Kindle singles are shorter articles, normally longer than you would find in a magazine, but shorter than a book that are available to purchase on Amazon.com for one’s Kindle of course. Most of these are fairly cheap and for example I recently bought for $1 an article called “Trial by fury” by Douglas Preston, which dealt with the way in which Amanda Knox has been picked on by the Internet haters and trolls, who have always claimed that she is guilty of the murder in Italy of Meredith Kercher during sex games that allegedly went wrong.

The article explains how the Internet makes mob psychology worse, because it gives anonymity to all of the accusers and so-called “experts” and really allows Internet hate groups to attack people that they don’t like or believe are responsible for something. The point of Kindle Singles is that you can read a very detailed article that is not necessarily book length on a specific topic and learn a lot more in a short time. You probably will not have to guess which country and people star in a Kindle Singles book called “The Honeymoon Murder”, which for example, is 41 pages long. I think everything that helps to promote more reading is fantastic, and these mid-length type articles are also extremely interesting to read and can be finished in about an hour before you get onto the next one.

I found BoxOffice to be a very useful service – you can sit and watch a movie at home, two months after it has been at the cinemas, without having to drive the whole way to the cinema, look for a parking and drive back. You do sometimes miss the going out aspect, and it is always important to take children out, but nothing beats being able to start watching a movie that you like as a last minute decision and not have to see what time the show is, and what time it ends. It has been such a hit for MultiChoice that apparently their financial statements indicate that in recent months the number of movies downloaded is exceeding 400 000 a month. At R25,00 a movie that is an extra R10 million a month in gross income, and it is only going to increase.

The petrol increase for July is going to see us really paying the price for a declining currency.  Those who gleefully support our uncometitive labour laws, generous sick leave and all the other things that frighten many companies from doing business n South Africa can pay up and not complain.  Those things go hand in hand with a declining currency which is a sign of an uncompetive economy and unfortunately those who always criticize employers and the like just don't seem to realize that.

At the moment we are looking at an 84 cent increase in petrol next month and somewhere down the line an increase in everything else.  Transport costs will go up, that will push up the price of food and basics and it will all filter down to an increased inflation rate in a few months time.  I have written before how important the currency rate is to all of us, as well as making our country more compettive, and the price increase we are about to see at the petrol pump is going to be a shocking reminder of that.  Currency rates don't just affect people who take overseas trips or buy luxury items - they affect basics like fuel as well and that in turn affects everything else.  Which in turn will lead to more strikes, followed by a slump in the currency, increased fule prices - it's a vicious circle people, and we as a country need to stop it.

The final field for the July Handicap will be announced today. It is South Africa’s most famous race, by a mile, and anybody who has been to Greyville on July day, knows how packed the course is. In fact, it is so packed that unless I have runners on the day I generally try to avoid it because it is just too much of a party and a little bit overwhelming!

I am hoping that my horse, Do you Remember, who certainly has done enough to be included in the final field, is included and today will see the announcement of the field and the horses’ numbers, etc for the race will be allocated. It is a handicap, so once you are in the field, you have a chance because the horses are rated in such a way that in theory they should all tie for first place, but of course that does not happen. To be the winner you need to be a little bit better than your rating and still be improving, so it is quite often a younger less experienced horse who ends up fitting that role but there are certainly some very consistent types, who despite heavyweights, have run fantastically over the years including Pomodoro and Seal. I also have Master Sabina entered and he is set to carry 53 kg if he makes the race, but on his performances to date he cannot possibly qualify.

What will be crucial will be the draw that each horse gets and an outside draw makes it very difficult to win the race and if you draw somewhere between say stall gate two until eight, you are really in a very good position and have a much more chance of doing well in the race, so it is a handicap, but the draw part always introduces the element of luck. Starting on the outside of 19 other horses and trying to get round to the front of the race is exceptionally difficult and pretty much ruins the chances of any horse unless they are way better than the other horses in the field ( and the handicapper hasn’t noticed yet).

The developer’s version of iOS 7 is already available, and anybody with an iPhone will know that that stands for the next major version of the operating system for an iPhone. Apple typically comes with one major upgrade a year of the operating system and a few other, smaller upgrades during the year and this one is particularly exciting because it is going to add in a few features that have not existed before.

The one that is the most important to me is that the software has not allowed you, thus far, to stop receiving messages or voice calls from people that you don’t want and you’ve had to jailbreak your phone and load applications afterwards if you’ve needed that feature. There are people that have a tendency to irritate, and I have one person in particular who I don’t wish to receive messages from, and who somehow always ends up with my phone number. To be able to simply blacklist that person’s number and never receive another phone call or SMS from them will be a huge plus, and so I cannot wait until the official version becomes available in the iTunes store shortly. When you dial the number, and you are blacklisted it just automatically goes to busy, while your SMS will appear to be delivered but is not received by the person who has blacklisted you.

The topic of labour broking makes the news on a regular basis at the moment and the efforts to ban labour brokers in South Africa. Essentially what labour brokers do is that they hire the employees, and hire them out to various companies so that the companies can avoid the very difficult labour laws we have in South Africa. Approximately 1 million people are apparently employed on this basis and if labour broking is banned, they believe that rather than lose their jobs, which some say will happen, they will now have full-time employment and more rights with their employer.

Big business is very much in favour of labour brokers and trade unions of course are anti them. I find any issue to do with employment law very difficult to write about on my blog, because the vast majority of people who respond are in fact employees, and until you have run a business, you will simply not appreciate the expenses involved with the current labour laws in South Africa, and which is why international businesses avoid us to a large extent, and probably why we have one of the largest unemployment rates in the world.

Employees who have a job don’t seem to care about the fact that we have a large unemployment rate, and simply are concerned about their rights. In fact, I find the comments of people that I know, to be particularly anti-government for example, quite interesting, because to a large extent they actually favour the government policies, even though they claim to be anti-government or anti-ANC on most issues. I think that our country will start to boom and grow faster once we make our laws more in line with those of other countries and make it easier to fire people who are lazy, incompetent or even impertinent rather than the very cumbersome and expense procedures we have now. Once we have a more competitive economy we will be able to hire more people, the rand will strengthen and the costs that people pay for living in an uncompetitive country, including the inflation rate as well as the petrol price, may well reduce but I think that at the moment one is talking, just as one reads in the comments, to people who do not want to hear, will not listen and while there is no doubt that in time South Africa will have to face the music and change labour laws, with business after business saying this on radio and on TV, it is probably going to take 10 to 15 years before we start to see a bit of a balance.

Every now and then one reads an article that really blows your mind and I was going through an older edition, from earlier this year, of Wired magazine, when I read an article by Joshua Davis about John McAfee. McAfee formed McAfee & Associates some 25 years ago who made anti-virus software and was eventually bought by Intel in 2010 for $7,68 billion.

He then went to live in Belize and was most recently in the news when his beachfront compound burnt down on 16 May, and he said that the fire was not just a strange coincidence. He is busy working in Oregon at the moment on a novel about his life, and based on this article it is going to make for amazing reading. The journalist writes of his escapades with drugs, to the extent that after one of his intense drug trips he believes that the rest of his life has in fact all been a drug trip, and that one day he will wake up in the room where he took the drugs and it will all have turned out to be a dream. That is probably because in his 60s, while living in Belize where he thought he could get away from people who were trying to sue him in America, he decided to take on drug traders and other people he thought were not good for Belize.

After his dogs were killed, a neighbour, who previously threatened to kill them, turned up executed on a beach and the authorities in Belize want to question him about that. One of his five girlfriends that used to live in the compound appears to be a possible suspect, especially after she told the reporter that she would kill for him. She is 18 now, but became his girlfriend when she was sent to him as a 16 year old prostitute and he fell in love with her, ditching his girlfriend of the last 11 years. The relationship did not break up, when after a month or so, she decided to rob him and tried to shoot him in the head while he was sleeping, but missed and shot a pillow instead. He did however punish her by not allowing her to watch TV anymore and with time moved in other girlfriends, generally aged about 17 to 20 according to the reporter. By his own admission he spent his spare time on the Internet, trying to goad people into taking drugs that he does not believe in, saying that if he was to take drugs again, he would only take LSD or the finest cocaine. One sometimes wonders if being altogether is a requirement to becoming wealthy – he is certainly proof that the two don’t necessarily go together!

Eskom has recently appealed to the public to do their best to save electricity during this winter. They say that this winter is different, because there are much higher levels of planned maintenance which need to take place – which would obviously imply that there will be less capacity.

Apparently in recent years we did not have such problems in winter because they have tried to do the maintenance during summer, but the problems now are such that they will have to do maintenance during winter. Electricity demand is at its highest from 5pm to 9pm and they will be asking people to switch off appliances during those hours. It is at times like this when one is grateful for the back-up power system at our offices which allows us to run for 3 hours without electricity. It is quite clear that this winter is going to be worse than recent years and no doubt it is going to be the trend for the next few years as well.

Statistics South Africa recently gave figures saying that the population of South Africa, according to its mid-year estimate, is now 52,98 million people. They estimate 5,26 million of those are living with HIV and the average life expectancy for a South African is now 59,6 years – being 57,7 years for males and 61,4 years for females which is quite low compared to European and American figures.
The population in Gauteng is growing the fastest with the population share dropping in five of our nine Provinces including KwaZulu-Natal as people migrate to Gauteng. 24% of the country now lives in our Province.

BlackBerry has announced, after a very lengthy wait, they will be making BBM available on other platforms such as the iPhone and Android systems. Initially, BBM was obviously meant to be a BlackBerry only system, but with the fall in sales and the fact that challenges such as WhatsApp have taken a valuable piece of the market, BlackBerry had to reverse this decision. It would make it difficult for existing users to continue to remain in the BlackBerry world if, every time one of their friends migrate to another system, they can no longer BBM them, so BlackBerry had to change course and applications are expected to be released shortly.

José Mourinho has always been known as the “special one”. He certainly has an amazing record in football, as well as in self-promotion, and he has signed up a new four year agreement with Chelsea Football Club. I am a Chelsea supporter, and I am really glad to see him on his way back, together with all his Italian-styled suits that he wears on the sidelines and whatever controversy he is going to create next – but there certainly will be some.

Working as the coach for Chelsea Football Club is an amazing route to wealth, particularly since most of the coaches get fired after a year and get in excess of R100 million normally to leave the Club and it tells you how good José must be, if Roman Abramowich would have him there, pay him out to go early, and now have to hire him back again. It is also a wonderful illustration as to just how much money wealthy people are prepared to waste on their pastimes – because with the amount they pay the players, not to mention the coach, there is no chance that they can ever break even!

It is very good to see more products sold without sugar and I have previously written about the benefits of gum for children. Research shows that when children get their second set of teeth, at around 6 or 7, that chewing gum at that time is extremely beneficial for the teeth and leads to children having teeth that are ultimately much stronger and have fewer cavities.

That is of course only if it is sugar free gum and that is the benefit of sugar free gum with Xylitol. Watching people chewing gum all day can be irritating at times, but if its young children its healthy for their teeth and all that they need to invent now is a gum that automatically throws itself away when it is finished being chewed on and is not left sticking to a floor or hair on small children!

30% of the Kenyan and Nigerian population apparently already have access to the Internet, and whereas we, who pride ourselves in our belief that in many ways that we are “leading” Africa, only have 17%. There is no doubt that the Internet plays a huge role in encouraging business to grow, and the fact that we are so far behind when it comes to the Internet means that we are missing a trick or two when it comes to encouraging business and entrepreneurs in South Africa.

Our average internet connection speed is also very slow, with an average of 7.1 Mb per second in 2012 which apparently is only the 25th fastest Internet in Africa – and that is Africa, not the world. In the US the average speed is 31.5 Mb’s and apparently the global average is 16.6 Mb – so our speed is run at below half the global average. Again, it is not something to be particularly proud of, and this is an issue that the government really should be tackling and trying to ensure that we get everybody in the country, as quickly as possible, connected to the Internet, not only as a means of communication, but particularly from an educational and informative point of view.

It is lovely to see that there are often place for children and the people’s theatre, at the Joburg Theatre, is running Disney’s “The Aristocats” for kids. The show is running from 8 June to 28 July 2013 and tickets can be booked at joburgtheatre.co.za and range in price from R70,00 to R105,00. It is wonderful to go to the theatre, especially with young children to give them an appreciation for the arts and having seen this one, I can certainly recommend it.

Apparently, according to the media, Johannesburg motorists will not be prosecuted for any offences since 22 December. After the Transport Minister intervened and said that courtesy letters, about fines, had to be sent via registered post and not via normal post, things started going haywire. It allegedly costs about R7,5 million a month to send out some 450 000 fines each month by registered post, but only 10% of the motorists paid their fines.

As a result of the strike by the Post Office and the high cost of sending these registered post letters, RTIA took a decision to suspend the issuing of courtesy letters until the Post Office can confirm they can improve the delivery of those letters – meaning that if the letters don’t go out, the fines will not have to be paid – at least at this time. They are apparently also unable to issue warrants of arrest, as the software for eNatis is not working. They also don’t have the software developed to upload the outcome of the case onto the National Contravention Register. Apparently eNatis can also only supply the initials of offenders, something that the courts will not accept because many people could have the same surname and initial and the system is now not able to provide the full first name of an offender, so apparently hundreds of cases get struck off the eNatis court roll every day. It all sounds like a mess, and is made worse in that fines paid to the SA Post Office since 2008 have apparently not been redistributed and simply form part of the local Municipalities’ funds – so up to R10 million worth of funds that are due to the Jo’burg and Tshwane Municipalities apparently lie in the hands of smaller municipalities but then again, the Jo’burg and Tshwane Municipalities do not pay over money paid to them on behalf of the other Municipalities because there is no accounting or reconciliation system in place between the traffic and issuing authorities. It all sounds like a complete and incompetent mess! (and I wouldn’t take it for granted, in a mess like this, either that you don’t have to pay those fines – I’ll certainly be paying mine if I get any)

The Royal and Ancient Golf Club and the US Golf Association have said that, from 1 January 2016, they will no longer allow long putters to be used the way they have been so far. Golfers will no longer be able to use a long putter by anchoring the club against their bodies to create a hinge where they effectively have the club touching their belly or their chest. It is an issue that has divided many golfers, particularly in recent years, given that some major tournaments have been won by people using the long putters.

The long putter gives people a tremendous advantage on shorter distance putts, because it allows one to steady the stroke and help in a way to negate the effect of nerves. In other words, when you have a putt from 3 or 4 feet that has to go in for you to win $1 million, one is understandably nervous and you are more likely to make a mistake with a short putter, which you cannot attach to any part of your body, than you are with a long putter which you can use your body to steady. I personally think it is great for the game, because golf is really very much about what is in your head, and once you get more experienced you start realising that apart from practice, it is very much a mental game. If somebody’s nerves are going to take over and he or she is going to lose the game because of a shaky hand on the final putt, then so be it, that is exactly part of the game and while it will eliminate some people, who after struggling with the short putter for years, have now moved on to a longer putter, I think it is right for the game.

The most notable example is probably Ernie Els who, after announcing for years that he felt that long putters were the same as cheating, recently started using one to try and improve his putting. Ernie will have to stick to what he initially said and go back to the short putter, which in all probability will mean that he will not feature so highly in tournaments again. He won the British Open last year, which was his first major tournament that he had won in many years, by using a long putter and anchoring it against his body and from 2016 neither he nor any professional golfer will be allowed to do so anymore, and I would imagine that it will also become the case for amateur golfers. Players can continue to use the long putter, but simply cannot anchor it to their body anymore.

Claims may be validly lodged on the Road Accident Fund either by delivery to their offices, or via registered post. Generally, to avoid any disputes about whether the post was received or not, we hand deliver our lodgements to the Road Accident Fund. It has amazed me, over the years, on how many days the Road Accident Fund’s branches have been closed and they have refused to receive documents. One cannot get into the branch and the security guards simply turn one away and refuse one access to serve documents. Bear in mind of course that claims can prescribe after two years in a hit and run case or three years in a normal case, and you have to lodge before a certain date in all cases.

One would think that an institution, which by an Act of Parliament allows you to serve documents on it, would really be open on every day of the week, but at least be open from Monday to Friday. To arrive at their premises at 12.30pm on a Friday afternoon and to be told that they are having a 16th birthday party and the branch is closed and have your staff turned away and prevented from lodging the claim, is actually more serious than they may believe. The same applies to Christmas parties over the years, and a variety of other occasions when the offices have been closed or the security guards simply chase one away in trying to deliver documents.

Trying to phone and speak to senior management does not help at that time – the phones are simply not answered, although by the Monday they did indeed confirm that they had been closed for that reason and we must simply bring the all the documents we wanted to lodge. No real harm was done, other than the clients’ cases being delayed over a weekend, ultimately meaning that it will take another three days before they are resolved, but the approach is simply not good enough. If one is entitled to lodge on the Road Accident Fund, there should always be an officer who is available to receive those documents from you Monday to Friday, every day of the year and not be told that it is Christmas party time, 16th birthday party time or any of the numerous special events that seem to take place when they celebrate new projects of campaigns. This must have happened to me more than a dozen times over the years and in one case, where the client had approached us late and it was almost prescribing, we then had to drive to the Post Office to lodge the claim by registered post – and that really should not be necessary.

A recent research compiled by the World Health Organisation indicated that in 2012 we had a shortage of doctors in South Africa relative to many other countries. For every 10 000 people that live in South Africa there were only 7,6 doctors whereas by comparison there were 27,7 in the UK.

In short, there are four times more doctors, relative to the population in the UK than there are in South Africa, five times more dentists in the UK and whereas they spend on average $1 765,00 per capita on health, we spend $240 a year. The good news was that we beat Zimbabwe – they have 0,6 doctors per 10 000 people, so they are 27 times worse off than the UK. I don’t think Zimbabwe is the most ideal benchmark for us, but it is a worrying sign that we have lost so many doctors and dentists and other medical specialists in our country and even when we do Road Accident Fund work, we notice a tremendous shortage of specialists in the various categories in South Africa and as a result not many of them are prepared to do medico legal work and work involving court which obviously takes more of their time. If there were a lot more specialists, this would be much less of a problem than it is.

Lanseria Airport continues to grow, and for those who have flown to there recently, would have noted that a new runway is nearing completion. It has really been progressing at some speed and on every occasion I have been there trucks rumbling up and down and part of it appears to be tarred already. An extra runway will obviously allow more planes to fly in and out and fulfil plans for this to be a busier airport. I also think somebody could make quite a lot of money by building a new parking development at the airport, because there is often a shortage of parking. Lanseria Airport was of course the favourite airport for stars and government Ministers during the 2010 Soccer World Cup, and to this day it seems to be the airport of choice for pop stars, etc performing in Johannesburg.