Tania.co.za

The decadence of modern marketing

If you take a South African marketing course that's worth its salt, you'll learn that one of the big influencing factors in the purchasing choices of Afrikaans people, particularly women, is guilt. I don't think many marketers and advertisers really think about this, though. The Northern Suburbs in Cape Town are mostly Afrikaans, but many people who live there shop in English. A shopping centre like Willowbridge (note the English name) is a good example. The shop names are mostly English, or pseudo-European (Philosophy, Col'Caccio, Pick 'n Pay, Woolworths). The specials and sales are advertised in English on shop windows. If you think I am about to advocate that they do it in the Afrikaans language, I am not. I'll leave my language advocacy for another day. And there are plenty of people who shop there who are not Afrikaans-speaking. What follows is simply a piece of advice for anyone who wants to sell stuff to Afrikaans consumers (regardless of the role of language in all of this), and possibly also to a number of English consumers who have a similar thing going on in their heads.

As I said, guilt is a big factor. Many Afrikaans people, even those who are not regular churchgoers, want redemption. Somewhere in their upbringing, they learned that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and that they can never be good enough, but that they should keep trying to please God anyway, although it is impossible. (I am over-simplifying the theology to give you an idea of the mindset.) In spite of the fact that many of them may love material things, there is an underlying belief that all material treasures are bad, while only heavenly treasures are good. There is a distinct conflict between the two. A dualism. Flesh and spirit.

Many English marketers and advertisers don't seem to realise this. They name things in a way which, subliminally if not consciously, causes a dissonance in the minds of Afrikaans consumers. The brand name Sweets From Heaven is a good example of a bad name. In the mind of a traditional Afrikaans person, a more appropriate use of such a phrase would have been in the naming of a charity organisation that distributes sweets to underprivileged children. Heaven is not about money, profit and business. So a shop cannot claim to represent heaven. A church considers itself to represent the God of Heaven. Giving material things is seen as good, the only way in which the good which is to be found in the spirit can be transferred to tangible things. Acquiring material things, on the other hand, is seen as evil, unless those things are needed for survival. Oh, I know that Afrikaans people do buy from that shop. In spite of the name, not because of it.

The heaven metaphor is often used in sexual references too. There must be a hundred or more popular songs which contain some variation on the "Ooh, baby, I'm in heaven" theme. You'll see Afrikaans people sing along to the words on the dancefloor, but what's really happening in their minds is a conflict between conscience and action, producing guilt. An Afrikaans person who has this mindset has to play all sorts of tricks on his conscience (from needs-based rationalisation through to the psychological bludgeoning of that little voice) to get it to accept his participation in the corporeal pleasures of dancing or the purchase of a luxury vehicle or other similar elements of his earthly "lifestyle". The notion of a materialistic "heaven on earth", then, is pretty close to blasphemy.

Nowadays, many Afrikaans people will agree that the straight-laced norms of the past were too restrictive. But that doesn't mean they haven't retained many of the underlying beliefs. During the late 19th Century in Europe, a rebellion against the prim-and-properness of Victorianism resulted in a hedonistic rebellion amongst some people, manifested in a lifestyle which was often described as decadent. The word "decadence" comes from the verb "decay". It had a distinctly negative connotation. Examples of this 19th century moral decadence are captured in the lesser-known pornographic drawings of well-known illustrator Aubrey Beardsley. Some of these drawings were remarkably similar to statuettes produced during the Hellenistic period in ancient Greece, a period characterised by a similar decay of traditional morality with great advances in technology taking place in parallel. This pattern has repeated itself many times throughout history. The period in which we live now, the late 20th and early 21st century, is typical of such a "decadent" period. Technological advancement is at an all-time high, while morality is at an all-time low. Another characteristic of such a decadent age is ecclecticism -- particularly religious ecclecticism. Typically, a golden age spawns imperial expansion, and the dominant nation, united by a common culture and belief-system, is thus brought into contact with other peoples and their cultures. This happened during the Roman empire and the resultant fragmentation of the national spirit into hundreds of personal belief-systems contributed to its ultimate collapse. Today, much of Western society (particularly the English-speaking remnant of the old British empire) has a pick-your-religion attitute. You can be a Christian, a Wiccan or a Shamanist, a Buddhist, Rasta, ethical humanist or whatever you please, including your own combination or version of any of the above, as long as you don't try to impose your beliefs on others. Our present Post-Modern age is actually a sub-period of a much greater phase in history, a fin-de-siécle (or "end of an era") spanning more than a century. The age that is to follow ours, in the opinions of many (including William Butler Yeats and whoever it was who wrote the Mad Max movies) will see the collapse of our 'civilization' and some kind of repeat of the Dark Ages. If the pattern of history is to be believed, then decadence is the precursor of great gloom.

Weirdly enough, though, decadence has taken on a positive connotation through its association with liberation from nasty social restrictions. Oscar Wilde was homosexual. It was illegal to be homosexual at that time in Britain, and when his crime was discovered he was imprisoned for this 'moral decadence'. Gradually, in Western urban society anyway, homosexuality gained acceptance as the valid choice of an individual, and legislation increasingly protects the equal rights of homosexual couples.

The problem with the word decadence is, however, that it still denotes something bad. No matter whether you believe that homosexuality is OK or not, you should not really be of the opinion that decadence is good. But marketers have started telling us that we should want decadent things. Ice-cream is often described as "tempting", or a "sinful, decadent delight". Presumably many people respond positively to such brazenly hedonistic appeals. In fact, advertisers in general are increasinlgy leaning towards marketing to people's selfish traits in a very overt and unapologetic manner. There are so many television advertisements in which the woman chooses the car over the baby, the rugby hero drops the little boy so that he can have his chips, and so on.

These advertisements are supposed to be humorous, but many Afrikaans people find them offensive. Sin is not a good thing to someone who still feels somehow tied to a more traditional Afrikaans upbringing. It is not seen as an act of freedom, but as a step into to an unpleasant and lasting bondage, without lasting reward. "Spoil yourself" is a phrase found in so many advertising lines. Spoil is a bad word. To spoil something means to ruin it. This is what Afrikaans people hear when advertisers "tempt" them to "spoil" themselves. An Afrikaans mother will justify a day at the spa by telling herself that if she commits this sin of "spoiling herself", she will be more relaxed and in a better position to take care of the needs of her family. The sin is a means to an end. But it is still a sin.

Why not simply stop the sin-marketing? If you are convinced that your product is really good, why tell people that it is evil? Are you evil? This is certainly the perception that develops in my mind because of this kind of vocabulary. There are even numerous brands and products which I deliberately and consciously avoid because their advertisements glorify selfishness and other sins. If they told me that their products would be good for me or for the people around me, I would feel better about buying them.

It is understandable that advertisers want their products stand out. There's a perception out there that being good and rule-bound is boring. So I understand perfectly well that they would want to appeal to people's sense of adventure, self-expression and freedom. Being a rebel is sometimes good and righteous. Jesus was a rebel. He led a moral revolution. But he wasn't a sinner.

Here's a tip, then. Don't advertise your ice-cream as decadent, sinful and tempting. That may work for some, but you'll actually offend and lose some customers. Use words which appeal, without an explicit connection to either good or evil. Like "free". Only terminally cynical and suspicious people would say no to "free ice-cream".

Sense and Semblance: An Anatomy of Superficiality in Modern Society

When at the end of last year author Remington Norman used me as a drop-off point to pass on a copy of his new book to a friend, suggesting that I read it first, I was a little distressed, for three reasons. Firstly, I read uncommonly slowly, so you have to be extremely important to me before I will deign to devote any of my precious time to reading anything you might recommend (a situation I hope to mitigate shortly by taking a speed-reading course). Secondly, I have for years toyed with the idea of writing a Masters dissertation in Classical Culture, intending to draw parallels between our current age, the Hellenistic and late Roman periods, and the late 19th Century, and  thus to predict what we might expect from the future. The title of this book, Sense and Semblance: An Anatomy of Superficiality in Modern Society, suggested that someone had beaten me to it. (In fact, someone did beat me to it some years ago already; I remember Marius reading me a newspaper article describing the PhD of some woman in Stellenbosch, and it sounded pretty similar to what I'd had in mind, but focused on a comparison with the Hellenistic period only). Thirdly, I was rather scared, particularly when I actually received the book and realised that it was not an academic treatise, but a detailed discription of the symptoms and rather immediate causes of a very sick society, written for its victims and perpetrators (often the same people). I feared not only that the book would accuse me of being part of the problem, but worse, that it may be right, and I didn't know how I was going to be able to face up to the responsibility brought about by admitting guilt. Well, one thing was sure: If I didn't read it, I would feel even more guilty, so I began.

They say that people who read more slowly, retain more. I suppose this is true to some extent, but of course there is also the problem that slow readers' minds sometimes wander, so that they have to re-read just to ensure that they take in what they're reading. Soon I was so hooked that I contacted the intended recipient of the book, telling him that he'd have to get his own copy, and that I would pay him for the replacement. During that time, I showed the book to Marius, and Christopher saw it on my side-table and read a couple of passages from it while I was out. Marius glanced through it and came to the conclusion that whatever the author had to say, could probably have been said in a 20-page leaflet, but that he had probably turned it into a book because people won't pay you for a leaflet. Christopher happened to spot a passage on multi-culturalism, a topic on which he has some strong opinions, and expressed disagreement with the author's perspective. I urged them both not to toss out the baby with the bathwater. I too had come across a few opinions I didn't like at all, as well as some seemingly impracticable solutions for certain social ills, but I decided quite consciously not to read with the purpose of shooting down the entire thesis, but rather to seek out the value. (After all, the book is about superficiality; so don't tell me that a superficial reading is sufficient to form a proper opinion, or you'll only be proving the book's point!)

It wasn't hard to find the value. The author's language is finely crafted (albeit with the occasional repetition of an uncommon figure of speech), as though to deliberately force his readers to consider his precisely sculpted statements with the same care, whilst refusing to make himself a part of either the superficiality of vagueness or that of pseudo-intellectual neologisms. I suggest that if you are capable of reading English, and particularly if you either intend to run a company or a country, have kids or to live somewhere amongst humans during the next year or so, you should read this book. I haven't finished, so I can't tell you the ending. I just know that the academic-sounding title of this book belies the importance of what is offered for the reader's consideration regarding life as we know it. I am sure you will be able to find something in the book with which you can disagree. But I'd like to see anyone who wants to tell me that the entire thing is a load of codswollop explain the reason for such an opinion rationally, offering an equally logical alternative anatomy of modern society, and explaining why the problems described by Mr. Norman are not really all that serious, and that we can safely ignore them until they blow over. I doubt it would be possible to do so. If you remain unchanged by this book, you probably read it with your eyes or mind or the book itself tightly shut.

Networking, net-working en sommer net working

Personal "Project Management"

Last year I became a "jetsetter". There are so many things I would not have understood about this lifestyle in the past that I now understand. For example, I thought that it was a snobbish thing to insist on certain luxuries when all you really need when you're away is a place to sleep and something to eat, particularly since my own home is comparatively modest. But what I have now come to understand is that when you are being paid to provide "peak performance", it's the little inconveniences that can affect every aspect of the Triple Constraint (time, cost and quality), and in order to optimise the triangle, you need to minimise them.

Here are two examples.

Last year, I presented an in-house course in Project Management to academic and administrative staff at the University of the Witwatersrand. I was housed at a four-star guest house. The guest house owner was very attentive and he liked to chat. I was dependent on when he made supper, and because he had over-extended himself by continuing to take bookings during a staff shortage, we had to drive over to his other guest house for the evening meal, and I helped him get the food ready. Now, at the end of a training day, I am not usually tired; I am exhausted. My courses are customised to the needs of the group, and I sometimes need to make adjustments overnight, incorporating inputs from that day into the materials for the next day. All the additional faffing around with the guest house owner cut into the time I needed to regain my strength. The effort required to sustain the pace and to attend to the needs of all my students is intense. I got very good feedback following the course, and Wits invited me back to present two more courses in 2008; but I took strain. Following my training engagement at the university, I moved to Bryanston, because I had an extra day of business in the area. Checking into the City Lodge, I said to the reception clerk, "I am so glad to be able to spend a night in an impersonal hotel where I can be assured of being ignored until I ask for help!" And I decided: Whenever it is within my power, I will stay in a hotel. When I stay in a Road, Town or City Lodge, at least I know what to expect. I can isolate myself and concentrate on what I have to do, knowing that towels, Internet access, tea and food are taken care of, and I can access them when it suits me. Time, cost and quality are thus balanced in terms of my "personal project", the delivery of the course.

Another thing I never imagined I would hire in my life is a chauffeur. As a reverse snob, I had associated chauffeurs with the nadir of decadent ostentation. But I recently had to travel to Midrand to take a look at venues for a Project Management conference and courses, and there was no way I (with my one blonde female braincell devoted to spatial orientation) was going to be able to get it all done in fewer than three days if I were driving around Johannesburg myself. So I spent a couple of hours sourcing the most suitable chauffeur service, and got the driving around done all done in a day, once again optimising the balance between time, money and deliverables.

The business and pleasure of networking

Networking and social networking are both over-rated and under-rated.

Here's an example of what I mean by over-rated. Last year I attended a social networking event at a delightfully fashionable venue, and nothing happened. Everyone came there expecting something, and the expectation was different for everyone: some people thought they were going to meet venture capitalists, some thought they would meet peers, and some people, like me and Joe and Aubrey, came along because we heard that other people we knew were going to be there, and we were curious enough to just sheep along. It was all rather like when someone points at the sky just for the sake of it, and everyone looks up, but there's nothing to see. We engaged in a couple of cynically humorous conversations, had some seriously good milkshake and coffee in very interesting cups, and went home. The convenor learnt from the experience, as the attendees gave him feedback about the lack of structure, and how he could improve it next time.

Here's an example of what I mean by under-rated -- a networking opportunity which wasn't even meant to be one. Following my chauffeur-driven day in Midrand on Tuesday, I spent Wednesday with the company that distributes PSNext, the Project Management software package that has captured my enthusiasm from the first day I saw it. Although I have received hands-on training in both the basic and advanced features of the program in order that I might train other users here in Cape Town and elsewhere in southern Africa, I had decided that I needed to visit them for a refresher on how to run a demo, and also because I had embarassingly lost my database password, and therefore could not populate the blank database I had asked them to create for me on my previous visit. So I decided to attend a five-hour demo they were holding for prospective customers, and to get my database access sorted out afterwards. I got all that I came for, but the big bonus was that the event proved to be a networking opportunity second to none. At one point I had several people lining up to speak to me, and I was scheduling mini-meetings for timeslots during tea-breaks and over lunch, with the overflow being dealt with by an exchange of business cards and promises of e-mailed company profiles -- and managed all this without upstaging the hosts or diverting the focus of the event. I met people who work in training, in Project Management consulting, in sustainable development, and in project recruiting; and the best of all was that the sense of being able to work together based on common beliefs was mutual. The thing is, I have met several people via Facebook and LinkedIn and my own company's Web site who, whilst working in the same industry, just don't have the personal style and working ethos that make a relationship workable. On this trip, though, I met so many people with whom I believe real networking (or dovetailing, to use another industry cliché) is really possible, that I feel excited about what the future holds.

(Oh, and if you want to see PSNext, ask me.)

A similar thing happened this morning. I received an invitation to attend a faculty meeting at the university where I teach. Now, I am considered "virtual faculty" (their word for an outsourced contractor who teaches on their behalf), but I have never been to a faculty meeting before. Although I have generally steered clear of academic politics, I thought I might as well go along, if only to find out who the people are whom I greet in the corridors when I go there to teach from time to time. Great move! I met all the right people, and discovered that the strategy which Marius and I set out for ProjectManagement.co.za for 2008 fits in extremely well with what is being proposed by the executive education unit, and that collaboration should be possible on several levels where I had previously imagined there would be no interest.

The essence of social networking

I think one of the reason why social networking events can be disappointing and confusing to first-timers, is that they come along expecting business networking. I don't go to a Geek Dinner (or should that be GeekDinner? I am never sure how to write it to get it into the RSS feed) for business networking. I go there for social networking. Or to use a more down-to-earth expression: ek gaan soontoe om te kuier. I sometimes think that I am probably not as much of a geek as I am a geek groupie. I won't pass up an opportunity to make business contacts at such events, but if it's all about business, then you can join some trade association and go to its AGMs and monthly meetings and have a treasurer and a committee and the whole tutti. Social networking is about making friends with people with whom you have some things in common, and if the topic that brings you together relates to your work, then you'd better be someone that loves his work. Social networking is, in a way, what Lonely Hearts Clubs try, but largely fail to do, because they create expectations of great personal fulfilment and set people up to fear rejection. Oh, you can also fail at social networking. You can fail, for example, by hogging the mike to do your sales pitch, or by sitting there and expecting to be "serviced" rather than contributing to the success of the event, unduly criticising the best efforts of the organisers just because your personal preferences weren't acommodated.

By the way, there's another Geek Dinner on next week, but you can't come. It's full!

Na(week)betragting

Die twee dinge waarby ek hierdie naweek nie uitgekom het nie (buiten heelwat huishoudelike take) was Wessel se verjaarsdagpartytjie, en die administrasie van Roelof se Webwerf. Na Vrydagnag se laat-uitbly het ek Saterdag gevat om te herstel.

Ek het hierdie naweek egter onverwags baie skaak gespeel. Die eerste keer was Saterdagoggend. Ek het 'n nuwe buurman -- noem hom nou maar Serif -- wat by my kom pynpille bedel het omdat hy 'n groot abses gehad het en eers na die naweek genoeg geld sou kon kry vir antibiotika. Ek het besluit om vir hom ontbyt aan te bied en geld te leen vir sy besoek aan die tandarts. Hy't die onvoltooide skaakspel wat ek en my gereelde skaakmaat op die kombuistafel gelaat het, gesien, en vir my vertel dat hy en sy broer altyd ten minste twee keer per dag skaak gespeel het. Ek wou egter nie die game-in-progress op my tafel versteur nie, want ek verloor gewoonlik teen die speler met wie ek die spel begin het, en dit het nog goed gegaan met die spel soos hy daar gestaan het. Dié skaakmaat sal 'n ander dag terugkom, en dan kan ek dalk nog wen.

Ek en Serif speel toe 'n potjie skaak op my kleiner stelletjie, en wen.

Ek het in die middag gaan slaap, 'n paar uur lank opgestaan, toe weer gaan slaap en so twee-uur in die oggend wakker geword. Ek het nog gelê en wonder of ek nie dalk moet opstaan en begin huis skoonmaak nie, toe sien ek daar bel iemand na my selfoon (die klank was af). Ek beantwoord met opset die foon heel fris en vars asof dit die natuurlikste ding op aarde is. Die persoon aan die ander kant was nugter genoeg om te wonder hoekom ek nie verbaas of kwaad was dat hy my op so 'n onbesonne tyd skakel nie, maar hy het dié verbasing aanvanklik probeer verbloem.

"I've just come from a party and I am looking for another party."

"Well, this time of the night you're not going to find very much, unless you go to Springbok; and if you wanted me to go with you, unfortunately I am too much of a snob. I don't do Springbok. How sober are you?"

"Quite sober."

"OK, in that case, do you want to come for coffee at my place? It's untidy, but I have coffee. I actually also have food, if you want."

Hierdie tweede karakter -- noem hom nou maar Rian -- sien ook die skaakspel wat op my kombuistafel staan, en ons speel toe ook 'n potjie skaak op my klein stelletjie, en vertrek toe die son begin opkom. Ek wen weer.

Sondagaand bel Rudi. Daar's 'n halfprys special by La Romantica, sê hy, en ek moet 'n skaakspeler saambring en hy sal sy maat bring, dan ruil ons bietjie skaakmaats en eet pizza. Ek dink toe ek sal gaan kyk of Serif dalk lus het; maar ek weet hy's platsak, en dan sal ek vir hom moet betaal. Sodra ek die telefoon neersit, kom daar egter 'n SMS deur van my gereelde skaakmaat: "Wil jy nie vir my aandete maak nie?"

A, hy's honger. Hy's die antwoord. Ek vernietig toe maar die game-in-progress wat ek met hom begin het, en pak die groot skaakstel in.

Ek het lanklaas teen Rudi gespeel. Ek het in die verlede gewoonlik teen hom verloor, maar hierdie keer het ek gewen. Ek het as gevolg van vier onnosele foute aanvanklik teen sy vriend verloor, maar daarna beter gekonsentreer, en toe ook gewen.

"Hy's baie goed!" sê Rudi-hulle van my gereelde skaakmaat. En toe hulle dit sê, na my vier oorwinnigs in twee dae teen vier verskillende mense, besef ek: Ek is op die ou end tog nie so 'n slegte skaakspeler nie. Dis maar net dat ek 'n jaar lank gereeld teen iemand gespeel het wat goed speel!

First Geek Dinner and Chess Party of the year

It's going to be at a place called Sloppy Joe's, which allegedly makes a good lamb dish (which suits me well, since I haven't eaten any sheep for a long time, although it has occasionally been suggested that I count them). On 3 February, a few days after the Geek Dinner (which has been scheduled for 31 January), the Checkmates are going to have another Chess Party. Last night I discovered that one of my new neighbours is an avid chessplayer. I gave him a piece of Christmas pudding, and he told me that it was the first Christmas-thing he had actually received this entire season. (His "worst Christmas ever", he said. And another example of Christmas Disappointment which serves to motivate my motion for cancelling this annual event.) So I gave him the entire pudding as a take-away.

Next week I am going up to Johannesburg to check out possible venues for a new Project Management course we're developing. I made numerous enquiries with various companies to find a cheap chauffeur. (I have only one braincell devoted to spatial orientation; when I go to see specific customers in Gauteng, driving me to where they want me is a condition of the engagement). I was surprised to find that the same brief elicited quotations ranging from between R650 and R2000 from companies offering this kind of service on a regular basis, so I guess this must be quite a diversified market. One company told me: You don't want to come to Johannesburg! The load shedding here is horrible! Well, the experience there can't be worse than it is down here where many tonnes of cement have to be discarded every time the power goes off. And you still have to pay a hundred factory workers. And the trains are an hour late anyway, which means you lose another hundred man-hours. And the police don't want to come when large mobs attack the staff. Aaargh, I am starting to sound like a former South African!

This time I am taking a miniature chess set in my hand luggage. I have learned a thing or two about sitting around at OR Tambo...

Blowing my holiday money

I've done it. I've taken the big step. For other people, the big step probably means buying a home theatre system or a personal computer with 12 GB of memory. For me, the big step means finally ordering the thing I have been thinking about on and off for over a year: Hohner's top-of-the-range Chromonica. It has a full four octaves (including an octave below middle C), and a concert quality sound. It outclasses every other chromatic I have owned. I'll have to warm it up and play it in daily for a week before I can really try it out. It should arrive by mid-January.

In the meanwhile I have also bought a sopranino to keep me from fidgeting.

And you're not allowed to laugh at me just because I like nerdy instruments! I expect you to be as impressed as if this were a brand new sportscar!

Actually, no, I take that back. If I got a sportscar, you shouldn't be impressed. You should be worried enough to take me to a professional philosopher for some attitude rectification therapy.

Selfish

2007 was one of the happiest years I can remember, filled with friendships, reassurances of love, dancing and self-absolution. Before 2007 I didn't even know that it was possible to be happy most of the time. I'd thought that happiness was a rare and occasional experience which was only made possible by the fact that it contrasted with a vast expanse of misery, like a bright flower in a desert.

But all this happiness and friendship in 2007 belied a sinister development in my character. I became accustomed to being liked, but once or twice I became a little worried that I had so few enemies. If you're too popular, you must be doing something wrong. Jesus had enemies. About a month ago I began writing a blog entry about this, in which I said that I thought that there's a danger of becoming hardened by happiness, that is, becoming a short-term pleasure-seeker that walks all over people.

I never posted it.

But the danger had already materialised. On Wednesday night I began receiving SMSes from a friend, ruthlessly attacking my character. The first went like this: "Funny thing about you is that everything is about you. Friendship with you means to go with you, mix with your friends. No interest in the life of 'friend', only in entertainment value of person in your presence. Expressions of love, addiction only to achieve an end. Calculated gain, premeditated selfishness."

My initial reaction was to defend myself. I had just spent several days in service of people I care about when I would actually have preferred to have been alone, and felt quite exhausted. But I did not defend myself. Because whatever 'evidence' I might have to offer in my defence did not negate the fact that in my heart I knew what he was talking about, and he was right. I was afraid that if I didn't re-read the message, my heart would harden, and I would not change. So I saved the message, and replied, and read it again. And again. I desperately hoped that he wasn't so annoyed with me that he would stop there. I begged him for more. It actually felt like a further selfish act to ask him for more, but I didn't know how else to get what I needed.

Fortunately several messages like this followed over the course of the next two days. It began to hurt. I wanted it to hurt so that I could be cut to the heart, and change, and stop being selfish. I became afraid of losing him, not because of his 'entertainment value', but because it has been so long since anyone has been so hard on me, and with such accuracy. And I trust his ability to help me to change. But even in this I was still selfish, because it was about me changing, and his use to me in this endeavour. I kept asking for more up to the point where he seemed to think I was being unnecessarily monastic about the whole thing, probably imagining me to be one of those people who takes masochistic pleasure from melodramatic self-chastisement. But it wasn't that. I don't feel overwhelmed, and nothing I said was exaggerated. I just feel so hungry for this kind of spiritual input. I wanted to get to the point where I could feel his pain, and the pain of the people I had hurt, so that I could radically change, so that I can be of use to what is Good, so that my actions will become unselfish and of lasting and cascading benefit.

Now my cell phone is dying, and I am not sure I will be able to communicate with him. I don't want to lose him. I doubt he even realises how many times he has saved me from evil.

Some of the things that have happened since my last entry

Breede River

Mikhailo and I spent a couple of days on the banks of the Breede River. Two of my hapless friends, Harry and the Wizard, came to visit us on separate evenings, but the details which I had given them earlier verbally and in later in writing somehow escaped their attention, so they did not stay over.

One notably unpleasant aspect of our visit to the Breede this year was that numerous other visitors nearby decided to regularly disturb the peaceful evening sound of crickets, birds, fish-rises and frogs by playing horrible Afrikaans party pop and rugby music. Our personal rule for Breede River holidays is to have no music at all, not even Baroque (although occasional campfire music like harmonica and guitar would have been tolerated). I live in a block of flats populated by students and so I am accustomed to a fair amount of neighbourhood noise. I don't mind it; I even contribute my fair share to it before 22:00, which is when the house rules require that we all shut up. But I do not want that noise on the banks of the Breede River!

We got to see a bit more of the surrounding area than we did last year, though. Did you know that Robertson has a zoo? It isn't called a Zoo, it is called Paradise Birds, but it is a zoo, and the zookeeper and his wife live on the premises. We went there several times to eat cake. We also visited a large cactus garden. (Large garden and large cactuses.)

Christmas and New Year

Christmas and New Year were predictably stressful, as close friends struggled with emotional problems and I was not able to spend much time alone. In 2006, for the first time in many years I'd had an old-fashionedly pleasant Christmas, and good rid of much of my cynicism, but I am afraid it is once again creeping back, and I am once again starting to believe that for a vast number of people, Christmas is the least joyful time of the year, and the catalyst of a lot of misery, pain and suffering. Honestly, I wouldn't mind if it were wiped off the calendar.

I had set aside three full days to clean out cupboards, wash floors and so on, and although I worked diligently, progress was just very slow, and I have recently discovered that I have low blood pressure again, so perhaps that's the reason. Stellenbosch usually has a bustling night life, but with the students all gone, many night spots simply closed completely. I don't like to celebrate New Year, but since yesterday was Christopher's birthday, we went to Mystic to celebrate that, and Graham came through from Cape Town and stayed over at the backpackers, while Christopher stayed over in the Wizard's flat. It was not a bad party, although Christopher, believing that one should "make the best of one's holidays", decided to wake me up at the unearthly hour of nine the next morning. I made omelettes for these gentlemen, and then spent most of the rest of the day facilitating transport for various people in view of the fact that trains and taxis don't run frequently on public holidays, and cars have the habit of breaking down at the Klapmuts crossroads.

No time to write more. I'm back at work.