive. I was expecting the options I normally get when I use a right button drag on my local drives but Windows displayed this popup.



So it recognises that I could be wanting to copy or move the folder. But what is a zone? I am a seasoned Windows user and do not know what "zone" means in this context. How much more the use of this term must confuse a less seasoned user.

Rather than presenting the options as I am used to I am now asked a question. So the idioms are inconsistent.

Then I am presented with two buttons; Yes and No.

Who ever thought that Yes and No are the logical possible responses the the question "Do you want to move or copy files from this zone?"?

Its like the silly, nonsensical response we often make when we're asked a question like "Do you want tea or coffee?" and we answer "Yes".

Which button do I click to move the files and which button do I click to copy the files?

So let's itemise the issues in this one little popup:
- Inconsistent idiom for right button drag in Windows Explorer.
- Use of obscure terminology.
- Option labels totally nonsensical when compared with the option selection I need to make.

Oh ... did you notice the banner on the popup? Remember I was using Windows Explorer.

And the icon ... What? Why?

Defaults from Hell - 1

Microsoft Word 2007 - Insert Picture

I create a lot of mockup images in my design process. I insert these into my specification documents. My project folders are structured so that different types of images for different projects are in different folders.

The MS Word Insert Picture function forces me to go to a default folder every time I want to insert an image.

When I am working in an area of a design I tend to use images in a specific folder for a while then later I will use images from a different folder.

I don't mind having to navigate to a specific folder the first time I use an image from that folder. What gets me really hacked off is that the Insert Picture function does not bother to remember where I went the last time because I will probably go there the next time I need an image. I don't mind navigating to a different folder when I start using a different folder. The function makes me navigate from the same starting point every time I want to insert an image.

I don't want to change my default folder, I want to keep my default folder as the overall basket folder for all my projects. The navigation to any one of the image folders is not that onerous by itself. It just gets terribly annoying when I have to do it EVERY SINGLE TIME I GO TO THE SAME FOLDER!!!!!!!

This is not a radical concept ... Corel, for example, have used this approach for years.

Scott Adams (Dilbert)

When I first started hearing these stories [about irrational corporate behavior] I was puzzled, but after careful analysis I have developed a sophisticated theory to explain the existence of this bizarre workplace behavior. People are idiots.

Including me. Everyone is an idiot, not just the people with low SAT scores. The only difference among us is that we're idiots about different things at different times. No matter how smart you are, you spend much of your day being an idiot.

Heaven helps those who help themselves

No this is not a post about politicians ...

"Heaven helps those who help themselves" is a well-tried maxim, embodying in a small compass the results of vast human experience. The spirit of self-help is the root of all genuine growth in the individual; and, exhibited in the lives of many, it constitutes the true source of national vigour and strength. Help from without is often enfeebling in its effects, but help from within invariably invigorates. Whatever is done for men or classes, to a certain extent takes away the stimulus and necessity of doing for themselves; and where men are subjected to over-guidance and over-government, the inevitable tendency is to render them comparatively helpless.

~ Samuel Smiles ~

Evil People

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ~

Les Paul, 1915 - 2009

It has taken a long time for me to get to this. My life has been very disrupted. Slowly but surely I am putting my life back on track and paying tribute to this great man has been in the back of my head for a long time ...

I have had a push-pull relationship with music for most of my life and have had a hankering to play guitar since high school. I have tried at various times with various levels of determination and many a hard realisation that I have far more love for music than talent for playing music.

In my twenties, round about the mid 1970's, I bought a second hand gold top Gibson Les Paul. I wish I knew then what I know now about guitars. I also wish I had some photographs of that guitar. It seems I might have had a '59. In those days nobody had realised how legendary those guitars were going to be.



That guitar was far more of an instrument than I was able to use but friends who were better musicians were constantly asking to play it or borrow it for gigs.

Then life happened. I became less involved in the music world and I ended up in a tight financial situation where I sold many of my belongings, including the Les Paul, a Vox AC15 amplifier and a Gibson EB2 bass guitar.

It is only many years later as, my love of music has grown and I have also absorbed so much of the lore of music and appreciate the significance of a number of key instruments, that I grasp what I had.



The Gibson Les Paul is one of those key instruments that changed musical history. And Les Paul is one of those key people who changed musical history.



Here are some of the outpouring of tributes that followed his death on 13 August this year.

Rolling Stone magazine

Vanity Fair

Los Angeles Times



Gibson Guitars

Gibson Guitars second article

GuitarNoize

PBS

PBS - Les Paul Career Timeline

And some general information from Wikipedia




Les Paul, the world and music are better for your life.

Marshmallows, Success and the Department of Education

Here's a thought provoking article ...

Around 1970, psychologist Walter Mischel launched a classic experiment. He left a succession of 4-year-olds in a room with a bell and a marshmallow. If they rang the bell, he would come back and they could eat the marshmallow. If, however, they didn't ring the bell and waited for him to come back on his own, they could then have two marshmallows.

In videos of the experiment, you can see the children squirming, kicking, hiding their eyes -- desperately trying to exercise self-control so they can wait and get two marshmallows. Their performance varied widely. Some broke down and rang the bell within a minute. Others lasted 15 minutes.

The children who waited longer went on to get higher SAT scores. They got into better colleges and had, on average, better adult outcomes. The children who rang the bell quickest were more likely to become bullies. They received worse teacher and parental evaluations 10 years later and were more likely to have drug problems at age 32.

The Mischel experiments are worth noting because people in the policy world spend a lot of time thinking about how to improve education, how to reduce poverty, how to make the most of the nation's human capital. But when policymakers address these problems, they come up with structural remedies: reduce class sizes, create more charter schools, increase teacher pay, mandate universal day care and try vouchers.

The results of these structural reforms are almost always disappointingly modest. Yet policymakers rarely ever probe deeper into problems and ask the core questions, such as how do we get people to master the sort of self-control that leads to success? To ask that question is to leave the policymakers' comfort zone -- which is the world of inputs and outputs, appropriations and bureaucratic reform -- and to enter the murky world of psychology and human nature.

Yet the Mischel experiments, along with everyday experience, tell us that self-control is essential. Young people who can delay gratification can sit through sometimes boring classes to get a degree. They can perform rote tasks in order to, say, master a language. They can avoid drugs and alcohol. For people without self-control skills, however, school is a series of failed ordeals. No wonder they drop out. Life is a parade of foolish decisions: teenage pregnancy, drug use, gambling, truancy and crime.

If you're a policymaker and you are not talking about core psychological traits such as delayed gratification skills, then you're just dancing around with proxy issues. The research we do have on delayed gratification tells us that differences in self-control skills are deeply rooted but also malleable. Differences in the ability to focus attention and exercise control emerge very early, perhaps as soon as nine months. But there is no consensus on how much of the ability to exercise self-control is hereditary and how much is environmental.

The ability to delay gratification, like most skills, correlates with socioeconomic status and parenting styles. Children from poorer homes do much worse on delayed gratification tests than children from middle-class homes. That's probably because children from poorer homes are more likely to have their lives disrupted by marital breakdown, violence, moving, etc. They think in the short term because there is no predictable long term.

The good news is that while differences in the ability to delay gratification emerge early and persist, that ability can be improved with conscious effort. Moral lectures don't work. Sheer willpower doesn't seem to work either. The children who resisted eating the marshmallow didn't stare directly at it and exercise iron discipline. On the contrary, they were able to resist their appetites because they were able to think about other things.

What works, says Jonathan Haidt, the author of "The Happiness Hypothesis," is creating stable, predictable environments for children, in which good behavior pays off -- and practice. Young people who are given a series of tests that demand self-control get better at it.

This pattern would be too obvious to mention if it weren't so largely ignored by educators and policymakers. Somehow we've entered a world in which we obsess over structural reforms and standardized tests, but skirt around the moral and psychological traits that are at the heart of actual success. Mischel tried to interest New York schools in programs based on his research. Needless to say, he found almost no takers.

I wonder whether he would find any receptive ears amongst our Department of Basic Education's strategists. Or for that matter within the Department of Social Development.

Crestuma - 2009 World Canoeing Marathon Champs

From Canoeing South Africa Newsletter


Front bunch including Ant Stott and Ruby

Pics copied from Jenna Ward's Facebook album.

The successful South African Marathon Kayaking team returned to a hero’s welcome yesterday, proudly showing off two new World Champions. Gauteng brothers Grant and Brandon van der Walt both won the World title in their respective K1 age groups – a first in world marathon paddling history.

Senior K2 silver medallist Shaun Rubenstein was also celebrated for his outstanding result with partner Ant Stott, who is in England for a week.

The past weekend’s ICF Marathon World Championships in Portugal were widely recognised as the toughest yet raced, with the highest turnout of returning champions ever.

Younger brother Brandon van der Walt got the regatta off to the ideal start for South Africa on Friday morning, when he raced a tactically astute race belying his 17 years to win the gold medal in the opening Junior U18 Men’s event. “It was a huge honour to win the Junior title because my older brother [Grant] had won it before. It was also something for my parents. They have sacrificed so much to help my paddling so it was a good way to say thank you and repay them,” said Brandon.

He crossed the line to rapturous shouting and screaming from the large SA team, who had lined the bank flying flags and blowing vuvuzela’s.

Brandon also predicted his brother’s win later in that afternoon. Grant’s K1 victory in the U23 race backed up the Junior title he won two years ago in Hungary.


Grant vd Walt

This was the first year the International Canoe Federation included the U23 as a stand-alone marathon class, and the event was raced at a very high standard. The powerhouse 19-year-old had to deal with a delayed start to his event, and then recover from a capsize at the end of the first portage. Such was his strength of character, that he quickly put these behind him to control the rest of the race and leave all challengers in his wake on the finish line.

The Senior Men’s K2 event that took place on Sunday afternoon was one of the highlights of the weekend. It featured a host of previous winners and set off at an incredibly fast pace.

“The first 1.5km to the turn was one of the hardest of my life. Every boat was just so fast and the attacks and surges of maximum speed were non-stop all the way to the first turn,” said defending K2 World Champion Ant Stott afterwards. “Our heart rates were through the roof, and we did our best to try and relax slightly before the first portage. It was World Champs though, so you can’t expect to come into the race and not have to go through scary amounts of physical pain,” he added.


Ant Stott and Shaun Rubinstein

The first portage split the field up, with the South Africans finding themselves in a four boat breakaway up front. “All three crews behind us were known for their strong grinding ability, so we had to work hard to make sure that we were not caught. In our group the Czech boat had a very strong pull and they weren’t scared to use it, which helped keep us clear from the rest of the field,” explained previous K1 World Champion Shaun Rubenstein.

The bunch stayed together until the last portage, where the South Africans put in slightly after the Spanish boat. Feeling good, and with 250m to the finish line, Rubenstein and Stott decided to make their move. They pulled up alongside and then overtook them, but the Spaniards came back and edged in front to win by a boatlength on the line.

“Even though it was disappointing not to win gold, the Spanish were the stronger crew on the day and deserved to win,” said a humble Rubenstein after the race.

The sprint ace had raced a titanic K1 race the day before, which was described as one of the most exciting races Marathon has ever seen.

After a bad start, Rubenstein staged an amazing fight back to claw his way onto the front bunch by the fourth lap of seven, but there was not enough in the tank for the tough end sprint and he missed out on a medal by two seconds.

Stott and Rubenstein’s silver means both athletes have now won four Senior World Marathon medals, including gold and bronze – a unique achievement in South African paddling.


Len Jenkins


Hank McGregor and Grant vd Walt


Bridgitte Hartley - I hope to get race details for her race before too long.

For Shirley-Anne, from Conor

Conor knows that Shirley-Anne loves columns so Shirley-Anne this is for you ...



... and close up ...

Conor's First Evening in London

This was Conor's first trip overseas and so I wanted to get him to experience some 'real' sightseeing as soon as we got to London. Especially after the disappointment of the Egyptair flight.

So once we had settled a bit at my sister's place we did a quick trip into sightseeing London.

We caught a bus to St Paul's cathedral, which I knew would be unlike anything he has ever seen. He took about a zillion pics of all sorts of views of St Paul's and then we walked towards the Thames and the Millenium Bridge.



We timed this well as we saw the bridge get destroyed just 3 days later on the night Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince was released.



After that we took a stroll along the south bank of the Thames to Waterloo Bridge where we caught a bus back to my sister.

Graffiti

To do is to be
Rene Descartes


To be is to do
Jean Paul Sartre


Doobee doobee doo
Frank Sinatra

Build Up ... and ... Reality

This was to be Conor's first trip out of South Africa and his first time in a plane.

He has been nervous about planes for quite some time.

One of the things I told him about to try and help him overcome his anxiety about flying was about in flight entertainment.

I have flown internationally a fair bit and so he thinks I am a bit of an authority on air travel!

So he was really looking forward to playing games and watching movies all night during our flights.

The fact that we were traveling on tight budget plus some other factors meant we ended up flying Egyptair. My first time with them.

Here is the reality that we faced as we got to our seats ...

Your Egyptair personalised in flight entertainment control console ...



... and ... your Egyptair in flight entertainment display ...



Take a closer look at the hi-def display ...

Pictures Tell Stories

A picture is worth a thousand words ...

Boy o boy is that true.

I was looking through some pics of Conor's and my UK trip and I was staggered to see the story in some of the pictures of me.



The first picture was taken just over a month after Madelaine told me she wanted to get divorced.

It was taken at the airport on the evening Conor and I flew out of Joburg.

I look a the picture and again I feel incredibly ravaged, like bulldozers had scraped the insides out of me.

I couldn't see past surviving the next few minutes.



The second picture was taken a few weeks ago, roughly two months after the first picture.

I have accepted the divorce and that my marriage is over.

I recognise that I have a new life to live.

Although we haven't gotten through the "process" of getting divorced and there are many challenges to face and deal with before that phase is finished; I am using every spare bit of emotional energy to start laying down the pieces of my new life.

I have a future and I will find ways to thrive in that future.

Come to Think About it

Maybe good ole Jake didn't have to accept the increase.

Maybe he could have given an example, or showed some sensitivity, or moral leadership ...

Lucky for Some

Just last week we read about gross mismanagement within ESKOM.

A leaked confidential internal memo from Eskom reveals gross mismanagement of funds during the procurement of capital and management of coal supplies, a Democratic Alliance MP said on Thursday.

"Given the seriousness of the allegations made in this memo, it is clearly now incumbent upon the Minister of Energy to take action against the gross mismanagement of the coal procurement process at Eskom," Cobus Schmidt said.

The document, which has reportedly been made available to the DA, is entitled "Forensic Investigation: Claims against Suppliers", and deals with alleged irregularities in the supply of coal to Eskom. Schmidt said the memo demonstrated glaring oversight failures on the part of Eskom.

"The total claims for damages suffered amounts to more than R100-million, but Eskom has yet to take any action against these suppliers.

The memo refers to an investigation carried out by Deloitte and Touche, which revealed that gross irregularities amounting to unlawful, and probably illegal, conduct had taken place on a massive scale over several years.

"In sum, Eskom appears to be entirely incapable of managing the procurement of coal, leading to enormous losses, which ultimately come at the taxpayers' expense.

Then there's the ESKOM 9.7 BILLION Rand loss for the 2009 financial year.

Eskom plunged deeper into the red, reporting a full-year loss of 9.7 billion rand ($1.24 billion) for the 2009 financial year to the end of March, hit by higher coal, maintenance and labour costs, against a revised loss of 168 million rand for the previous year.

The global economic crisis badly hit the utility's ability to borrow, and Eskom was forced to buy coal on more expansive short-term contracts to boost supply last year when the national grid nearly collapsed, forcing mines to shut.

Its loss could further impact the company's rating and its ability to source external funding.

Earlier in the year NUM Workers at ESKOM were awarded a 10.55% wage increase nearly 3.5% below the 14% increase they were demanding. They were told that ESKOM had no money to give a higher increase.

Luckily they found some money to give good ole Jake (Maroga) a nice increase; 26.7%. Oh yes, and performance shares worth around R680 000. Oh, and expect bonus shares in 2011.

When questioned about this, good ole Jake replied that he had not asked for the increase but that it had been decided for him. And by implication thrust upon him.

And maybe by implication as well that he had no option but to accept.

Imagine if he had actually been doing a good job ...

You Had Us Wondering, Blaze

South African Communist Party (SACP) general secretary Blade Nzimande, recently involved in a furore over his R1,1-million luxury official vehicle, is still a communist and committed to the working class, he said on Friday.

"I have not abandoned my values. I don't think I've abandoned my moral leadership. I am still a communist, I am still committed to the working class," he said.

"I am still committed to taking up the issues relating to the poor and we did explain what happened in relation to that vehicle," Nzimande, who is also Higher Education Minister, said on the sidelines of the South African Democratic Teachers' Union (Sadtu) national general council in Benoni.

The government said recently that it had appointed a task team to see how officials could cut unnecessary spending.

"Government at the moment is undertaking a process through Cabinet of looking at a whole range of austerity measures that must be taken and once those are done they must be announced so that they are able to guide all government institutions and government departments," Nzimande said.

"Its very necessary, I support that to the hilt," he added, just minutes before leaving for the airport in his silver-grey BMW 750i.

Reported in The Mail & Guardian, September 11 2009

THE World Cup

A few weeks ago Sony, who are one of the 2010 Soccer World Cup title sponsors brought the actual World Cup trophy out to South Africa for a publicity junket.

I heard about it on radio and took my son Conor and his friend Mathew to get our photos taken with the trophy.

This was no replica but is the actual trophy that will be awarded to and kept by the winning team next year.

We expected mega crowds and an interminably long queue to get to be photographed with the trophy.

We were both relieved and disappointed to find that although there was a crowd it was nowhere near as large as we expected. Although there was a great buzz in South Africa when the tournament was awarded this doesn't seem to have been sustained.

We waited in the buzzing queue for about 30 minutes before it was our turn. By the time we got to the trophy we had been primed by constant reminders that no-one was to touch the trophy.



As you can see we got pics of just the two boys with the trophy and then the three of us together.

Conor is in the striped top and Mathew in the Bafana Bafana top. He even got interviewed by a local TV channel for wearing his Bafana Bafana top.



A once in a lifetime experience!

Hmmm ...

Before you do anything, think. If you do something to try and impress someone, to be loved, accepted or even to get someone's attention, stop and think. So many people are busy trying to create an image, they die in the process.

Salma Hayek

Coming Back

Shortly after returning from SA Champs at Nagel Dam my wife told me she wanted to get divorced. Since then my life has been in turmoil and my heart breaking.

Slowly, but surely, I am putting the shattered pieces of my life back together and thinking about how to make the best of the rest of my life.

9/11

On September 11, 2001, the world fractured. It's beyond my skill as a writer to capture that day, and the days that would follow — the planes, like specters, vanishing into steel and glass; the slow-motion cascade of the towers crumbling into themselves; the ash-covered figures wandering the streets; the anguish and the fear. Nor do I pretend to understand the stark nihilism that drove the terrorists that day and that drives their brethren still. My powers of empathy, my ability to reach into another's heart, cannot penetrate the blank stares of those who would murder innocents with abstract, serene satisfaction.

Barack Obama

Divorce

"Ah, yes, divorce, from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet."

Robin Williams

Or was it the Greek term for ripping your heart out through your children?

Anonymous

"Marriage is wonderful when it lasts forever, and I envy the old couples in When Harry Met Sally who reminisce tearfully about the day they met 50 years before. I no longer believe, however, that a marriage is a failure if it doesn't last forever. It may be a tragedy, but it is not necessarily a failure. And when a marriage does last forever with love alive, it is a miracle."

Peggy O'Mara

ANC: Five Focus Areas

This morning I was listening to 702 on my way in to work. The ANC spokesperson, Jesse Duarte, was given an opportunity to pitch for the ANC.

She said the ANC has five priority focus areas: health, rural development, crime and I forget the others.

She said it is time to deliver.

Suddenly things made sense ... non-performance is OK up to now because only now is it time deliver. Thanks Jesse for helping me understand that.

W-e-l-l, I thought, they have delivered on one.

And then I found myself wondering ... maybe she meant fighting crime ...

NPA Will Not Prosecute Zuma

Cry, the beloved country.

JZ and His Day in Court - Reprise

Firstly, apologies for the absence. Life and stuff happens.

This post harks back to my original JZ and His Day in Court.

I read this IOL article and felt it is important to echo it here ...

Just who is stalling the Zuma trial?

Karyn Maughan
3 February 2009

ANC President Jacob Zuma's lawyers have proposed August 12 as the date for his latest - and potentially last - court bid to quash the fraud and corruption case against him, a key part of which will be his often repeated complaint that his trial has been characterised by "unreasonable delays" by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).

The NPA, however, claims the accusations are nonsense and Zuma is responsible.

So who really is to blame?

The State's fault

The Battle over the Warrants

It took three years for the NPA to win the right to use evidence gathered in its 2005 raids on Zuma and his attorneys, but Zuma's team insists its battle over the legality of the Scorpions' warrants was a matter of principle that had to be fought.

Zuma has repeatedly rubbished suggestions that he was using the warrant dispute to delay his trial. He told supporters outside Pietermaritzburg High Court last year: "I want to make it clear that I am not delaying the start of the trial. When I told the NPA that I was ready to appear in court, the NPA was not ready.

"Instead of taking me to court, they started raiding my homes and offices. I am now being accused of applying delaying tactics when I am exercising my right."

He also questioned why the NPA was "suddenly complaining about delays, while it had investigated me for more than seven years".

In 2006 Judge Herbert Msimang struck the case against Zuma from the roll, finding that the NPA had charged Zuma too soon and failed to "factor the inherent delays into their headstrong decision to prosecute".

Msimang suggested the state had hurtled into prosecuting a highly complex case with little or no regard for its ability to succeed, resulting in the case "limping from one disaster to another".

Msimang's words, though largely overtaken by events, have become a mantra for Zuma's supporters, including Judge Willem Heath - a key legal strategist for Zuma.
In a newspaper article, he argued that the application in Zuma's first legal wrangle with the NPA - to overturn the August 2005 warrants - was "pertinently brought to protect the right to attorney-client privilege".

During Zuma's unsuccessful bid to have the Scorpions' warrants invalidated, it emerged that neither Zuma nor his lawyers had ever identified any of the documents seized as subject to attorney-client privilege.

Zuma's advocate, Kemp J Kemp SC, told the Constitutional Court Zuma's bid to challenge the warrants was about fighting the constitutional violations he had suffered.

Kemp said Zuma's legal team was concerned that, should the State's "unlawful" raids not be reined in by the court, his attorney and defence witnesses would also be vulnerable to search-and-seizure operations.

Kemp denied Zuma's purpose in suing the State amounted to a delaying tactic. "If we had wanted to do that, we would not have brought this application. We would have sprung this on them on the first day of trial. Do you have any idea what delays that would have caused, especially if we had won the point and the State had to go on appeal?" he said.

The Mauritian Documents Dispute

Zuma's legal team maintained its "matter of principle" argument during its failed attempt to stop the NPA from even requesting the originals of documents used to convict Shaik from Mauritian authorities. The 13 documents include the 2000 diary of former Thint CEO Alain Thetard, which detailed a meeting between him, Zuma and Shaik at which a R500 000-a-year bribe for Zuma was allegedly discussed.

Kemp told the Constitutional Court that Zuma wanted the right to cross-examine witnesses connected to the documents - including lead prosecutor Billy Downer. Zuma would only be able to do so if the state was forced to use copies of the documents they sought from Mauritius, rather than their originals.

According to Kemp:

"We contend that the copies were brought here in an improper way, that the NDPP (National Directorate of Public Prosecutions) got its hands on them in an impermissible manner. We have a fair idea of what went on, but we can't present that to the court. If the State does not call witnesses, we cannot cross-examine them."

While Downer has come under repeated attack from Zuma and his corruption co-accused, French arms company Thint, over the allegedly "unlawful" way he obtained copies of the documents, these accusations have found no favour with the courts.

But who is to blame?

Zuma's legal team is preparing to appeal against the Mauritian Supreme Court's ruling that he was not entitled to get involved in Thint's court bid to stop the documents from being handed over to the state.

Under Mauritian law, requests for legal assistance from other nations may be denied if the evidence they relate to is to be used as part of a so-called "political trial".

Despite Zuma's claims that the documents were being sought as part of a politically motivated bid to thwart his presidential ambitions, Mauritian Supreme Court Judge Rehana Mungly-Gulbul said he would not be allowed to intervene in the NPA's application.

While Zuma claimed he was the victim of a plot orchestrated by then president Thabo Mbeki and axed NPA head Vusi Pikoli, Mungly-Gulbul said Zuma had not shown "good cause" as to why he should be allowed to intervene.

"Whatever bona fide belief Zuma may hold, to the effect that he is being persecuted and his trial is politically motivated, may be raised before the proper forum, which, in this case, is the trial court in South Africa," she said.

The NPA has confirmed Zuma's legal team would seek to challenge the ruling later this month.

The state's obligation

Zuma's legal team took the NPA to task for failing to invite him to make representations about the charges against him, arguing the state was legally obliged to do so and Zuma had been forced to turn to the courts to uphold his constitutional rights.

Their argument persuaded Pietermaritzburg High Court Judge Chris Nicholson to declare Zuma's prosecution invalid and effectively quash the case against him.

The Supreme Court of Appeal was unconvinced and overturned that decision. Zuma and his lawyers have indicated they will seek leave to appeal against the Appeal Court decision. They are expected to file their appeal application at the Constitutional Court today.

Jacob Zuma's fault

The battle over the warrants and Mauritian documents dispute

The State elected not to challenge Msimang's decision to strike off its case against Zuma, reasoning that to do so would serve no real purpose because the judgment did not prevent the NPA from charging Zuma again once its investigation was complete, not because the NPA agreed with Msimang's findings.

During an argument before Msimang in 2006, counsel for the State, Wim Trengove SC, stressed the State had applied for a postponement of Zuma's trial because it was locked in disputes over the Scorpions' warrants and Mauritian documents.

Trengove said this had prevented the State from being able to properly prepare its case for six months, resulting in the KPMG forensic audit into Zuma's financial affairs only being completed a year after the August 2005 raids.

Trengove further sought to persuade Msimang that the State's requested postponement would not cause an "unreasonable delay" in Zuma's trial.

While Msimang slammed the State for its lack of readiness to prosecute, sources sympathetic to the State maintain that the NPA would have been ready to put Zuma on trial, had the August 2005 raids not been challenged in court. They maintain that Zuma and Thint's opposition to the NPA's request for the Mauritian documents delayed and continues to delay the State from obtaining evidence, diverting "time and resources from completing the investigation".

Since the Constitutional Court ruled that the Scorpions' August 2005 warrants were valid - and ruled that the State was entitled to request the Mauritian documents - the NPA claims it has done everything in its power to get the Zuma case court-ready. The NPA is, however, still to obtain the Mauritian documents because of Zuma and Thint's pending legal bids to stop them from being handed over.

The State's obligation

The NPA has spent the past three years fighting accusations that the State was responsible for delaying Zuma's trial.

And, in the past six months, they have found tacit support for their claims that Zuma was the author of his own trial delays from the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Handing down judgment in Zuma's failed warrants appeal, Constitutional Court Chief Justice Pius Langa stated in July 2008 that courts should discourage litigation before trial that seems to delay the commencement of trials.

Appeal Court Deputy Judge President Louis Harms was less diplomatic last month when he addressed Zuma's representations dispute with the NPA: "It is necessary to stress that the NDPP never refused to afford Mr Zuma a hearing. Mr Zuma knew from June 2005 that he was the subject of an investigation. He was soon thereafter served with 'interim' indictments. He had been told … that he could make representations.

"He did nothing of the sort. Instead, he resisted all attempts by the NPA to further their investigation."

Zuma's legal team has missed its January 26 deadline to hand over representations, but has told the NPA it will do so on February 9. Should their representations not persuade the NPA to drop the case, Zuma's legal team may seek to challenge that decision in court. And the State will have another legal hoop to jump through to get Zuma into the dock.