Many teenagers, and young guys, grew up in South Africa reading FHM magazine.  It still has a fairly well known brand name, but its sales have suffered for years, and the current edition on the shelves is the last edition and not only that, its website, www.fhm.co.za is going offline permanently on 30 April 2014.  I am sure there are many who will say that they read the magazine only for the articles, and not for all the South African models that featured in it, but if there is possibly one thing that is true, the magazine launched a lot of local entertainment careers. Like many magazines the kind of content that it has is freely available online and that obviously would have hurt sales.  There was a time when most models aspired to be in FHM, but in recent years it has certainly lost a lot of its lustre as the sales show, and its time has now come and gone.  

I would love to hear your thoughts as to what you think of the trial so far.  There have been lots of highlights, and if everyone thought it was going to get boring after Oscar Pistorius’ tough time under cross-examination, they were at least amused by Roger Dixon being ripped apart. Dixon is the geologist who somehow managed to give evidence on a variety of fields that he clearly has no expertise in – ranging from the difference between the sound of a gunshot and a cricket bat hitting a door, lighting, wounds and post mortem results.  

I was quite amazed that a man who wears glasses sought a scientific test to decide how dark it was in Oscar’s bedroom was to simply use his own eyes and then when they tried to recreate Oscar standing at the bedroom window and the bathroom window, they had somebody standing or kneeling 20 cm lower than Oscar would have been.  It was a bit of a comedy show and Oscar cannot have appreciated where his legal team spent his money insofar as this expert was concerned – which is always a problem when you have to sell your house, amongst other things, to pay for your legal fees.  

His own evidence however was not very much better – he was argumentative, tried to be extremely clever in the witness box the entire time, continually explaining after giving answers that his version must be the truth because it did not necessarily suit his case.  It seems to be that he thinks everything is an accident – when he was at Tasha’s Restaurant a gun, which apparently cannot go off by accident, went off by accident in his hands without him touching the trigger and he has on a number of occasions said that the shooting of Reeva was an accident, although he has attempted to explain that, but there certainly seems to be some uncertainty or contradiction in his lawyers case as to him thinking he was shooting a robber and his explanation as to on what basis the gun went off in his hands.

Sometimes you want to say something publicly, but you think it might seem a bit harsh or unnecessary and you certainly don’t want to offend the media.  It is always great in such a situation when somebody in that organisation says what you think.  I used to love listening to certain commercials on radio stations, listening to music, the charts, etc, and of course there is a part of me that would grow out of that, but there was another part that was put off, as radio became a lot more of simply presenters reading out of the latest gossip magazines as to what Kim Kardashian and her husband are doing – which is perhaps for males, or perhaps just for me, extremely boring and of no interest – I am really listening to a music station because I want to hear music and possibly would be more interested in what album is about to be released by a pop star than the comings and goings of the various people who have used amateur sex tapes to build a name for themselves.  

Gareth Cliff leaving 5FM led to some amazing, but very honest comments in the Sunday Times as part of an interview he gave and what he said of 5FM is that, “People talk about content, but if you distilled 5FM down to 2 hours, you would find station ID’s, DJ’s saying their own name, saying nothing interesting to callers and going ‘thanks for your opinion’ you would probably be left with about 10 minutes of real content, most of which, at this point would consist of DJ Fresh’s laugh … but nobody has to be captain to this dull, unimaginative world that FM Radio’s become.”  Maybe Gareth Cliff is also getting old, but I just got to a point, many years ago, that I could no longer listen to the absolute nonsense that the presenters talk and they really are not of the calibre that they once were, whether that was Alex Jay or Mark Gillman, who was hated by many listeners because of his commentary on the South African political scene.  He did tell me, during a chat that I had once, when he left 5FM, it was because he could no longer identify with the young audience and maybe that is why I don’t listen and maybe that is why Gareth Cliff is also moving on, but I still think that it is not just because we all are getting older, but because that particular station really has changed.  It is not as if I want to listen to music of the 80s and 90s – I like modern music, I just don’t want to listen to drivel.  

There can be no doubt that step counters, and various fitness trackers are the latest trend people are buying into.  Large numbers of people have recently either got the Up-band, by Jawbone, which is what I use, or the FitBit Band. Discovery members are using the FitBit Band and that has obviously propelled that band to some success in South Africa, although internationally, the Up-band has received better reviews.  Most of these devices, as I have covered on my blog before, count the number of steps you take during the day, as well as monitor your sleep and breaks your sleep down into how much of your sleep was sound, solid sleep where you did not move around much and how much of it was lighter sleep.  They are particularly useful in tracking what you are doing and illustrating to you where you are falling short and I find it very motivational as well.  

What has surprised me though is how popular they have become in the last two months or so, with my accountant wearing one, my IT specialist wearing one and at least two other attorneys that I chat to all having obtained them in the last two months or so.  My accountant seems to walk further than anybody else, averaging about 14,000 steps a day when I last spoke to him, whereas I struggle to get to my target of 10,000 steps a day.  I have been averaging about 55,000 steps a week and if anything, falling shorter on my sleep in the last two weeks.  55,000 Steps a week, while missing my target, is actually a very decent amount of steps.  If you find that you are relatively sedentary at work, and then when you go home largely confining yourself to say cooking dinner and then watching TV, you will struggle to get past about 2,500 steps in a day.  So to get to 10,000 steps does require an effort – such as going for a walk in the early hours of the morning, which is hard in winter, or in the evening.  I have calculated that I take about 120 steps a minute when I am walking, so for me it would be about 85 minutes of walking a day which, when combined with the pressures of work and sometimes the bigger problem, which is lack of motivation, is far more difficult than one thinks.  

It is reassuring to see though that the overall trend in recent years is towards increasing fitness and trying to ascertain and limit the damage done by a poor diet and there is more and more scientific material being published on these topics every week.

Every Shot Counts is the title of a new book, about golf, by Mark Broadie.  It is the kind of book that will appeal to somebody who likes statistics, as I do, and if you don’t like golf and statistics is not your thing, then this book would be perfect hell!  If you are a golf fanatic and want to know that 50% of all professional players will hole a put from 8 feet, and that 42% of scratch players will do the same, but that Luke Donald is No 1 in the world from 8 feet, holing 57% of his puts, then this book will appeal to you.  

What the book really does though is it breaks down the belief that so many golfers have that you “drive for show and putt for dough”.  That, for non-golfers, means that driving the ball a long distance is not that important, but that it is all about how well you putt. This book illustrates absolutely comprehensively and beyond doubt, by using all the PGA Tour statistics that that is not true.  That in fact, if you cannot drive the ball a long way in the first place, you have no chance of making the Top 40 players in the world, and it is better to drive the ball a long way than to drive it straight, but short.  As luck would have it, most people who can drive the ball a long way also happen to be able to hit it straight.  It would explain, and whereas many people think Tiger Woods used to be a brilliant putter and he is not as good a putter now, that he statistically never won his tournaments on the basis of putting.  He has won his tournaments because not only does he hit the ball a long way, but his iron play, or the approach shots that he hits into the green, are generally better than any other players in the world and he generally hits approach shots far closer to the flag than anybody else.  As a result, he would continually be putting from closer to the hole than other players in the world and that, if anything, his putting contributes less to his winning tournaments, than it does others.  To put it another way, of course Tiger Woods is brilliant in every aspect of the game, but he is the best striker of a ball in the world and he can put that ball closer to a flag, more often, than anybody else.  The book shows that Rory McIlroy for example has sprung to fame in recent years because of his ability to hit the ball very far, and that Vijay Singh, for example, is one of the worst putters on tour to have ever won tournaments.  He does not putt well, but his iron play and approach shots are brilliant.   It is not the type of book though that would win you friends – because you are all sitting around the table having a discussion after golf and everybody wants to give their opinions, the person who has read this book will have chapter and verse on all of the statistics, and once you have the statistics, it is a little bit hard to tolerate other people talking absolute nonsense as to why or what they think is important.  So, it is an academic study, it is a scientific and statistical study analysing every single shot that has been recorded on the professional tour for about the last 10 or 15 years and what happened after that shot and there simply is not any room for doubt, once you have gone through it all.  It really boils down to advising you, if you love golf and are interested in golf, that the way to get better is to learn and to practice how to hit the ball further and once you have learnt how to hit the ball far, then you can worry about trying to hit it straighter.  Pure strength will dominate and that is why the old images of big fat men, strolling down fairways and smoking cigars have been replaced by the current athletes, who in many cases could have played basketball or American football, but have chosen to stay in the gym while perfecting the athleticism and stretching that golf would require and make their money playing golf.

There is an explosion of land being redeveloped along Jan Smuts Avenue for the purposes of offices.  In fact, on the stretch between our offices in Parkwood, just on the edge of Rosebank, and Dunkeld Shopping Centre, there must be at least 10 properties that are currently for sale.  One or two buildings have been completed and another two or three sites have been cleared for development.  It will certainly add to the traffic on Jan Smuts Avenue, but there can be no doubt that this is a primary road, it is a major node between the city and the north, and it is understandable that so many businesses want to position themselves on this road.  In many respects it is also quite a lot smarter and more desirable than the road that runs parallel to it for some distance, namely Oxford Road.

I love the age of the Internet and I was probably the first attorney in South Africa with a website in 1995.  I remember when I first signed up for the Internet there was statistics in the newspaper about how approximately 1,000 people in South Africa were then on the Internet – so it was very early days.  As more and more people have come on and what has now become a dreaded feature for me every day is to look in my unread e-mail box at the number of e-mails that I currently have not read.  

I am an extremely diligent and hard worker and there would be a very few clients who would ever not hear back from me either within a few hours or within a day or two, but recently it has become harder and harder to keep up.  Once one factors in 75 or so staff members e-mailing you every day, as well as clients, not to mention people who would like to suggest advertising opportunities to us, business opportunities, would like to ask for loans as well as e-mails that I get that are related to the affairs of the profession, which actually are not too many, I could easily receive 300 e-mails on a normal day and at certain times of the year it would go as high as 400 to 450 e-mails.  I now have to spend almost every weekend in catching up on 150 unread e-mails or so.  The worst part is that I generally leave the more difficult ones for later in the week and try and deal with the client queries, new business and any problems during the week.  By more difficult I mean the e-mails that have complicated reports attached to them which require my reading and then input and contracts or quotes that have to be read.  

Modern technology has definitely made a huge difference in our world and it will continue to bring down many dictators in one party states around the world, and has been wonderful for me in terms of business because I have always been technologically ahead of my competition, but it certainly brings with it extra stresses. Attorneys of 15 years ago would be expected to reply to clients by fax two or three weeks later, if not via post, and now people write to you and after 24 hours if they have not received a reply they forward you a copy of the e-mail they sent you the day before, as if you have missed it.  

Anybody who follows the investing world would know that the man who has made more money, simply out of investing in shares in other people’s companies, and become one of the wealthiest men in the world as a result, is Warren Buffett.  Interestingly enough, in the last 5 years, his company has under-performed on the S&P 500 Stock Index.  If one had just invested money in that particular Index and there are many Index funds available, one would have done better than Warren Buffett over the last 5 years.  That does not mean he would continue to do so in the long run, but it just shows you how difficult it is to always beat the market and that an Index Fund is always a good idea to invest in, particularly when you want to begin your investing career.  This is hardly something that Warren Buffett would disagree with, because in his most recent report he has advised that he has given specific instructions, for the investment of the money he is giving his wife in the event of his death, which is to be put in a Trust and in his own report he says the following, “Put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low low-cost S&P 500 Index Fund.  (I suggest Vanguard’s).  I believe and trust long-term results from this policy will be superior to those attained by most investors – whether pension funds, institutions or individuals – who employ high fee managers.”  

There you go, one of the richest men in the world who has made every cent he has out of investing saying that when he dies the money must not be invested into his own company or any other specific company but rather just into an Index Fund that covers the whole market.  That is some of the best free advice you can get in starting a Unit Trust and you can always go to the website of Satrix which you can find at www.satrix.co.za which has a number of low cost Index Funds available which allow you to invest on our market.

I have complained previously about false claims on TV that the coverage is live.  On some sports, particularly those broadcast from overseas, they often put up the logo to indicate that the coverage is live, when in fact it is not.  I have even seen that in The Masters a few years ago, but a recent example was the Shell Houston Open, played in Houston, Texas in the first weekend of April.  Live footage, at approximately 9pm on SuperSport indicated that Sergio Garcia was currently playing the 8th hole whereas in fact, the tournament was about to end, and he was playing the 16th hole.  When one considers that they play a hole every 12 or 15 minutes, it means that SuperSport’s supposedly live coverage was at least 2 hours behind.  I don’t mind if they use the sign “earlier”, which they sometimes do, because at least that is honest and is indicating that what you are watching is not live but it is extremely irritating, in an age when one could simply turn to Twitter or the PGA Tour website and see that the tournament is about to end, but in South Africa we must pretend that it is live.  Admittedly, during some of the coverage they did show the sign “earlier”, but in between they also indicated that it was live, when it clearly was not.  The worst part is that one could always go to the PGA Tour website and get some of the coverage live from the golf channel which will show you what is going to happen in 2 hours’ time on SuperSport.  

I don’t really follow Council politics and what goes on in running the City.  I must say however that in Ward 117, we get a steady stream of updates from the councillor for the area, Tim Truluck.  His newsletter explains that Ward 117 includes Parkhurst, Parkwood - which is where our main offices are based, Rosebank, Parktown North, Victory Park, parts of Blairgowrie as well as Delta Park.  I must say that he really keeps everyone updated, correctly predicted the election date ahead of time and gives information on practical issues, such as how to sort out your accounts, as well as detailing any problems to do with electricity or water.  I certainly hope, and I understand that in the northern suburbs of Johannesburg it is easier to keep your affluent constituents updated by e-mail, that all people, in all areas of the country, have representatives who do update them as to what they are doing – even if that is perhaps in the form of a regular town hall meeting.  I somewhat suspect that they don’t, because it will not be that different to professional organisations – some people within them update people and write articles, and others don’t, and certainly this particular councillor, and I have no idea what policies he stands for or what he is like in any other way, keeps his constituents fully updated on issues ranging from not only the topics above, but also on security booms, swimming pool nets, special votes for the election and load shedding.  

The biggest golfing tournament of the year starts on Thursday, and it’s the Masters in Augusta, Georgia. It’s a small town two hours drive south of Atlanta and with a direct flight from Johannesburg to Atlanta many South Africans attend the tournament each year. I’m not talking about the 6 South Africans who will be playing in this year’s event, but spectators. I was lucky enough to be there two years ago and while it was not a cheap expedition, because the ticket for the four days alone cost $1500, let alone the costs of accommodation and getting to America, it is probably the most superbly arranged golfing tournament in the world. It certainly beats the two British opens that I have attended, particularly in a dump I will never forget, being Blackpool.

My favourite player, and Tiger Woods brought me and many people into the game of golf, will not be there because he’s just had a back operation. It’s a pity, because the tournaments for the Majors this year really suited him, and it seems like he’s going to miss out the best part of the major tournaments, of which there are four each year, due to a bad back injury after having won five tournaments last year and returned to the number 1 position in the world. In his absence I always want a South African to win and Louis Oosthuizen got so close when I was there 2 years ago, Charl Schwartzel has of course won it before and there are others who are capable. The other players that I would look out for, and in golf you can be almost guarantee that once you’ve named some people, somebody else will win would include Jason day, who certainly is going to win something major eventually, Matt Kuchar, Phil Mickelson and one of my favourite players, although he’s been a little bit of form so far this year, Henrik Stenson.

The media loves to use photographs of Christoff Becker in his oversized sunglasses, with a black vest that barely covers his chest and necklaces hanging down.  It appears to be the outfit he wore when he left prison.  He is one of the four boys in Waterkloof who beat a homeless man to death and they received a relatively short sentence and got out of jail far faster than one would have expected.  

He and a friend celebrated this, it would appear, by distributing a video of them partying in prison and clearly making out that prison was a lot more fun than people would like to believe.  There was a lot of criticism of the sentence in the first place, saying it was too lenient and anybody with any common sense, aware of all the media attention of their release would have tried to make a more subdued departure from prison, perhaps even more suitably dressed.  That video immediately got two of them back into prison for at least another year.  He has now followed that up, when he clearly is a marked man who has embarrassed prison authorities with his partying video, by now being caught in possession of a cell phone in his cell.  Not only will he spend longer in prison now but he has already been transferred to a maximum security prison much further away from his Pretoria family.  The reality of the matter is that they never spent enough time in prison in the first place, they should have come out of prison very quietly and not said a word to anybody and one assumes that when he is next released he will be more subdued, more sensible – and possibly with a different look.

The report of the Public Protector, Thuli Madonsela has been out for some time now and we at last have some clarity on Nkandla.  Of course, the ANC’s point of view has wavered over the weeks from people describing her as ugly with a big nose, to a limited of ANC members reminding people that the ANC helped to draft the Constitution and to disrespect the office of the Public Protector is to disrespect the Constitution and the ANC’s work in that regard.  Of course, the ANC of today is very different to the ANC of the early 1990s and certainly less idealistic and with not much to be particularly proud of in recent years.  

The fire pool turned out to be a swimming pool, but like your swimming pool at home, it can double up as a fire pool when your house is burning down and the President, who had a keen eye over things, has really benefited quite incredibly from the whole project, despite saying that he did not want the changes and the upgrades and he never asked for them.  He did however make sure that his architect controlled the whole process and his architect then got paid by the State – or rather me and you in terms of the tax we pay- about R16 million for designing a house, a pool that stores water for fires and some rondavels.  It is an absolute disgrace, and in most countries around the world, one’s President would either be impeached or certainly have to resign after being shown either to have so little clue, if he does not know, or to have manipulated the process to such a personal level of benefit.  That of course is not going to happen here, but it is sad that the ANC’s approach to any problem is pretty much one of stand together, and never actually tackle a problem regardless of whatever that problem is.  It is quite hard to believe, as you look back now, that they replaced Thabo Mbeki to give us Jacob Zuma, and there really has not been any stop to the scandals over the years with many business deals involving his family, the non-stop embarrassment of the Gupta’s.  At the end of the day of course, it will all mean nothing – because the ANC will be returned to government with pretty much the same percentage of votes they have received in the past.  Its that type of voter complacency, and a respect for what the ANC achieved in liberating South Africans, that allows the ANC to forever live in a world of being a party who largely brought about the end of apartheid and not to have to worry about how they act now.  That is one of the great tragedies for South Africa and many African countries where people continue to vote blindly for the liberation party for 25 to 30 years before seriously considering their vote.  Ultimately, even as we have seen in Zimbabwe, the rural people still continue to vote for the liberation party and it is only the more educated people, who largely reside in the cities and the urban areas, who eventually vote against the liberation party.

The Oscar Pistorius trial is about to begin again, with speculation that Oscar will be the first witness to testify, as is normal in a criminal case. Another major case is about to start of course, and that is the Dewani case with probably South Africa’s least favoured international guest, Shrien Dewani arriving in South Africa for his trial.  We have made an agreement with the British authorities that if his mental condition deteriorates, he will be returned and it is hard to imagine that his condition will not deteriorate when he is put into a South African jail, however much special comfortable arrangements are no doubt made for him.  A flight from your home to a country where you no longer have any of your friends, or your supporters, and where you are accused of committing a terrible deed, as well as new circumstances, is quite likely to provoke anybody into a state of depression, let alone a man who appears, from all accounts what we have heard so far, to be unstable in the first place.  The evidence seems overwhelming and I really do hope that a proper job is done so that Shrien Dewani may face justice.  One thing is for sure, the media is going to be incredibly busy this week with court case stories!

When I was younger, I always heard that when you are older you need less sleep and it is less important to you.  I am not sure if that is true, because my friends all say the same thing to me – that sleep now is more important than ever!  I am sometimes astounded that I used to go out until 5 am in the morning, two nights in a row on a weekend, and I have also reached the point when if I don’t have a full 8 hours’ sleep, I really don’t feel at my best the next day.  I think some of it relates to the kind of work that we do, which is stressful and involves you having to use your brain most of the time and sleep is definitely needed for more than just allowing your body to recover – your mind needs it just as much.  Of course it can also just be a sign of old age, but I have reached that stage when an invitation to somebody’s dinner party, which involves a late night and drinks, is terribly off-putting because I know that for the few hours of fun, the whole of the next day is going to drag and I am not going to be anywhere near my best!

I came across another incident of an attempted car theft outside the newly revamped Woolworths at the Broadacres Centre in Fourways.  Two thieves had just jammed a lady’s car, got into it and started to drive it off, when cars blocked their way and car guards prevented them from escaping.  It is apparently so prevalent at the various shopping centres around Johannesburg that some shop owners even have their own scanners which indicate when the car jamming is taking place and apparently, although you cannot detect exactly where it is happening, it happens at least once a day, and sometimes a lot more.  It is really one of those things you will have to be careful about at the moment and make sure, after you have locked your car, or believe you have locked your car, that it actually is locked lest you have to go through all of the inconvenience of an insurance claim, attending at the local police station and replacing a car.  The worst part of course is that we all tend to leave various paperwork and documents inside one’s car as well, so in my case it would obviously include credit cards, not to mention the driver’s licence and so the loss of productive time, when a car is stolen, in terms of having to apply for and obtain new cards, a driver’s licence, possibly an identity book, and apart from all of that the police paperwork and insurance paperwork is yet another untold cost on our economy.  The funny thing of course, is when you are a student and you have a terrible car that you really wish somebody would steal, because you cannot possibly sell it for what it is worth in terms of the insurance replacement, nobody ever steals your car!  

This is a company listed on the Vienna Stock Exchange and the price of the shares is currently €39,39.  It has a PE ratio of 27.3.  The company’s price shot up from €30,00 in August to €40,00 by October on the good news, for the company, that its E-toll project in South Africa would go ahead.  It has subsequently traded as high as €45,00 but due to a write down on the project, they are back at €40,00.  The write down relates to opposition to the project in Gauteng and as a result they received less compensation from the project than they anticipated.  I think that this is a perfect illustration of the role of a Stock Market and how, with a well researched opinion, you can ultimately make money – but it also illustrates how nothing is certain.  Just as some people may feel that the E-toll system is guaranteed to succeed and buying a share is now a sure bet on good profits, there will be others who will tell you that collection of the money that has to be paid will prove impossible, that opposition to the system will eventually make it fail and that they would never buy the share.  Time of course will reveal the answers for everyone and with hindsight, everything always does look obvious.  Building a share portfolio, slowly buying into shares that you believe are going to do well, as Warren Buffet has shown, can certainly lead to wealth.  It is a little bit harder to buy international shares, but all online brokers in South Africa do provide an off-shore facility for their clients and for example, for R10 000,00 right now could buy you 17 shares of the company.  Let’s see how it is doing in 18 months.