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.