Tale guide

Happy New Year

“Ay-arite?”

Alternatively “Ay-OK?”

My new greeting and asking whether you are alright? (‘Alright’ meaning ‘fine’ or ‘OK’ in this context).

Sometimes abbreviated to “‘rite?” which by implication includes ‘hi’, is a standard greeting between friends and strangers in the United Kingdom.

The South African equivalents would be “howzit?” or “Hello, how are you?”

So, as you can see, I am finally getting a handle on the English language as spoken in the UK, or at least in Wales for now.

However, what I am battling to grasp is, how we, as law abiding citizens, are supposed to conform to the rules and regulations that our esteemed leaders deem to impose on the pretext that such rules and restrictions are good for us.

I have a few difficulties in this regard which I will endeavour to illustrate, and if perhaps the explanations come across as remotely comical, well that’s because they probably are.

Westminster imposed a national lockdown at the commencement of the pandemic very similar in severity as what was imposed by Pretoria.

Everyone went along with the plan, having been satisfied with the underlying logic presented at the time. It was nevertheless a very painful period in which families were forcibly separated from their loved ones, particularly those elderly housed in care homes.

We had to stay at home, and public gathering places were locked down and the government issued a series of financial furlough schemes to lessen the heavy burden businesses had to endure from a complete or partial lack of trading.

It then turns out over a year later, after the initial lockdown was diluted into a series of lesser dramatic, mini-restrictions, kind of ‘let us hesitantly try and return to ‘normal’ decrees, which, I might add, we are still floundering around in, that we found out that Number 10 threw a couple cheese and wine parties as did a couple of other ministries, while all of the citizens were holed up in isolation, behind closed doors!

But if that wasn’t enough of a political embarrassment, just like a naughty schoolboy caught red handed, Jolly hockey sticks, together with most of his closest team-mates, came out and steadfastly refused to acknowledge that they had a party or two or three. Even when he finally said he was sorry, he maintained his party was a ‘business meeting’!

But very much like the Zondo commission back in ol’ SA, they set up a commission of enquiry into the parties to determine inter alia, whether the Prime Minister attended the party that he has apologised for attending!

In the meantime, it would appear that a bunch of tory back benchers became somewhat embarrassed and probably a tad concerned about their political future, given the resounding roar of indignity that arose from every corner of the UK. Apparently, they turned on their leader and by all accounts, forced him to stop all efforts to impose further restrictions in the face of the emerging Omicron virus and to let the people free.

While back in the Cape of storms, we read that on a Sunday evening, a homeless man wandered into South Africa’s Parliament buildings with some high-grade explosives that he must have found in a recycle bin. He reportedly wandered past the kitchen ignoring the food cupboards, picked up a number of laptops and documents from a couple of offices and then set two fires in separate sides of the building and left.

Coincidentally, but no longer surpisingly, the burglar alarms and the fire detection and sprinkler systems of this important national key point were conveniently switched off or malfunctioning at the time.

More amazingly, the highly specialized investigation arm of the police was able to trace and arrest the homeless fellow almost immediately and even before the fires had been extinguished and the scene of the crime could be forensically analysed!

You can say what you like, but you can’t pull the wool over them coppers!

Back here, the United Kingdom became not so united. The labour government in Wales and the other crowds in Scotland and Northern Ireland imposed a new set of restrictions on their respective, so called, devolved nations.

Their view was and remains that Omicron is a terrible threat and is spreading more readily than soft margarine on bread and jumped to stop people standing at the bar counters, wearing masks wherever they go, and stop gathering in numbers of six or more.

These rules effectively put paid to the theatres and sports stadiums not to mention New Year’s Eve parties.

They argued that England would have done the same, but their illustrious leader was concerned that his job would be on the line if he did such a thing. So, in the interests of him keeping his place at the table, he magnanimously encouraged his tribes to dance, eat and be merry. Cautiously of course!

But you can’t put a good Scotsman and Welshman down!

They packed their kilts and other such accessories and drove across the river where all the Sassenach pubs and restaurants welcomed them with open arms and full barrels of English beer.

The Irish probably had a similar plan in mind but as there is a sea separating us, I’m not sure what they actually decided on.

All the while, Dr Angelique Coetzee in Pretoria was repeatedly patched into Sky News, BBC and all the other news channels to repetitively affirm that “Omicron are not dangerous, and she aren’t sure why the Engelse is panicking so.”

Wonderful to see strange bedfellows at play. Dr Coetzee has unwittingly given Jolly Hockey Sticks an alibi in support of his decision to let his people free. She may even be nominated for a Damehood at next year’s royal honours list.

Speaking of which, over a million people here have signed a petition to have Sir Tony Blair’s knighthood withdrawn. The public are outraged and accuse Sir Blair of war mongering and deliberately misleading the British public into believing that old man Saddam was fifteen minutes away from unleashing weapons of mass destruction on the UK and its allies.

As it turned out it was a bit of an “oops,” that not only cost a lot of lives and unnecessary destruction but turned the Middle East into a massively disjointed and unsettled region that has very little prospect of recovery for decades to come.

Conversely, by implication, 63 million people in the UK haven’t signed the petition, so its unlikely that Sir Blair has anything to worry about.

Back in South Africa, the very, very long awaited Zondo report was released and to everyone’s amazement the Commissioner’s conclusions essentially confirmed what everyone has known for the past five years or more. The country was scammed on a scale never before seen in the history of the planet.

It was strange that this earth-shattering outcome didn’t get a look in on the UK’s national television channels. But that’s probably because no one here knows who Zondo is, let alone the Gupta bothers.

Of course, the local versions of ‘corruption’ in high places do feature in the news, but only once the latest celebrity’s affair with another celebrity drops off the watchlist charts.

People coming out or going in is huge business on these islands and last week a bunch of youngsters were acquitted in a local court after having vandelised the statue of a historic slave trader called Edward Colson.

As it turns out, once the statue had been pulled off its plinth and dumped in the river, its value jumped by many hundreds of a percent.

There was simply no time nor interest to report on how team Zuma emptied the nation’s coffers of tens of billions of dollars in some distant land in Africa.

It was reported that by 2015, the very same Sir Tony Blair was worth around £60 million including ten homes dotted around the globe. But notwithstanding, he and his dear wife, Cherie, chose to take advantage of the Government’s pandemic protection furlough scheme and claim at least £76,000 from the rapidly diminishing public purse with which to pay their staff during lockdown.

Novac Djokovic’s encounter with the Australian Border Force hit the small screen all last week and sparked lengthy debates for both sides of the vaccination argument for days on end. It even pushed Russia’s impending invasion of Ukraine off the news streams!

Novac’s challenges created such a commotion that it drove a highly rated comedian to suggest that the English Cricket team probably wished they hadn’t been vaccinated before going to Aus.

“The weather?” you ask. Well, it’s been a whole lot milder than anticipated. No sign of snow south of Yorkshire, but temperatures are ‘well low’ my brothers and sisters, ‘well low’ indeed.