SundayTimes April 12 2020

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A drone in Limpopo, like this one from India, is fitted with loudspeakers.

Big brother is watching — and chiding — you

By BOBBY JORDAN

● Lockdown offenders in Limpopo now have the booming voice of district mayor Maripe Mangena tailing them down the street thanks to drone technology adapted to help fight the coronavirus.

Police and municipal officials of the Greater Tzaneen Municipality last week deployed a drone fitted with powerful speakers that broadcast Mangena’s coronavirus messages as it hovered above busy streets and dusty pavements. Many residents were intrigued by the unusual sight, but others hurried away.

Not only can the drone broadcast reminders about physical distancing, it can record people and even count them — while officials monitor the footage and intervene if necessary. The first trial run resulted in an illegal shebeen being shut down.

“The drone was able to get real-time information about whether people are observing the lockdown,” said municipal manager Phapelo Matlala.

“We had a recording of the mayor and he was basically conveying a message to communities to say, ‘please respect the lockdown, stay at home, observe the hygiene and practise social distancing’ and so forth.”

The message was broadcast in Sepedi and Tsonga, the district’s most widely spoken languages.

“Where we find that regulations were not observed, the drone can go there, and the councillor can immediately say, ‘you guys, you are not observing’.”

Matlala said the system is relatively inexpensive.

“We are going to follow through with this. It is a technology whose time has arrived.”

INSIDE Father José Alton dos Santos, the parish priest at St Anthony’s Catholic Church in Greyville, Durban, gives Easter blessings to parishioners who are not there physically but have their names stuck on the pews in the church at a mass this week. Churches turned to virtual solutions to spread their messages, with church services outlawed to slow the spread of the coronavirus and the incidence of the sometimes fatal Covid-19. Picture: Sandile Ndlovu

● Lockdown extension weighs on SA’s economy,

● Blanket ban on alcohol and cigarette sales could be

threatening to push unemployment to 50% as businesses and workers clamour for relief and the president demands rescue plans from his ministers

up for discussion as industry bodies make their case for a relaxation of rules; fast-food chains are arguing they, too, should be allowed to trade during lockdown

Bootlegging, bartering keep booze flowing Page 3

IN A HOLE Golf clubs hit deep rough Sport

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April 12 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

News Covid-19: Economy

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Bid to avert a jobs bloodbath COVID-19 cases in SA

What we do during and after this ‘second lockdown’ will make or break the economy

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● The government is putting together an emergency plan to kick-start SA’s economy after the lockdown, in a bid to stave off a jobs bloodbath that economists fear could take unemployment to more than 50%.

And the national command council, chaired by President Cyril Ramaphosa, is tomorrow expected to discuss proposals from some industries to ease certain restrictions during the lockdown, too.

Among them are lobbies from the tobacco and alcohol sectors, as well as a call to allow fast-food outlets to reopen.

The results of these discussions are expected to be taken to the cabinet later in the week, where a raft of proposals that include a comprehensive financial package geared at scaling up the production of essential goods will be tabled.

Also on the agenda will be a radical proposal to cut “non-core” sections from the school curriculum in a bid to relieve pressure on pupils, who will miss at least two months of school this year.

The Sunday Times has learnt from wellplaced sources that the government is likely to focus on the production of items for which high demand is expected — specifically in the medical and pharmaceutical industries and those that produce protective gear and ventilators.

The plan is being driven by the department of trade & industry.

Minister in the presidency Jackson Mthembu said Ramaphosa has ordered all cabinet cluster committees to come with their recovery plans.

“The work of the national command council is the containment of the virus. We will also start discussion that will feed into cabinet about what do we do so that there is economic recovery?

“The president has said all of us as clusters, how do we rebuild and come up with a recovery plan … how do we ensure that our people remain employed after the lockdown, and how do we bring hope to our people that we’re on our way to recovery? We have all been instructed to come up with that plan.”

Ramaphosa announced on Thursday night that the lockdown will be extended to the end of April, but life after lockdown is

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She said the Solidarity Fund was a catalyst in ensuring a rapid response to the pandemic, beginning with bolstering public health care but also focusing on humanitarian efforts.

Ramaphosa said on Thursday night that he and all members of the executive will donate a third of their salary for three months to the Solidarity Fund.

The EFF followed suit saying all of its public representatives will donate a third of their salaries to the fund.

This led to a series of other pledges from politicians both in office and in the opposition to donate their salaries.

Nqweni said they were collaborating with various foundations such as the Motsepe Foundation, the Naspers fund and other organisations.

She said from April 4-14, 6.7-million surgical masks, a million test kits, 1.2-million N95 masks, 20,000 face shields and a million gloves had arrived in the country. About 200 ventilators have also been procured.

Spokesperson for the department of small business development Priscilla Monama told the Sunday Times that pleas for support have been “overwhelming”.

“By Tuesday [April 7] over 100,000 SMMEs had registered online to express their need for assistance,” she said.

Economic efforts have extended to the government’s alliance partners.

Cosatu spokesperson Matthew Parks, who is also the labour co-ordinator at the National Economic Development and Labour Council, said: “We have been having almost daily Zoom meetings at Nedlac to look at economic measures to cushion businesses and workers … Cosatu is engaging with its affiliates on what are the sectors or workplaces that could be allowed to start functioning again under stringent health and safety conditions.”

However, Cosatu’s biggest concern is the UIF. Though R40bn has been set aside for Covid-19 relief to be disbursed via the UIF, it

+ 44 cases

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fears the shutdown will end without the funds reaching workers.

“The UIF was not built to manage an economic meltdown and there is a serious capacity logjam,” said Parks.

Labour wants the South African Revenue Service and banks to be considered as alternatives to the UIF to get the money disbursed.

Despite media reports this week that 60% to 70% of the mine labour force will go back to work next week, Alan Fine, for the Minerals Council SA, yesterday denied this, saying a date when miners would return to work would be informed by the state “after the lockdown”.

“Our approach to dealing with Covid-19 before the lockdown was risk-based, and it will continue to be so,” Fine said. He said the council has developed a standard operating procedure for those mines returning to production.

Alan Mukoki, chair of the South African Chamber of Commerce & Industry, called on the government to ease restrictions on the fast-food industry.

He told the Sunday Times yesterday it would be “an informative test case”.

“We can’t go headlong into opening businesses, and the fast-food sector is the easiest to reopen quickly,” he said.

“They are related to the food industry as essential services, the value chains are very similar in that producers who support Pick n Pay are the same ones who service fast-food restaurants.”

The government will also have to come up with a way to keep the poor fed.

Professor Shanaaz Mathews, director of the Children’s Institute at the University of Cape Town, said the extended lockdown is

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With financial centres such as Sandton, above, and commerce and manufacturing throughout the country at a virtual standstill, the economy has already lost hundreds of billions of rands and is bleeding jobs. Picture: Sebabatso Mosamo

that strict regulations prohibiting movement will have to remain in place at least until then.

This could mean that social distancing and the wearing of masks would have to continue. Limits on the number of passengers in public transport vehicles would also continue.

Other short-term interventions by the government are yielding results.

The Solidarity Fund has raised more than R2bn, including donations from 3,000 ordinary South Africans. Fund CEO Nomkhita Nqweni said they were “humbly overwhelmed”.

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President Cyril Ramaphosa this week extended the lockdown until April 30.

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likely to see strict regulations remain in place for the better part of at least a year.

A massive haemorrhaging of jobs cannot be avoided, but there is a hope that repurposing certain industries will create new jobs and retain some old ones. Engineeringintensive firms such as motor vehicle manufacturers will start to produce ventilators if the state can pull off a proposed complete redesign of the economy, with a renewed focus on industrialisation.

Other proposals up for discussion include ways in which to support and restructure the informal sector and the self-employed.

A government insider said one of the challenges will be to identify those who were active traders in the informal sector before the Covid-19 crisis, given the almost nonexistent paper trail in most cases.

Already the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) has seen a massive take-up from companies to assist with paying salaries in workplaces that have been closed.

About 50,000 applications have been processed with 20,000 having been paid out and the remaining payments to be made this week.

The first major hurdle likely to be discussed by the cabinet this week is the reallocation of the budget presented by finance minister Tito Mboweni just two months ago, in order to accommodate the economic package that will soon be adopted.

It’s understood that current projections have Covid-19 peaking in mid-May, meaning

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By S’THEMBILE CELE, QAANITAH HUNTER, GRAEME HOSKEN, MPUMZI ZUZILE, HILARY JOFFE, JEFF WICKS and ORRIN SINGH

Deaths

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likely to cause starvation in large numbers of households already living in poverty, and will increase vulnerability in child-headed households.

“Since the lockdown, child hunger rates have spiked. With the extension, 55,000 living in child-headed households are at risk of starvation, especially as school feeding programmes are not operating,” she said.

“To avert disaster, government must urgently resolve food distribution network problems, with a lack of co-ordination at provincial levels causing delays in getting food to communities.”

Christo van der Rheede, AgriSA’s deputy president, said “a nationwide food hamper strategy must be rolled out which sees retailers, NGOs, and the religious and farming community using their networks to distribute food to those urgently in need”.

He warned that if this doesn’t happen, the lives of many of the country’s vulnerable will be endangered.

Economic expert Mike Schussler said the extended lockdown will kill the economy, pushing unemployment levels past 50%.

“We cannot continue at less than 50% of normal activity … government does not have enough money to help.

“SA could become the first country in the world with more unemployed than employed people in the labour force. The tax base will be wiped out. Government will have to cut salaries and grants and will not be able to build schools.”

Economist Dr Thabi Leoka said the extended lockdown will push SA into a deep recession, with the country potentially having lost up to R200bn in the past two weeks.

“Tourism, mining and manufacturing may not recover quickly. The retail and vehicle sector will struggle due to demand reduction. Small and informal businesses are the most impacted and many may never recover.”

Wits University health economist Alex van den Heever said SA doesn’t have the economic resistance for an extended lockdown.

“Based on economic formulas, the GDP for the full lockdown which we are currently in will lose nearly R370bn. For the country to survive, the lockdown must be downgraded.

“This must, however, be done with strict health regulations in place which allow major industries to operate while protecting workers’ lives, with mass testing and hotspot areas quarantined.

“Mass screenings and testing must be scaled up even more, with the infected and their contacts immediately traced, isolated and quarantined.”

Professor Shabir Madhi, an infectious diseases expert at Wits University, said what happens after the lockdown will be determined by what happens over the next three weeks in terms of testing, tracing and isolation. “As soon as you lift the lockdown, you get a rebound,” he said, adding that SA did not do enough testing in the early part of the lockdown.

“In terms of reducing transmission, you have to identify cases in households and then put them into isolation and quarantine their contacts. Otherwise, those in the house spread the virus to one another at a rapid rate, and then go out and spread the virus back into the community,” he said.

“With us not having done early identification during the course of the first lockdown, we risk this rebound.”

Citi economist Gina Schoeman said that adding another two weeks of lockdown means a contraction in the economy of 7.5%8%. “Unfortunately the impact is not linear and the longer it persists the more intense the impact,” she said.

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SUNDAY TIMES - April 12 2020

News Covid-19: Alcohol

R200m we won’t cough up Attorney Raees Saint, who represents Gold Tobacco Company, said it paid more than R200m in South African taxes. “The ban means this no longer goes to government”

Sunday Times

Shadow economy keeps SA boozing made R9,000 since the lockdown started. “If I get busted I’m in deep trouble and will not only get arrested but lose my drone licence.”

He said his relationship with customers was based on trust. “I vet them very carefully.

The customer, the supplier and I know the risks. Before a trade is done they hand over all their credit card details to me. That’s my insurance.

“If my drone is seized by the authorities while I’m doing a delivery for them, they cover the full replacement cost plus my bail.”

His drone has a 7km range.

The man’s customers declined to comment, with one woman saying: “It’s got nothing to do with you or anyone else about how my husband and I get our wine.”

A Johannesburg woman said her WhatsApp group is being used to sell cigarettes and alcohol. “All the deliveries are done through middlemen, with people bartering cigarettes for wine and spirits. It’s clearly risky but people are desperate.”

Professor Corné van Walbeek, director of the University of Cape Town’s research unit on the economics of excisable products, said excise tax expectations for 2020 were R14.5bn for tobacco and R31bn for alcohol.

“In contrast to things like cars, where people can delay their purchases, cigarettes not consumed during the lockdown will not be made up after the lockdown, and the revenue will thus be lost forever,” he said.

An online petition calling for the ban on cigarette sales to be lifted has gathered more than 120,000 signatures.

Pretoria resident Bev Maclean, who started it, said that after smoking for more than 40 years it was a “nightmare” to have to stop overnight.

“We were not given enough time to buy enough to see us through this very stressful time. Law-abiding citizens are now, in desperation, being made into criminals by buying illegal cigarettes,” she said.

The South African Liquor Board Owners Association and the Beer Association of SA wrote to President Cyril Ramaphosa saying up to 40,000 people could lose their jobs if the lockdown liquor ban continued.

The association called on the government to allow bottle stores to trade subject to physical-distancing requirements and restricted hours. It also wants pubs and taverns to be given permission to operate as offconsumption outlets.

Ramaphosa’s spokesperson, Khusela Diko, confirmed the president had received the letter. “Government continues to assess submissions received and engage stakeholders on their concerns,” she said. — Additional reporting by Mpumzi Zuzile

Ban on cigarettes and liquor costs state billions in lost taxes

By GRAEME HOSKEN

● Bootlegging has hit the suburbs as South Africans turn to technology, WhatsApp groups and bartering to keep themselves supplied with their favourite tipple while liquor stores are closed for the lockdown.

And an industry built on another banned product, tobacco, says the ban is keeping millions out of the government’s pockets.

The Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association, which represents independent tobacco manufacturers, said the taxman would lose about R1bn in excise revenue this month from the ban of a legally made product.

British American Tobacco, which controls the bulk of SA’s cigarette market, said it contributed R13bn in taxes in 2019. “The cigarette ban will have unintentional consequences, including forcing 11-million smokers to search for outlets willing to defy the ban,” the company said.

Asked about arrests and seizures, police spokesperson Brig Vish Naidoo said: “A decision was taken not to provide blow-by-blow accounts of incidents and police actions.”

Much of the scouting for booze and cigarettes takes place through WhatsApp groups under hashtags such as #ImAskingForSomeoneElse or #HelpingAFriendInNeed.

A west rand community WhatsApp group in Gauteng offers Graça wine, which usually costs R50, for R300 a bottle, and a Glenfiddich 18-year-old scotch, which usually costs R1,300, for R1,800.

WhatsApp groups in Pretoria and Durban carry similarly inflated listings, with beer selling for up to R700 a case.

Bartering wine for cigarettes is also popular. A woman in Rondebosch, Cape Town, said she realised before the lockdown that cigarettes would be a good way of bartering.

“I bought boxes and boxes of cigarettes, let people in my neighbourhood know that I had stock and that I was willing to trade,” she said. She set her trade price at three packs of Peter Stuyvesant Blue for a bottle of good red wine.

A Pretoria man who is putting his drone to use for alcohol drops said breaking the law comes with risk, but he has to earn a living.

Charging R500 a delivery, he said he has

Some of the booze and cigarette transactions on WhatsApp.

LOCKDOWN LIFTOFF Sherazade Mami, a Tunisian professional dancer and teacher, practises on the roof of her apartment building in Dekwaneh, on the eastern outskirts of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut. Lebanon’s lockdown, which began on March 15, was this week extended until April 26. By yesterday there were 609 coronavirus infections in the country, and 20 people had died of Covid-19. Picture: Joseph Eid/AFP

Ban is a boon to those smokers trying to kick the habit

By SIPOKAZI FOKAZI

● Most smokers are gasping for an end to the lockdown ban on cigarette sales, but Johannesburg businessman Marius Buys says it is the perfect opportunity to quit.

After finishing the packet of cigarettes he bought a day before the lockdown began, the 44-year-old went cold turkey.

“It’s been just over 14 days since I last had my last cigarette and you have no idea how good I feel about it,” said Buys.

“I went through withdrawal symptoms for the first three days and since then I’ve been so busy doing charitable work to curb the Covid-19 spread that I don’t even think about smoking any more.”

Buys is one of about 200 owners of 3D

printers who are printing reusable masks and facial screens for emergency workers, security guards and pharmacists. He decided not to stockpile cigarettes to fulfil a promise to his teenage daughter.

“I was supposed to have stopped in December, but I kept postponing it,” he said. “I promised my 13-year-old daughter to stop if she improved her school grades. She did, but it’s been a real struggle. She was disappointed and I’ve been feeling terrible about it.”

Another smoker trying to quit is Apollo Mafuduka, of Beaufort West, who ran out of cigarettes a few days into the lockdown.

“I jumped at the opportunity to quit,” said the nurse, who has been a smoker for 30 years. “I told myself that I’m not going to hunt for cigarettes. Now I don’t even bother

THE NATIONAL MINIMUM WAGE A TOOL TO CLOSE THE WAGE GAP AND TO OVERCOME POVERTY

R35m

counting the days without cigarettes. I’m very determined to make it work.”

A study published on Thursday said smoking might raise the risk of Covid-19 by elevating enzymes that allow the coronavirus to gain access to lung cells.

Smokers may have elevated levels of an enzyme called ACE-2, which helps the virus enter cells in their lungs, where it replicates, according to research in the European Respiratory Journal based on data from China.

Dr Sharon Nyatsanza, of the National Council against Smoking, said quitting would strengthen smokers’ immune systems, which are weakened by tobacco use.

The Heart & Stroke Foundation said another benefit of quitting during the lockdown was that smokers were surrounded by

DAILY EXCISE

duty on cigarette sales

39,300 SIGNATURES

on a change.org online petition calling for an end to the lockdown ban on cigarette sales

Marius Buys hasn’t lit up a cigarette since the country went into lockdown.

family, who could help them deal with the anxiety and stress of withdrawal symptoms.

Foundation head Prof Pamela Naidoo said reminding yourself that you are not the only one who is anxious about the health crisis, and learning about withdrawal symptoms, would help smokers to deal better with their decision.

“Smoking is not only one of the drivers of many medical conditions but is the direct cause of selective diseases such as cancer and respiratory disorders,” she said.

“If a smoker becomes infected with Covid-19, their lung capacity is significantly decreased and their existing respiratory condition worsens, further reducing the flow of oxygen to the body. Like all bad habits, smoking can be unlearned.”

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4

Sunday Times

April 12 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

News Covid-19: St Augustine’s

Covid-19 has its deadliest day in UK A total of 980 people died in UK hospitals on Friday, marking the deadliest day of the pandemic there and overtaking anything experienced in a single day by Italy or Spain. Italy announced its record daily death toll of 971 almost two weeks ago, against Spain’s worst day of 950 Covid-19 deaths. The number of virus deaths in UK hospitals by April 11 was 8,958

Hospital fights virus, venom St Augustine’s battles to save patients and its reputation

By NIVASHNI NAIR, ORRIN SINGH and SUTHENTIRA GOVENDER

● Doctors, nurses, patients and their families are demanding to know why staff fighting the coronavirus pandemic were left unprotected at a top Durban hospital where five people died and 66 others tested positive for Covid-19.

After health minister Zweli Mkhize ordered an investigation on Friday into the apparently unchecked outbreak of the virus at Netcare’s St Augustine’s Hospital, nurses and doctors who spoke to the Sunday Times, as well as their unions, accused the hospital of mismanagement and flouting standard infection-control procedures.

Although Netcare strongly denies this, health workers at the hospital alleged that it failed to provide them with proper protective gear, refused to allow them to wear masks in case they frightened their patients, and did not tell them which ward the Covid-19 patients were being treated in “until it was too late”.

On Friday, hours after President Cyril Ramaphosa extended the nationwide lockdown for a further two weeks, Mkhize held an online meeting with chief executives of most of the country’s private hospitals and announced an investigation into the St Augustine’s outbreak in which 48 nurses were infected. He also announced the establishment of a task team comprising unions, private and public hospitals and the department of health in light of “concerning developments” and complaints from private and public health-care workers.

Already, one nurse employed at Durban’s flagship government hospital, Inkosi Albert Luthuli Central Hospital, and who works at St Augustine’s for extra money, has tested positive for Covid-19. The provincial health department is now awaiting the results of 40 other nurses at Inkosi Albert Luthuli with whom she had been in contact.

Mkhize and his department are bracing themselves for the figures to rise further as they await a list of agency nurses who came into contact with infected staff so that they, their colleagues and their families can also be traced and tested.

Health workers and their unions at St Augustine’s also charged that management failed to tell them that they were treating patients with Covid-19 or to ensure that doctors and other medical staff who had travelled to the UK and US self-isolate for 14 days before returning to work.

A St Augustine’s nurse who tested positive for the virus told the Sunday Times that it was a “tense and overwhelming” period for her and her colleagues.

“The hospital management are telling everyone they had the best protocols and put in place all the measures, but it was us at the frontline who dealt with the patients, who ended up being exposed,” the nurse said.

“We weren’t told about the patients who were positive until it was too late. Management, who haven’t even bothered to pay us a visit to see how we are doing, will literally get away with this. It makes me sick to think that they are protecting themselves when people’s lives were lost and there is a deadly virus out there.”

Another hospital nurse said she had asked to wear a mask after the lockdown was announced more than two weeks ago but was told she was not allowed to do so.

“They said they didn’t want to alarm patients. We weren’t even told which ward the Covid-19 patients were being kept in. A week later we were given one mask and a brown paper bag and were told that at the end of our shifts we would need to place our masks

Outside St Augustine’s Hospital in Durban, where all entrances were closed after an outbreak of Covid-19 cases that infected patients and health workers. Picture: Sandile Ndlovu

Dr Anchen Laubscher, Netcare group medical director.

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THE NUMBER of people who died at St Augustine’s hospital

48

THE NUMBER of infected health-care workers

We are working every day to combat and help this disease decelerate and negativity at this time isn’t what we need.

We need people to encourage us St Augustine’s nurse

into the brown bag, which would then be sent for a deep-cleaning processes,” she said.

Another nurse told the Sunday Times that they were being victimised in their communities by neighbours who want them to move out, as well as on public transport where they are given a “hard time”.

Netcare vehemently denies the allegations, saying it was the first private healthcare provider to implement preventative measures including screening patients and visitors, sealing off multiple entrances, limiting visiting hours and closing hospital pharmacies and coffee shops.

Netcare group medical director Dr Anchen Laubscher said a full epidemiological report now being compiled with Professor Salim Abdool Karim, a renowned scientist and chair of the ministerial advisory committee on Covid-19, and a team of epidemiologists from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, will shed light on what happened.

Laubscher denied that nurses were kept in the dark when a Covid-19 patient was admitted, saying they “immediately communicated this” to the health department and National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD), and that 30 nurses were subsequently tested.

St Augustine’s was closed on Tuesday with 58 patients remaining — split between the red zone for those who have tested positive and the orange zone for patients under investigation who are still awaiting their test results. The hospital’s nurses return to work there every day.

“We put on our garb and do what we pledged to do. We are nurses. We are frontline workers and we will do whatever it takes to help patients,” another nurse said.

Another health worker said: “The stigma is really bad. We are being blamed by the public for transmitting the virus when there is no proof. The negativity towards St Augustine’s employees has really brought down morale in the hospital. It’s nerve-racking to go home and see all the negative things said about us on social media.”

Kevin Halama, spokesperson for the Health & Other Services Personnel Trade Union of SA (Hospersa), which represents 359 St Augustine’s employees of whom 248 are nurses, said the hospital’s masks policy

Diary of death A timeline of the spread of Covid-19 at Durban’s St Augustine’s hospital MARCH 1 St Augustine’s hospital is asking patients who were admitted there from this date to contact the hospital.

MARCH 6 Netcare issues a statement that it had co-operated with the National Institute for Communicable Diseases and the national department of health, “aligned clinical protocols for managing Covid-19 with their clinical guidelines”.

MARCH 9 An 81-year-old admitted to the hospital for a suspected stroke.

MARCH 13 A 46-year-old Isipingo teacher was admitted for hypertension and asthma.

MARCH 14 A third patient (details unknown) admitted to the hospital.

MARCH 16 The 81-year-old patient is discharged and taken to Bill Buchanan. She is here for four days and comes into contact with several staff and other patients. Five people - who went into isolation - test positive.

MARCH 21 The 81-year-old is rushed to hospital and placed in ICU with double pneumonia. The following day swabs are taken from her to test for the virus.

the hospital after being admitted for severe asthma.

MARCH 31 The Isipingo teacher dies.

APRIL 2 The 81-year-old woman dies.

A Folweni policeman admitted to the hospital tests positive for Covid-19. The hospital says that deep clean commences.

Folweni police station is sanitised.

APRIL 3 Hospital closes trauma unit and bans new admissions after it emerges that three patients (the two women and the third patient admitted on March 14) died from Covid-19 complications and 11 staff test positive.

APRIL 7 Mkhize announces that 66 people have been infected - including 48 staff - following an outbreak of the virus at the hospital.

APRIL 8 Netcare releases a statement confirming the outbreak, advising of measures including co-operation with epidemiologist Prof Salim Abdool Karim and others in a department investigation.

KZN premier Sihle Zikalala and KZN Health MEC Nomagugu Simelane-Zulu announce the indefinite closure of the hospital.

MARCH 25 The 81-year-old woman tests positive.

APRIL 9 President Cyril Ramaphosa announces a two-week extension of the lockdown.

MARCH 27 Health minister Zweli Mkhize confirms that an 81-year-old woman is on a ventilator at

APRIL 10 Mkhize announces an investigation into St Augustine’s hospital by his department.

was a real concern to staff.

“Their policy entails that staff members will receive one mask every five days while administrative staff will receive one mask every seven days,” he said.

Ayanda Zulu, provincial secretary of the National Education, Health and Allied Work-

ers’ Union (Nehawu), which represents 210 hospital employees, said they were extremely concerned that more of their members could be infected.

“The employer has been absolutely negligent and does not want to take responsibility. If the employer continues, we will be left

with no choice but to take legal action.”

Meanwhile, a Durban man, Bennie van Loggerenberg, told the Sunday Times of his brother Richard’s rage after St Augustine’s sent an SMS to his mother’s phone on Tuesday asking if she had experienced any Covid19 symptoms. His 81-year-old mother, Drienie Dorrington, died there from Covid-19 last week — the third patient to die of the virus at the hospital.

Richard, who had his mom’s cellphone, responded: “This is the number of Mrs Dorrington. Passed away on 2/4/2020 from COVID-19 and she was 81-years-old. My mother.”

On Tuesday, the hospital sent hundreds of automated messages to patients discharged in March or April asking whether they had experienced any Covid-19 symptoms, including loss of smell or taste, shortness of breath, a cough, sore throat or fever. Patients were asked to reply yes or no.

“My brother was fuming when he received this message. His wife was crying. It was painful,” Bennie said.

“It is a tragedy that so many medical staff and other individuals have been infected at St Augustine’s. I support the statement made by the unions with regards to negligence. We hope and pray that those who are now exposed to the virus will recover shortly. Hopefully the steps that management of the hospital has taken will result in a positive outcome.”

Gareth Lemley, whose fiancée was admitted to the hospital on March 24 for surgery, said they were “sick with worry” that they could be carrying the virus.

He said he called the hospital several times after reading about patients dying and testing positive for Covid-19 but they didn’t take him seriously. He claims that one staff member told him it was a “hoax”.

“We heard nothing. I called several times and explained and was told to stay at home.

Eventually, someone called us back on Monday and asked us about our symptoms. We don’t have any but we could be in incubation,” he said.

“They were very quick to hit us with a R47,000 hospital bill [for the surgery] but surely they could take R700 out of that and ask us to go for testing? Instead we are sitting here worried out of our minds.”

Plan to salvage school year hammered out

By PREGA GOVENDER

● An earlier start to the school day, evening and weekend classes and scrapping “nonessential” parts of the curriculum in certain subjects.

These are among the “possibilities” the department of basic education is looking into, along with scrapping the June and September school holidays.

Basic education minister Angie Motshekga will make final proposals to a special cabinet meeting scheduled for this week.

Department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said a decision on the June exams that were to have been written by tens of thousands of part-time pupils, as well as progressed pupils who wrote only half their subjects last year, will be announced shortly.

“We were supposed to start printing question papers on April 1 and we have not been able to do that,” he said.

“It’s practically impossible [to have the

exams in June]. In terms of the management plan, we have already missed some operational deadlines in terms of logistics, markers, checkers, exam centres.”

He said discussions about this exam took place at a special meeting between the director-general of basic education and the superintendents-general of the provincial education departments on Friday.

“There was a position that was taken but it will still need to be given to the minister.”

He said that one of the options is “switching” these exams to a later date. The minister will make the final decision.

A committee is also looking at whether the writing of the June exams by pupils in grades 1-12 should go ahead or be postponed.

Teacher unions want these exams scrapped.

Pushed on whether the internal June exams will be postponed, Mhlanga said: “The entire school calendar has now shifted, so

anything is possible.”

Commenting on the proposal to extend the school day, he said that schools starting at 7.45am could start at 7am.

“The breaks could be shortened. Teachers could teach until the afternoon and maybe learners could go home and come back and lessons could go on into the evening.”

Speaking about the possibility of removing the “non-core” elements of the curriculum in some subjects, he stressed this does not imply “the skipping of the essential elements”.

“This is just a thought. I don’t know whether the committee will propose it or not.”

He referred to the shutdown of schools in Vuwani, Limpopo, during community unrest, saying that the curriculum content had been reviewed to enable pupils to catch up with the loss of teaching time.

“During that time, we looked at the nonessential text in the curriculum that could be

skipped without compromising what learners should know. The Vuwani situation could be an option. The people are working today and tomorrow because the plan needs to be finalised.”

Basil Manuel, executive director of the National Professional Teachers Organisation of SA (Naptosa), said the department’s national curriculum and assessment task team was looking at streamlining the curriculum “so that the important things are taught”.

“We did say certain chunks of the curriculum that are not building blocks for next year could be removed from this year’s curriculum. In every curriculum in every subject there are certain things we do which seem to be important for a grade but in fact you don’t refer to them again in later grades.”

The minister was in agreement “that these things need to be looked at”.

“There are people who are saying to us there are some subjects which you can drop to make sure the critical ones happen. If a de-

Minister of basic education Angie Motshekga will present the cabinet with a plan for the school year.

Picture: Antonio Muchave

cision is made to say we are going back and we are going to have three subjects, nobody can be surprised.”

Manuel said their view was that the internal exams for grades 1-12 pupils, including the June matric exams, should be scrapped “because that’s curriculum time and you must be teaching in that time”.

He said Naptosa supported the plan to scrap the holidays or greatly reduce them.

“I don’t believe there’s a single teacher out there who believes we are going back and a few days later we are going to have three weeks’ June holiday,” he said.

Education expert Professor Mary Metcalfe said that because of the time lost, teachers will need to adjust their expectations of what children can learn by the end of the year.

“Parents’ priority must be to keep their children feeling supported and engaged.”

5

SUNDAY TIMES - April 12 2020

Music for hope World-famous opera singer Andrea Bocelli will perform in a concert called Bocelli: Music for Hope, which will be streamed live from an empty Duomo cathedral in Milan, Italy, tonight. Bocelli hails from Italy, which has been deeply affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Audiences worldwide can go to his YouTube home page for the concert, which will feature Ave Maria and Sancta Maria. The concert starts at 7pm

News Covid-19: Easter

Sunday Times

Virtual Easter will be no less virtuous Worshippers will swop pews for sofas at home

By ZIMASA MATIWANE

● Churches closed by the Covid-19 lockdown resurrected themselves online to celebrate Easter today, with one of the biggest expecting a virtual congregation of more than 50-million.

Self-styled prophet Shepherd Bushiri’s Enlightened Christian Gathering Church, which has 120 branches in SA, is broadcasting its service on its own Prophetic Channel and Major 1 Connect app, as well as on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

“We are having a mega online service and every Enlightened Christian Gathering member and follower, not just in South Africa, is expected to connect,” said church communications director Ephraim Nyondo.

“We are also going to have holy communion under guidance and instruction from the prophet.”

Ray McCauley, senior pastor of Rhema Bible Church North, in Randburg, said the lockdown had forced the church to find creative ways of reaching its members and the wider community.

“Turning a negative situation into a positive one despite the current restrictions, our pastors have been able to continue to function in most pastoral functions telephonically and online,” he said.

“Despite the lockdown, church services are online and are functioning fully in every aspect.”

The leader of the Roman Catholic Church in SA, Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, said congregants would be able to live-stream services.

“The pope’s sermon will be available to the whole world. Following mass, the pope will deliver his Urbi et Orbi message and give an Easter blessing that will be available on YouTube at a later time,” he said.

Bishops in SA were at home observing the lockdown. “I have to lead by example,” said Napier. “I will also be home because when we say people must respect the rules of the lockdown, we must also respect the rules.”

Cardinal Wilfrid Napier has urged fellow Catholics to access services that will be live-streamed.

Picture: Sandile Ndlovu

5

MILLION The estimated membership of the Zionist Christian Church congregation in SA

11am THE TIME

the pope will start his virtual Easter Sunday mass from the Vatican

The Methodist Church of Southern Africa had been offering daily prayers on social media platforms including Facebook and WhatsApp since the start of the lockdown, said communications director Bongi MoyoBango.

“We have also asked different ministers to record daily video and audio devotions. On Sundays, our ministers go live with their sermons to those audiences that have access to the internet, and written sermons are also shared via WhatsApp.” Church leader Bishop Purity Malinga’s Easter service would be broadcast at 12.30pm today on DStv channel 344, said Moyo-Bango.

For the Twelve Apostles Church in Christ, respecting the lockdown means worshipping at home, with no television or social media broadcast sermons.

The church has advised its 4.5-million members to use the time to strengthen their families’ bond with God. “In our church we believe worship starts at home, not at the church halls. This is primarily what we preach,” said spokesperson Mfundo Mhambi.

Church leader Bishop Caesar Nongqunga would also be at home praying for triumph over the virus. “It is the church’s obligation and duty to abide by the laws of the lockdown, that is what we have preached to the congregation.

“We obey that and the church released a circular that all services are suspended until the lockdown is over.”

The Covid-19 pandemic saw the cancellation of the largest Easter gathering across Southern Africa after Zionist Christian Church leaders met a government delegation led by health minister Zweli Mkhize.

Traditionally, about a million people flock to Moria, in Limpopo, in a pilgrimage to the spiritual home of the ZCC. Last week, President Cyril Ramaphosa visited the church’s leadership to thank them, to provide an update on the government’s response to curbing the spread of the coronavirus, to seek the advice and counsel of the church, and to ask for prayers for the nation in the fight against Covid-19.

ZCC spokesperson Emmanuel Motolla did not respond to calls or texts about how the church was celebrating the Easter weekend.

Ryle De Morny shows how to use household items, like a towel and water bottle, to keep in training during the lockdown.

Pictures: Supplied

Mihlali Ndamase has skincare tips.

Tips on how to keep fit in mind, muscle

Picture: Katlego Mokubyane

Stocking up on basics, bleach

By ALEX PATRICK

● There has been an increase in the sale of staple foods such as maize, rice and tinned beans, but no figures yet on whether the Covid-19 lockdown has dampened the need for seasonal luxuries like Easter eggs.

Pick n Pay said marshmallow eggs, coated hollow chocolate eggs and a range of moulded chocolate bunnies are still favoured by customers, as are hot cross buns. It is too early to pin down numbers yet, they said, but muffin and bread mixes are also popular, as is charcoal, the group said in a statement.

According to Pietermaritzburg Economic Justice & Dignity Group researcher Julie Smith, core staple foods and vegetables drove monthly food prices higher during the lockdown.

The group releases a monthly household affordability index that, through research conducted in the KwaZulu-Natal city, provides a porthole into working-class households across the country.

The group released an extra paper, “The Household Food Situation During Covid-19 and the Nationwide Lockdown”, with research gathered from March 19, the week before the start of the lockdown, to April 2, day seven of the lockdown.

Based on their research, the following food items were top of the shopping list, with people buying in bulk of 10kg and more: maize meal, rice, flour, cooking oil, eggs and tinned beans.

At the top of the hygiene products list was Jik bleach, with households buying three times more than usual. There was also a big

Liezel van der Westhuizen, seen here with her dogs, says there are fitness tips for pets too.

increase in sales of bath soap.

Smith said price increases in core staple foods and vegetables drove the higher monthly food prices per basket, up 5.8% from March to April.

Staples like potatoes jumped by 38% and carrots as much as 50%.

Most people were only able to buy extra food to last through the lockdown when social grants and payments came in, which was the last week of March and the first week of April — after the lockdown process had commenced, she said.

Michael Walker, head of performance marketing at Gumtree, said the online marketplace saw an increase in sales of DIY goods during the lockdown, as well as in home-brewing beer kits.

By CRAIG JACOBS

● When Ryle De Morny was a teenager, he couldn’t afford gym equipment, so he used a basket weighed down with a bag of marbles to work out in his bedroom.

Now the hunky TV presenter uses that inventive approach to inspire viewers of SABC3 morning show Expresso to crawl out of bed and keep fit.

The world champion lifesaver is among celebs thinking of solutions to help people stay physically and mentally fit.

De Morny’s items around the house, like a broom, water bottles, towels and even a pack of paper plates, will help viewers get into condition.

“There’s a lot you can do with a towel — stretching, strength training, isometric holds, stability,” he said.

Another fitness junkie who is motivating others is Liezel van der Westhuizen, who hosts a fitness guide on Cape Town radio station Kfm. She also features a roundup of workouts on @LiezelOnline and says there are even online fitness classes for pets.

She also urges restraint.

“Any weight workouts should

Recipes for a healthy body and a happy heart

By CHRIZELDA KEKANA

● Celebrity chefs are sharing tips for healthy eating during lockdown.

Mogau Seshoene, author of The Lazy Makoti’s Guide to the Kitchen, has been inundated with requests for advice. She told the Sunday Times her game-changer tip was to shun unhealthy food from the get-go when laying in supplies.

“I made sure to stock up on veggies, both fresh and frozen, and am using that to make more meat-free dishes, she said.

“I’ve also been making vegetable pasta with butternut and baby marrow instead of using normal pasta and have been replacing at least one meal a day with a vegetable soup.”

Event organiser and foodie Tebello Motsoane says soups have been a winner in her kitchen.

“I’ve been cooking with a lot of broth that has plenty of garlic, ginger, turmeric and fresh herbs, which are great for my immune system. The broths are great for poaching vegetables, creating amazing ramen and make a delicious base for soups.”

But both Seshoene and Motsoane admit they have struggled to stay away from notso-healthy comfort food.

From left, Benny Masekwameng, Mogau Seshoene, Tebello Motsoane and Siba Mtongana are among the chefs offering advice on healthy eating for immunity during the Covid-19 pandemic. Pictures: James Oatway, Antonio Muchave, Instagram and Esa Alexander

Celebrity chef Siba Mtongana says she has prioritised healthy eating to ensure her husband and children’s immune systems stay strong.

“I’ve been cooking healthy, nutrientdense and wholesome food that primarily ensures that our immune system and our overall health is at its best.”

But MasterChef SA and Ultimate Braai Master judge Benny Masekwameng has opted to cook family favourites rather than “overly healthy” meals.

“I’m cooking a lot of my family’s favourites using what is in season and affordable at the moment. Slow-cooked stews and casseroles like lamb knuckles, beef shin, pork trotters and oxtail. I’ve been supplementing those with beans and pulses like lentils and split green peas.”

However, he has been using healthy cooking methods such as flame grilling, steaming and roasting.

Masekwameng encouraged people to snack on fruit and to make snacks using granola, cereals, nuts and dried fruits. The chef said that when anxiety strikes he finds it hard to indulge in his favourite snack, dark chocolate, only in moderation.

Mi Casa frontman J’Something, who is also an accomplished chef, says his family’s taste buds have trumped other considerations during lockdown.

“I have to be honest and say that healthy eating hasn’t been top of my list,” he said.

“My family and I love food so much. So food has really been our getaway during lockdown.

“We’ve been eating a lot of delicious things that have been affordable, like chicken soup, pap ’n wors, lots of veggie dishes like bean and lentil curry, as well as our personal favourite, sweet potato tacos.”

be tailored specifically towards your strengths and take into account any weaknesses or injuries you may have,” she said.

Beauty influencer Mihlali Ndamase said she’s using the lockdown to focus on content for her Instagram account. She recommends drinking 2l of water a day to keep the skin hydrated, and tells what to do if a person runs out of skin-care products, which are not classed as essentials during the lockdown.

“Skin care is easy to maintain at home because there are a lot of alternatives to scrubs and exfoliants in the kitchen, like brown sugar,” she said.

When it comes to a DIY mask of the type that’s good for your skin, she suggests mixing together lemon, turmeric and milk or plain yoghurt.

“This helps get rid of scarring and uneven skin tone.”

A former Miss SA, Tamaryn Green, who began community service as a newly graduated medical doctor at a Joburg state hospital just as the coronavirus emerged in SA, has been using social media to keep people up to speed when it comes to Covid-19, sharing information and tips on how to sanitise and stay safe.

Addressing the psychological toll of selfisolation, Green said there are a number of support groups in which psychologists and psychiatrists have volunteered to help with mental concerns.

“Stay active, meditate, sleep, and try to stay in contact with the outside world,” were some of her key tips to keeping mentally fit.

Lazy Makoti’s recipe for multi-use dough Ingredients ● 4½ cups cake flour ● 1½ teaspoons salt ● 2 teaspoons instant dry yeast ● 4 teaspoons sugar ● 2 cups warm water

Method Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl, then mix in the warm water.

Knead mixture until it combines and does not stick to your hands.

Transfer dough to a large greased enamel bowl, cover with clingfilm and place in a warm place to allow to double in size.

Once it has risen, press the dough down, releasing the air, and knead for another five minutes.

Once the dough has risen for the second time you can choose to steam it in a pot to make dombolo, add to a stew to make dumplings, deep fry in oil to make magwinya/vetkoek or top with your favourite topping to make pizza.

Page 6 - 12 April 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Page 7 - 12 April 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

8

Sunday Times

April 12 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

News Covid-19: Politics

MP fails to keep out public Parliament on Friday night held its first oversight meeting on the coronavirus pandemic. The health portfolio committee held a virtual meeting with health minister Zweli Mkhize and all nine health MECs. MPs commended Mkhize and his team for their handling of the Covid-19 crisis but urged him to give daily updates on the virus. Health portfolio committee chair Sibongiseni Dhlomo, pictured, failed to have the meeting blocked to the public after the Press Gallery Association complained

Provinces give Sisulu a cold shoulder Minister’s grand plan to relocate thousands gets chilly reception

By APHIWE DEKLERK and GRAEME HOSKEN

● Some provincial governments are opposing human settlements minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s plan to move tens of thousands of people from crowded settlements.

Planning and housing experts also warned that money for the moves should be used rather to improve hygiene, and access to water and food.

Sisulu’s spokesperson, McIntosh Polela, said she was talking to civic organisations in the hope of getting communities to agree before presenting her plans to the cabinet.

“She will be working with other government entities, including municipalities, once

there is an agreement with the communities.” He said the minister was aware that people in these communities “always resisted” being moved. Discussions are being facilitated by nongovernmental organisations.

“As for the budget, this is a constantly moving target and one cannot put a price on human lives,” he said.

Sisulu has ordered the urgent move of selected communities in Gauteng, the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal.

The plan’s details have been left to provincial and local governments. Little is known about how communities have been selected, whether households and families will be split up, how properties will be protected or, once the virus has been contained, if people can to return to their homes.

The plan targeted 29 settlements, five of which are priorities: Stjwetla in Alexandra, Johannesburg, Kennedy Road in Durban, Mooiplaats in Pretoria, Duncan Village in East London and Dunoon in Cape Town.

KwaZulu-Natal human settlements MEC Peggy Nkonyeni said her department was

Lindiwe Sisulu, whose plans to move settlements have met with resistance.

not planning to move anyone from Kennedy Road. “We will be following our programme [of upgrading informal settlements],” she said.

“We have a number of transition camps in KZN. We are very, very much scared [of] establishing other transit camps now because many people have been staying there for

more than 10 years and if you ask me how their living conditions are … they are very, very bad. We cannot continue promoting establishment of transit camps in KZN. We are in a process of reducing them and we even agreed that we will demolish them.”

In the Eastern Cape, a highly placed official said there were no immediate plans to move households from Duncan Village. He said although the provincial government had identified empty land in East London and Port Elizabeth for possible resettlement, this would be done only if a suspected case of Covid-19 was reported.

“You cannot just move to announce that you are moving people because you would be creating panic,” he said.

In Gauteng, insiders said Sisulu had not consulted human settlements MEC Lebogang Maile about her plans.

Western Cape human settlements MEC Tertius Simmers said that in the absence of a plan from the national government, the province and Cape Town planned a “rapid informal settlements support upgrade”.

The plan would target two settlements identified by Sisulu; Kosovo, near Philippi on the Cape Flats, and Dunoon, near Table View on the west coast. There is an estimated budget of about R553m for the whole project.

Simmers said the province had not yet been allocated a budget by Sisulu, nor been given targets and timelines for the project.

He said the national government should align its plan with the realities because a large number of people living in the settlements did not qualify for the department’s housing programme.

Professor Philip Harrison, the South African research chair in spatial analysis and city planning based at Wits University, said people could not be ripped from their homes. “A plan like this won’t be achieved within a month. By the time you get a major relocation and de-densification programme off the ground, the country will already be devastated.”

He said the government should put its efforts into improving sanitation, food security, monitoring and testing, and isolation and

quarantine strategies. Removals would cause “conflict which we can ill afford”.

South African Cities Network researcher Siphelele Ngobese said though global medical evidence on Covid-19’s spread had forced city authorities to think about de-densification, it had to be carefully balanced to ensure people’s rights to housing and employment.

“The department must show how people’s rights will be guaranteed, when they can return home, how their properties will be safeguarded and how their economic livelihoods will be secured if they cannot return home.”

Professor Marie Huchzermeyer, of the Centre for Urbanism and Built Environment Studies at the Wits School of Architecture and Planning, said de-densification came with enormous costs. “It not only isolates households, but also separates homes from livelihoods, and breaks social ties, which are the very basis of what makes informal settlements work as a survival base for the unemployed and poorly paid workers.” — Additional reporting by Zingisa Mvumvu

Jail stages virus ‘act’ for minister

By ZINGISA MVUMVU

● Johannesburg Prison officials staged an elaborate charade this week to fool Ronald Lamola, the minister of justice & correctional services, into believing the facility is observing strict protocols to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

But staff say the careful precautions on display when Lamola made an inspection visit on Wednesday — including gloves and masks and the screening of visitors — lasted only until the minister’s entourage left, and even the “hand sanitiser” that was used was really tap water.

Staff members who did not want to be named told the Sunday Times it was the first time such measures had been implemented at the jail known as “Sun City”, which houses more than 9,500 inmates and has more than 1,000 prisons staff.

“It is just a show to appease the minister and mislead the public,” said one staffer.

“This prison is a coronavirus ticking timebomb waiting to explode.”

When a Sunday Times team visited the jail on Friday, there was no sign of the precautions that greeted Lamola. A journalist entered without being screened for Covid-19 symptoms or having his hands sanitised. Vis-

Communications minister Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams

The minister of justice & correctional services, Ronald Lamola, during his visit to Johannesburg Prison.

itors and officials mingled as if there was no risk of contagion.

Staff said new inmates were admitted without health screening and were not kept apart from the existing prison population.

Asked what had happened to the protective masks and gloves that were worn on Wednesday, one warden said: “Don’t make me laugh. What protection? You can see no gloves, no masks … Those things we were given when the minister came were onceoff, for acting.

An official sanitising the women’s section of ‘Sun City’ prison on the day minister Ronald Lamola visited this week. Pictures: AFP

“We became the likes of Brutus and TGom,” the warden said, referring to characters in the TV series The Queen.

Prison officials said it has been business

ST

as usual at the jail, the biggest in the country, despite the social-distancing rules and other measures imposed by the government to flatten the curve of infection.

“So the staged show that you were watching was just for today because the minister was coming,” one said on Wednesday. “Otherwise those tanks we saw today spraying everywhere was a first.”

Another said: “All is normal at the Johannesburg Prison … The sanitiser, it is water and fake. Management knows about it. Even the national prisons commissioner was not convinced by it.”

Prison staff wear no mask or gloves when conducting roll call, which involves making physical contact with inmates to take their fingerprints.

They describe the screening process for visitors to the bail office as “laughable”. Although it is supposed to include a temperature check, staff say the prison has no thermometer.

This week alone, more than 50 people entered the facility to make bail arrangements for inmates, according to a register seen by the Sunday Times.

Staff say prison management has ignored their requests for safety measures.

“We might be carriers [of the virus] as we speak. The screening process is laughable at best,” one said.

More are after Stella’s blood

By S’THEMBILE CELE

Don’t make me laugh.

What protection? You can see no gloves, no mask … Those things we were given when the minister came were once-off. We became the likes of Brutus and T-Gom A staff member at Johannesburg Prison “There is no compliance here. People will die. From here we are taking this virus to my family, or from our homes and communities to the inmates.

“You can imagine … one person is infected and it spreads to the rest. It would be chaos.”

Chrispin Phiri, spokesperson for Lamola, had not responded to requests for comment by the time of going to press.

● The DA has added to the woes of communications minister Stella NdabeniAbrahams, asking parliament’s ethics committee to investigate her conduct.

This comes as police minister Bheki Cele said on Friday that investigators had contacted Ndabeni-Abrahams in connection with allegations that she may have breached national lockdown regulations when she visited a friend last Sunday.

A complaint against Ndabeni-Abrahams has also been made to the police by the EFF. Ndabeni-Abrahams was put on a twomonth suspension by President Cyril Ramaphosa after a photograph was made public of her and former deputy minister of higher education Mduduzi Manana having a meal with others at his home.

DA MP and shadow minister of communications Phumzile van Damme told the Sunday Times this week that the party would submit a complaint to parliament’s ethics committee about a violation of the executive ethics code of conduct.

She said the DA would argue that the minister violated sections of the code which relate to general standards. Those sections concern members of the executive performing their duties and exercising their powers diligently and honestly, fulfilling all the obligations imposed on them by the constitution and law, acting in good faith and in the best interests of good governance. The sections also require ministers to act in a manner consistent with the integrity of their office.

In her apology this week, NdabeniAbrahams admitted that she violated the government’s lockdown regulations when she visited Manana.

Manana resigned as a deputy minister in 2017 after assaulting a woman at a club.

He was later convicted for the crime.

It was Manana who posted the photograph that landed NdabeniAbrahams in trouble. He later apologised — and claimed the minister had driven past his house to collect personal protection equipment for students.

Ndabeni-Abrahams gave the same explanation to Ramaphosa when they met this week.

Ramaphosa said he had been “unmoved” by her explanation and suspended Ndabeni-Abrahams for two months, one without pay. He also said that the law should take its course.

9

SUNDAY TIMES - April 12 2020

News Covid-19: Food

Madonsela takes on corona Former public protector Thuli Madonsela, through a new digital platform she launched for social justice this week, will assess the impact of Covid-19, focusing on poverty, inequality and mental health

Feeding the newly destitute living with disabilities.

Abaa, who runs his farm on 6ha, said delivering his produce to the market would have been difficult. “Although farming is seen as an essential service, it was going to be difficult for me to get a permit for a driver because I don’t have a permanent driver here.”

By BELINDA PHETO Next week they will expand to other townships in the south of Johannesburg. ● Restaurants opening their kitchens, farmRecipient Lindiwe Khumalo said this was ers donating fresh produce, people giving an unexpected gift that would go a long way. away the little they have — South Africans are “I’ve already planted the seeds we were rallying around those most affected by the given and can’t wait to see my own garden lockdown. grow.”

Almost half of all adults in SA are living In Beaufort West in the Western Cape, a below the “upper-bound poverty line”, ac- town beset by socioeconomic challenges, cording to Stats SA’s latest household survey. the community has come together to set up a Dr Imtiaz Sooliman of Gift of the Givers temporary shelter for destitute people — and said they were receiving thousands of calls the town’s residents are making sure they from people asking for food. “These are calls are fed and taught new skills. from people who wouldn’t ordinarily Mayor Noel Constable said 49 chilneed our help. It’s your car guards, dren and adults are housed at the waiters, and people who do shelter. piecemeal jobs who are used to “It is awesome to see how earning an income for thembusinesses and ordinary locals selves but have been unable opened up their hearts to the to do so in the past couple of homeless,” he said. weeks due to the lockdown,” The Rise Up Foundation he said. has joined in to spread awareIn Orange Farm in Gauteng ness of substance and drug this week, more than 100 famiabuse. “Each day we witness lies received food parcels, thanks how they grow and develop. It is Imtiaz Sooliman to the Ubuntu project, a collabostill a long journey to recovery for ration between the Green Busimost of them but we believe that ness College and small-scale farmers in the with the help of God these people at the shelarea. ter will be reintegrated with their families.”

Dorah Marema of the Green Business ColFor Hanneke van Linge, who runs the lege told the Sunday Times each family will Nosh food rescue programme in Johannesreceive a box of fresh produce, and also burg, it is a relief that restaurants that have seedlings and compost. been closed since the lockdown are begin“Each family will be able to create a food ning to open up their kitchens, where food garden. We will continue to offer only food can be prepared for the needy. packages as the weeks go by as it will take “Chefs are offering their services and time for seedlings to produce. restaurants are allowing us to use their facili“We will create a database so that there is ties,” she said. a record of who received what, and with a According to Van Linge, her organisation WhatsApp group the farmers will support delivers food to 30 beneficiaries — mostly the families as they grow their gardens,” she shelters, feeding schemes and soup kitchens said. that prepare meals feeding more than 1,000 Marema said people ordering vegetables people. from the farmers are also pledging to buy for Food Flow SA, which puts small-scale needy families. farmers in contact with restaurants, has now “Food security means so much more than turned to connecting these farmers to nonjust food on the table. It touches the core of governmental organisations. human dignity,” she said.

Through their network they ask people to One of the farmers involved in the project, sponsor baskets of fresh produce, so the Tim Abaa, said priority is given to child- small-scale farmers are also able to still get headed households, the elderly and people an income.

In Numbers

23

THE TOTAL NUMBER of small-scale farmers the Green Business College is working with

30

Crops with no market reach piecemeal workers with no food

THE NUMBER of beneficiaries of the Nosh food rescue in Johannesburg

103

THE NUMBER of needy families that received fresh produce in Orange Farm this week

Tim Abaa and Thuli Mthethwa in Orange Farm with some of the produce they donated to needy families.

Picture: Facebook

Residents of Orange Farm with some of the fresh produce they received. Picture: Facebook

Sunday Times

Surgery a bad idea with corona in the air

By SIPOKAZI FOKAZI

● If you are not sure of your exposure to Covid-19 and are due to have surgery, you may want to rethink.

A study in Wuhan, China’s Covid-19 epicentre, suggests that having surgery during the coronavirus incubation period is likely to complicate or prolong your hospital stay.

Researchers behind the first study of the effects of surgery on Covid-19 progression said in the Lancet medical journal this week that surgery might accelerate and worsen the disease.

Their findings were supported by Guy Richards, emeritus professor of critical care at Wits University, who said surgical patients are particularly at risk of complications and death due to the inflammatory response caused by any virus.

“If one has any viral infection at the time of surgery this can increase the potential for bacterial pneumonia,” said Richards.

“In the setting of this virus, however, what kills patients is a hyper-inflammatory response along with hypercoagulability [increased risk of blood clots] induced by the virus. Surgery also induces an inflammatory response and this would compound that of the virus. Finally, following surgery one mounts a compensatory anti-inflammatory response, which can cause relative immunosuppression and enhance the virus’s ability to invade.”

Researchers from Renmin Hospital at Wuhan University and the University of Hong Kong found that 34 surgical patients who were later treated for Covid-19 complications had a 21% mortality rate, versus 2% for nonsurgical Covid-19 patients.

Surgical patients also developed symptoms within two days of surgery compared to between five and eight days for the others.

“Surgery may not only cause immediate impairment of immune function but also induce an early systemic inflammatory response,” said lead researcher Shaoqing Lei. Many hospitals in SA have postponed elective surgery, but authorities showed mixed reactions to the Chinese study.

Mark van der Heever, spokesperson for the Western Cape health department, said the study sample was small and the patients involved had serious cancer procedures and even kidney transplants. “It is not relevant to our population or to any routine elective surgery,” he said.

However, “the department issued a public notice informing clients that … elective surgery will be cancelled”.

Netcare group medical director Anchen Laubscher said the hospital group is postponing all elective surgery, “provided that this will not result in the patient’s outcome or quality of life being significantly altered”.

Pioneer virus victim’s brave campaign to help SA through crisis

By NIVASHNI NAIR

● Going public and starting an Instagram story to document her journey as one of the first confirmed Covid-19 cases in SA was, for “Megs”, just as scary as the initial diagnosis.

However, the 35-year-old Cape Town woman now has 10,000 followers and is bringing “good vibes” to South Africans who are afraid of contracting the potentially deadly virus.

“Opening this Instagram account, @livingcoronapositive, was definitely scary,” Megs told the Sunday Times.

“I just had a feeling that it was the right thing to do. You know when sometimes hard

decisions are easy to make because they just seem ‘right’. This was one of those things.

“But basically, after telling a few friends about my corona status, we realised this was something people needed to know about because the issue in SA was about to blow up and no-one really understood what it was.”

The response was “insanely positive”, she said. “So many people were so grateful to get a small idea of what this unknown virus was all about.”

Megs, her parents and siblings tested positive after a trip to Switzerland in February.

“My brother was very sick when we got home and went for a test just in case. I thought he was being a drama queen but

The Covid-19 patient known as Megs has now recovered. Picture: Instagram

when his test came back positive 24 hours later I had to apologise. The rest of us went for tests the next day and yip, we were all positive too.”

Her first reaction was shock.

“I just didn’t know how to wrap my head around what was going on. What it meant to be corona positive and how friends would react to the news. I was scared I guess.

“Self-quarantine had begun. We were all already sick and so it wasn’t difficult to stay at home and just sleep but we had to readjust our lives and get friends to bring us supplies, obviously start telling people, letting our businesses know that we wouldn’t be able to come in to the office.

“It was a very quick life shift.”

In one of her posts on Instagram and on her blog, she said it was uncomfortable and lonely being among the first 50 cases in SA. “Uncomfortable because we didn’t understand what it meant or what would happen to us. We knew about the coronavirus at that point, everyone did, but we didn’t know anyone who’d had it. I think for a lot of my friends I’m still the only one they know who has had it. It was just so unknown.”

Megs, who owns a small manufacturing company, has, along with her family, been “officially and legally de-isolated”, but she continues to blog.

“I’ve also got a business to salvage but I

plan to take people along the journey with me in figuring all that out, as I think it can only have a positive influence and impact on all South Africans in getting through this and getting our economy back to a healthy point,” she said.

“Essentially, we are all in this together. We have no idea what is ahead of us as a nation, just like we did as a family, but with a good attitude, staying connected, keeping positive and sharing honest information, we can and will fully recover. Although I have no doubt that life will be very different after this, we have an opportunity for that ‘different’ to be better and if I can be part of that in any way, I’m all in.”

NOW IS THE TIME FOR US TO COME TOGETHER AND UNITE, APART This is an unprecedented moment in South Africa’s history. Lockdown is in full effect, businesses have been temporarily closed, and we’re all adjusting to this new normal for as long as it may take.

But what does life in lockdown look like? Well, that’s up to you.

Show us how you’re getting through, and what lockdown means to you, by submitting video clips, images, voice notes, or anything else that captures the essence of this extraordinary event, to:

WHATSAPP

UNITED A P A R T

+27 (63) 521-8618

EMAIL

UNITEDAPARTSA@ARENA.AFRICA

Each day, we will choose our favourite submissions to be featured as a daily snapshot of lockdown life and share them to our social channels under #UnitedApartSA and #LoveChange, and one submission per day will receive a prize worth R700. Then, when all this is over, our favourite submission will receive a prize valued at R5,000, and we will use all the content we have collected to create a documentary, so the world can see our story.

#LoveChange #UnitedApartSA

10

April 12 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

News Covid-19: Education

Towards digital classrooms “We do, of course, realise that some learners do not have access to laptops, tablets, or data.

Inequality levels still exist. However, it cannot and will not distract us from making progress in the area of e-learning and I continue to fight for zero-rating on education-related sites.” — Western Cape education MEC Debbie Schäfer

Westlake Primary principal Landeka Diamond, right, oversees social-distancing measures as Abieda Isaacs hands out food. When the children pick up their lunch packs, they are given worksheets to help them catch up on lost lessons. Pictures: Esa Alexander

Food for kids’ minds along with meals Teachers hand out worksheets to pupils lining up for parcels

By PREGA GOVENDER

● A school principal has found a novel way to educate her pupils during the Covid-19 lockdown — by dishing out worksheets to them when they arrive to fetch their food parcels.

For Landeka Diamond, headmistress of Westlake Primary School in Cape Town, providing online lessons to her 750 pupils is not an option.

Some pupils in SA can access schoolwork online because they have cellphones and data for internet connectivity, but 80% of her pupils are from very impoverished backgrounds and cannot afford this.

Since the start of the lockdown, about 250 of her pupils have been receiving food parcels seven days a week. They are prepared at the home of a school staff member with food sponsored by a private family foundation.

Pupils are given the worksheets while

they queue to collect food.

“Learners observe social distancing and they are provided with hand sanitisers,” Diamond said.

Nonetheless, the Western Cape education department was slammed this week by a parliamentarian for operating its feeding scheme during the lockdown.

The chair of parliament’s portfolio committee on basic education, Bongiwe MbinqoGigaba, expressed concern over the possibility of communities being exposed to the virus.

Meanwhile, using WhatsApp groups to teach pupils is becoming the new norm for others during the lockdown as anxious teachers scramble to cover the syllabus.

Evan Papier, a teacher at Groendal Secondary School in Franschhoek in the Western Cape, is teaching his 113 matric pupils life orientation lessons via WhatsApp. “I send them the content in the form of a picture and then explain it and send a voice note afterwards. It’s a low-cost way of learning for the learners,” he said.

He uses Google Form — an assessment tool — to test pupils’ knowledge, and the marks are available immediately.

Pupils are sent a link to Google Form and they then complete an informal activity online.

Zooming in on what it all means

80% OF PUPILS

at Westlake Primary who don't have cellphones

31

MILLION

Westlake Primary teacher Elizabeth Koeberg gives pupils schoolwork when they come to pick up their lunch packs.

One of his pupils, Sibrina Ouanga, asked Papier if he could convince other teachers to use the link to Google Form as she found it a very useful way of “evaluating ourselves ev-

Tobeka MadibaZuma, left, poses for her birthday photo-shoot at home in Durban.

Picture: Instagram

South Africans were internet users in 2019

ery day”.

“I use my time and cellphone positively,” she said.

Papier’s colleague Heidi Snyders, who

munity radio stations in the Northern Cape.

Limpopo’s education spokesperson, Tidimalo Chuene, said through lessons broadcast on radio in Sepedi, Tshivenda and Xitsonga, parents of grades R, 1, 2 and 3 pupils are given activities in numeracy to support their children. “Limpopo is largely rural and the main medium used to reach learners is through radio,” she said.

Gauteng education department spokesperson Steve Mabona said they would be using 19 radio stations to broadcast lessons.

On Thursday, the SABC began broadcasting curriculum-support lessons for grades 10-12 as well as for Early Childhood Development pupils across three television channels and 13 radio stations.

Private tutors this week said there has been huge demand since the lockdown.

Unisa student Kerry-Lee English said 45 students in her WhatsApp group are now offering private online tuition compared with 15 before the lockdown.

“From five enquiries a month for online tutors last year, the group is now receiving 25 enquiries a day,” she said.

They charge R100 to R260 an hour.

Three academics at Unisa are providing private online tuition to 47 pupils, including 32 who joined last month.

Truck driver Simon Mkhatshwa, left, and sugar logistics executive Lazarus Bereda, both of RCL Foods in Mpumalanga.

Zoleka Mandela celebrated her 40th birthday online.

Picture: Supplied

Picture: Instagram

By SUTHENTIRA GOVENDER

● Had it not been for Covid-19, Zoleka Mandela was all set to show off her svelte new figure in a sexy calendar shoot to mark her 40th birthday — and then let her hair down with a dungeon party.

But those plans were also put on ice after two of her friends “suffered tragic losses”.

Mandela, who has lost more than 18kg in the past few months, took to Instagram this week to share her revised plans for a Zoom birthday.

“I was going to do a very sexy calendar photo-shoot, wearing the skimpiest outfits ever, and also wanted to throw a dungeon party where we would dress like our most ratchet [uncouth] alter-egos,” said Mandela, who turned 40 on Thursday.

Tobeka Madiba-Zuma — one of former president Jacob Zuma’s wives — donned her most glamorous ensemble to mark her 48th birthday with her two daughters at her Durban mansion last week. Her husband was absent.

Madiba-Zuma posted her birthday photoshoot on Instagram, posing in a silk blouse, sequined skirt and heels. The former first lady is seen celebrating with her loved ones around an elegantly decorated table complete with flowers, chocolates and a red-velvet cake.

She paid tribute to herself and her achievements, and told her social media fans that she had married “the love of my life”.

University of KwaZulu-Natal law student Edric Molife wanted to make his friend Thandokuhle Jiyane’s 23rd birthday special, so he invited a few friends to dress up in their “cutest outfits” and pretend, using Zoom, that they were all at a nightclub having the time of their lives.

“We took it as far as wearing sunglasses,” said Molife. “We poured a bit of alcohol in our glasses and sang happy birthday to her. We pretended we were out in a club and even asked each other to go to the bar for refills and rounds of shots.”

In Numbers

teaches Afrikaans to grade 11 pupils, asked her pupils to make a video recording of themselves reciting a prepared speech about Covid-19.

“She used their recordings to assess them and give them a mark,” Papier said.

Ryan Naicker, a technology teacher at Dannhauser Seconday School in northern KwaZulu-Natal, this week took the unusual step of posting next term’s work for his grade seven pupils on a local newspaper’s website.

“I am very worried about them falling behind because of the lockdown,” he said.

Western Cape education department spokesperson Bronagh Hammond said hundreds of WhatsApp groups have been created across all grades and subjects.

“Some are from teacher to learner, mainly in the higher grades, and others are between teacher and parent.”

Her department will also assist schools to set up “home-learning systems” by providing guides on how to use digital tools for distance learning.

Northern Cape education spokesperson Geoffrey van der Merwe said WhatsApp groups have been established in each subject so that learning material can be shared with pupils.

On Wednesday, lessons in certain matric subjects began to be broadcast over six com-

Worse than usual loneliness of the long-distance trucker

By PAUL ASH

Cape Town mother Joelene Naidoo threw a virtual party for her son Mayan with 40 guests patching in via Zoom to watch him cut his home-baked cake and sing happy birthday.

Naidoo did not have a theme, but decorated her home with whatever party favours she could find.

“Each of the mums baked a cake for their kids so that they could all feel as if they were at the party. It is a strange concept but at least we could celebrate with others.”

Counselling psychologist Rakhi Beekrum said the lockdown gave new meaning to personal milestones.

“While there is grief about what we are losing during this pandemic, like missed trips and parties, the lockdown has given us an opportunity to introspect on what our lives and birthdays really mean,” she said.

“These may well be the most memorable birthdays you will look back on.”

● It is 4am in Cape Town and truck driver Roger Carelse is saying goodbye to his wife and two daughters.

Today he heads to the Northern Cape with a tanker loaded with 41,000l of fuel. He will sleep over in Upington, a nine-hour slog up the N7. Tomorrow he will carry on to Kuruman, offload his cargo and head home again.

When he gets home after three days on the road, he will shower and wash his clothes before he goes near his loved ones. Then, after his mandatory nine-hour rest period, he will head off again, perhaps to Klawer on the West Coast this time — an easy five- or six-hour return trip.

“The hardest part is leaving your family,” says Carelse. “Three ladies alone at home.”

Carelse has been a trucker for 26 years, the past three with heavyweight trucking company Crossroads. Now, as the country goes into its third week of lockdown, life is even tougher for SA’s truck drivers.

While truck-stops at places such as Three Sisters and Prince Albert Road are still open for drivers needing somewhere safe to park for the night, their kitchens are closed and no hot food is available.

Carelse is lucky — there is a mini fridge in his truck and he can take home-cooked food that he warms up when he gets a chance.

Simon Mkhatshwa from Magogeni, dad of five and a driver for Malelane-based sugar carrier RCL Foods, has also resorted to taking his own food along.

“We have to prepare ourselves for the road,” he says. Now his staples include Weet-Bix cereal and cooked food from home.

Essential equipment in the cab of Mkhatshwa’s Volvo truck now includes hand sanitiser and face masks.

“We want to issue gloves but these are in short supply,” says Lazarus Bereda, RCL Foods’s sugar logistics executive.

For now, RCL Foods is supplying its drivers with sanitising wipes to wipe down steering wheels, dashboards and seats.

Bereda’s job requires him to be at the depot when the trucks return, which means he is also at risk of getting infected. When he gets home at night, he strips off his work clothes in the garage before going into the house.

“I change everything,” he says. “I sanitise everything. It’s a bit stressful.”

Crossroads Cryogenic driver Neil Prakasem has a front-row seat to the unfolding crisis as he delivers tanker-loads of medical oxygen to hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal.

“I’ve been driving for 14 years and I’ve been through it all,” he says. “But it’s shocking to find you’re the only one on the road.”

Most nights Prakasem is at home with his family. If not he pulls into all-night service stations where there is security and he can sleep.

As he has to enter hospitals to complete the necessary paperwork, he is fully kitted out with protective gear.

“You can say we are risking our lives,” he says.

“But we do it because we love our country and it would be inhuman not to.”

5,000

11

SUNDAY TIMES - April 12 2020

In Numbers

The number of retail pharmacies Imperial Logistics delivers to

Business News

READ ONLINE Newsmaker, Arthur Goldstuck, My Brilliant Career, Kuseni Dlamini www.timeslive.co.za/sunday-times/business/

Dis-Chem in lockdown rent row lockdown],” he said.

Rival pharmaceutical retailer Clicks said it was paying its rents in all its outlets.

“Yes, Clicks is continuing to pay rent on our stores and pharmacies, which continue to trade as they have been classified as providing essential services,” said Clicks’s chief commercial officer, Rachel Wrigglesworth.

This comes at a time when retail property

By NICK WILSON owners have already been dealt a severe blow by some national retailers unable to ● Dis-Chem, in a move expected to cause trade, such as TFG and Pepkor, telling their ructions in the already distressed commer- landlords that based on legal opinions they cial property sector, has embarked on a have received they would not have to pay rental go-slow, according to shopping centre rent during the lockdown. owners — even though it continues to trade South African Property Owners Associaas an essential service during the lockdown. tion (Sapoa) CEO Neil Gopal said national reOwners of some of SA’s biggest malls said tailers “need to come to the table in this nathis week that the JSE-listed company, one of tional crisis and be part of the solution”.

SA’s largest pharmaceutical retailers, has in “The people who can afford to pay, they some cases not paid rent to landlords for need to pay the rent. Every part of the value April, while in others instances it has paid a chain is going to have to bear some of the portion of the rent but not the full amount. loss. If they don’t pay, the system breaks Dis-Chem, however, maintains this is not down,” Gopal said. the case and that it is merely negotiating for Amanda Stops, CEO of the the South lower rentals during the lockdown.

African Council of Shopping Centres (SACContacted for comment, Estienne de SC), said the Covid-19 lockdown is a difficult Klerk, chair of the SA Reit Association that time for both retailers and shopping centre represents most of the JSE’s property com- owners alike and that her organisation is enpanies, called real estate investment trusts couraging communication between proper(Reits), said: “It is our understanding they ty owners and tenants to “find joint solu[Dis-Chem] haven’t paid any of our mem- tions, ensuring the survival of both retailers bers.” and landlords”.

He said that as Landlords have far as he was aware, formed a crisis orhaving spoken to ganisation that is SA Reit members, putting together a other tenants operrelief package for ating as essential struggling tenants services, such as in need of assisgrocery retailers, tance. were paying their The Property rentals.

Industry Group (PI De Klerk said Group), representDis-Chem’s view that as a result of ing major comDis-Chem CEO Ivan Saltzman, left, and the lockdown, mercial real estate Estienne de Klerk, chair of the SA Reit rental collections organisations inAssociation. Saltzman says Dis-Chem is for the retail propcluding Sapoa, the simply negotiating for lower rentals during erty sector were SACSC and SA the lockdown. low, standing at beReit, this week tween 30% and launched a more 40%. than R2bn relief Des de Beer, CEO of Resilient, which package to assist tenants, particularly those owns or has interests in 26 malls including from small and medium-sized enterprises, Limpopo’s Mall of the North and Jabulani that have closed or been severely disrupted Mall in Soweto, said his group has not re- by the lockdown. ceived any rentals for April from Dis-Chem, While the relief measures, which will inbut had received payment from the retailer clude rental reductions and deferred payfor utilities and its rates contribution. ments, are accessible to larger tenants, they “We know that Dis-Chem has traded well. exclude those who are able to continue tradWe are very disappointed,” said De Beer. ing during the lockdown as essential serMorne Wilken, CEO of Hyprop Invest- vices. ments, which owns centres such as Canal SA Reit’s De Klerk, who is the spokesperWalk in Cape Town and Rosebank Mall in Jo- son for PI Group, said it was “absolutely eshannesburg, said that as far as he knew Dis- sential to get this package out there to help Chem had paid its utilities and rates. our tenants for March and April, especially But Dis-Chem “definitely haven’t paid all the smaller retailers but also the bigger the April rent owed to the Hyprop group”. ones”.

“I’m actually very shocked that, given that “Considering the weak economy over the they can trade, Dis-Chem hasn’t paid its full past three years, we understand that a lot of rent,” he said. the smaller tenants are on their last legs, and Wilken said other tenants that were oper- if we don’t assist them they are not going to ating as essential services had been paying survive this lockdown period.” their rents.

Bjorn Samuels, equity analyst at Argon Amelia Beattie, CEO of Liberty Two De- Asset Management, said that despite being grees, which partly owns Sandton City and providers of essential services and goods, Eastgate Shopping Centre, said Dis-Chem both Clicks and Dis-Chem would be “experihad paid for utilities and services, but “cer- encing lower revenues just by virtue of lower tainly haven’t paid all the rental for April”. footfall during the lockdown because the “I’m disappointed. They’re a key retailer majority of their storeprint is in the malls”. of ours, and they trade well and have been He added: “With the reduced sales, the able to operate as an essential service.” occupancy costs ratio for Clicks and DisDis-Chem CEO Ivan Saltzman said the Chem would be increasing.” group was still paying its landlords but “neSamuels said he would still expect “some gotiating for a lower rental during the lock- negotiation, even if it is at least just regarding down, taking into consideration there’s far rental deferral for Dis-Chem and Clicks durfewer people frequenting the stores and the ing this time” as the groups had been indifficulty of ramping up deliveries”. creasingly seen as anchor tenants because of “I’m negotiating for a fair rent [during the their higher trading densities.

Landlords accuse retailer of failing to pay despite still trading

DOING THE ESSENTIALS A woman in Soweto’s Elias Motsoaledi informal settlement counts her change as she leaves a spaza shop this week, the second week of the nationwide lockdown during which only goods deemed ‘essential’ by the government may be bought and sold. Picture: Siphiwe Sibeko/Reuters

State to back banks’ risky lending

By HILARY JOFFE ● The government and the banking sector are looking to establish a “Funding for Lending” scheme in which the government would back the banks to take on riskier lending to help customers survive the Covid-19 crisis.

The scheme — which could be in the form of a government guarantee for the banks — would allow the banks to assist distressed businesses they would not normally be able to lend to, because the government would share some of the losses that might be incurred if these customers default.

This is similar to the schemes governments in other countries such as the UK have put in place to fund the banks to lend to businesses that would otherwise go under as a result of the crisis.

It goes beyond the regulatory measures the Reserve Bank announced last week that freed up the banks’ own balance sheets to enable them to support customers in good standing without facing regulatory penalties.

Kuben Naidoo, the CEO of the Reserve Bank’s Prudential Authority, confirmed that there were discussions under way led by the Treasury on a “Funding for Lending” scheme that would provide for the sharing of risk between the banks and the fiscus.

Though the banking regulator is party to

the discussions, it is the governtens of thousands of cusment that is leading the talks, in tomers have approached the partnership with the banks. banks to restructure their Treasury said yesterday: debts.

“Treasury is meeting all the The idea of a governmenttime with various key players backed scheme would be that and their associations … given it would lower the risk for all the need to ensure we can the banks that customers maintain the productive capaciwould be forced into default. ty of the economy and try all in Naidoo moved this week to our power to protect businesses put pressure on banks to halt from failing due to Covid-19 and bonuses to executives and to ensure they can continue to hold back on paying divipay their employees and supdends to shareholders as the Kuben Naidoo pliers, and to protect the livelicrisis unfolds, saying that hoods of all households in the banks needed to conserve country.” their capital during the crisis Though the Banking Associso that they could continue ation has made it clear that to support the economy banks will go out of their way while ensuring the soundto assist customers in good ness of the banking sector. standing during the lockdown, He said on Friday that the and the regulator has loosened Prudential Authority had not capital and liquidity requireinstructed the banks to withments to ensure they can do so, hold dividends or bonuses bankers have emphasised that but had rather issued they can go only so far to support distressed “strongly worded advice” in the form of a customers without risking the stability of the guidance note. banking system. “We have to stay in our However, banks with December yearlane,” Standard Bank CEO Sim Tshabalala ends whose boards had already declared said last week. dividends are contractually bound to pay There is already anecdotal evidence that them out to shareholders.

Tens of thousands reportedly seek debt restructuring

Nedbank said in a Stock Exchange News Service announcement that its interpretation was that dividends already declared should be paid and the payout would go ahead as planned on April 20.

Standard Bank, which initially said it was taking legal advice on the position, is to pay out dividends on April 24 but said it would take the regulatory’s guidance into account for financial 2020.

Absa will pay out dividends as scheduled while First Rand has already done so.

Capitec is due to report its February yearend results on Tuesday while Investec has a March year-end.

With dividends for the entire banking sector estimated at R20bn-R30bn for the current year, if all banks were to decline to pay dividends it could free up more than R200bn of potential lending.

In the guidance note, Naidoo wrote: “In the light of the critical role played by banks to continue to provide the necessary funding … to households and businesses amid the Covid-19 pandemic, it is essential that banks conserve their capital resources, among others, to retain their capacity to support the real economy in an environment of heightened uncertainty caused by Covid-19 while complying with the prescribed prudential requirements and ensuring the long-term safety and soundness …”

In logistics industry, just one infection is one too many

By NICK WILSON ● One of SA’s largest logistics companies, JSE-listed Imperial Logistics, says its major focus currently is to protect the 7,000 staff in its local essential-services business from contracting Covid-19 as they distribute critical pharmaceutical and food supplies around the country.

The stakes are high because a positive Covid-19 test would not only have a devastating impact on the employee concerned, their family and community, but could also force a warehouse facility to close, which would disrupt supply chains.

“Our biggest focus at this time across the business is to protect our people from getting the virus and also ensuring that our operations are running as smoothly as possible,” says CEO Mohammed Akoojee.

“So far so good, we are executing on our commitments to our clients and our commitment to the country.”

The company, which also operates in the rest of Africa, Europe and the UK, has had no Covid-19 cases in its South African opera-

tions at this stage. About one-third of the group’s operating profit is generated in SA. The group, which has about 13,000 employees in SA, has a wide range of clients in the pharmaceutical, food production and retail sectors including GSK, Aspen Pharmacare, Tiger Brands and Woolworths. In the health-care sector alone, it supplies products to about 5,000 retail pharmacies across SA. Akoojee says that while the company operates in 32 countries — with the impact of the global coronavirus pandemic different in each market — in SA 55% of its revenue is generated in the consumer goods, healthcare and other essential products and services sectors.

“It’s a big responsibility to have. We have to make sure that our trucks are delivering consumer goods and our vehicles are delivering pharmaceutical products. If this was stopped it would have a major impact on our country and people’s daily lives.

“I would say our biggest challenge is people. We can’t afford for our people to get sick, and how we manage that is very important in terms of the stringent measures we have

Imperial Logistics CEO Mohammed Akoojee says the company is taking pains to ensure none of its staff in essential services contracts Covid-19.

in place to protect our people.”

Imperial Logistics, which is paying all its employees during the lockdown whether or not they are in essential services, said it is a big task keeping staff motivated and “ensuring you don’t have major Covid-19 outbreaks in your key warehouses”.

Akoojee says the company has also put in

place measures to make sure it has flexibility when it comes to staffing. “We do call on temp staff as a back-up measure.”

He says all Imperial’s truck drivers are working, even those not operating in essential services.

“We’ve kept them [non-essential service truck drivers] working so we can share the load among the truck drivers, because your biggest challenge is that if you have too many people exposed to the virus you can get big parts of your workforce sick, so you have to schedule it correctly.”

Akojee says another key aspect is adjusting shifts so that employees are not overworked or overexposed.

“So in certain operations where demand is very high, particularly on the pharmaceutical side, you have to increase shifts to allow people to be able to cope with increased volumes,” he said.

“We have a very high attendance rate in our workforce, it’s virtually at 100%, so we are not having a problem getting our people to the operations.”

A big help for the group is that it has a hy-

giene and cleaning services subsidiary, providing easy access to protective personal equipment, sanitisers and other health measures required to minimise infections.

“We were quickly able to deploy that in all our major operations, which was a benefit for us,” Akoojee says. “We have also taken on the responsibility to ensure we arrange relevant and suitable transport safely to and from operations for those who require it.”

As far as volumes are concerned, Akoojee says the busiest sector is health care. “Our warehousing and distribution business and our wholesale business in pharmaceuticals, that is very busy.”

Also busy is Imperial’s business that services fast-moving consumer goods clients such as GSK, Tiger Brands and Woolworths, and “those volumes are up”.

Imperial is also a major fuel transporter and while volumes in this sector are “OK” they are not as strong as the health-care and consumer goods sectors.

The group is helping the government and donor organisations get more mobile clinics on the road by procuring and distributing

personal protective equipment for them.

The Imperial group this week withdrew the guidance for earnings it issued in February, saying in a trading update that this was prudent given the increasing market uncertainty and volatility.

The company says it has adequate headroom in terms of debt covenants and liquidity. Stringent, proactive measures have been implemented to manage costs and optimise working capital and capital expenditure, and it is focusing on strong cash-flow generation.

Other companies are also reporting a much busier period.

Vikash Singh, MD of United Pharmaceutical Distributors (UPD), a division of Clicks, says the company experienced “unprecedented” demand ahead of the lockdown.

“Volumes have now normalised, [but] we are still seeing fair demand,” he says, paying tribute to UPD’s “dedicated, loyal and passionate employees”.

“Our automation has also enabled us in dealing with the larger volumes, and we have extended operating hours.”

12

360,000

April 12 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Sunday Times

Business Economy

In Numbers

Tough calls ahead on borrowing SA has options, but they come at a cost — economic or political

By HILARY JOFFE ● Growth is crashing, SA’s fiscal deficit will balloon and financial markets have turned very unfriendly. Where will SA find the money it needs to fund a much higher government borrowing requirement?

There are various options — domestic and external — but they come at a cost, economically or politically.

And while markets are hoping to see a revised “emergency” budget sooner rather than later, the Treasury will want to get better numbers first on how much economic and fiscal damage the Covid-19 crisis is likely to cause — and what the funding options are.

Economists have been revising growth and fiscal forecasts almost daily as they try to estimate the impact on SA’s economy, in a context in which the two-week extension to the lockdown may not be the last, and will multiply the economic impact of the crisis.

In its Monetary Policy Review released this week, the Reserve Bank estimates the economy could contract by 2%-4% this year, and will grow by less than 1% next year — but emphasises the “downside risk” if the lockdown is prolonged or the global environment is worse than expected. The Bank estimates 360,000 jobs could be lost this year, and 1,600 firms could disappear.

PwC’s economists have estimated that in a worst-case scenario the unemployment rate could rise to 47%.

Now, economists expect minus 7%-8% or

more, with a budget deficit of as much as 12%. It’s a question not only of how hard the crisis hits demand but also of whether it cuts the economy’s capacity to supply, making any recovery harder and longer.

Lockdown and deep recession mean tax revenues will fall far short of budget targets over the next three years, and that would drive up the budget deficit — and therefore the amount the government has to borrow to fund this — even without any extra government spending to address the health and economic crises.

The Bank says a deficit of more than 10% of GDP is “plausible”. So the question now is how the government funds a much higher borrowing requirement — at a time of unprecedented global and local financial market turmoil which has sent SA’s borrowing costs spiralling. With bond yields spiking, the cost of funding for the government is now about 250 basis points higher than it was at the time of the February budget.

Much of that is related to a global environment in which investors fled to the safety of cash and the dollar as the Covid-19 crisis intensified. That saw a sudden sharp stop in capital flows to emerging markets, with the Institute for International Finance estimating $62bn (about R1.1trn at current rates) flowed out in the first quarter, double the peak seen in the global financial crisis.

In SA’s case, the selloff by foreign investors has seen an outflow of about R100bn since the start of the crisis, of which R70bn was from the bond market.

Moody’s decision to junk SA’s rating could add to that from May 1, when SA bonds are removed from the World Government Bond Index and funds tracking that index have to sell their holdings. But however poor the timing, the Moody’s move just reflected the growth and fiscal challenges SA faces — and any impact now might be quite minor com-

The number of jobs the Reserve Bank estimates will be lost this year

Jobseekers crowd around a bakkie in the hope of being hired, in this file picture taken before the Covid-19 crisis. The Reserve Bank estimates 360,000 jobs could be lost and 1,600 firms could disappear this year. Picture: Daniel Born

Lockdown and low growth mean tax revenues will fall far short of budget targets over the next three years pared to what’s already happened to government borrowing costs on the market.

On the domestic market, the government would now be borrowing at 10% or more, which in real terms is one of the highest rates in emerging markets; borrowing on foreign

markets in hard currency has become prohibitive at about 7.5%.

Nor is it just a question of cost but of access to markets and whether, with foreigners fleeing, SA can access enough of an investor base to absorb much higher issuance of bonds. This is where other non-market options have to come in, domestically and internationally.

Finance minister Tito Mboweni has said SA will look at multilateral funders including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) — a proposal that has already roused political controversy. SA is in talks on a $1bn loan, at an attractive rate, from the Brics New Development Bank to address the health emergency. But it is likely to need much more.

SA’s problem is a fiscal one, not the kind of balance of payments problem the IMF usually assists with. However, RMB Morgan Stanley economists Andrea Masia and

Jaiparan Khurana note there are precedents for the IMF lending to countries — such as Russia and Brazil in the 1990s and Morocco more recently — where fiscal issues ultimately led to balance of payments pressure.

There has been talk of more modest short-term funding via the IMF’s Rapid Financing Instrument, but SA could also access as much as $18bn over three years by way of an IMF Stand-By Arrangement. That would of course come with conditions — which would be politically fraught.

The RMB Morgan Stanley economists say markets would cheer an IMF programme for SA, which would provide a “policy anchor” that would help to reduce the risk attached to SA and bring down borrowing costs.

Meanwhile, there are some domestic options. The government has R67bn in sterilisation funds at the Reserve Bank that it could potentially use as bridging finance in a crisis.

This is excess cash the Treasury put on deposit at the Reserve Bank to counter the effects on money supply when they were building up foreign exchange reserves.

It’s also likely that pension funds and other institutional investors who are allowed to invest up to 30% of their assets abroad might have to bring some of that money back to get portfolios back into balance because of the rand’s crash — Masia estimates that could see as much as R120bn of institutional money flow back into SA in coming months.

Inevitably though, the idea of forcing pension funds and other asset managers to invest in government bonds via imposing prescribed assets is bound to come up again.

At a time when those funds are themselves under intense pressure in a declining economy and intensely volatile markets, prescribed assets are likely to be more controversial than ever.

Money

Pensions face new threat Firms explore cutting back on retirement fund contributions

Important information for Quilter plc shareholders – Impact of the coronavirus (‘COVID-19’)

By LAURA DU PREEZ 2019 Annual Report and Accounts and 2020 Annual General Meeting Following the closure of the postal services in South Africa and other countries in response to the global coronavirus pandemic, we strongly urge shareholders to read online the 2019 Annual Report which is available on our website at quilter.com/annualreport and the 2020 Notice of Annual General Meeting (‘Notice of Meeting’) available on our Annual General Meeting (‘2020 AGM’) Hub at quilter.com/agm.

We are working to deliver copies of our 2019 Annual Report and the Notice of Meeting into the postal system as soon as possible. Given the announced closure of the postal services in a number of countries, including South Africa, the Company is currently investigating whether there are other steps we can take to deliver those materials to shareholders on the Company’s South African branch register who have asked to receive them. In the meantime, in accordance with the Company’s Articles of Association, the Notice of Meeting is available on our AGM Hub at quilter.com/agm.

We will post the Notice of Meeting to shareholders on the Company’s South African branch register if the postal services in South Africa re-open at least six clear days before the 2020 AGM. As noted above, these documents are available on our website but should shareholders have any questions on how to access these documents, please contact the Company’s Registrars using the details below.

The Board has also agreed that the 2020 AGM will meet the legal requirements in the UK but no more. Shareholders are strongly advised not to attend in person and we will keep this under review in light of the advice issued by the UK Government. We strongly encourage shareholders to appoint a proxy or register a voting instruction in advance of the meeting. You can read more about how to do that and how to submit a question to the Board about the business of the meeting on the AGM Hub at quilter.com/agm.

Odd-lot Offer On 11 March 2020 the Quilter Board launched an Odd-lot Offer pursuant to which shareholders holding fewer than 100 ordinary shares in Quilter (the ‘Odd-lot Holders’) will be offered the opportunity to sell their shares at a 5% premium to the market price and free of any dealing costs. If you are an Odd-lot Holder, you can read more about the Offer and how to keep or sell your Quilter shares on our website at quilter.com/olo.

If you are an Odd-lot Holder you should read the letter and form that you have been sent and check the deadline for you to return your election which is set out on our website at quilter.com/olo. If you do not confirm that you want to keep your shares they will be automatically acquired by the Company under the terms of an Odd-lot Offer and the proceeds of the sale will be remitted to you following receipt of the appropriate surrender documentation.

Given the closure of postal services due to COVID-19, we have made special arrangements so that Odd-lot holders who wish to keep their shares can elect to do so by telephone. Please contact our Registrars using the contact details below.

Registrars: Shareholders on the South African Register Link Market Services South Africa (PTY) Limited

Email: investorenquiries@linkmarketservices.co.za Tel: 086 140 0110/086 154 6566 (calling from South Africa) Tel: +27 11 029 0251/+27 11 715 3000 (calling from overseas)

Shareholders on the UK Register Equiniti

https://help.shareview.co.uk Tel: +44 (0)333 207 6514* (calling from the UK) Tel: +44 (0)121 415 0993 (calling from overseas) *Lines are open Monday to Friday between 08:30 and 17:30 (UK time), excluding public holidays in England and Wales

BT

● Companies representing thousands of employees have asked retirement fund administrators to allow them to reduce contributions to retirement funds for you, their employees.

And as company revenues nose-dive as a result of the coronavirus lockdown, administrators expect the requests to ramp up over the coming weeks.

John Anderson, head of client solutions at Alexander Forbes, says the administrator has had close to 100 employers asking to suspend or reduce retirement fund contributions. This is less than 10% of the employers who use funds administered by it, but the requests are an increasing trend.

He also anticipates that at some point retrenchments will increase as well.

Some employers have temporarily laid off employees on a no-work, no-pay basis, reducing their income and any retirement fund contributions and group life premiums calculated as a percentage of those earnings.

Appeals have been made to these employers to at least pay group life cover premiums as the failure to pay these premiums could have a devastating effect on families who need to claim on this cover, say administrators, insurers and the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA).

Other employers are investigating reducing retirement fund contributions to soften the blow of lower pay levels for employees, while some may need to temporarily cease contributions to keep their businesses afloat.

Viresh Maharaj, the managing executive for Sanlam Corporate Distribution, says about 10% of the employers participating in Sanlam’s umbrella retirement fund — mostly small ones — have already inquired about reducing contributions.

But he expects all retirement fund administrators will get many more such queries when employers return to work after the lockdown and assess its economic impact.

Andrew Crawford, retirement fund consultant at Seshego Benefit Consulting, says

Check if your group life cover is still in place ● Losing your group life and disability cover — typically a multiple of your salary — especially at a risky time like this can jeopardise you and your family’s financial future.

Your employer has a moral obligation to keep paying these premiums, if it can.

Michele Jennings, the CEO of Sanlam Group Risk, says Sanlam is assisting distressed employers and funds to continue paying risk premiums in full and reducing only retirement-fund contributions so that you can keep all your risk benefits.

If this is not possible, employers can reduce the salary on which your risk premiums are based for a limited time, she says. In dire cases, this salary can be reduced to zero.

Employers are being advised strongly not to terminate your risk benefits and to reapply for cover when things improve because this could result in new pre-existing health conditions and other terms, she says.

Viresh Maharaj, managing executive at Sanlam Corporate, says reducing risk premiums must be a lastgasp measure.

Jennings says if an employer reduces or terminates risk benefits, it could be liable if an employee has a claim. Any changes must, in terms of the policyholder protection rules, be communicated to you, she says.

If your employer retrenches you or goes into liquidation, ask if there is a continuation option on the group life cover.

about 10% of the employers to which his company is a consultant, with about 7,000 to 8,000 members, are considering a temporary cessation of contributions.

He says employees in one company are facing about a 20% loss of income through lost overtime. Staff at another will lose a significant portion of their commission

earnings, and a third has reduced pay to 80% for the duration of the lockdown.

The two ways in which employers that are still paying their employees may seek to reduce retirement fund contributions are by reducing pensionable salaries on which your monthly contributions are based, or requesting a temporary cessation of contributions, say Crawford and Saleem Sonday, head of group savings at Allan Gray.

Your retirement fund may have rules in place that govern what must happen when you are unable to work, are working reduced hours or when your salary is reduced.

Your employer should make a formal request to the trustees of your fund and they must consider the employer’s circumstances and apply the rules.

Vickie Lange, head of best practice at Alexander Forbes, says the fund rules will dictate whether or not contributions must be maintained at your full pensionable salary, whether contributions should be based on the new lower salary — with potential implications for your risk benefits — and whether or not your employee contribution is payable.

The FSCA recently notified funds that if they do not have these rules in place, they must register them as soon as possible.

Both Maharaj and Crawford say though fund trustees have the discretion to approve changes, employers also have obligations in terms of their contracts with you as an employee and in terms of labour law.

Law firm Webber Wentzel pointed out in an article written by Des Kruger and others this week that any suspension or reduction in contributions will mean you no longer enjoy the applicable tax deductions, which may result in your taxable income increasing and therefore more PAYE tax being due.

Sonday says if your employer needs to reduce or suspend contributions, the fund needs to inform its members within 30 days.

Lange says some funds have flexible contribution rates and members saving higher percentages may be able to reduce their contributions if they need to and if the rules allow changes at any time.

Both Crawford and Maharaj say temporarily reducing contributions will lower your final savings amount.

The biggest impact will be on younger members who preserve their savings until retirement as they will miss out on the most compounding growth on those contributions, they say.

ST APRIL 12 2020

www.sundaytimes.co.za

SA RELOADED

Insight

How we can bounce back Page 19

Easter Freedom Fighters Why the bunnies are hopping mad Page 15

BARNEY MTHOMBOTHI Covid-19 gives us time to ponder how to live better lives Page 17

The Sunday Times walked down three streets in iconic neighbourhoods this week, asking residents how they were living the lockdown.

Their responses were laden with anxiety, resignation, but also unexpected joy

GWETHA STREET, NYANGA NoFirst Ntozakhe’s new fridge was bought before the lockdown, but now it stands empty.

GWETHA STREET, NYANGA Monwabisi Sololo has all the equipment to do a welding job, but none of the materials.

Word on the streets Gwetha Street, Nyanga, Cape Town

ST PAUL SON WA BILE DR

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PHILANI NOMBEMBE in Gwetha Street, Nyanga, Cape Town

oFirst Ntozakhe asked her stokvel to give her an advance on her savings so she could buy a new fridge after her old one packed up last month.

But the 80-year-old’s new fridge stood empty this week. She sells fruit outside a nearby school to supplement her pension and now wonders how she will feed herself and her unemployed grandson, Phaphamani Nkwamza, 25, during the lockdown.

Ntozakhe lives on Gwetha Street, Nyanga, Cape Town, the crime capital of the country which recorded 289 murders in the past financial year.

Most of Gwetha Street’s folk know each other from their ancestral home, Centane in the Eastern Cape, but because of family politics, some are no longer on speaking terms.

The street is lined with small apartheid government-built homes with asbestos roofs, surrounded by scores of backyard shacks.

“I am hungry,” Ntozakhe says, arching dispiritedly on a rickety chair in her living room, glancing at the image of police minister Bheki Cele on a small TV in the corner. Mealie-meal porridge simmers nearby in a silver pot on a stained two-plate stove.

“The state pension is not enough for all my responsibilities. The last time I got paid was on April 1 but all the money went to stokvels and my funeral policies,” she says.

“I did not stock up on food because I did not know how this lockdown would be. My cupboards are empty.”

Nkwamza says the lockdown has “crippled” them, and “the little food we have will be finished in the next few days”.

“Before the lockdown I was supposed to start an [internship] and thought I would get some income. I had just finished my [national diploma] in business management and now I am stuck here,” he says.

Next door, fellow fruit vendor Bukelwa Mlonyeni, 50, says she was forced to ask her relatives for food for herself and her children aged 22, 16 and nine.

“I used to run a spaza shop a few years ago until

GWETHA STREET, NYANGA Osman Mofo is open for business in his spaza shop, but there are no customers to buy his goods. Pictures: Esa Alexander

Somali businesses took over. I could not keep up with the competition, so I rented the place out. The last time I had money that I worked for was last month. I get a state grant for my children, but it is insufficient.”

Mlonyeni says she would be doomed if the lockdown is extended. (On Thursday, President Cyril Ramaphosa extended it for another two weeks, until the end of April.)

I am not sure if the drug dens have been closed as part of the lockdown.

Whatever it is, it works

“The kids are home; they eat a lot. It’s like they are at war with the groceries. You must see my kitchen, it is a real battle,” she says. “I bought 10kg of rice, mealie-meal, flour, samp and fish oil. We have been baking our own bread because we cannot afford to buy bread every day.”

Mlonyeni pays R100 for DStv to keep her kids indoors, but the package she bought “does not have

all the channels and they still get bored and frustrated”.

Her nine-year-old son, Sive, chimes in. “I don’t like staying at home but I understand why we have to do it. I don’t miss my friends. I don’t even want to see them; they will infect me with Covid-19.”

Mlonyeni converted her garage into a spaza shop, which she rents out for R1,500, but this won’t be paid this month because customers have no money to buy.

Her tenant, Osman Mofo, says business is very slow. “Most people rely on casual jobs. When they don’t get work, they won’t have money for food,” he says.

Next door to Mlonyeni, Monwabisi Sololo’s makeshift welding workshop stands empty.

“The shops where we buy the material are closed.

The last time I got money was before the lockdown. I do have orders but I can’t do anything. I don’t have any savings in the bank. The little I have won’t last me at all,” he says.

The 60-year-old has six children; the eldest two are looking for jobs. His bare kitchen cupboards are visible from his spotless lounge. “We buy whatever we can afford from Shoprite, and other local supermarkets, but it’s not easy. I do have basic things like rice and samp but we have run short of things like meat, sugar and vegetables a couple of times.”

Sololo’s wife is a home-based carer for a local clinic but her salary cannot sustain the family. His 16-year-old son is battling with his schoolwork.

“He reads his school books but he cannot access his assignments at the moment because he doesn’t have a smartphone or computer,” Sololo says.

Not everyone in the street is poor.

Across the street from Sololo, Lorraine Mlonyeni’s yard is neatly paved. The 46-year-old is an administrator for the navy and is in the final year of her law degree at Unisa. Her husband is a policeman.

“The lockdown has not been that bad and people are complying. You can see the streets are quiet but there are a lot of poor people in this area. Most are unemployed and they survive on state grants,” she says.

Mlonyeni spends three hours a day helping her children with their schoolwork. After that, they watch DStv cartoons on the family’s flatscreen television.

“My major stress are the queues at the shops. I am avoiding a lot of people. There are things that I would like to buy but I would rather stay indoors than go to public spaces at this time. It’s difficult to practise social distancing at our malls,” she says.

Despite his misery, Nkwamza says he hasn’t “heard a gunshot in days; the last time was before the lockdown”.

“The police and the army are here 24 hours. Even the notorious drug users have gone underground. It is like a suburb. All taverns are closed,” he says.

Mlonyeni says she and her neighbours can sleep without fear of their homes being broken into. ➜

14

April 12 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Insight Life in lockdown

Sunday Times

MABIZELA STREET, ORLANDO EAST Johanna Nkosi, 72, and her son Zachariah, 40, in their two-bedroom home.

Johanna prays to God for protection. Zachariah worries about what his extended family would do without his job as a petrol attendant. Pictures: Sebabatso Mosamo

MABIZELA STREET, ORLANDO EAST Sipho Mnguni, 77, misses his late wife, Emily, terribly. Stuck at home, he does exercises and cleans his home to pass the time.

MABIZELA STREET, ORLANDO EAST The neighbourhood kids get up a game of street soccer, ready to dive for cover like meerkats at the approach of a police car.

➜ From Page 13

Muggings, she says, have abated since the taverns closed. “We had drug users who steal from people to feed their habits but it is all quiet at the moment. I am not sure if the drug dens have been closed as part of the lockdown. Whatever it is, it works.”

SO W ET O

HI GH W AY

MS IM AN GS T

MA KU BO

ST

Mabizela Street, Orlando East, Soweto

JEFF WICKS in Mabizela Street, Orlando East, Soweto

J

NHLENGETWA ROAD, CHESTERVILLE Zandile Mzobe has taken up her old hobby, sewing, to pass the time in lockdown. Pictures: Sandile Ndlovu

now I wish she was still here,” he says, pointing to her picture on the mantelpiece. The couple did not have children.

Mnguni does what he can to busy himself, doing his exercises, tidying the house and listening to the “wireless”.

“I have my pension and I have some small savings, but I am trying not to think about that now,” he says.

Next door to him, Bungwe Chauke, 6, is cooped up with her brother Tye, 5, and is tired of it. Their mother, Hlulane, has been carefully corralling them near their backyard room.

“It has been fun being at home … we have been playing school and drums but I want to go back to my friends now,” she says.

RD

Nhlengethwa Road, Chesterville, Durban

NK OM O

ohanna Nkosi sits in her kitchen. The voice of a preacher crackles over the radio, his pleas for intercession drifting through her twobedroom home in Mabizela Street.

The cul-de-sac in Orlando East, Soweto — less than 1km from Orlando High School, where Hector Pieterson was shot dead by police in 1976 — is alive with shrieking children engaged in a street soccer showdown. They are flanked by rows of houses and a plethora of zinc and timber backyard rooms.

Nkosi’s house at No 3346 is tucked behind a greyed wall of peeling plaster, beside a 1985 British Leyland Rover SD1 that has not been driven in years.

The 72-year-old woman seated on a rickety maroon office chair was born in the house where she now takes refuge.

As a young woman, Nkosi worked as a cleaner for a family in Orange Grove. She has twice seen soldiers and police on her streets, sjamboks in hand. The first time, the jackbooted men were propping up a repressive regime. Now they’re enforcing a lockdown to stay a death toll that is bound to climb.

“I never go onto the road. All I do is walk from the door to my gate, but I won’t leave,” she says.

“God will protect us. I have been praying for that every day, once in the morning and also when I close my eyes at night.”

But the faith of her son, Zachariah, 40, a petrol attendant in nearby Meadowlands and the only person in the household with a job, has been shaken.

He shares the property with his mother, two brothers, a sister-in-law and a seven-year-old nephew.

“I am scared to go to work now because we are touching money and the speedpoints every day. What if I bring this corona thing home?” he asks. “But we need the money. I take what I earn, and we use Gogo’s pension grant and we can survive. But if I don’t have a job we will be in trouble.”

On the other side of the soccer game and several houses down, domestic worker Priscilla Golele sits on the single bed in a backyard shack she shares with her husband and three-year-old twins. Her two unemployed adult children live in other structures on the property.

“The people I work for said they will pay me even though I am not working this month, but after that I don’t know,” she says. Her R3,000 monthly salary is the lifeblood of their home.

“I spent most of my salary on groceries but because all the children are home, they just eat so much. Now I only have some porridge left. There is no meat and only three onions. I don’t know what we will do,” she says, tears in her eyes.

The soccer match outside abruptly ends when a police car swings into the cul-de-sac, sending the players scattering for cover.

NHLENGETWA ROAD, CHESTERVILLE David Chirwa’s Facebook feed has helped keep him occupied. He hopes the food he has been able to buy will last.

An officer launches from the passenger seat threatening to arrest all within earshot.

“They don’t understand, we are trying to save them,” she says, sjambok swinging at her side.

In Mabizela Street, boredom pushes many children onto the road. But Sisile Ndlovu from No 3443 is confining her three grandchildren to her tiny back garden.

“People are being ignorant, and this thing is going to be a disaster. I stand behind my fence and shout at the children to go back inside. I tell them not to get close to one another,” she says.

Ndlovu, 65, says the lockdown has afforded her precious time with her grandchildren.

“I can’t have them go outside because it is too

dangerous. But it gives me time to tell them all of my stories, the ones that my mother told to me, and the stories about me when I was young,” she says.

“I even get to play soccer with my grandson. He asked me and I said that I would be the goalie; he was so shocked that his granny knew what that was.”

As the police leave to disperse another game a block away, the children of Mabizela Street trickle back out of their homes, hauling chunks of concrete onto the blacktop to mark the respective goal lines.

At house 3341, Sipho Mnguni, 77, leans over the stable door of his kitchen, captured by thoughts of his late wife.

“Her name was Emily and she died in February last year. She had cancer. I am alone here and especially

D INS R WIGG

L

LWANDILE BHENGU in Nhlengethwa Road, Chesterville, Durban

uther Vandross echoes faintly from an old BMW as S’the Mthethwa and his friends connect over mqombothi.

The short cul-de-sac, home to backyard flats, shacks and formal houses painted in faded pastels, backs onto Hero’s Acre cemetery, where famed writer Nat Nakasa and murdered Bafana Bafana captain Senzo Meyiwa are buried.

The cemetery is a permanent reminder of death in the neighbourhood, especially now as the incidence of coronavirus grows in KwaZulu-Natal. But despite this, Mthethwa, 45, is philosophical.

“This lockdown has given us an opportunity to discover ourselves and sit together as men in the neighbourhood even though it’s not allowed, we know that. But we are practising social distancing where we are seated. Occasionally we meet and we drink traditional beer and then we go our separate ways so we can be alone to find ourselves,” he said.

The men have brewed their own beer because the popular tavern next door now operates solely as a tuckshop. Mthethwa and neighbours Mxolisi Hlongwane, Thamsanqa Mkhize, and Sandile Hadebe sit about a metre apart. Their conversation is animated.

“There is no need for the soldiers and police to get violent with people! They need to talk to us properly,” says Hlongwane, 40.

“Sometimes there’s nothing you can do if you need bread and it’s night-time and the children want bread.

You need to go get bread! There’s no need for them to be violent,” agrees Mkhize.

“But come on, guys, this is serious! People need to just listen and stay at home,” says Mthethwa.

While his friends agreed they should be allowed to buy alcohol “in moderation”, Mthethwa sees the booze ban as a “lifetime experience” and an “important time to find ourselves and just be sober … and detox”.

He takes a sip.

“This also teaches you discipline … We are going to look back and say during the lockdown you were able to stay for three weekends without touching alcohol.”

The front-yard philosophers all agree that they worry about how much longer they will have food in their fridges.

David Chirwa, who lies on his bed scrolling through his Facebook feed in his backyard shack across the road, concurs. The 24-year-old, a general worker at an event co-ordination company who lives on his own, was last paid at the end of March. He doesn’t know if he’ll be paid in April and hopes the rice, eggs and potatoes he has left will sustain him until lockdown’s end.

“I had no money saved up. This thing caught me off guard and we were not given any notice. I did not have a plan; I wish I had the time to prepare so that when it hit, I at least had bought more food,” he says.

Five doors down live Nombuso Mzobe, 43, and her mother Zandile, 63, in a grey house that stands out in a street of peach and yellow-hued homes.

“We sit the whole day and watch television until we get tired of it and we switch to the radio and cook.

I am not that bored. I keep myself busy in the kitchen,” says Nombuso, a cook in Investec’s staff canteen in Umhlanga.

Zandile has revived her sewing hobby in a back room on the property to keep busy.

A former TB patient, Nombuso, who lives with her mother, brother and two adult children, stocked up on hand sanitiser and hand wash.

“I am clued up about Covid-19 and I’m afraid of this virus. I only have one healthy lung and that keeps me away from people. I’m afraid of sitting in large groups,” she says.

For friends Ayanda Mchunu, 16, and Ayanda Mbatha, 18, who live nearby, the lockdown has been anything but fun.

“As friends we sit and talk and just catch up, we don’t roam the streets. We stay indoors,” says Mchunu, sitting outside on her front step.

“We watch TV and we eat food. This has affected me as a matric student because I don’t know if or how we will be able to catch up,” says Mbatha before being summoned to her house across the street to do chores.

15

SUNDAY TIMES - April 12 2020

Providing an essential service

Insight TableTalk

Chocolate Easter bunnies all over the world — such as this one in a patisserie in Thessaloniki, Greece — are adapting to “corona” times. Normally they would be decorated with eggs and flowers, not protective gear. With the country in lockdown, Greek Orthodox Easter — Easter Sunday is on April 19 this year — will be very different — Picture: Reuters

Sunday Times

During these grave times, there is a figure synonymous with Easter who is able to provide us with a clear-sighted look at ourselves. Sue de Groot spoke to the boss of the bunnies

This is a crisis that bugs bunny

T

racking down the Easter Bunny (known as EB to his subjects) was not easy. Like most of the rest of the world, the famous rabbit has gone to ground and is hunkering down in the warren with his clan.

When the Sunday Times eventually managed to connect with him through an underground network, Bunny No 1 agreed to speak to us via the rabbit communication app Zoomer, on condition we also gave eartime to some of his nation’s long-held grievances.

Looking pale and slightly ruffled, the top bunny said he was not enjoying lockdown one bit (“It’s like being relegated to a bunnystan,” he said) but he understands the seriousness of the Covid-19 threat and fears that if the coronavirus gains a foothold among his subjects, it will multiply faster than even rabbits do.

“We’re not going up there until someone pulls a vaccine out of a hat,” he said.

Until then, all rabbits ruled by EB are under strict instructions to remain in the warren.

Their gregarious nature has presented some challenges in implementing a socialdistancing policy, but EB has tried to make the new regime as comfortable as possible in the five major burrows.

“Instead of sharing food as we normally would, we’ve set up a long table in the warren with small piles of mixed vegetation set along it at intervals,” he said. “That way we can still eat together but with a safe space between us. We call it a warren buffet.”

So far, few lockdown violations have been reported and the Hawks, an elite peacekeeping unit, have not had to swoop on any recalcitrant rabbits.

EB is reputed to be a benign dictator who uses reward rather than punishment to extract loyalty from his subjects. “I prefer the carrot to the stick,” he said.

He is, however, worried about the financial repercussions of a lockdown over Easter, on which the rabbit economy is based.

“If we can’t get our Easter eggs out we will be in serious trouble,” he said. “Other businesses are adapting by shifting their focus to online platforms and cybersales, but unfortunately you can’t eat virtual chocolate.”

With uncharacteristic humility, EB said he now regrets not listening to the advisers who recommended diversification into other markets. “They told me not to put all my eggs in one basket,” he said. “But I didn’t listen.”

In an attempt to stave off a recession, rabbits deemed essential workers have been permitted to dig deep to create profitable pathways.

Instead of shipping their goods to various markets by airfreight as they normally would, new intercontinental sales avenues have been opened by tunnelling under the oceans.

There has been some collateral damage, however, such as when a rogue rabbit chewed through an undersea cable, causing an internet slowdown in Africa. The break has since been repaired and the offending bunny has been placed under arrest.

EB did not want to comment on whether this might have been deliberate sabotage by a member of the Easter Freedom Fighters (EFF). The left-leaning group of bunnies have been a thorn in the despot’s side since they first started rallying popular support. Their ethos is that delivery bunnies are exploited by the global conglomerate We Move Chocolate (WMC) and they wish to free rabbitkind from the slavery of commerce.

The roots of this rebellion run deep and the onset of the coronavirus has fanned flames of resentment that have smouldered since another virus almost eradicated the world’s leporids.

“It’s bad enough that the scientific name for our family sounds like a spotted cat,” said EB, “but humans have done far worse things to us.”

He was referring to the ill-fated attempt to control the rabbit population in Australia, and later Europe, by the deliberate introduction of myxomatosis in the 1950s. Millions of bunnies died as a result.

“We might have become extinct as a species had some of our ancestors not developed resistance to the virus,” EB said. “We could teach the world a thing or two about fighting pandemics, I tell you.”

Putting on his spectacles to quote from a well-worn document on his desk, EB read aloud to us: “The long-term failure of this strategy was the consequence of natural selective pressures on both the rabbit and virus populations, which resulted in the emergence of myxomatosis-resistant animals and attenuated virus variants. The experience is regarded as a classical example of host-pathogen co-evolution following cross-species transmission of a pathogen.”

While he does not agree with their ideology or militant methods, he understands the

Illustration: Keith Tamkei

How is a rabbit supposed to wash its hands? Even if we had hands, only a few fortunate families have running water. There are parents with up to 700 children squashed into tiny burrows

EFF’s anger. “It might have happened a long time ago, but rabbits have long memories as well as long ears. We don’t forget the injustices of the past and we still feel the effects today.

“Some of those scientists are still alive and have never had to answer to a court for their crimes. The EFF wants a commission of inquiry established to bring the perpetrators to justice. They are also campaigning to get back land that was stolen from us.”

He is adamant that a free market economy, driving growth and expansion in the chocolate-egg sector, is essential for the continued survival of his species, but EB does find it somewhat ironic that rabbits earn a living from Easter when, in warrens all over the world, bunny families are making preparations for Passover.

“This is the time of year when we give thanks for the ones who remained underground and were spared when the plague passed over their burrows nearly 70 years ago,” he said. “Once we are done with egg deliveries, we gather for a ceremony presided over by the Chief Rabbit. Then we have a feast.”

It is not entirely clear how bunnies came to be associated with Easter. Most historians point to ancient German folklore, in which the mythical figure that represented moral judgment was a hare. When Christianity began, this somehow transmogrified into a rabbit who handed out rewards.

“It’s all a bit murky,” said EB. “Even the idea that one hare could judge everybody is ridiculous. Back in those times, Vikings and Vandals were robbing and pillaging all over the place. The courts, which only operated in March, incidentally, must have been insane. Can you imagine the demands on the hare judge’s time?

Everyone would have been calling: ‘Here, hare, here!’ I know hares are fast but there’s no way he could have presided over all those cases. No wonder he went mad.”

On the politics front, EB was scathing about announcements made recently by several leaders who playfully decreed him an essential worker. It started with Mark McGowan, a regional Australian premier, who posted an official-looking document on Twitter granting “special eggs-emption” to EB and authorising him “to travel freely into and throughout the State of Western Australia for the essential service of egg delivery”.

Others quickly picked up on this and issued their own proclamations. EB is offended by these pranks. “What a bunch of clowns,” he fumed. “Do they really think I would risk the health and safety of my family and friends — and all my friends are also family, as it happens — by sending them above ground to deliver chocolate to human kids? To add insult to injury, the person who started this nonsense is from the country that tried to wipe us all out.”

He is similarly annoyed with Irish health minister Simon Harris, who announced that after consulting with Ireland’s “top doctors”, EB would be allowed to deliver eggs but had been contacted “to remind him about washing his hands regularly and keeping his distance”.

This prompted a furious response from EB, who asked: “How is a rabbit supposed to wash its hands? Even if we had hands, only a few fortunate families have running water. There are parents with up to 700 children squashed into tiny burrows with no windows. We’re already hot cross bunnies. We don’t need this mockery.”

He was slightly more forgiving of other leaders who jumped on the bunnywagon. “At least New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern had the grace to point out that we were at home taking care of our own. She warned the greedy humans that we might not get to them this year.”

In SA, a document purportedly issued by the deputy minister of tourism — claiming that the Easter Bunny had tested negative for coronavirus and had been granted permission by all government departments to deliver eggs while following safety protocols — has swiftly been dismissed as fraudulent. But EB is concerned about the damage done by fake news even after it is exposed as garbage.

“There’s this thing going round on social media that I was supposed to have written. It says the World Health Organisation has declared us bunnies virus-free. That’s not just disrespectful, it’s downright dangerous. How am I supposed to get claustrophobic families to take lockdown seriously when they read rubbish like that? With not much else to do we’re all going down the internet rabbithole and falling into fake-news traps.”

As for the trend of making chocolate bunnies wearing face masks that has taken off among chocolatiers, all EB has to say is: “Too little too late. Where were those masks when we were fighting myxomatosis?”

To show his commitment to extended emergency measures in a time of coronavirus crisis, EB has been wearing a red beret when making online appearances.

“It’s a sign to both the humans and the rabbits that this is a time of red alert,” he said.

“We’re all caught in the headlights of this thing and we are frightened, but we’ll get through it if we stand together. It might even make us better bunnies.”

16

April 12 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Sunday Times ESTABLISHED 1906

Opinion

A new reconstruction and development programme must guide us post-Covid

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resident Cyril Ramaphosa’s announcement this week of an additional two weeks of lockdown piles pain on misery for South Africans. Who hadn’t hoped that our lockdown would come and go, and that we would be able to get back to our normal lives involving families, jobs, entertainment and sport, both watched and played? But there’ll be none of that, not for a while.

No “friends shaking hands, saying how do you do” in what remains a wonderful world, but one that has been put on hold — for now. And for how long?

In the season of hope that is Easter, there is, regretfully, not much to sustain that hope.

We can fall back on faith in a greater power, and perhaps draw comfort from the fact that humanity has overcome greater crises — but at what cost? In SA, we may take inspiration from our country’s dark hours in the apartheid era, and draw from that lessons of unity of purpose and belief in a better future. But nothing could have prepared us for the calamity that has now struck us, and which could get a lot worse before we once again glimpse that light at the end of the tunnel we’re assured is there. One consolation is in knowing the world is in this together. But our burdens are not equal.

Much of the news coverage gripping the world has focused on the Covid-19 crisis in the developed world, especially Europe and the US, where it has cut a swath through the aged and vulnerable. It has also exposed the limitations of top-quality health care, underlining that health-care systems are only as good as the care they offer to the poorest of the poor. The coronavirus knows no boundaries, afflicting rich and poor.

In the case of Covid-19, the rich and those exposed to people who make international trips were among the first to be afflicted. In SA this was also the case, with the country’s first 60,000-odd tests conducted mostly in the private health system, on people with medical aid.

It is the next stage of the disease’s progression that holds the greatest dread for South Africans. In conditions of poverty, overcrowding and unsanitary living environments, the virus could spread like wildfire, rapidly overburdening our health-care system, and drowning out the efforts of frontline health workers.

We are assured that testing is being done but the numbers remain stubbornly low, giving SA a skewed picture that tells of only 2,000-odd people having the infection. That is unlikely, but until we can move to mass testing, we will not know when it is safe to relax the lockdown.

In the US, President Donald Trump is eager to reopen his country, while his health professionals — sometimes standing next to him at his daily briefings — deftly try to instil some realism into the debate. There can be no return to normal until mass testing becomes the norm, or until a vaccine is developed. And that holds for SA as well.

But we are not the US, with limitless resources to throw at the problem. Our economy was already in dire straits before this began, relegated to junk status as low growth, corruption and a voracious state consumed our energy and resources. That is why it is vital that we put every effort into saving what economy we still have. Plans to help workers and businesses are welcome, and every cent spent there will be worthwhile.

But there can be no return to the old normal for our economy. The big shift will have to start with the state, which still has considerable resources at its disposal. Post-1994 we adopted a Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), which largely failed to get off the ground because the government and its ministers felt better (and certainly more comfortable) with a state largely unchanged from that of the apartheid era.

A new RDP will be needed. And this time there must be no excuses and feet-dragging.

All of the state’s efforts must fall in line with a comprehensive strategy to turn around and salvage the economy. It will require a Codesa-style approach that brings in the skills of business, the government and labour, all focused on the bigger picture.

Perhaps some good can come from this catastrophe. What other choice is there?

There can be no return to the old normal for our economy

A trickle of legal booze better than bootlegging

A

fter more than two weeks in lockdown, South Africans are getting a bit twitchy. It’s not just the isolation and boredom getting to us; for many it’s the inability to buy alcohol and cigarettes. On these pages you will read how people have come to terms with that — either through being philosophical about it and embracing the chance to quit their vices, or by turning to black market tactics and buying and selling them illegally.

The reasons for the ban on alcohol and cigarette sales were understandable and cogent. The drop in the rates of murder and violent crime has been spectacular due to the non-availability of alcohol, police minister Bheki Cele said last Sunday morning. In the first week of lockdown, the number of murder cases fell from 326 in the same period last year to 94. Rape dropped too, from 699 cases to 101; serious assault fell from 2,673 to 456, and armed robberies and carjackings reduced from 8,853 to 2,098 cases. Gender-based violence cases remained high, however, with 2,300 complaints that week.

Cele is known to be something of an anti-alcohol activist, and now we can see why.

The number of hospital beds freed up by the ban gave hospitals an opportunity to redirect their attention to planning for and caring for coronavirus patients.

Similarly, the ban on cigarette sales was understandable. With many cigarettes sold as singles on the street in SA, the potential for transmission of the virus is real. An infected seller could transmit the virus to 20 customers through the sale of a single packet.

But as justifiable as these decisions were, we must be careful that while we flatten one curve, we do not fatten another.

As you will read on these pages, some people are so desperate for their daily drink that they will pay a drone operator a handsome sum to transport their tipple to them by air.

Street and community WhatsApp groups are also full of offers to trade anything for alcohol and cigarettes. Bartering a bottle of red wine for a freshly baked quiche has become de rigueur in some suburbs despite the threat of arrest if one is found with alcohol in one’s car.

People will always find a way to get what they want. What the government needs to do is devise a way by which a moderate amount of alcohol and cigarettes can be sold, in a way that does not threaten the aims of the lockdown. It’s either that or bootlegging.

Sunday Times

LOOKING BACK FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 50 YEARS AGO

Two million South African voters will be called to the polls on Wednesday in the most baffling, most fateful general election since the mid-1940s. Politicians of all four main parties agree that in the last few months the entire political situation has become more and more fluid by the day. The Nationalist Party is going into the election in a new role in its post-war history: that of defending its position against assaults from the United Party, on the one hand, and the six-month-old Herstigte Nasionale Party on the other.

Meanwhile, the Nationalist Party and the Progressive Party have put in spirited challenges to try to oust the United Party from several seats it has held for a long time. — April 19 1970 FROM THE SUNDAY TIMES 25 YEARS AGO

Winnie Mandela, the twice-sacked deputy minister of arts and culture, was snubbed by the ANC’s inner circle yesterday at a ceremony to unveil the tombstone of the late Chris Hani. A day after being fired from the cabinet for the second time, she arrived more than 30 minutes late at Boksburg’s South Park cemetery to find no seat had been set aside for her on the podium. She waited at her car while embarrassed aides sought an extra chair.

She was finally seated near the back. Her arrival was not marked by even a ripple of applause. Instead, the ANC’s political elite closed ranks around President Nelson Mandela at his estranged wife’s first public appearance since she was fired. — April 16 1995

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

What was a chore is now a learning life raft Apropos the letter by professor Alethea de Villiers, “Middle-class solutions miss the reality for our students” (April 5), it is not clear what “old-fashioned approach” she advocates for those university students disadvantaged by the lack of access to the internet, possibly because her letter was shortened.

As I was going into retirement, the notion of “blended learning” came into vogue. To me this fanciful term implied a combination of the written word with the latest technologies available.

One old-fashioned approach that complements blended learning is the production of comprehensive study guides, as distinct from a mere course outline. For decades — and in one instance for over a century — distance education providers in SA have relied on the written mode to teach students, both the advantaged and those disadvantaged by circumstances.

During my tenure as full professor at one residential university, it was mandated by management that we produce study guides (SGs). I was one of many who resisted writing SGs because we felt that we were not a distance-teaching institution.

Finally, we buckled down to the task and complied with management. The other day I phoned a former colleague at this institution and asked if the SGs we compiled were useful during times of student unrest and our present crisis occasioned by Covid-19.

His positive response convinced me

that SGs are the answer to the times we live in, not only for distance-learning institutions but for all universities.

To repeat, these are not course outlines, but cover tasks or assignments and assessment guides.

transformation. Central to the reforms are a state bank, a basic income grant and strategic equity partners in the energy sector. SA needs a new consensus post state capture and post Covid-19.

Mzukisi Gaba, Cape Town

Harry Sewlall, Parkmore, Johannesburg

Singapore and state capture A new economic consensus In “The Left must save SA from surrendering autonomy to the IMF” (April 5), Imraan Buccus writes: “The Zuma years left us with … an entrenched economic crisis. Finding our way out of the profound mess left by his kleptocracy was never going to be easy. But now that our own national crisis has intersected with the global crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, everything has changed.”

Buccus seems to distance the Left in the ANC-led alliance from the governing party under Jacob Zuma. But it was an integral part and it is disingenuous to speak of a Left project in the context of years that seriously weakened state capacity and entrenched an economic crisis.

It is ludicrous to believe there are Left forces in the ANC-led alliance to stop SA knocking at the door of the International Monetary Fund, cap in hand.

Post Covid-19 presents SA with a window of opportunity to seek a new consensus outside a neoliberal paradigm.

We have nothing to fear from our sovereign junk status. What’s required are fundamental economic reforms that will place people at the centre of economic

S’thembiso Msomi, I read “This health crisis offers Ramaphosa and the country a Singapore moment to revitalise an ailing economy” (April 5). I also read Lee Kuan Yew’s book a few years ago about his challenges in turning Singapore around. I agree with you; our continent has wasted decades in complacency and conflict.

I went to Singapore several times for work and could not help but be impressed with the efficiency, cleanliness and feeling of safety whenever I walked around, no matter what time of day or location it was.

You mentioned Lee, his team and their dictatorial tendencies. My observation was if you obeyed the law in Singapore, you had absolutely nothing to worry about.

My big gripe with your piece, though, is that you forgot to mention the corruption that is endemic in Africa. Much has been written about state capture in SA and who has been responsible. Surely there must be an element of truth to what has been written, but none of the usual suspects are in jail, and now that our eye has been taken off the ball with the corona crisis, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen any time soon.

Tod Burns, Summerstrand

Our rights go up in smoke Cigarettes not “essential” during lockdown, says the government?

Whoever gave the government the power to decide for the 11-million smoking voters that cigarettes are no longer essential for them? Certainly not the public, nor the constitution. This type of bullying reminds me of the National Party’s approach to people’s rights during the apartheid years.

There must be a protest from the smoking public, or this unilateral decisionmaking on the part of the government will lead us down the road to totalitarianism.

We have quite a bit of corruption already and the government must be kept accountable to the citizens of this democracy, or we must acknowledge that the constitution is not worth the paper it is written on.

Piers Steenekamp, Port Alfred

Play ball, sportspersons It’s a disgrace that mainly overpaid professional sportsmen and sportswomen can’t forfeit their salaries for a while for the benefit of their societies.

Don’t they know themselves that without their supporters, fans and spectators they would not have their existence?

E Piepke, Milnerton Write to PO Box 1742, Saxonwold 2132; SMS 33662; e-mail: tellus@sundaytimes.co.za; Fax: 011 280 5150 All mail should be accompanied by a street address and daytime telephone number. The Editor reserves the right to cut letters

Testing time ahead for humans and the economy both

T

here’ll be more than just the one lockdown extension announced The fact is that the longer this process takes to implement, the more

by President Cyril Ramaphosa on Thursday. There’ll be another at economically malignant the lockdown becomes. Most of the damage to our the end of April, when this one expires, and another after that. Get economy may have been done long before the first human was ever infected used to it. We’re in lockdown because we don’t know how with the virus, but with the lockdown the axe falls with brutal finality. widespread coronavirus infections really are, but if you want to become an Ramaphosa on Thursday appealed to big companies forced to close their instant expert, go online and look at spotlightnsp.co.za, a publication that operations not to pull contracts with their suppliers. Way, way too late. If he watches our health services like a hawk. It has just interviewed the heads thinks companies like Distell and SAB have not been in full cost-cutting mode of the National Health Laboratory Service (NHLS), which you’ve probably since he announced the lockdown, let him not be in any doubt what his never heard of. extension will do.

Neither had I, but both the NHLS chair and the CEO assure Spotlight Why buy bottles and cans and tops and labels and boxes from suppliers they are geared up for mass testing — that they can already do 15,000 tests a when you can’t sell your product? Has the government seen a shred of day and in 10 days’ time could take that up to 36,000 a day, most with a evidence to suggest that the prohibition of sales of alcohol and cigarettes pretty quick result. Add private sector capacity to that and the country might prevent the spread of Covid-19?

PET E R could potentially be testing 50,000 people a day by the end of this There’s none. What has happened here is that a few ministers have been B RUCE extended lockdown. allowed to impose their pet phobias on the rest of us, at great cost to the fiscus That would be no small feat. But the NHLS bosses complain they are and, ultimately, to the state’s ability to pay public sector wages and welfare. being underused. That’s because the NHLS can only test what gets sent to Not all of it is forever, though. At some stage all that liquidity being pumped its laboratories. Sure, it’ll soon be able to take mobile testing stations out to rural areas into big Western economies will do what it always does and start looking around for (each with one driver and two nurses, what could possibly go wrong? I suggest we add a yield. Then it’ll come here and rescue the local stock market like it did after the US Fed mechanic and a bouncer), but the screening and referrals for testing have to be done by began quantitative easing in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. provincial health departments. Imagine what that might mean in the Eastern Cape or Saving the stock market and the pensions invested in it is one thing. But yield-seeking North West. money created no jobs here after 2008 and it won’t this time either. The rich will simply But on the optimistic assumption that people actually do their jobs properly, we could get richer. The poor? Well, they may get a shot at one of the “non-invasive” ventilators try to emulate the South Koreans. They are 51-million people and we are 57-million. By Ramaphosa says we are going to start making in SA. Only it’s not a ventilator. A real one early April they had tested 350,000 citizens, with fantastic results. To get to 350,000 tests gets you a tube shoved down your throat past your vocal cords for two weeks if you’re by the end of May (given that we have already done about 50,000, mainly in the private lucky. Our ventilators are going to be a better class of oxygen mask. sector, we would need to do fewer than 10,000 tests a day.

By the time you need oxygen with Covid-19 you’re already in big trouble and the That’s doable. But will we? There’s a strange absence of information. We get a daily future of the economy may not be top of mind. But heaven help you if you ever get off the update on new cases and deaths, but surely the government, if it is indeed “rolling out” O2 because unless Ramaphosa, having given the health and security hawks on his team this extension, pulls his thumb out and begins to reignite what economy is left, you might mass testing, would be all over the media asking them to come and watch? Maybe I’m wish you hadn’t. missing something.

COMMENT THIS: WRITE TELLUS@SUNDAYTIMES.CO.ZA OR AT 33971 COMMENT ONON THIS: WRITE TOTO TELLUS@SUNDAYTIMES.CO.ZA ORSMS SMSUS US AT 33971WWW.SUNDAYTIMES.CO.ZA WWW.SUNDAYTIMES.CO.ZA

17

SUNDAY TIMES - April 12 2020

WISDOM FROM THE AG ES

Sunday Times

Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please MARK TWAIN, 1835-1910, American writer, humorist, entrepreneur and publisher

Covid-19 has given us time to ponder — on the value of relationships, and how to live better lives

Q&A HOGARTH

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ot since biblical times, when Noah built a boat to save a So you sit alone — and lonely — during this enforced sabbatical, few fortunate souls, has the world experienced anything and you have all the time in the world to think, and to worry. You run like the Covid-19 catastrophe that is threatening to engulf things through your crowded head, and your mind races in all it. At least Noah and his mates could see the threat and directions. You may be alone but countless other people around the thus devise a means to cope with it. We are confronted by an enemy world are in a similar situation. Suddenly the whole world is at one, we cannot see. It announces its malevolent presence in our midst united by shared suffering. only through its casualties, moving and mowing down with terrifying We have too much time to gaze at our own navels. We will speed. Young and old, they fall. probably relearn and re-understand ourselves. With some luck we We are left with the despoliation, the wreckage, the victims. Like a may even discover the hidden parts — the mysterious parts — of our hurricane, it leaves a swathe of devastation and misery in its wake. A souls. Are there things in our lives that we can improve? That sounds tempest is visible to the human eye, and it has a life and a season. almost like a plea for a second chance.

BA RN EY Covid-19 courses about unseen, incinerating its hapless victims. It It is ironic that during this time of social distancing we are seems we have ventured blindfolded into an unexplored and perilous M T HOM BOT H I compelled to be ostracised or alienated from those things that give jungle. There are no footsteps, blueprints or templates to guide us us the greatest joy or comfort. We’re called upon to stay away even because nobody has walked this way before. But leaders must lead. Standing still or from family and refrain from habits or routines that have made life a little more doing nothing are not options. They can be calamitous. liveable.

Noah, using rudimentary paraphernalia, was able to survive. Now humankind, We think of far-flung relatives. Even the rotten apple of the family suddenly having climbed the highest peak of endeavour, is faced by an enemy it has yet to get becomes more appealing. The auntie who’s always fussing over your weight or the the measure of. It has been caught with its pants down. All the skills, the resources, way you dress. The grumpy uncle to whom you’d give a wide berth at family the technological know-how seem to be impotent, for now at least, as the virus gatherings. Suddenly you want to know how they’re keeping. Are they washing remorselessly and effortlessly turns the entire globe into its killing field. their hands, for instance? Can they survive the devastation of this virus? One by All the billions that have been poured into creating and sustaining armies and one, you tally their chances of survival. The cruellest thing about this virus is that stockpiling nuclear arsenals capable of obliterating humanity in the blink of an eye when it hits, you don’t get the chance to say goodbye. It’s a lonely death.

— and for half a century the world lived in fear of such a nuclear Armageddon — While the lockdown seems to bring people closer together, statistics from other have been rendered worthless. Covid-19 is making a mockery of such strategies. countries show that the number of divorces has shot up. Abuse of women and Nations that devoted endless resources to trying to outdo each other in all manner children has increased. Many people will therefore be heartened by the fact that the of endeavours and rivalry now find themselves on the same side — victims of a sale of alcohol, which tends to exacerbate the scourge of abuse, has been banned silent foe for which they aren’t prepared. during the lockdown.

The virus brings out the worst in some of us. The world watches in astonishment One area to which governments seem not to be paying enough attention is the and with morbid fascination as the US, the richest and greatest power on Earth, mental trauma caused by the absolute havoc of the pandemic. People are terrified flounders in the face of the virus, its leaders squabbling over a few humble of what could happen to themselves or their loved ones. They could be scarred ventilators, while health workers have to make do with refuse bags for protective mentally just by watching the suffering around the world. More resources will have clothing. Donald Trump meets Covid-19. It’s a double whammy, and makes for a to be diverted to psychological therapy. very toxic cocktail.

The immediate question for us is: will the two-week lockdown extension be The virus is having a field day right now because there’s no cure or vaccine. But enough to flatten the curve? And will we still have an economy at the end of the what the world has in abundance is time. Time has since, well, time immemorial, lockdown? It’s a catch-22. But as President Cyril Ramaphosa has argued, if we hold been a scarce commodity. Humanity has always been racing against time. We’ve on to dear life, we at least give ourselves a chance. The economy, if we manage to always been told that time is of the essence; once lost, it’s impossible to retrieve. keep body and soul together, can hopefully be rebuilt. Life, on the other hand, once Now we sit around with nothing to do but kill it. extinguished, cannot be revived.

The way we respond to this crisis will define our economic future The upheaval will leave SA poorer and may set it back a decade, so we must formulate now the principles on which to base reconstruction

The flooding of denial

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Alliance leaders have said “no” to any government attempts to seek funding from the IMF to fight the coronavirus crisis. Chris Barron asked SACP deputy general secretary SOLLY MAPAILA …

Aren’t you sabotaging our war against the coronavirus?

No. Our statement was issued to respond to the downgrade by Moody’s and the response by the minister of finance in relation to the broad economic repositioning of SA. We said that’s a no-no because of the structural adjustment conditionalities which take away your independence as a country.

But you support financial assistance from China and Russia?

We’ve said that because of the relationship we have with those countries we can package things that favour us. This must be based on ensuring that our independence is never taken away, which is what you don’t keep when you enter into a relationship with the IMF. You think assistance from China or Russia will come with no strings attached?

No, there’s no assistance that would have no conditions. But we’ve said those conditions must be negotiated and be made open.

There should be no secret arrangement. The IMF and World Bank’s conditions are always secret.

Hasn’t Tito Mboweni made it clear that the financial assistance he’ll be seeking from the IMF will be to fight the corona crisis?

No. When the downgrade came we were just about to enter into the crisis. The president had announced the interventions, and in his speech he indicated SA has a strong financial sector and deep financial markets that can support the economy. So there was no crisis in that particular space. The issue was the downgrade.

By NICOLA VIEGI

● The coronavirus pandemic requires unprecedented health and economic responses. The health response is an example of efficiency and speed. The economic response is lagging behind and seems uncertain. It is not for a lack of will, but a lack of ammunition.

The crisis arrives after 10 years of low growth and low public and private investment. The country is fragile and ill-prepared. The fiscal position is compromised and there is little space to implement the necessary fiscal measures. The government needs alternative forms of financing, and this is where the main problem lies. Without access to international financial markets, the only possibilities are slashing nonessential parts of the budget, doing extraordinary tax collection, asking for a loan from the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, or monetisation.

Probably all of these measures will be necessary if social distancing lasts for longer than a few weeks.

Abandoning strong fiscal management in the hope of a monetary free lunch would be a grave mistake. SA risks entering a cycle of boom and bust Argentinastyle. The country is extremely fragile, with very few protective buffer stocks. Resources have been used (and squandered) to support current consumption and the economy has become increasingly dependent on international financial markets to finance the double deficit on the fiscal and external balance.

Monetary policy has been constrained in maintaining a real interest rate high enough to make the capital continue to flow in. In two weeks, the coronavirus crisis has accelerated this decline to breaking point. Now economists and commentators rail against the international ratings agencies as if by stopping the priest giving the last rites we can delay the inevitable: discussing ratings agencies now is just a waste of time. What we need to discuss is the way to finance the necessary measures and the policy framework that will emerge after this crisis.

In fact, the way we respond to the crisis will ultimately define the economy in the future. SA after the crisis will be poorer, probably as poor as 10 years ago. This increase in poverty must be redistributed so that we can protect the most vulnerable. Those that have secure jobs will see their wages cut, either by increases in taxes, by increasing inflation or by newly bargained wages, German-style. A lot of the wealth in the country will be devalued and entire sectors of the economy will be unsustainable. After the crisis, SA will need to grow fast and build strong resilience. Like Asian countries after the Asian financial crisis, SA needs to establish principles guiding policies towards this new path. Let me put forward four principles: ● Fiscal balance is the cornerstone of a progressive policy for growth and resilience. There is no correlation between deficit spending, debt and

WRITE TO HOGARTH@SUNDAYTIMES.CO.ZA

Surely the downgrade has made it even more urgent to source financial assistance? And Mboweni believes our best option is the IMF. No, it’s not. That’s why we have said we should explore all other avenues, starting with domestic resources.

Including raiding private company pension funds?

It’s not raiding. It’s utilising them to fight the economic crisis that we face as a country.

Those workers who still have jobs after the crisis may have their pay in effect cut, either by increased taxation or inflation or in wage bargaining, says the writer. Picture: Oleksandr Rupeta/NurPhoto via Getty Images

progressive policies. Progressive policies limit the use of deficits to extraordinary circumstances, such as the present one. After the crisis, SA needs to build insurance by running surpluses and building reserves, to base growth and redistributive policies on solid, long-term grounds. Deficit spending and debt accumulation are possible only if national and international rentiers are willing to finance. A policy framework dependent on external finance will be constrained by the interests of the rentiers. ● Capital inflows and consumption-led expansions do not provide a solid base for long-term growth.

Relying on international capital flows to finance private and public consumption above the productive capacity of the country makes the economy very sensitive to international events. It increases economic volatility and uncertainty, depressing investment and moving national policies away from long-term objectives. It also favours non-traded sectors, limiting the export potential of the economy and reducing its long-term growth and employment. ● Export expansion and diversification are the main drivers of long-term growth. Exporting is the way national firms become more productive, competitive and innovative. Productivity increases wages and standards of living and generates resources for public services and redistribution. To move from a consumption-driven to an export-driven economy, a whole set of infrastructure, regulations and industrial policies needs to be reconsidered. This is now urgent because a long-term trade surplus is necessary for stabilising the economy. The devaluation of the rand exchange rate gives a competitive boost to South African firms that should not be wiped out by increasing inflation.

● Long-term growth and resilience need productive public investment in health, education and infrastructure. The operative word is productivity. In all three sectors SA has invested a lot of resources, without many returns. This cannot be accepted any longer. The productivity of the state is as important as the productivity of the private sector. SA needs to combat any position of rent-seeking in the private and in the public sector: limiting monopoly power, promoting innovation, increasing accountability, transparency and competitive pressure anywhere.

Fiscal balance allows monetary activism. An export and investment strategy requires a monetary and fiscal policy mix that lowers the real interest rate compatible with stable inflation. Fiscal policy is the dominant instrument because it defines the constraints in which monetary policy operates. A fiscal policy that targets the economy’s savingsinvestment balance would allow monetary policy to target macroeconomic stability at a lower level of real interest rate.

Health intervention and household support are the first priorities, but policies should also protect the integrity of supply chains and labour contracts, even with a temporary reduction of wages and public guarantees. The partial economic freeze allows the speeding up of infrastructure maintenance and renewal. Bureaucracy in business licensing and exporting should be simplified to the point of irrelevance. To finance the interventions, SA needs instruments that are efficient and coherent, with longterm objectives.

✼ Viegi is the South African Reserve Bank chair in monetary policy studies, University of Pretoria

You want to take money out of these pension funds, am I right?

That’s an option.

What about the workers who belong to these funds?

If the economic crisis deepens they’ll find themselves in a deeper crisis because their money will go into an economy that is completely depressed. So their pension funds will be depleted in no time.

By releasing your statement when you did, aren’t you sabotaging our war against the coronavirus?

No, we’re not.

Isn’t this what you’re doing when you tell our elected leaders how it must be fought?

You’re conflating the fight against Covid-19 with the fight against going to the IMF. Tito’s been waiting to take the country to the IMF and he’s using this crisis to do that.

Surely the only agenda that matters is surviving the crisis?

We agree. That’s why we’ve expressed full support for the president’s interventions.

But you say you’re not going to allow him to ask for assistance from the IMF? Because it’s not necessary.

azzmatazz, AKA Mbaweezy, AKA Mr FearFokol the transport minister, transported himself to the Sandton police station in a huff to lay charges against his celebrity buddy, Somizi Mhlongo, for claiming to be letting SA in on their gossip sessions about confidential cabinet discussions. It wasn’t a Good Friday for the motormouth politician, who spent the morning denying he was leaking cabinet secrets about the lockdown to his drinking buddy.

Having noticed how trigger-happy Cupcake was when dealing with Fikile Mbalula another cabinet member, Razzmatazz was so desperate he even offered his phones to be checked for any outgoing calls to Somizi. It seems Mr FearFokol’s ultimate fear is losing his blue lights and fat perks.

Death by syllable

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r FearFokol was in ultra-spin mode on Friday morning, but the media statement he issued was so convoluted it made the heads of journalists spin: “After proper reflection and circulation of a video, Minister Mbalula finds himself obligated by statutes, policies and regulations of Parliament and Government to take action and seek consequences management over the matter wherein Mr Mhlongo is recorded to be saying that the Minister divulged information to him that could be regarded as sensitive and embargoed for publication at the time.”

Inside jokes

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efore McBuffalo’s decision to extend the lockdown was leaked, he had resorted to making jokes about it. It seems he is kept updated about the jokes South Africans are making about him. One is a meme that featured Cupcake saying he had promised to open the country on April 16 but never mentioned which year. He repeated the joke to his ministers during a recorded tele-conference meeting this week. Well-placed sources confirmed to Hogarth’s colleague that when the whole country is chuckling at jokes on social media, Cupcake joins in. What if he enjoys this moment so much he locks the country up and throws away the keys?

Fit for office

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gandan president for life Yoweri “M7” Museveni is an eccentric character. Whenever he’s tired of playing with his grandkids, he has a tendency to summon the media to the State House for the fun of it. It was no different this week when Mzee called journalists to witness his training routine. The 75-year-old started by warming up — running up and down his spacious office — which looked more like a badly choreographed toyi-toyi. He then proceeded to do 30 press-ups. Hogarth has news for Ugandans: M7 is fit enough to extend his 34-year rule by at least another 20 years.

Full court press

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useveni’s workout session attracted a lot of media coverage and he trended on all media networks.

However, there were differing views in Uganda about the impact of the workout, with some saying it was useless to encourage citizens to exercise indoors because the majority live in tiny huts. Others commended M7 for leading by example. And then there were those naughty citizens who mocked the former guerilla’s press-up routine — with one calling it an “ar$$ up”.

His own case for social distancing

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n any other day, Welkom mayor Nkosinjani Speelman would have been crowned Mampara. Welcoming soldiers in his small town, Speelman put his mouth in it, using derogatory terms in reference to coloured citizens from the Bronville area. “Bronville is going to give you a headache, jy weet mos die party van die boesman [you know bushmen and their parties], they take chances. So don’t hesitate. I talked to them yesterday, closed them [off], they get out and drink again. So go there and show that you’re here as soldiers. I hope you stay here for two years. I will appreciate it because I have a lot of challenges.” Well done to the ANC in the province for acting swiftly by suspending this deputy Mampara.

MAMPARA OF THE WEEK

Stella Ndabeni-Abrahams Communicating the wrong message

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he excuse that the Commander of the 4IR and her lunch-mate, woman-beater Mduduzi Manana, gave for breaking the lockdown regulations was so ridiculous that the president said he was “unmoved”. The narcissist Manana was a Mampara candidate, but what he does with his life no longer concerns us as he has left public office.

It is his guest who should have known better, given that she was at the meeting where the regulations were approved. But because she believes her position gives her impunity, she was only too happy to pose for photos at the crime scene. Her host has a habit of showing off his extravagant lifestyle — costing our Mampara two months on special leave, one of them with no pay.

Send this Mampara as ambassador to Geneva — if she can locate it on the map.

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April 12 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Opinion

Sunday Times

QUOTE OF THE WE E K I did not discuss the lockdown timeline or extension plans with Mr Mhlongo at all whatsoever; my conscience is clear Transport minister FIKILE MBALULA, after entertainer Somizi Mhlongo claimed to have heard from Mbalula, the day before, that the lockdown would be extended. Mhlongo later apologised to Mbalula

A young VIP-tag generation — the Y-tjukutja revolutionaries — are a threat to our future

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very year around this time, thousands of who were prepared to make supreme sacrifices to South Africans gather in different parts of see their country go free quickly turned into the country to commemorate Chris greedy and selfish politicians once they gained Thembisile Hani. access to the spoils of victory.

Thousands more share pictures of him, video But it is what he said about a future SA, clips of his speeches and interviews as well as his especially in the months leading up to his death, memorable quotes, as a way of paying respect to a that makes many see in him the kind of leadership man whose life was violently cut short on Easter that could have been. weekend in 1993.

“The perks of a new government are not really It has been 27 years, but the ritual continues. appealing to me. Everybody would like to have a The coronavirus outbreak and the resultant good job, a good salary … but for me that is not the national lockdown saw to it that there was no mass all of struggle. What is important is the rally at Hani’s graveyard in Boksburg, or anywhere continuation of the struggle … the real problems of ST H EM B I SO else in the country this year. the country are not whether one is in cabinet … but M SOM I But he was all over social media. There were what we do for social upliftment of the working webinars hosted by political personalities masses of our country,” Hani said once when he associated with his political parties, the ANC and was asked if he expected to be in the cabinet of a the SACP, as well as those who belong to formations opposed to the future Mandela administration. ruling alliance.

In a country where many ruling-party politicians seem willing to With the exception of Nelson Mandela, no late liberation struggle do just about anything — including looking the other way while their icon’s death gets commemorated as widely as that of Hani. leader lets an expatriate family loot and destroy state institutions — In life he was a hugely popular leader. Some surveys suggested just to have blue lights and homes in Pretoria and Cape Town, it is that he was second only to Mandela in the popularity stakes in the easy to see why Hani is missed. early 1990s.

“What I fear is that the liberators emerge as elitists who drive His assassination, which occurred at the height of negotiations around in Mercedes-Benzes and use the resources of this country to for a democratic SA, shook the nation to its very foundation. live in palaces and to gather riches,” Hani also said.

Hani has endured for so long in the memories of so many, not It didn’t take long for his fear to become reality and, two decades because he died so violently — our apartheid-era history is replete into freedom, for SA to be plunged into an abyss of corruption and with assassinations of political figures. state capture.

To many he is a symbol of what could have been, a representative Even in the “New Dawn”, when we are supposed to be reof a leadership ethos that people see lacking in our current political emerging from the darkness, there are telltale signs that we could be elite. headed back to the hole if we are not careful.

None of us knows how a post-apartheid Hani would have turned Our greatest threat is the “younger” generation of leaders who out. After all, a substantial number of the brave men and women would presumably be in charge when President Cyril Ramaphosa

and his generation go into retirement.

The president was under tremendous pressure to have a healthy balance of youth and experience when he put together his cabinet, and correctly so. He duly listened, even though many would have liked to see even more ministers on the wrong side of 65 being relieved of public office.

However, what is not interrogated enough is the quality and the ethical conduct of these “young” leaders being appointed to positions of power and authority.

Many of them were spawned by the politics of patronage where supporting the right faction guaranteed them ascendancy to higher office, rather than talent, work ethic and ideas.

This is the “VIP-tag generation”, which does not attend any gathering unless they are guaranteed special treatment and access to the best seats in the house. They queue for nothing, always exempted. And you wonder why, once they become ministers, they think a national lockdown, due to the coronavirus outbreak, does not apply to them?

These are the “Y-tjukutja revolutionaries”, the politicians who get re-elected on the strength of their links with crowd-pulling celebrities and “influencers” who have become very important in our politics, especially around national election time.

Soon they start to see no difference between themselves and the “influencers” and take to social media to flaunt their new, and often unexplained, wealth — almost oblivious to the abject poverty most of those who elected them to office still live under.

Now Ramaphosa can fire one or two of them from his cabinet for this or that transgression, but the reality is that unless the ruling party starts producing a better cadre of young leaders, our future is in their hands. And that is scary.

The other alternative is for the ruling party to be voted out of power. But looking at the ranks of some of the bigger opposition parties, there is little reason to believe that their “young” are any different.

We have seen our government respond decisively regarding the homeless people during this pandemic, but this is the time to have a long-term plan for homeless people and solve this problem once and for all.

Our economy has been struggling for the longest time now. Why not use this crisis to bring about the structural changes we need in the economy and build an inclusive economy that benefits everyone, not only the few?

We have been debating the issue of land long enough now and this pandemic has exposed how people suffer in the informal settlements and just how difficult it is for people to observe the hygiene recommended to defeat the coronavirus.

Yes, while we deal with the situation let’s have vision for a better future.

We will overcome this pandemic, but we had better be ready tomorrow. That requires vision.

To all the people in SA there is always a better tomorrow. We must not lose hope but have vision for tomorrow. God bless Africa. ✼ McCauley is the president of Rhema Family Churches

✼ Gumede is an associate professor at the School of Governance,

and the co-chair of the National Religious Leaders Council

University of the Witwatersrand, and author of Restless Nation: Making Sense of Troubled Times (Tafelberg)

Vision, the act of seeing with the eye of the invisible as some call it, is empowering. It gives us the energy to establish new ventures, to reform old structures and rebuild our lives, our businesses and our communities.

In the short term, we will need vision to imagine ways of how to safely return to our lives. The doctors and researchers working on cures and therapies for the disease need vision to keep going, to keep trying, until they have a breakthrough. While they strive on our behalf, we need to do our part and open our eyes to a new reality.

This new reality is fraught with risks and challenges, but it is also full of potential and opportunity — if we can summon the vision to see them.

One of the practical ways of doing this is for our leadership in the government to start thinking and planning how we will deal with the inequality in society that this exposes. We cannot allow the scenes seen on our television screens to continue.

By RAY McCAULEY

● We are entering a special time on the Christian calendar when we celebrate Easter, remembering the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

During this time Christians meet in large gatherings across the world to celebrate.

This year will be different. The coronavirus pandemic has forced big and small events to be cancelled or postponed.

As difficult as this time is, it is encouraging to see churches across the world find new ways of worshipping together. It is during a crisis like this when leaders give new vision, and do not allow us to be discouraged; it is a vision that gives hope. As Christians, let’s turn our homes into places of worship and reach out to more people with the online platforms we have available.

The pandemic challenges the foundations of society. With businesses, factories and mines standing idle, and working people obliged to stay home, it shakes the socioeconomic foundations of our way of life.

Long-standing problems More importantly, the pandemic reveals the reality of social inequality. The less you have materially, the more difficult it is to practise social distancing and cope with the economic impact of the lockdown. But this, too, shall pass.

Apart from coping, we need to have a vision for the future amid the storm. If we do, we might be able to address long-standing problems.

The Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard said: “Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”

To many, the pandemic does not make sense and has caused them to focus only on what has happened and what is happening now. It has made them stare at the present, instead of looking to the future.

Structural changes

The priest at St Anthony’s Catholic Church will deliver his Passover sermon alone in the church but broadcast via social media. Picture: Sandile Ndlovu

What Kierkegaard meant was for us to step into the uncertainty of tomorrow as we progress through life, day by day. When we look back on the events that have shaped our lives, we are often able to make sense of them.

Sometimes a pattern emerges and we realise why something happened, and what meaningful outcomes there were.

As people of faith, we are often able to look back at the painful parts of our journey and say, “There was a reason I had to go through that.” We see how negative experiences can bring out the best in us.

We may even recognise how these experiences “worked together for our good”. We call this providence. But that is about looking back.

This crisis brought about by Covid-19 will be such a situation. While it is tempting to focus on the present, it is better to look to the future with a bold resolve that says, “We will overcome.”

We need a vision of better days to lift our spirits

and set our sights on the outcomes we desire.

The economic and social impact is already being felt; it is now up to us how to respond. That requires vision. We need new ideas about how to look after the vulnerable, new approaches to doing business and how to breathe new life into old ways of doing things.

Right now we have an opportunity to serve those closest to us, to send support to a needy neighbour or acquaintance. What is needed as well is vision for solutions.

For some, this will be much more challenging and may involve mourning the loss of a friend, a loved one, or a much-valued business or job. But the loss is not the end of the road. It is only a point along a journey, and we cannot stop our progress by failing to look to the future.

A lack of vision will be disempowering and will cause us to sink into fatalism, believing that only the worst will happen.

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he government’s Covid19 emergency package fails glaringly to protect vulnerable women and children from violence and abuse during the lockdown.

The lockdown may have been effective so far in slowing the spread of Covid-19, but confining people to their homes raises the spectre of already alarming levels of violence and abuse against women and children exploding to WI L L IAM terrifying levels.

GUM E DE SA has among the highest levels of violence and abuse against women and children per capita outside war zones.

The cabin fever phenomenon, which leads to fear, anxiety and a sense of powerlessness, could increase such violence.

In addition, the economic downturn, business closures and looming unemployment, fear, stress and anxiety can often result in men taking out their frustrations on women and children. In the first week of the lockdown the police received 87,000 complaints of domestic abuse.

Moreover, because of inequality, most men are the major or only income earners, which means abused partners are often financially dependent on their abusers.

During the lockdown these victims cannot easily leave violent or abusive households, or seek help. The restrictions also constrain the reach of civil society organisations dedicated to fighting violence and abuse against women and children.

Sadly, the army and the police, 26 years after the end of apartheid, are still poorly trained and not empathetic in dealing with such violence. Some are even perpetrators.

Incidents of domestic violence and abuse in many other countries have also increased during lockdowns.

UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, in a video message posted on Twitter this week, warned about a “horrifying global surge” in domestic violence. “We know lockdowns and quarantines are essential to suppressing Covid-19, but they can trap women with abusive partners,” he said.

The French government this week approached hotels to allow women victims of violence to stay in vacant rooms at the state’s expense. Some countries have created pop-up counselling centres at retail stores, pharmacies and other essential-service points for women experiencing violence and abuse.

The UK this week released £750m (about R17bn) in emergency funding for charities and civil society organisations, including those that work with women and children victims of domestic abuse. Australia released US$100m (R1.8bn) to support services that deal with domestic violence and abuse.

Brazil, like SA, has high levels of gender inequality and gender-based violence. It has given women money directly to empower them by providing a basic income grant of US$125 over the three-month period of its lockdown.

India, another developing country with high levels of gender inequality and gender-based violence, has paid cash amounts into bank accounts of vulnerable women who are already linked to a government-backed financial inclusion programme to empower them. These women are also given food parcels.

In SA, the police and army patrolling the streets to enforce the lockdown must be given instructions to listen to women and children who complain about abuse.

It goes without saying the police and the army should not be perpetrators of violence and abuse against women and children.

Prosecution of perpetrators of violence and abuse against women must be swift. Special courts must be set up if necessary.

Retailers, pharmacies and other essential services could serve as pop-up counselling centres. Funds must also be set aside to support victims of violence and abuse during the Covid-19 lockdown.

As part of the emergency economic measures, civil society organisations dealing with abuse against women and children should get special funding during the lockdown to continue what they do.

Food vouchers that can be used at retail stores, or food parcels that can be distributed by the army, must be given to all those in need. A basic income grant to all indigent will make them less dependent on men during the lockdown.

Hotlines, shelters and legal assistance for victims of genderbased violence must not only remain open but should be generously resourced. Individuals who can should volunteer to help on hotlines and at shelters and provide financial, legal and accommodation assistance. Telecommunications companies such as Telkom, Vodacom and MTN could make a simple key or function available on mobile-phone platforms, similar to those that a person can dial for airtime or data, which serves as a free hotline to report violence against women and children.

The inequality revealed by the pandemic cries out for a new vision for our land Use crisis to bring about the structural changes for an inclusive economy

Abused women and children forgotten in this crisis

We need to bail out the people and reform the global financial system

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he challenge the coronavirus pestilence and not re-tweet their messages, we must pay presents us with may yet become one the close attention to those with medical expertise, greatest faced by any nation. Our people led by our health minister, Dr Zweli Mkhize. We are vulnerable, with many having must give our full support to the government’s compromised immune systems, their homes in crucially important priority: screening everyone, densely packed townships, living in crowded testing those who need to be tested, tracing others accommodation and often needing to travel to who may have come into contact with infected places of work on public transport. Our economy people, and treating those with Covid-19. was already struggling before the crisis, with high Above all, as people of faith, listen to what Jesus unemployment and low levels of growth, partly says at the beginning of chapter 14 of John’s caused by narrow self-interest that superseded Gospel: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. the interests of the common good.

Believe in God, believe also in me.”

T HABO But we are not alone. We may be vulnerable as We live in different times and we are going to M A KGOBA a country, but this disease does not see race, need bravery, foresight, strength and the courage gender, class, wealth or poverty, and most of our convictions to get through this crisis. We importantly for the human family worldwide, it does not respect will never be the same. borders. It carries no passport. That is why this crisis is one that But after the agony of Good Friday, there always comes the hope unites all God’s children, wherever in our country or the world we of Easter, the hope of new beginnings. We will overcome this may live. In SA it is not a “township” disease. Those who live behind challenge, and if we approach the future with hope, we can emerge high walls are not immune: it will spread fast and far if we allow it from the pandemic to build a better SA and a better world; a more to, and it will cause havoc. equitable future, a more just future, a gentler future.

While we must ignore the scaremongers, not give them airtime, We need to rise above stale ideological debates between Left and

Right, rejecting both unbridled globalisation and narrow nationalisms. We must create a world in which our economies are underpinned by the fundamental values which all the world’s major faiths share, in which people come before profits.

In SA, we need to bail out the people, not those state-owned enterprises which are guzzling our resources but don’t serve everyone. We can no longer afford enterprises whose existence is a matter of national pride, not of human survival.

Especially among the political class, we need to promote the moral and ethical handling of our resources, both during this crisis and into the future. We need to be building up the agricultural and technological sectors of our economy, and creating jobs which pay a living wage. We need to end spatial apartheid and attack with new vigour the building of residential areas in which our people are not forced to live cheek by jowl in shacks.

Not only in SA, but across the world, we must learn to live out the interdependence which this pandemic has demonstrated we all share. How do we harness the goodness and the solidarity that this crisis has brought out of us?

We need a new economic model, an alternative to the current governance of global financial systems, and one which seeks robust, practical ways to transform the market economy from a self-serving

mechanism for elites to one which serves our environment and all God’s people.

Pope Francis has warned us that “a healthy economic system cannot be based on short-term profit at the expense of long-term productive, sustainable and socially responsible development and investment”. And President Cyril Ramaphosa has remarked that our current crisis is leading to calls for “a new moral economy that has people and their welfare at its centre”.

Finally, I want to extend deep gratitude to all our health workers, to our police and soldiers, to public service workers, to petrol and shop attendants and to all the others who provide essential services during this time. They are our heroes. My thanks also go to members of congregations and clergy for praying from home and keeping the faith, and a special thank you to the church’s Covid-19 teams coordinating our response to the pandemic.

Let me end with a comforting verse, written by St Paul from prison to encourage Timothy to guard the Gospel. In chapter 1, verse 7, he writes to Timothy: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” God bless you, and God bless South Africa. ✼ Makgoba is the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town

19

SUNDAY TIMES - April 12 2020

Insight Opinion

Now is the moment to press reset on economy The double blow of junk status and the corona pandemic will deepen recession. No option can be ruled out to resuscitate SA, sustain livelihoods

By LESLIE MAASDORP

T

he recent sovereign downgrade to junk status is a defining moment and turning point for SA. Combined with the potentially devastating economic shock induced by the coronavirus pandemic, this new reality represents the single biggest test for the country and its leadership in the democratic era.

The lockdown and effective shutting down of the economy overshadowed the news about the credit rating downgrade, but as a result of it SA is facing the Covid-19 pandemic in its most vulnerable economic state.

In December 2015, six months after I relocated to China as part of a team to establish the New Development Bank — an initiative of the Brics association of emerging economies — Brazil was downgraded to junk status. I saw first-hand how devastating the economic consequences of a downgrade to junk status can be — specifically, how swiftly the impact may be felt in the real economy by households and companies alike.

Within days of the downgrade, the Brazilian economy contracted into a deep recession that lasted for eight consecutive quarters, leading to untold misery for large numbers of people.

Defaults by companies led to large-scale retrenchments, fuelling unemployment and

disrupting the lives of ordinary Brazilians in intolerable ways. Today, five years later, Brazil remains stuck in junk status, searching for ways to bounce back to a sustainable growth path.

History is not much of a guide to how long it takes to recover from junk status, as each country has its own context and conditions existing before its downgrade.

However, besides some rare exceptions (South Korea 1997-1999 and Ireland 20112014), it takes, on average, up to seven years.

This is the first time since SA’s return to global markets in 1994 that we have had no investment-grade rating. SA is now considered junk on the credit spectrum by all three leading ratings agencies, namely S&P International, Fitch and Moody’s. In the words of SA’s National Treasury, “it could not have come at a worse time”. In the space of just a few days the economic outlook for SA shifted decisively, and looks bleak.

Credit ratings matter, since they are a measure of the creditworthiness of a country’s government. Ratings provide foreign investors with insights into the level of risk associated with investing in the debt of that country. With junk status, the message to investors is that SA’s debt has increased to such an extent that there is a prospect that the government may not have the resources to pay back what it has borrowed.

The timing of the downgrade revived questions in some quarters about the objectivity and judgments of the ratings agencies. After the 2008 global financial crisis, ratings agencies were widely criticised for giving highly favourable ratings to mortgage-backed securities, which almost brought the global financial system to its knees. As a result, the reputation of the agencies was severely dented. However, despite the agencies’ shortcomings, investors rely on this seal of approval and use the ratings as their guide. There is no opting out of this reality.

The key drivers behind the downgrade in SA are well known. In brief, the country has seen a slow and systematic erosion of its

Fitch and its fellow ratings agencies Moody’s and S&P International rate SA as a junk investment destination.

Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago, left, and finance minister Tito Mboweni are highly regarded by multilateral financial institutions. Picture: John Liebenberg

economic fundamentals over the past decade. The picture is not pretty and includes weak growth since the global financial crisis, an unsustainable rise in government debt, widening of the fiscal deficit, bailouts to loss-making state-owned enterprises, wasteful expenditure and corruption, and shortages in electricity supply, which in turn further depressed economic growth.

Against this backdrop, it is clear that the decisions by the credit ratings agencies to downgrade SA were backward-looking and retroactive, and had little to do with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

As in Brazil, the downgrade will have material adverse consequences for every South African in all facets of our lives. As an immediate trigger, the rand dropped to an all-time low, below R19 to the US dollar. It is now only a matter of time before the spillover effects become real. No-one will be spared its consequences.

The country now faces the real prospect of a sustained recession locally, which will be made significantly worse by the new reality of a coming deep global recession.

The exact nature, size and duration of the economic downturn in SA remains unknown. However, the scale of the crisis is likely to be daunting and dependent on the pace of recovery of the world economy, over which SA has little to no influence.

If ever there was a moment to press the reset button, it is now. The reset will require

Sunday Times

a new mindset that no option can be ruled out to resuscitate the economy and sustain livelihoods. “Whatever it takes” has to be the new motto to guide leaders in the government, business, labour and civil society.

This includes exploring financial support from multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, New Development Bank and others. They have been specifically set up to step in when countries face external macro shocks of this kind. At AAA or AA+ these multilateral development banks have the highest creditworthiness and thus the least expensive funding.

The most immediate task is to avoid a downward spiral into deeper junk territory.

For starters, a credible economic recovery plan is urgently needed. To meet the basic standard of credibility, this plan — with clear timelines — should simultaneously accelerate structural reforms to stimulate growth, protect the vulnerable, preserve jobs at all costs and appeal to a sense of national solidarity across society.

The call for wage restraint in the public sector will remain hollow unless it is accompanied by shared sacrifice at all levels, including wage freezes and cuts in bonuses and other forms of excess in the private sector. Drastic measures are required, including companies withholding dividends to shore up their balance sheets in the interests of survival in the medium term.

The fundamental economic choices and trade-offs have never been starker. Several of the structural reforms will take many months and years to bear fruit.

To date, government efforts to suppress the spread of the pandemic have been unified, swift and decisive. The same resolve and capacity to take bold decisions are now required on the economic front. In President Cyril Ramaphosa, the country has a leader with vast, tried and tested experience in bringing the country back from the brink.

Furthermore, the country’s core economic leadership team of finance minister Tito Mboweni and Reserve Bank governor Lesetja Kganyago command the necessary credibility to drive and implement an economic recovery plan. Each is highly regarded by the ratings agencies and multilateral institutions, having had the benefit of working closely with them over a period of two decades.

Finally, the lockdown has laid bare and exposed the deep inequalities still prevalent in our society. Communities living in villages without running water and sanitation cannot be allowed to become a permanent feature of our society.

Overcrowded townships where poor service delivery has become a normal feature in people’s lives are a stark reminder of the historical legacy of apartheid, which 25 years of democracy have not begun to erase.

We cannot go back to the way it was before. The question remains, what state will we be in when the clouds begin to clear? ✼ Maasdorp, writing in his personal capacity, is vice-president and chief financial officer of the Brics New Development Bank

We need the courage to live through this wide awake That which cannot be explained can be comprehended, and endured, in silence

By YEWANDE OMOTOSO

● Without intending to seem callous, the question comes to me: our world is fraught with crises, what is it about this one that has captured us so?

Perhaps it is in Covid-19’s knack for globality, its capacity — helped along by our technologies of fast transportation — to roam the planet touching what it pleases. This free-roaming characteristic, the apparent opposite of the ecological crisis, the malaria crisis or, localised in a different way (within certain kinds of bodies for instance), the rape crisis.

As Arundhati Roy put it in a recent article in the Financial Times: “Coronavirus has made the mighty kneel and brought the world to a halt like nothing else could.”

Covid-19, like a psychopathic bank robber, has started taking lives, all kinds, and, however slow some have been to take notice, it now has our full attention.

Usually, now, at this part in the movie, the bank robber makes demands, the deft police officer negotiates and, depending whose side we are meant to be on (the cops or the robbers), the movie resolves itself; someone either goes to jail or gets away with a million dollars.

But this is not a movie, of course. It’s real life. Still, as someone who worships at the altar of story, unfaltering in my faith that fiction bears truth, I wonder: if we personified this virus for a few seconds, what are Covid-19’s demands?

Another way of phrasing that question: what is this moment really asking of us

apart from the essential fussing with disinfectant wipes?

In a recent webinar, “African Feminist and Anti-Capitalist Responses to Covid-19”, Max Ajl described the coronavirus as a lightning bolt: it is illuminating, it supercharges our existing problems and, notably, when it hits, the impact across the land varies.

This element of variance struck me a few days into SA’s Covid-19 lockdown when a friend shared a video of soldiers kicking a group of men found drinking beer on the sidewalk, cussing and refusing to selfisolate.

She’d sent it aiming for humour, I think, but I felt a cold shiver, a reaction not only in response to the violence.

On the surface it looked like unruly men being disciplined to comply with the sensible, urgent request from government to staunch the spread of the virus. That’s the language they understand, my friend claimed, but this seemed inaccurate to me somehow.

What, I wondered, were the conditions of their homes that would have them rather be out on the street facing down angry men in camouflage.

As more and more countries institute lockdown, the statistics roll in — domestic violence, child abuse, hungry households — reminding us that “staying at home” means very different things to different people.

What about those for whom being asked to sit at home doesn’t only mean go and be with yourselves and your families but could also mean go and sit in cramped, uninhabitable spaces? Amidst all this madness, go and sit sober and sombre. Go and sit at your home, wherever and whatever it may be, just go, go and sit.

A friend said she watched yet another clip of a man who was caught outside, defying lockdown regulations. He appealed to the camera, shrugging. I had to come out, he said. I needed to breathe.

Information from the experts tells us that the best way to curb the spread, in addition

Yewande Omotoso.

Picture: Pelayo Omotoso

When this moment passes ... whatever guise it takes, I hope we retain something of the sharpness of this reality to incessant hand-washing and sanitising, is to confine ourselves. And while the virus itself can’t tell if you’re female, white, rich or hungry, it has crept into a world already stratified along those lines and more — an unfair world deeply biased and unequal; a world with such marked fault lines that even class-blind Covid-19 can’t but follow the cracks.

But along with the ways in which the inequities of our world are magnified in a time of coronavirus, another thing I

wondered about was what, really, are we asking of each other when we say “stay at home”.

Before lockdown I had visited a relative who upon opening her eyes in the morning blares the radio. At some point between morning tea and brushing her teeth she adds the television to the mix and this cacophony lasts the entire day — phone calls and visitors be damned — until she closes her eyes.

Those who know her know to speak up when they visit. Friends and family shout on the phone.

“I like noise,” she says.

Being introverted and a great fan of silence, it took something for me to comprehend her desire, so at odds with my own natural inclinations. And yet that insight into someone else’s ways pops up when I think of “stay at home”.

To me, silence and self-isolation are as normal as teeth-brushing and rooibos tea. I work from home, apart from forays to the shops or to visit my family I can go days and days and days without seeing a single person.

Many dear to me, including my partner, live in other cities, other countries. We connect regularly using the plethora of applications available. I’m accustomed to sitting at home and there are many others like me — our offices are wherever our laptops and the internet can co-exist.

But what about those for whom sitting at home for five consecutive weeks seems unthinkable, the same way as lack of noise is unthinkable for my relative? During my visit, each time she returned from work to find me at the kitchen table typing, covered in silence, she looked at me askance. “You didn’t turn on the radio?” she’d ask, utterly perplexed.

Amid the chaos of this moment, amid the suffering, there seems also the introduction of a certain quality of silence. That stretch of a Saturday, for instance, what if we didn’t rush to fill it with Netflix and Zoom, the

radio and the television?

While I don’t argue that silence is some kind of panacea — the idea seems too annoyingly mystical — there is something that happens to the human condition, unmediated. A friend used to say we’re not human beings, we’re human doings. It does seem true that we very rarely practise simple, unadorned, undistracted, be-ing.

What of now?

If there is one thing this moment calls us to be with — to contend with — it’s uncertainty. This realisation has emerged already, evident in what many have already written and shared: the return to family; the opportunity, in the corona-induced silence, to remember what matters; the startling discovery, as layers of extraneous life get stripped away, of what actually remains.

We all know (enough well-meaning memes exist to confirm this) that uncertainty is a natural condition of life.

Death and taxes, goes the joke. And yet so much of life seems geared, by necessity, towards establishing certainty — the job, the marriage vows, the contracts, deeds, ownership.

We make plans, and surely there can’t be anything wrong with plans. But there are always those moments, often short, seldom as sustained as this one, that occur in life.

Moments that cut through, draw us out of our construction and remind us of the true state of what it is to be alive — to not know and to be seeking regardless.

The death of someone dear often does it.

Deep misfortune. Trauma. Sickness. Not only sad circumstances — carrying a living being in your womb can do it, being present at the birth of a baby, listening to someone knowledgeable explain about the Milky Way holding hundreds of billions of stars, only one of which is our little sun. We see we are small. It frustrates and frightens but can also simply make us go still, leave us in wonder.

There will never be a time to romanticise Covid-19, just as there is never a time to be merely whimsical about death (or taxes for

that matter) but if nothing else we are being forced every day of this extended moment to live life as it really is, uncertain and, despite our greatest attempts, unknown to us.

For some perhaps that uncertainty is familiar. For many it might not be. When this moment passes, however far or near in the future that time may be, whatever guise it takes, I hope we retain something of the sharpness of this reality, some of the residue of that feeling.

“For me,” said the meditation master to his students, “this glass is already broken, every moment with it is precious. And when the wind eventually knocks it over, I say, ‘Of course.’”

In his essay, Why I Stopped Hating Shakespeare, James Baldwin writes: “No time can be easy if one is living through it.”

He seems to be saying that if we’re only cruising we are at best half-asleep.

And so, as different lines are drawn and corporations and governments rally to see whose pie gets bigger or smaller through this crisis, as families draw near, as support organisations remain alert to those rendered more vulnerable under lockdown, as we clap and cry and grieve and fret and work and risk and tend, may we also find the wherewithal to keep awake, to endure, and not because there is any particular reward waiting on the other side. Some of us will die, others will do the burying. We’ll all die anyway, of Covid-19 or something else, eventually.

Baldwin’s words suggest the reward lies only in the thing itself: the courage to live through, wide awake, wearing no blinkers. It seems a notion only for the realm of ideals but let’s not dismiss it. If there was ever a time for ideals, surely it is now. ✼ Omotoso is a Johannesburg-based novelist and architect who was born in Barbados, grew up in Nigeria and moved to SA with her family in 1992.

Her novels ‘Bom Boy’ (2011) and ‘The Woman Next Door’ (2016) were short-listed for the Sunday Times Fiction Prize.

Recognising that diversity is important in achieving excellence, Rhodes University especially encourages South African members of designated groups to apply.

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA

DEPARTMENT OF ACCOUNTING

Associate Professor (2 Posts)

SCHOOL OF LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES (AFRIKAANS AND NETHERLANDIC STUDIES)

Applications are hereby invited for the under mentioned positions

ADMINISTRATIVE & PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS

Professor/Associate Professor/ Senior Lecturer

Portfolio: Department:

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

Operations and Facilities Print Production

Associate Professor/Senior Lecturer

Director: Print Production (P4) Five (5) Year Fixed Term Contract

DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC AND MUSICOLOGY

Portfolio:

LITERARY STUDIES IN ENGLISH

Department:

Senior Lecturer/Lecturer Lecturer

Teaching, Learning, Community Engagement and Student support Tuition Support and Facilitation of Learning

Director: Language Services (P4) Five (5) Year Fixed Term Contract

SUPPORT POSITION

Closing date: 23 April 2020

FINANCE DIVISION

Cost Accountant: Staff Costs Budget

•

CLOSING DATE: MONDAY, 27 APRIL 2020 AT 12H00.

• • •

If you have not been contacted within a month of the closing date, please consider your application unsuccessful. For application forms and full requirements, go to:

www.ru.ac.za/jobs

The detailed advertisement together with the prescribed application form can be found on the Unisa website (www.unisa.ac.za).

Unisa is not obliged to fill an advertised position.

Late, incomplete and incorrect applications will not be considered.

Appointments will be made in accordance with Unisa’s Employment Equity Plan and other applicable legislation.

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Page 20 - 12 April 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

Page 21 - 12 April 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

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April 12 2020 - SUNDAY TIMES

The unfinished portrait of Franklin D April 12 1945 – Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 63, the 32nd president of the US, dies at Warm Springs, Georgia. Roosevelt, a polio victim confined to a wheelchair, spent a great deal of time in the soothing waters of the resort. He succumbs to a cerebral haemorrhage while posing for a portrait by Elizabeth Shoumatoff at “the Little White House” in Warm Springs, where the unfinished portrait (pictured) remains on display. Shoumatoff began her work at about noon.

While Roosevelt is being served lunch during the session, he complains of a “terrific pain in the back of my head”. He slumps forward, unconscious, and is taken to his room where he later dies.

After a failed election campaign for the vice presidency (as running mate for James M Cox) in 1920, Roosevelt returned from Washington, D.C. to New York City, where he practiced law and served as a vice president of the Fidelity and Deposit Company.

He sought to build support for a political comeback in 1922, but fell

ill while vacationing with his family at Campobello Island in August 1921. Diagnosed with poliomyelitis (his symptoms are now thought to be more consistent with Guillain–Barré syndrome), he was left paralysed from the waist down. Roosevelt is the only US president to serve more than two terms. First inaugurated on March 4 1933, he started his fourth consecutive term on January 20 1945. His death shocks the world, especially with the Allies mere weeks away from victory over Nazi Germany in World War 2.

Quick Crossword

Puzzles

Sunday Times

Cryptic Crossword DOWN 2 Toil (7) 3 Oust (5) 5 Trudge (7) 6 Solo (5) 7 Smash hit (11) 8 Convey (5) 9 Revelry (11) 15 Applause (7) 17 Prickly plant (7) 18 Hubbub (5) 20 Tether (5) 22 Student (5)

ACROSS 1 Marinate (5) 4 Book of maps (5) 10 Exit (5) 11 Ormer (7) 12 Small mat (7) 13 Morsel (5) 14 Roar, shout (6) 16 Clown (6) 19 Tomato relish (5) 21 Employ (7) 23 Study (7) 24 Courtyard (5) 25 Glow (5) 26 Armada (5)

LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

BRAINTEST ANSWERS 1. Reggae 2. The Joker 3. Pacific 4. Green (for painting it’s red, blue and yellow though) 5. D) “Africa” 6. Cats 7. B) Ice hockey (NHL) 8. (Gioachino Antonio) Rossini 9. D) Greece 10. Seven Sisters 11. Ariadne 12. A) 1840s 13. Yugoslavia 14. Bread 15. D) TS Eliot 16. C) John Donne 17. D) Gravity (by many orders of magnitude) 18. D) 2005 19. Lusophone 20. Dressage

2-Speed Crossword CRYPTIC CLUES ACROSS 1 Journalist in luck, known eccentric to get cracking (7,4) 9 King Bill going around the bend (3) 10 Film fan, me? I go over madly (5-4) 11 And lover falters, avoiding sea routes (8) 12 Copied a quiet journalist (4) 14 The route that is taken by pop tour worker (6) 16 Parliament isn’t sitting in this corner (6) 18 Unknown among one sort of cattle (4) 19 Fir cones involved with such investigative science (8) 22 Transformed shirt-clad celebrity kid (5, 4) 23 No return from this expert (3) 24 Caller’s error, rung me, Brown disturbed! (5, 6) DOWN 2 Hot inside pleasant corner (5) 3 Lace Liam draped round shrub (8) 4 Really enjoying French wine encased in firewood (6) 5 Regime making one expire before time (4) 6 We hope nothing spoiled this expression of delight (7)

Bridge

Some rules supersede others Opening lead — king of spades.

In many deals, declarer can overcome a bad lie of the cards if he does not let his attention stray from the primary objective — namely, to make the contract.

Take this case where South is in four hearts and West leads K-A-Q of spades. Declarer ruffs, cashes the ace of trump, both defenders following suit, and must now be especially careful

Codeword

7 All those employed for our cable distribution (6, 5) 8 Firm’s private know-how, with time, ruined cedar trees (5, 6) 13 Get realm entangled in wire (8) 15 Elite artist transformed studio (7) 17 Gained weight from a Chinese dumpling (6) 20 Forced labourer left during rescue (5) 21 Need redesigned garden (4) COFFEE TIME ACROSS 1 Apply yourself earnestly to work (7, 4) 9 Curve section (3) 10 Cinema fan (5-4) 11 Across country (8) 12 Copied (4) 14 Member of a rock band’s transport and set-up crew (6) 16 Adjournment (6) 18 Beasts of burden (4) 19 Relating to law courts (8) 22 Celebrity kid (5, 4) 23 Card which can be high or low in blackjack (3) 24 Misdialled phone connection (5, 6)

flowers (8) 4 Adoring (6) 5 Attempt to lose weight (4) 6 ___ cushion, joke pillow (7) 7 All the working people in a given population (6, 5) 8 Confidential piece of business information (5, 6) 13 Cabled message (8) 15 Artist’s studio (7) 17 Chinese dumpling (6) 20 Menial worker (5) 21 Biblical garden (4)

LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

DOWN 2 Little corner (5) 3 Shrub with rose-like

ACROSS 1 Pack things (5) 4 Sweet, country’s borders? (5) 10 Unspeakable wickedness in beauty (8) 11 Top clubs, say, welcoming twin males? (6) 12 Poison drink? That’s the limit! (6) 13 White lies disseminated in gang (8) 14 Track alongside sign in quiet location? (7) 16 A number dry, waters finally drained out (6) 17 Rule about new gun (6) 19 Good prices for freebooters (7) 21 Puzzle scam uncovered (8) 22 Ruined, as are threewheelers and go-karts? (6) 23 Walk quietly — possible instruction to reader in formal attire (6) 24 Small parts married together (2, 6) 25 Picture, for example, Parisian pal sent back (5) 26 United team is ahead, by the sound of it (5)

DOWN 2 Plate I ate, no mixed grill ultimately (7) 3 Added extras — in the hairdressing salon? (6, 8) 5 Missing round hard receptacle designed for powdery residue (7) 6 Extraordinary tiredness in person expressing resistance (9) 7 European eaten by wolf in Newfoundland (4) 8 Lentils and meats in different food processor (5, 9) 9 Ring number of US soldiers up (6) 15 Sauna made to break down again and again and again! (2, 7) 18 A teacher is someone beautiful (6) 19 Initially, prose saying further unnecessary bits (7) 20 Drug otherwise used in eating regimens rejected (7) 22 Secure nothing in political party (2, 2)

LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

Elimination with his next move.

Ordinarily, the next play with this trump combination would be a low heart to the king. The reason is obvious.

If the opposing hearts are divided 3-2, no harm can come from leading to the king.

But if they are divided 4-1 and East has the J-9-x-x, his hearts can be picked up without loss after cashing the king discloses the bad break.

This approach would be the right one to apply in most hands. But there is an even more important principle that takes precedence over the general rule, and it states that making the contract is always the first priority.

In the actual deal, four hearts can no longer be made if a trump is led to the king at trick five. South cannot recover, no matter how he chooses to continue.

But observe that if the queen of trump is played at trick five, the contract becomes a certainty regardless of how the opponents’ cards are divided.

Let’s suppose that after you play the queen, one opponent shows out. It makes no difference whether East or West started with four trumps, because in either case you simply stop leading trumps and start leading clubs.

This guarantees that you can dispose of the J-5 of diamonds on dummy’s clubs — even if the defender with the J-x of trump ruffs at any point — because the king of hearts is still in dummy as an entry to dummy’s remaining clubs. — Steve Becker

HOW TO PLAY Each of the clues eliminates two words from the list of 37. Find the words that match the clues, cross them off the list and you’ll be left with one word. You can confirm the accuracy of your answer next week. (a) Fictional boy (b) Two associated with pace (c) Unprofessional churchmen? (d) Two going with cloud (e) On hand for fighting! (f) Two suggesting tree (g) Irrelevant swimmer (h) Two linked with match (i) Childish verse (j) Two synonyms (k) War weariness? (l) Two anagrams (m) Pantomime parent (n) Two on a farm (o) Exemplary little flier! (p) Two make old ammo! (q) Give cutting looks? (r) Two with stack

1. Tom 2. Lay 3. Red 4. Box 5. Ban 6. Hay 7. Hot 8. Maker 9. Burst 10. Plane 11. Glean 12. Model 13. Sharp 14. Loads 15. Brown 16. Glove 17. Rhyme 18. Angel 19. Goose

20. Boxing 21. Battle 22. Mother 23. Plough 24. Grapes 25. Safety 26. Nursery 27. Walking 28. Culumus 29. Surgeon 30. Herring 31. Fatigue 32. Chimney 33. Prohibit 34. Features 35. Preachers 36. Scarecrow 37. Aeroplane

LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

April 12 in History

The remaining word is “Dames ”.

●

(a) 24-15 (b) 6-23 (c) 11-4 (d) 7-27 (e) 25-5 (f) 12-16 (g) 13-28 (h) 20-29 (i) 21-17 (j) 1-36 (k) 35-18 (l) 26-30 (m) 22-9 (n) 2-31 (o) 32-19 (p) 3-34 (q) 33-10 (r) 8-37

1877 — The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal as part of a wider scheme to unify the subcontinent under British rule.

1911 — French aviator Pierre Prier (chief instructor at the Blériot flying school in Hendon, England) completes the first nonstop flight between London (Hendon) and Paris (Issy-les-Moulineaux) in three hours and 56 minutes in a Blériot monoplane.

1955 — The Salk Vaccine — the first effective polio vaccine developed in 1952 by Dr Jonas Salk and a team at the University of Pittsburgh — is declared safe and effective.

1961 — Yuri Gagarin, Russian cosmonaut, becomes the first human to travel into outer space and perform a manned orbital flight, thus giving the Russians an early victory in the Cold War Space Race. His capsule, Vostok 1 (guided entirely from the ground), orbits Earth once before making a safe landing.

1969 — Lucas Radebe, soccer player, is born in Soweto. He represents SA in 70 matches (19922003) — winner of the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations and SA captain at the World Cup in 1998 and 2002.

1973 — King Sobhuza II of Swaziland repeals the constitution and dissolves parliament, making himself absolute ruler. Political parties are banned and a state of emergency is declared.

1975 — Joséphine Baker, 68, US-French revue artist (Folies-Bergère), dies of a cerebral haemorrhage alone in her apartment in Paris, France.

1980 — Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe stages a coup d’état in Liberia. Doe, a high school dropout, and a few soldiers kill President William Tolbert and a dozen of his ministers. Doe becomes one of Liberia’s most brutal dictators. He is overthrown, captured and tortured to death on September 9 1990, at age 39.

1981 — The first space shuttle, Columbia, carrying astronauts Robert L Crippen and John W Young, blasts off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on its first test flight. It returns on April 14, 54.5 hours later, having orbited Earth 36 times.

1981 — Joe (Brown Bomber) Louis, 66, heavyweight world champion boxer (1937-49), dies of cardiac arrest in Desert Springs Hospital near Las Vegas. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery under a waiver by President Ronald Reagan.

1988 — Alan Stewart Paton, 85, South African author (“Cry, the Beloved Country”, 1948) and antiapartheid activist, dies in Durban. He co-founded and served as president of the Liberal Party (1953-68).

1992 — Chad le Clos, Olympic, world and Commonwealth Games champion swimmer, is born in Durban.

Codeword has only one clue — the three letters that are printed in it.

Where the same numbers appear on the grid, fill in the known letters, then work out the remainder. Dotted lines indicate hyphens or linked words. Find the words that appear in the blue, yellow and pink blocks.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

LAST WEEK’S SOLUTION

1E, 2D, 3N, 4U, 5S, 6I, 7A, 8T, 9R, 10H, 11W, 12C, 13O, 14G, 15X, 16P, 17L, 18M, 19V, 20K, 21F, 22B. Blue: ITEMISE Yellow: REAPERS Pink: EXPLOSIVE

est

m

BRAINtest

1. With what music genre would you most associate Bob Marley?

2. What character in film has been played by Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, Jared Leto and Joaquin Phoenix?

3. Vancouver in Canada is situated on which ocean?

4. The primary colours of light are red, blue and which other colour?

5. What was the band Toto’s most successful single? A) “America”, B) “Asia”, C) “Australia”, D) “Africa” 6. Of what are Devon Rex, Maine Coon and Manx all types?

7. In which sport do teams compete for the Stanley Cup? A) Sailing, B) Ice hockey, C) Basketball, D) Tennis 8. What “R” was a composer who wrote the opera “The Barber of Seville”?

9. Which country is known to the

Samurai Sudoku

by Trivia Tom

locals as “Hellas”? A) Spain, B) Finland, C) Sweden, D) Greece 10. What is both another name for the star cluster Pleiades and also the former name of the Seychelles?

11. What was the name of King Minos of Crete’s daughter who supplied the Athenian Theseus with golden thread so that he would not get lost in the labyrinth?

12. In which decade did the following events happen: Hong Kong annexed by the British, first telegraph message by Samuel Morse is sent, Dick King rides from Durban to Grahamstown? A) 1840s, B) 1860s, C) 1870s, D) 1880s 13. Marshall Tito was the leader of which country from 1945 to 1981?

14. If you asked for “Brot” at a German restaurant, what would you expect to get?

15. Which poet composed the

poem “The Waste Land”? A) Lord Byron, B) Ezra Pound, C) Alfred, Lord Tennyson, D) TS Eliot 16. Which poet is famous for the line “No man is an island”?

A) Keats, B) Byron, C) Donne, D) Yeats 17. Which of the four fundamental forces in physics is the weakest?

A) Weak nuclear force, B) Strong nuclear force, C) Electromagnetic force, D) Gravity 18. In what year was the videosharing website YouTube launched? A) 1991, B) 1994, C) 1999, D) 2005 19. If an English speaker is an anglophone, a French speaker a francophone, then what is a Portuguese speaker?

20. The levade, piaffe and passage are movements in which sport?

Answers on this page

Solution on Page 20

23

SUNDAY TIMES - April 12 2020

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

1976: SA Rugby Board president Danie Craven says that if a “multinational” SA team were to play, they would not wear the Springbok badge because it was reserved for white teams. “The leaping springbok, registered by the SA Rugby Board, has been associated with whites since 1891 and is their traditional emblem. The protea of the coloured team and the leopard of the African team both have their own traditions and history ... If all races played with a Springbok

badge what would the whites wear when they play on their own?” he said in a Rand Daily Mail report.

1986: Myrtle Bothma becomes the first SA woman to break 54 seconds in the 400m hurdles as she clocks a 53.95sec national record in Johannesburg.

2005: Makhaya Ntini becomes only the second South

African to claim 13 wickets in a Test as the Proteas beat the West Indies by eight wickets in the second Test in Port of Spain. Ntini took 7/37 as the hosts were bowled out for 194 in the second innings. That gave him match figures of 13/132, joining Hugh Tayfield as the nation’s highest wicket-taker in a Test. Chasing 144 for victory, openers AB de Villiers (62) and captain Graeme Smith (41) did the early work to secure victory.

Sport General

Esport rides crest of a wave

By LIAM DEL CARME delcarmel@sundaytimes.co.za

● Sport watchers, participants, consumers if you like, are increasingly finding their fix online as Covid-19 continues to paralyse sport.

In the mass migration virtual sports appears to be the biggest winner as enthusiasts revel in watching their stars compete against each other in the online realm, according to a sports industry analytics expert.

Most glowing example “The big shift is in the virtual sports events.

The Formula One and Nascar drivers, as well as the NBA stars going against each other.

That is where the big growth is coming from,” said Kelvin Watt, MD of Nielsen Sport Africa/Asia.

“Basically we are seeing people tuning in watching athletes and teams that they know participating in virtual events using one of

Interest in esports has been growing steadily in SA Kelvin Watt

the published games.”

The most glowing example is perhaps the Australian virtual grand prix which was held last week. Charles LeClerc won that race, the second of the virtual season which is expected to run until May. “Sports fans are going online to watch their chosen sport in a virtual space. It’s the multi-player online battle arena where you have two teams or individuals battling against each other,” said Watt.

He agrees having stars compete in the virtual realm lends authenticity, a commodity that can make or break an event.

US showed highest spike Unsurprisingly, the platforms that have a traditional presence in online gaming are doing better. “Cricket and rugby doesn’t have classical digital games to the extent basketball, Fifa, American football, or motor sport does. In the case of Formula One, the drivers actually all drive simulators at home. That’s how they train and it is pretty realistic,” said Watt.

Reaching out to about 3,000 individuals in France, Germany, the UK and the US, Nielsen’s monthly video game tracking survey uncovered the spike in game usage during the week of March 23 to 29. The US with 45% showed the highest spike followed by France with 38, the UK 29 and Germany 20%.

Though the numbers are up, Watt is cautious to draw parallels with what is happening in SA. “It is driven by people’s access to internet and data. That is just the nature of SA. Certain gaming and interest in esports has been growing steadily in this country for some time. You also need to separate, especially in the esports world, there is a whole host of different genres.

“From a gaming and streaming perspective that is all up significantly because people are at home and they have time.”

Charles LeClerc won the Australian virtual grand prix, the second of the virtual season which is expected to run until next month. Picture: Screengrab/Formula1.com

Watt added that people who were already gamers are doing so more often. “Things like Netflix and various other streaming opportunities, social and digital media usage are all up. It is all up well into double digits.”

While online gaming figures are bullish, Watt says sports betting companies are on a bear run. “The football and live racing really drives their revenue. They have been able to replace it, but their volumes are down.”

Though South Africans are also gravitating to the online realm, Watt doesn’t believe they are lost to real world onfield activity.

“I don’t think it will be at its expense at all.

I think it will develop synergistically. We are seeing sports fans around the world are hon-

Sports fans are honest about missing their sports Kelvin Watt MD of Nielsen Sport Africa/Asia

est about the fact that they are missing their sports and we are not surprised. What is interesting is that people who are relatively neutral sports fans are talking about how they are missing sport.

“People now talk about exercise. We expect to see a boost in that environment where people in future participate more in events.

“I think when we get back, people’s behaviour around sport will be quite positive. They’ll be more involved because in the past they maybe took it for granted.”

Augusta misses out on Van Rooyen as wife scores over golf

By DAVID ISAACSON

● Erik van Rooyen should have been battling the beautiful Augusta layout at the Masters this weekend, but instead he’s hitting golf balls into a net in his lounge.

Van Rooyen and wife Rose are locked away in their new house in Jupiter on the east coast of Florida, US, sitting out the Covid-19 pandemic ravaging the world.

But SA’s second-highest ranked golfer in the world, at 42, is still practicing his shots, with his coach watching on video.

“A lot of the golf courses here have closed down or they’re only allowing members so I can’t go out and practice,” Van Rooyen told the Sunday Times.

“The day involves FaceTime video calls with my coach, probably three, four times a week. I’ve got a net up and I’m hitting a ball into the net and we’re discussing certain things.”

The net, however, is indoors.

“I’ve had to move a few chairs around because when it’s outside, the light gets a little too sharp and my coach can’t see properly on the phone.

“I’ve got a lovely wife,” he added with a laugh. “She’s been quite accommodating.”

Hitting off a mat with fake grass, Van Rooyen is also aided by a gadget called trackman, a radar system that measures elements like the attack angle of the club face into the ball, the amount of spin, the spin axis as well

Par for the course SA’s Erik van Rooyen has made an impressive rise. Picture: Getty Images

as the flight and distance of the ball.

He’s unable to practise chipping and putting, unlike some of his rivals.

“A lot of the guys, like Rickie Fowler, have a bunch of greens in his yard that he can chip on or putt to. I don’t have that.

“I’m also fine with that because I don’t want to bring golf to my house. I want to leave it at the golf course.”

Then he chuckled. “But at a time like this, I think it would have been handy.”

For someone who was ranked outside the top 100 a year ago and beyond 300 three years ago, the shutdown of world golf has interrupted an impressive rise during which he finished tied eighth at the PGA Championship, won the Scandinavian Invitation and tied third at the WGC event in Mexico.

But Van Rooyen is philosophical about it.

“In that sense, it was a pity because I felt I

was playing some really good golf, especially leading into the Players and then the Masters.

“But the last thing I’m going to do is worry about what could have been. Momentum is a head thing as well, it’s a perception of where you think you’re at.

“Everybody’s in the same boat.”

Instead, he’s enjoying the time at home.

“It’s been lovely for me because the schedule throughout the year usually is so busy. We bought the house in August. We were in SA for Christmas with my mom and dad and family.”

By the beginning of February, when they returned to Jupiter, Van Rooyen had spent just three to four weeks in the house.

“To be here now is a silver lining. Just to be at home with my wife and spend some time here, it’s been great.”

10 of the worst excuses in the world of sport ● Fans couldn’t understand why Vereeniging-based boxer Sexton “Wonder Boy” Mabena quit suddenly in the sixth round of an entertaining war against Harry Madlala in downtown Johannesburg in September 1963. Mabena took the microphone to explain: “I don’t want to make any excuses, but the altitude …” The crowd laughed him out of the ring. — David Isaacson

It’s important to win. It is important to win and we must try harder.

MG: Is it a lack of effort?

BV: Lack of effort? I can’t think it’s a lack of effort. What would it be? Let me think. I’m not sure. I need to think about that one. I’ll have to think about that deeply. — Former Saracens director of rugby Brendan Venter after losing to Racing Metro — Khanyiso Tshwaku

● The most unusual excuse comes from an amateur golfer, an air force officer, in the early 1980s. As he was about to putt, two transport aircraft swooped low above him. The golfer immediately knew his regular partner, a pilot who was absent that day, was responsible. “That’s Blackie,” he told his fourball before missing three consecutive putts. — David Isaacson

● Martin Gillingham: Why didn’t you win?

Brendan Venter: Very good question that.

Unplugged

by BBK

They say old habits die hard, but die they must

Sports enthusiasts revel in watching their stars compete against each other in the online realm

MD of Nielsen Sport Africa/Asia

Sunday Times

“He grabbed him by the collar. You’ve got to watch the vision. He didn’t grab him by the hair. When you’ve watched the vision and seen him grab him by the hair. No one tackles. Have you played rugby, mate? Have you tackled someone by their hair?

“This is a non-issue,” — Former Australia rugby coach Michael Cheika in a heated exchange with a journalist after a Test in which Israel Folau grabbed Dillyn Leyds’s hair during a tackle. — Khanyiso Tshwaku

Christo Buchner: Robert, what did you make of the decision right at the end of the game?

Robert du Preez: The one under the poles or the one on the touchline?

CB: Both of them.

RdP: What did you make of them?

CB: You’re the one that counts.

RdP: I can’t comment on bad officiating.

You’ve got to make up your mind on whether it’s right or wrong. [Ten seconds later, he gets up and walks out.] — Sharks coach Robert du Preez when his team was on the receiving end of bad officiating in the Super Rugby quarterfinal three years ago. — Khanyiso Tshwaku

Zambia’s Lighton Ndefwayl was hardly magnanimous after defeat to Musumba Bwayla.

“Bwayla is a stupid man and a hopeless [tennis] player. He has a huge nose and is crosseyed. Girls hate him. He beat me because my

jockstrap was too tight and because when he serves, he farts, and that made me lose my concentration.” — Liam Del Carme After shipping three goals against Newcastle in 1997, Liverpool goalkeeper David James explained he had played too much PlayStation. “I was getting carried away playing Tekken II and Tomb Raider for hours on end.” — Liam Del Carme Fabrice Santoro explained his loss at Indian Wells because the player in the hotel room next door was too noisy during intercourse.

“They keep going and going and it’s 2am.

Then they stop and I think: ‘Great, now I can go to sleep.’

“Then five minutes later it starts up again.

“Unbelievable!” — Liam Del Carme “I think it was clear to see that we didn’t lose the match, but we ran out of time.” — Former

Orlando Pirates caretaker coach Rulani Mokwena after Bucs lost 4-3 in an Absa Premiership match against Bidvest Wits at the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban in September last year. It was Mokwena’s fifth game in charge and he lasted seven more before he was replaced by German coach Jozef Zinnbauer in mid December. — Sazi Hadebe

“It’s a shame, but given what happened before the match it would have been a miracle to win.” — France midfielder Florent Malouda after losing 2-1 against Bafana Bafana in Bloemfontein in the final Group A match in the 2010 World Cup in which the French players constantly clashed with their coach Raymond Domenech before crashing out in the first round. Despite the win, SA also recorded some nasty history, becoming the first hosts to fail to reach the second round. — Sazi Hadebe

● Friday April 10 marked the 27th anniversary of the assassination of Chris Hani.

It is a date that conjures up images which pull at the heartstrings and brings throbs of pain.

The harrowing memory of the lifeless body of the leader of the SA Communist Party is vivid.

A small black, green and gold flag was placed on the body of the uMkhonto we Sizwe chief of staff lying in a pool of blood after his body was riddled with bullets from the gun of Janusz Walus, who shot the ANC leader as he stepped out of his car.

“Hamba Kahle, Mkhonto,” sang a group of ANC leaders who had gathered at his Dawn Park, Boksburg, home as his corpse was put in a yellow SAP van by policemen in camouflage.

His death had the potential to plunge the country into a civil war, coming as it did during the height of negotiations to free the country from the shackles of autocracy to the promise of democracy.

It was April 10 1993.

Saturday April 11 2001 set in motion another memorial.

This time there was more than one victim being remembered.

The victims were not high-profile politicians.

They were neither commanders of the military wing of an armed force nor communists.

They breathed not their last breath owing to bullets from a far right Polish immigrant.

The people who perished on that particular Wednesday night left their homes very much alive and returned in coffins.

They were soccer supporters.

They were football fans.

Call them what you want.

What I know is that they were lovers of

In the end, rows of bodies covered in maroon blankets lay motionless behind the goalposts the beautiful game of billions which showed its ugly side during a stampede the aftermath of which left 42 corpses.

It is a memory I battled with for a few weeks after.

The 43rd person died in hospital making the number of people who lost their lives at the Ellis Park disaster in 2001 one more than the 42 who were killed in similar fashion in Orkney in 1991.

That day will forever linger in my mind.

Sitting in the media tribune, it became apparent that something was amiss in the eastern stand.

People were burning newspapers, waving them in a bid to attract attention.

I tapped colleague Ray Nxumalo on the shoulder and said that we needed to find out what the commotion was all about.

I was not ready for what met my eyes.

Scores of people were squashed like sardines as they pushed forward in a ferocious wave.

Some were screaming.

Some were crying.

Some were silent.

Not because they had lost their voices.

Because their bodies were being lifted over a perimeter fence. One by one.

And the list grew and grew and grew.

In the end, rows of bodies covered in maroon blankets lay motionless behind the goalposts.

What unfolded is an unwanted file you don’t want stored in your memory bank.

It was a scary, scaring moment.

The only other being a thin-as-a-rake thug forcing me to go on all fours while pointing a gun at the back of my head during a hijacking right in front of my gate with the whole episode playing out right before my children.

Such was their shock, they told me later, they felt like their eyes were going to spring out of their sockets.

Yesterday was a day we remembered a tragic event in our football.

Some of the contributing factors to the commotion like late-coming, poor traffic control and the slow flow of people through the turnstiles are still with us.

They still lead to some matches starting 15 or 20 minutes late. Old habits die hard. But die they must.

Twitter: @bbkunplugged99

ST APRIL 12 2020

www.sundaytimes.co.za

Sport The games people play Esport rides the crest of a wave Page 23

BBK Unplugged They say old habits die hard, but die they must Page 23

Bloopers We relive 10 of the worst excuses in the world of sport. Read what coaches and players had to say after a bad defeat Page 23

No PSL-SuperSport collision on the cards Sporting memories

League enjoys unqualified support from sportscaster

Edward Motale lifts the Africa Cup of Champions after Orlando Pirates won the trophy on December 16, 1995. Bucs’ 2-2 draw at home over Asec Mimosas of the Ivory Coast in the final (later to become the Caf Champions League) clinched an aggregate 3-2 victory after Jerry Sikhosana scored a magnificent solitary away goal in Abidjan.

He picked up a long ball and then weaved his way between two stunned defenders before banging the ball home.

By BARENG-BATHO KORTJAAS AND SAZI HADEBE bbk@sundaytimes.co.za hadebes@sundaytimes.co.za

Rugby World Cup winner Jake White has joined the Bulls as director of rugby.

White wants success — quickly

By KHANYISO TSHWAKU

● Springbok Rugby World Cup winning coach of 2007, Jake White, who’s now the Bulls’ director of rugby, said his 2014 exit from the Sharks cast him in a negative light.

White, who coached Montpellier (France) and Toyota Verblitz (Japan) since his Durban departure, was accused of being authoritarian, inflexible and butted heads with senior players despite the Sharks reaching the Super Rugby semifinals that year. White had coached the Brumbies for two years before.

● While the big international leagues are worried about being indebted to broadcasters in the event of not finishing their seasons, the Premier Soccer League (PSL) has no such worries as it enjoys unqualified support from SuperSport International.

Should they fail to complete the season before the end of July, the English Premier League faces the prospect of entering into an ugly legal battle with Sky Sports and BT Sport, their broadcast partners.

The Premier League broadcasting deal is reportedly worth £3bn over three seasons.

Sky Sports and BT Sport have a rights share of 128 and 52 live matches respectively.

With football suspended owing to the coronavirus pandemic, the Daily Mail this week reported that the broadcasters could fine the clubs about £750m should they fail to complete the season.

Sources who spoke to the Sunday Times on condition of anonymity said no such disagreement is on the horizon for the SA

SA’s top golf clubs going to the wall

By DAVID ISAACSON isaacsond@sundaytimes.co.za

● As many as 40 of SA’s leading golf clubs will be pushed to the verge of bankruptcy by the two-week extension of lockdown, according to the results of a recent survey.

Of the 58 clubs that responded to a poll by the Club Management Association of Southern Africa (CMASA), 53 were golf clubs, and most believed they would have ridden out the initial three-week shutdown without any retrenchments.

But 31% of all respondents feared they would fold should they remain closed for more than six weeks, CMASA chair Chris van der Merwe told the Sunday Times.

The survey was conducted before Thursday’s announcement that the lockdown had been lengthened to five weeks.

Leading clubs included Van der Merwe said the responding clubs represented 40% of CMASA’s members, which include the top 135 golf clubs in the country, from Clovelly to Royal Durban, as well as a few sports clubs, like Kelvin Grove.

There are about 450 golf clubs in SA in total, including rural nine-hole layouts, and Van der Merwe believed the CMASA survey was a fair sample for all of them.

The 58 clubs that responded had expected to get through the initial three-week lockdown without shedding any of their 3,297 permanent jobs, Van der Merwe said.

Eighty-three percent said they were still

Picture: Gallo Images

The PSL is an extremely important partner of ours and as such, we will never let them drown

But 31% of all respondents feared they would fold Chris van der Merwe CMASA chair

The tricky part “It was very unfair. Players can say what they like and people believe that. It wasn’t just unfair, it was disappointing because the door was always open for them to come and talk to me. I was doing what I thought was the best thing at the time,” White said.

“We’d got to the Super Rugby semifinals and won three games on tour. We’d been a success in terms of the first year. I suppose when you’re not picking certain players and they’re not playing, they’d certainly moan.”

The Bulls have head coach Pote Human, Chris Rossouw (backs) and Pine Pienaar (defence). The Pretoria franchise is 12th on the overall Super League log and fourth in the five-team SA conference with only one win from six matches. The SOS was sent to White (56), who said he would be hands-on with coaching.

“That’s part of the role and I’m not the type who sits in the office. I’m going to be on the field coaching. The tricky part is going to see when rugby resumes. There’s a lot of talk as to when rugby will resume and that’s critical because there’s players and coaches who have contracts until the end of October.

What happens if we only play in October and November?” White said.

league, who have SuperSport International as their main broadcast partner.

The two entities entered into a R2bn partnership for five years in 2012.

Last year the deal was renewed for a further five years, but figures were not disclosed.

It is clear that if the league were to end abruptly in England, the clubs would owe a lot of money to broadcasters.

When asked whether they will keep the PSL alive even when there were no games played, the one source said there has been no discussion on the matter.

“There is no decision that has been taken about how things will pan out contractually.

I can tell you that the PSL is an extremely important partner of ours and, as such, we will never let them drown.

“I don’t know how the PSL would like to close it (the 2019-20 season) off. If the premise of your question is ‘will we stand by the PSL,’ the answer is yes.

“It does not matter whether we close the season or not,” he said.

The current campaign was suspended indefinitely on March 16.

At the time, the PSL issued a statement, part of which targeted the end of June for the completion of the season.

“Whilst our intention is to complete the season by no later than June 30 2020 because of the existing uncertainties in our country, we shall remain flexible.”

PSL chairperson Irvin Khoza told the Sunday Times last week that the league has deferred discussions on the way forward to April 21, by which time they will meet the South African Football Association (Safa), football’s mother body in the country.

Matters have been compounded by President Cyril Ramaphosa’s decision to extend the national lockdown until the end of April.

Another source was reluctant to get into details when asked how the SuperSport business was being hit by the lack of live

local football action.

“It would be in our interest to stay with the PSL for however long this situation goes on,” said the source.

Joe Heshu, Multichoice group executive of corporate affairs, said the organisation would not engage in a public discussion on contractual issues.

“We do have a long-standing relationship with all local sporting federations and we are all working together to get through this Covid-19 period.

“But we will not discuss rights and contractual issues in the media at this stage,” said Heshu yesterday.

When the season was halted, Kaizer

Chiefs were top of the log on 48 points after 22 matches of a 30-match league programme, four points ahead of the reigning champions Mamelodi Sundowns, who were occupying second spot with one game in hand.

In Belgium, the Pro League crowned Percy Tau’s Club Brugge the league champions as they led the standings by 15 points with one match to go.

There’s a strong sentiment that the Premier League should follow suit and award Liverpool the title.

Jurgen Klopp’s Reds are 25 points ahead of second-placed defending champions Manchester City.

Changes everything “That changes everything because that’s a different season and broadcasters and sponsorships have to be fulfilled should the game resume. I don’t know who will be around and what they’ll be doing. That depends on when the game restarts.”

White has often been accused of playing conservative rugby. He said this wasn’t true as his teams have often been high try-scorers, but he said he would apply what he’s learnt from his former teams to find what would work for the Bulls.

“We will play it the way we can to win games with the squad we have. It’s going to take time to get the exact squad that we want; so you have to adapt. Thankfully, I’ve been coaching long enough to know what works for some teams, doesn’t work for others. Hopefully, I can put everything I’ve learnt into some sort of recipe so we can get success as quickly as possible,” White said.

As pressure mounts, athletes take the strain

By KHANYISO TSHWAKU

● The global coronavirus pandemic has already affected sporting finances, putting mental health firmly in the spotlight.

With no sport to look forward to and with the expected negative fiscal domino effect, sports psychologist Kirsten van Heerden said athletes are subjected to the same mental stresses as other people.

“Athletes find it difficult to ask for help because they’re expected to be mentally tough and to deal with pressure,” Van Heerden said.

“There’s a difference between mental

toughness and mental health. I can’t say they’re programmed to deal with this peculiar environment. Athletes also suffer from mental health issues like anxiety and depression like the rest of us.”

Van Heerden, who works with the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc), rugby players union MyPlayers and the SA Cricketers’ Association (Saca), said the uncertainty wrought by the virus pressurises athletes from a daily and training route perspective.

“Athletes are super-disciplined when there’s a goal in mind. The Covid-19-induced uncertainty means no one knows when they’ll be competing again. A year from a specific event is too far to be disciplined, so that’s tough for goal-orientated athletes. A lot of them are in the middle of their seasons, so it’s easy to fall into bad habits,” Van Heerden said.

Veteran sports psychologist Jannie Botha said athletes who were on the verge of retirement this year are in a difficult spot financially and mentally because their

competition plans have been drastically altered by the spread of the virus that’s halted sports worldwide.

Botha also said athletes who participate in team sports may find it harder to cope with the various lockdowns as compared to their individual sports counterparts.

“I’ve got players whose contracts are finishing in July and that’s put a lot of pressure on them to understand what their future is like because their contracts are ending soon and they don’t have a way to perform to keep their contracts. There’s a lot of pressure on them,” Botha said.

paying full salaries, while 12% had already cut wages. Five percent didn’t know what they would do.

“None have had to retrench,” he said.

But the numbers changed markedly when asked what they would do if the lockdown was extended beyond three weeks.

“There, only 34% of the clubs indicated they will be able to continue with full salaries and a lot of that involves using the staff members’ annual leave,” said Van der Merwe, adding 52% responded they would have to reduce salaries and 14% didn’t know.

The survey also inquired about temporary workers, like caddies and waiters, who have no other sources of income. Only 32 of the 53 golf club respondents used caddies, who numbered 1,542.

There were also 224 waiters and 82 other casual workers.

Eighty-four percent of the clubs had made arrangements for caddies and casual workers, while 16% were unable to.

Host of arrangements “The arrangements go from anything from some clubs paying R2,000, some R1,000 a week, some 60% on what they would normally earn during this time,” said Van der Merwe.

“Some made arrangements with local shops to give food parcels. There’s a host of arrangements that have been made.”

Asked how long they could sustain these arrangements for casual workers, 18% of the clubs replied for three weeks, 52% for up to two months and 14% for longer than two months. The rest already can’t assist.

When all the clubs were asked how they would cope if the lockdown were to be extended beyond six weeks, 31% said they wouldn’t survive. Thirty-four percent expected to keep going and 36% were confident they would make it.

Last week the Sunshine Tour and Women’s Professional Golf Association said that they would pay stipends to players and caddies for April and May, adding that they could afford to go for a few more months if required.

LifeStyle

Sunday Times

12.04.2020

UNITED A P A R T NOW IS THE TIME FOR US TO COME TOGETHER AND UNITE, APART This is an unprecedented moment in South Africa’s history. Lockdown is in full effect, businesses have been temporarily closed, and we’re all adjusting to this new normal for as long as it may take.

But what does life in lockdown look like? Well, that’s up to you.

Show us how you’re getting through, and what lockdown means to you, by submitting video clips, images, voice notes, or anything else that captures the essence of this extraordinary event, to:

WHATSAPP

+27 (63) 521-8618

EMAIL

UNITEDAPARTSA@ARENA.AFRICA

Each day, we will choose our favourite submissions to be featured as a daily snapshot of lockdown life and share them to our social channels under #UnitedApartSA and #LoveChange, and one submission per day will receive a prize worth R700. Then, when all this is over, our favourite submission will receive a prize valued at R5,000, and we will use all the content we have collected to create a documentary, so the world can see our story.

#LoveChange #UnitedApartSA

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Inside

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Cool off with a limoncello

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But still travelling

Stay fit (or go loopy)

LifeStyle Editor: Andrea Nagel Books: Jennifer Platt Fashion: Sharon Becker Beauty: Nokubonga Thusi Food: Hilary Biller Home: Leana Schoeman Motoring: Thomas Falkiner; Brenwin Naidu Travel: Elizabeth Sleith Digital: Toni Jaye Singer Designers: Gila Wilensky, Vernice Shaw, Peta Scop Design intern: Siphu Gqwetha Proofreader: Helen Smith Admin & invoices: Thabile Mokone ThabileM@arena.co.za Publisher: Aspasia Karras Advertising: Bela Stander, Business Manager Sunday Times Lifestyle +27 11 280 3154, +27 72 843 8608. E-mail: standerb@tisoblackstar.co.za Cover: Margie Barry/Nick & Barry 2020 Write to: lifestyle@sundaytimes.co.za

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Editor’s Note

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Andrea Nagel

hen I was a teenager my mother gave me a book of short stories called The Family, They F**k You Up. An unusual parenting choice, you may think, but indicative of her outlook on life. She’s a realist and not swayed by romantic ideals of what we’d like the world to be like. Family, I’ve heard people say, is like nougat, lovely and sweet and sprinkled with nuts. It’s the nuts that make it interesting, if you don’t break your teeth on them.

If books, movies and series are a fairly decent reflection of reality, every family has its issues — from the richest, see Succession (it’s fabulous) to the poorest, like the Kim family in this year’s Oscar-winning film, Parasite — and every family between. Take the Burnham clan from American Beauty, for example. The parents’ domestic breakdown culminates in Dad almost deflowering his daughter’s best friend. And who could forget the Burroughs pseudo-fictional family from Running with Scissors. This film is about what happens when dysfunctional parents decide to send their only son to live with a psychiatrist obsessed with reading signs in his own … well, you’d need to watch the movie.

There are the Whites of Breaking Bad, the Lyon pride of Empire, the Gallaghers of Shameless, the Byrdes of Ozark and plenty more. Now there’s time to catch up with all of them under lockdown, and I have to say, I feel better about the momentary lockdown breakdowns in my own family when I look at how some of these series families operate.

So when I barricade myself in the loo for a brief respite of “alone time” because my son made a clever dick comment or to get away from the onslaught of their homework questions or because I’m just sick of everyone, I’ll do it remembering that there are plenty of families I’m lucky not to belong to. Have a happy Easter weekend and enjoy Family Day tomorrow.

That’s not rude, that’s my state-mandated social distancing protocol

oes anyone remember that incident 10 years ago when Wayne Bridge refused to shake John Terry’s hand ahead of a Chelsea vs Manchester City match? Terry had apparently had an affair with Bridge’s then partner, Vanessa Perroncel, when the two blokes were teammates at Chelsea. I remember Bridge’s gesture being labelled “rude” on Twitter in the aftermath. Rude? I’ll tell you what’s rude: going behind your mate’s back, slipping and falling pecker-first into his girlfriend.

When I was barely four years old, one of my dad’s colleagues was a fellow called “Ntshebe”, on account of his overgrown beard. An unkempt, deeply repulsive man. Whenever he got tipsy from the mengsel of Castle Milk Stout and Viceroy brandy he drank, he’d pick up my brothers and me and rub us against his facial forest lovingly. But his breath reeked of stale beer, brandy, fried liver and a rotten tooth. I’ve never been within more than 100m of a hyena, but I’m certain that’s what a hyena’s breath smells like after consuming a decaying skunk carcass. One day he reached out for me and I shook my head vigorously, yelling: “But your breath stinks!” This didn’t go down too well and I was “taught a lesson” in good manners.

Fast-forward to last week when I left my Covid-19 sanctuary to get some medication at the pharmacy. The past three weeks or so of physical

distancing and the lockdown have been kind to people with my natural aversion to human contact. I am particularly enjoying the “stand 1m apart” floor markings on my rare forays out to get essentials. No more mild panic from folks standing so close behind you in a queue their belly button brushes up against the small of your back.

So naturally I was mortified when I felt this chap’s warm breath on the back of my neck. Before Covid-19, I might have politely swivelled my head dramatically to look at him. But this usually does not rattle “intimate queue-ers” in the least. So I would have been forced to take a timid halfstep forward, careful not to crowd the person in front of me. Of course, he would have immediately followed me.

But these are no ordinary times. So, I turned around and hissed at him: “Please take a step back onto that ‘X’ on the floor!” Ordinarily, I would have received accusing “What is his problem?” looks. But not on this beautiful Friday afternoon. Instead, I got murmurs of approval.

I’m personally glad for the temporary shift in the social needle.

Like I argued two weeks ago, I hope the shift is permanent.

A friend needed to drop an item off at a septuagenarian’s flat in Killarney the other afternoon. The old lady cowered behind her locked burglar door, instructed her to throw it on the floor and buzz off. Bravo. There are many times I have wanted to respond 3

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NDUMISO NGCOBO COLUMNIST

Going forward, I’m not giving up half a slice of pizza to anyone.

If that makes me a rude, mean husband, I’ll lace that up and wear it

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to friends’ texts telling me they’d swing by my house to drop items with, “Ag, just insert it in the mail slot and bugger off.” Instead, I’ll end up being that guy playing reluctant host in a tattered T-shirt, boxer shorts, walking around in my socks and fetching beers from the fridge.

Even after Covid-19 is no longer with us, I think I’m going to go through life with the current settings.

“No. I don’t want to join you for drinks, actually. I’ll be at my house scratching my nuts and bingeing on Tiger King and Ozark.”

The same goes for the missus’s regular excursions into pre-Berlin Wall communism. I’ll get up and announce, “I’m going to warm up some leftover pizza. Would you like some?” “No,” she’ll respond, she’s on a diet and shouldn’t be having pizza.

Barely two minutes into me enjoying my pizza, she’s grabbing my fork and poking around my plate. “B-b-but you said you didn’t want any!” “Oh, come

Sunday Times

off it,” she’ll respond playfully. “It’s only half a slice.” “But I warmed up two slices because I want two slices, not one-and-a-half slices! Also, why are you pottering around my food?”

Going forward, I’m not giving up half a slice of pizza to anyone. If that makes me a rude, mean husband, I’ll lace that up and wear it.

One of my neighbours in the working-class neighbourhood behind the Boerewors Curtain I reside in has been waking up on the past two Sunday mornings, placing a speaker on his lawn and conducting a church service. His time is up. As soon as the first bars of his guitar flood the street, I’m walking to his house and insisting that he turn it down. If there’s any resistance, I’m calling the metro cops and making a scene. Rude? Maybe.

But I think that the height of rudeness is torturing your neighbours with your Bobby Angel voice at 120 decibels for two hours until their dogs become suicidal.

CTI USE PROTE

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Should you mask up?

The call for people to wear a mask to protect themselves and others against the coronavirus is growing louder, writes Sanet Oberholzer

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Illustration: www.123rf.com

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ne of the biggest questions of 2020 so far is: “To mask up or not to mask up?”

Move over, Hamlet. We’ve decided that we want to hang in there. Life is mostly worth living, even in lockdown, and we’re trying to figure out how best to do this. But the issue of masks has been contentious.

At the start of the coronavirus outbreak the World Health Organisation (WHO) was clear on its stance: it didn’t recommend that people who are not sick wear face masks, stating that there’s little evidence to suggest that doing so poses any benefit to the wearer and that masks would better serve health-care workers and those already infected.

One of the biggest motivations against the wearing of masks by the general public was a significant shortage of masks for health-care workers globally. Speaking at a media briefing in Switzerland last week, Dr Maria van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist at the WHO, said frontline health-care workers the world over are facing a significant shortage of personal protection equipment such as gloves and masks.

But little was known about the virus at the beginning of the year and the global health authority has changed its stance on the wearing of masks as more data has emerged. In a U-turn, the WHO said in a statement last week that there are circumstances in which the use of masks may prove to be effective at a community level.

This follows decisions by an increasing number of countries that have decided to follow in the footsteps of their Asian counterparts in advising their citizens to mask up.

The decision to reverse previous recommendations has also hit closer to home. In a communication issued on its website on March 29, the Western Cape department of health issued an appeal to the general public of the province to avoid wearing gloves and masks “due to the risks these items pose in spreading the coronavirus if not used properly”.

The statement read: “If you are not ill and not in close contact with someone who has coronavirus, you do not need to wear a mask or gloves.”

But, updated policy guidelines from the department issued on April 2 stated: “As the epidemic unfolds, the wider use of masks are [sic] indicated even for people who are not ill, especially if they move around in the public.”

Speaking at a press conference in Durban last week, health minister Zweli Mkhize shared a similar sentiment, saying masks are one of the best ways of preventing the spread of Covid-19.

“We recommend them — particularly where people have any cough or any symptoms, or in a

situation where social distancing is a bit difficult.”

The call for the public to mask up is becoming increasingly louder locally. Concerned about the unfolding Covid-19 crisis, Tyrone Rubin brought the global #Masks4All movement to SA and started #AfricaMasks4All. The purpose of the movement is to encourage the public to reserve the use of medical-grade masks for health-care professionals but to use homemade masks.

“It’s not only about masks,” says Rubin. “It’s testing first and tracing second and social distancing third.” But he says masks can be an important tool in the fight against the spread of the virus.

At the heart of the argument are two points.

One is source control: my mask protects you and your mask protects me. Proponents of masks argue that they are less useful in protecting the wearer but prevent the wearer from infecting others. But this only works if everyone is on board. The second point is the asymptomatic nature of the virus — a point that has gained traction globally.

Last week, the American Centres for Disease Control issued a recommendation that people

‘We recommend masks — particularly where people have any cough or any symptoms, or in a situation where social distancing is a bit difficult’ - Zweli Mkhize

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Sunday Times

who aren’t feeling sick should wear a face cloth covering, stating evidence from recent studies that indicate a significant percentage of infected individuals are asymptomatic. Furthermore, it’s possible to infect other people before symptoms develop.

It’s hard to argue with this logic: even the WHO advocates that sick people wear masks.

Problem is, it’s not always easy to tell who is sick.

While the wearing of masks is not a fix-all solution, it may assist in curbing the spread of infection if everyone buys into the concept. But it only works if done correctly and without disadvantaging healthcare workers on the frontlines.

The Western Cape health department offers a few basic guidelines on its website: wash your hands before putting on the mask. Do not touch your face while wearing the mask and remove it if it gets wet. Touch only the straps of the mask when taking it off and place it in a container until you wash it with soap and hot water. Do not share masks, and wash your hands once you’ve removed your mask.

See westerncape.gov.za for more information on using a mask responsibly. Also visit AfricaMasks4All.com

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THE SHOW MUST GO ON: Ben Amato plays the sax most evenings during lockdown on his porch in Orange Grove to entertain his family and the rest of the street. From left housemate Rozanne Myburgh, Amelie, Beth Amato and Gabriel.

LIFE UNDER LOCKDOWN

Funny, poignant, weird, playful, these photos of Joburg’s streets by Alon Skuy celebrate a city’s humanity even when there are very few humans around

STREET SMART: A global pandemic is no reason to drop one’s style standards in Illovo.

KEEP ON TRUCKIN’: A quiet street in the inner city

LAST TOUCH: Residents of an apartment block an hour before the garden is locked for the duration of the countrywide lockdown.

GOAL IN MIND: Kids play soccer in Newlands.

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Sunday Times

True colours

By Mark Barnes

‘I

see your true colours shining through. And that’s why I love you.” Lyrics from Cyndi Lauper’s 1986 hit single, fabulously extrovert woman that she is. There’s nothing like a crisis to bring out the true colours in everybody. As the water level of life begins to subside, we are exposed, we are found out — our essence starts shining through.

It’s not always beautiful, as Lauper suggests it could be. It’s always valuable information, but it ain’t always pretty. In this crisis, in this lockdown, you will be found out. Especially if you’re home alone. I know. I am.

I’m increasingly trying to find better things to do than watch the news. The feedback, even if you manage to filter out the fake news, elaborate conspiracies, new songs and endless different empirical projections, is overwhelming. We need to be aware, we need to be compliant, but I’m pretty sure that could be distilled into 15 minutes of verified information, instead of the hours of “your turn – my turn” talk shows we’re being fed.

The systemic and individual weaknesses (and the strengths) in our ecosystem are being exposed.

Anyone can captain a steady ship through calm waters but it takes an experienced sailor to navigate through a rough storm. If the sea is calm, the course known and the journey long, you have time to make mistakes and correct them (a bit like investing), but if it really matters what you’re doing now and what you’ve been responsible for up to now, you can’t bullshit the public anymore.

Power structures built on favour and obligation (instead of Halfway through the competence) will be found out in this shutdown, I’ve done storm, and the winds just about nothing I of Covid -19 will blow intended to do them away.

We’re finding out who talks the most. We’re finding out who has done the least. If you’re not on top of your subject, the more you say, the more you’ll expose that, and the more often you’ll have to change your mind. Say less, know more.

As I file this column we’re halfway through the 21-day shutdown. I’ve done just about nothing I intended to do. I bought loads of books. What was I thinking?! My buy-to-read ratio of books is already over 3 to 1. The trouble is that I buy books because I’m intrigued by their titles, like Every Time a Friend Succeeds, Something Inside Me Dies: The Life of Gore Vidal, by Jay Parini. I buy books about things I think I should know, that I ought to read.

I turn 64 the day after you read this (will you still need me, will you still feed me). I should know what I’m really interested in already. My advice — learn more about less.

I’m interacting with business associates, albeit on Zoom. I’ve finally got the tilt of the screen right to present my best face. Ha! Like it or not, if they want to look at you, you have to look at yourself (even if you can get away with pyjama bottoms). It’s pretty invasive, if you let it be — everybody knows you’re home (and, soon enough, the government will know where you are 24/7 if you’re unfortunate enough to test positive and fortunate enough not to be forced to isolate in an institutional facility).

We’re allowed to cram eight or so strangers into a taxi, but you’ll get arrested if you’re caught on a oneon-one consensual visit to your partner — go figure.

This common enemy is cause enough to unite us, but, it seems, sadly, more likely to polarise even further our already vastly unequal society.

What a shame, what a risk. The bullies are out.

We hear less of kindness and persuasion than we do of force. The pressure points, the different densities of people, are obvious to us all. We’d better start taking the solution to where it’s needed most, rather than expecting people to stand in queues to get it.

Nonetheless, we also find examples of extraordinary kindness. True colours, shining through. Beyond the medical fraternity (all of them) and the essential service providers, there are people coming out to help, in abundance, for free.

A crisis is never wasted. We will find people out on both sides of this good-bad divide. Make sure that you give more than you take.

Yes, I’m eating more.

AMID THE FLAP: Shopkeeper Golam Rafi feeds pigeons on the pavement outside a store in Norwood.

EYES RIGHT: A mannequin shop and people taking care in the inner city.

PLAY TIME: Tashlin chills in Eldorado Park as members of the South African National Defence Force patrol.

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Sunday Times

WE’RE GONNA NEED A

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BIGGER TABLE

With the decline of the nuclear family and the emergence of alternative forms of the concept of family, it’s time for us to draw inspiration from new and ancient sources

BY MONIQUE VERDUYN

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n China, divorce rates are said to have risen significantly because families are spending too much time together during self-isolation. In France, the UK and Australia there have been reports of rising domestic violence.

Right now the nuclear family — a married couple and two-and-a-half children — is arguably under more threat than it ever has been in its brief, tenuous history. Where people previously found space to breathe, whether at work or for social reasons, now there is none. Is the coronavirus highlighting the possibility that the family structure upheld as the socio-cultural ideal for just over half a century has been a catastrophe for many?

In the beginning was the clan In ancient societies people organised in clans, groups united by actual or perceived kinship and descent. This family comprised father, mother and their children, aunts, uncles, grandparents and people who were accepted as kin, even if not related by blood.

Tellingly, South African anthropologist Monica Wilson described kinsmen as “mystically dependent” on one another. The widely quoted African proverb, “It takes a village to raise a child”, comes to mind.

Extended families in a single homestead offered certain advantages, including a greater sense of security and belonging, shared resources, a wide pool of role models to help perpetuate desired behaviours and people to turn to during a crisis such as death or natural disaster. Even in cultures where adults left home after marriage to start their own households, the extended family formed an important support network offering similar advantages, with these families often living in neighbouring areas and helping one another financially and emotionally, giving each other direction every step of the way.

In the Western world much of that changed after industrialisation as unmarried young men left farms and villages for urban centres, where they became employed workers who sought out partners in the city, leading to the dissolution of many extended families.

In a powerful essay he wrote for The Atlantic, The Nuclear Family was a Mistake, New York Times columnist David Brooks argues that the nuclear family, rather than being the norm for humans to flourish, was a freakish aberration that peaked in the US between 1950 and 1965, after which men’s wages began declining, society became more individualistic, the feminist

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“We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families.

We’ve made life better for adults but worse for children. We’ve moved from big, interconnected extended families, to smaller, detached families.”

DAVID BROOKS NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST

movement paved the way for women to move out of the household and into the workplace and the birth-control pill meant that people could have sex outside of marriage. As a result, we began wanting different things from relationships.

Brook traces family arrangements across time and cultures, noting that bands, clans and extended families have been the norm throughout human history. By bringing about their demise, he says, “We’ve made life freer for individuals and more unstable for families. We’ve made life better for adults but worse for children. We’ve moved from big, interconnected and extended families, which helped protect the most vulnerable people in society from the shocks of life, to smaller, detached nuclear families.” It’s a system that’s liberated the rich and ravaged the working class and the poor.

Apartheid and the nuclear family Closer to home, apartheid legacies like forced removals and migrant labour have had a fundamental influence on the structure of family life and the concept of home in South Africa, with many children growing up in fatherless homes and seeing their fathers once a year. Today dual, or stretched, households continue to link urban and rural family nodes and it’s not

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Advice

HOW TO COPE WITH YOUR FAMILY UNDER LOCKDOWN Today’s our first-ever lockdown Easter Sunday, and tomorrow is Family Day. Many people had been looking forward to the long weekend as a special time allowing families to spend quality time together, but after more than two solid weeks in each other’s company we might be feeling like we’re ready to break the law to get away from each other.

However, we’re in the final stretch (we hope), so just keep it together a little longer and use these tips to help you cope:

robin of backgammon or Rummikub. If you win, they’ll probably end up going to their rooms to sulk and you get an afternoon off. Card games can also while away the hours.

Music/dancing At this point you’re fed up with the idiots you live with so you may as well crank up the volume and look like one yourself.

The internet Wine It’s been two weeks and could possibly be longer and these people are grating you. A good glass (or four) of vino will have you feeling like a mellow French novelist.

YouTube is filled with endless possibilities for DIY of all types.

Streaming Find a show on Netflix or Showmax that turns you into a vegetable.

Weed Who ever thought that it would be legal to smoke dagga and illegal to go to work and school?

Durban’s finest poison makes even the most strident control freak let go of the wheel and just enjoy the sounds of birds having philosophical discussions.

Board games Take the bored out of their vocabulary with board games. Any child who claims not to love them is lying. Give your kids a lesson in the ruthlessness of capitalism with a no-mercy game of Monopoly, or get their competitive juices flowing with a round

The sun There’s never been a better time to get a tan and give the neighbours a show.

High-calorie food Ignore all that nonsense about summer bodies being made in winter. People are just going to have to like each other’s personalities. Make cooking a family activity.

Booze Any kind. Trust me you’re going to need it. — Yolisa Mkele and Andrea Nagel

South African household type

PICTURE: L. WILLINGER/FPG/GETTY IMAGES, GRAPHIC: SIPHU GQWETHA

Composite (a household with at least one unrelated member) — 2% of all South African households

unusual for children to be raised by grandmothers or other family members.

But in the South African Child Gauge 2018, published by the University of Cape Town, it is reported that the state still tends to view the nuclear family as the standard, conferring on it a privileged status when it comes to policies and the attitudes of the policymakers. Yet Stats SA figures show that in 2016 most children up to age six lived in single-parent families, 45.6% with their mothers only and 2% with their fathers only.

Of the 989,318 babies born last year in South Africa, 61.7% have no information about their father included on their birth certificate. The reality is that the nuclear family is unlikely to make a big comeback.

It’s not a situation unique to this country.

In fact, 62% of all births to non-universityeducated mothers in the US in 2014 were to unmarried women.

Abandoning the wreckage of hyper individualism Family structure is rapidly changing. And here is where it becomes complicated. More children are now growing up with only one parent. With family life more richly varied than ever before, researchers have been looking at how children from single-parent and two-parent families fare in life and the

Extended (a household that does not fit into one of the above categories, but all members are related) — 36% of

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home) — 22% of all South African households

Couple (where there are only two members and they are either spouses or partners) — 10% of all South African households

all South African households

Lone parent (where there is a person without spouse/partner in the household, with their own children and no other members) — 11% of all South African households

Childed couple (where there is a spouse/partner with their own children and no other members) — 19% of all South African households

Source: Stats SA (2017)

evidence is beginning to suggest there’s a measurable difference in how well they do.

It’s a deeply sensitive subject and the academics involved insist it’s not about judging but rather capturing the challenges of single-parent life.

In the US the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study recruited 5,000 children and their parents in large American cities, mostly in families where the parents were not married. Those whose parents had divorced were more likely to fail to progress at school. Children in what the researchers termed a “fragile family”, where parents were cohabiting or there was a lone parent, were twice as likely not to graduate from high school. Even a child in a stable single-parent household was likely to do worse on some measures than a child of a married couple.

In the UK, in the year 2000, 19,000 children were recruited with their parents into the Millennium Cohort Study. The idea was to track their lives through to adulthood, looking at many different aspects of how they were doing. Unlike the US study, the data here shows little difference between married and cohabiting parents, perhaps because this large study is more representative of the population as a whole. The children in the Millennium

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One-person (where there is only one person in the

Cohort Study are assessed every year for basic skills such as numeracy and literacy, and children in single-parent families appear to be worse off.

Neither study aims to change or challenge the complex decisions individuals make about how to raise their children but they are asking questions of wider society about what could be done to provide more support to parents taking on the difficult job of bringing up children on their own.

According to Brooks, though, the demise of the nuclear family has had deleterious effect on children and adults, resulting in a vicious cycle. “People who grow up in disrupted families have more trouble getting the education they need to have prosperous careers. People who don’t have prosperous careers have trouble building stable families … The children in those families become more isolated and more traumatised.”

But Brooks is by no means advocating for a return to the halcyon days of the nuclear family. On the contrary, as a large percentage of families with children enter new relationships and marriages in new shapes and varieties that are no longer heteronormative, he makes a case for more experimentation with the emerging phenomenon of forged families, a return, if

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Sunday Times

you will, to the days of our ancestors.

What’s required in an approach that is both new and ancient, he says, citing the gay and lesbian communities in San Francisco in the early ’80s, those frequently banished from their nuclear families, as being at the forefront in the US of forged families.

He advocates for more connected ways of living, with things like coaching programmes, subsidised early education and expanded parental leave, noting; the most important shifts will be cultural and driven by individual choices. The social stress and economic pressures of our hyper-individualistic societies in which being true to yourself is the most important achievement — at any cost — are simply too exhausting to maintain. Given the spiralling number of children growing up in oneparent families, perhaps there’s indeed a case to be made for looking after the health of the tribe.

“The two-parent family, meanwhile, is not about to go extinct,” Brooks says. “For many people, especially those with financial and social resources, it is a great way to live and raise children. But a new and more communal ethos is emerging, one that is consistent with 21st-century reality and 21st-century values.”

ES RUM DIARI

APPLE SOURZ IN BITTERSWEET TIMES

’ve been steadily working my way through my liquor cabinet since the beginning of the apocalypse. Okay, maybe not so steadily. Also, it’s less of a liquor cabinet and more the bottom shelf of my kitchen cupboard where I’ve managed to amass a motley grand cru of bottles over the last decade of dinner parties.

I didn’t even realise I had half this stuff, but once we hit day four of lockdown and had cleared out the front row of the regular poison, I discovered the situation went a few rows deep.

I’m not sure where most of it came from but in a time of lockdown one learns there are some questions we shouldn’t ask. Like, is it too early to open a little red? Or, hey, where did that bottle of Captain Morgan come from? Or, if I run out of toothpaste, can I use this white tequila that’s been here for three years? If it can strip paint off a wall, surely it will deal with my plaque efficiently? Wait, does tequila expire? And if it does, surely it can’t make you vomit more than you already do when you drink it.

Maybe all tequila is expired?

My first extraction on day five was a surprising bottle of Apple Sourz, with only two fingers left in it. I’m not sure which is the bigger mystery; how it got here, since I don’t recall ever buying a bottle (although I guess a memory Marie Kondo is the whole point of that stuff), or who in their right mind would have drunk all the other fingers?

I was happier to find a quarter bottle of rum. Left over from that six-month patch when everyone said rum was going to be the next gin. But it never happened, because we tasted it and realised rum’s only really nice when you drink it with Coke. And

10/11

I

Paige Nick wonders how her drinks cupboard got so full

we’ve all seen that Grade 5 project with the teaspoons of sugar.

Once we’d barged through the rum, because that’s what you do with rum, next came the little bottles of cocktail accessories that haven’t been touched since the summer of ’69, along with two half bottles of opened Pimms, which is another mystery I don’t understand at all. There is also a bottle of Angostura Bitters (I say is, not was, because I doubt anyone will ever finish it).

I find this more of a challenge than a name. Can it really be that bitter? Is it, say, more bitter than sucking on a lemon? Answer while pulling a face: yes, it can be and, yes, it is.

Quick check, what percentage alcohol does sanitiser have to contain again? And does it count if I spill port on my hands while I’m pouring it and then lick it off? More importantly, when did I turn into a 63-year-old member of the British aristocracy?

We moved on to the

liqueurs on around morning seven. They’re surely the Coco Rico of our generation.

Shoved at the back of every booze cupboard in South Africa, thanks to an obscure recipe that calls for a quarter of a cup of something too rich, or remnants of a winter dinner party. Secretly slukked at by the teenagers in the house when nobody’s paying attention. Which is all the time, because who’s really drinking liqueur more than once a year, and then waking up regretting it? (Other than the teenagers.)

I dusted off a half-full bottle of Kahlua, a full bottle of Kenya Gold Coffee Liqueur, a near empty Cape Velvet Cream, a now empty Melk Tert Liqueur, and a sealed bottle of Hazelnut Angioletto with a ribbon around the neck. Surely just one in this category would suffice? The hazelnut liqueur is the only one whose origins I know. A thank-you gift from a talk I did when my first novel came out 10 years ago.

Highlight of week two of lockdown was excavating far back enough to get to that cheap bottle of wine somebody must have regifted me because they didn’t want it either. Ha, now who’s laughing?

Lowlight of week two of lockdown was finding a bottle of non-alcoholic gin. If I find out who brought that to my house, they’re getting the Hazelnut Liqueur next time I’m invited to their place!

And lastly, I got to two handfuls of mini bottles that I can only imagine I’d nicked from an airline or hotel room, which will go well in my muesli when we run out of milk. Or maybe before that, desperate times call for desperate measures.

When all this booze finally runs out, I guess I’ll light up a spliff. Who would have thought we’d be living in a time when alcohol is more illegal than weed?

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Day 5 I’ve decided to don a suit and work from the study. It probably has something to do with the fact that spending whole days working from bed is starting to feel a little gross.

There are no ostensible effects as yet, but it feels like my metaphysical arteries are getting clogged up with sloth. Also, I clean up well and the streets need to know that.

Having woken up at noon, had a snack and draped myself in Woolworths finest, I knuckle down for a bit. The sun, however, is down and yesterday’s new episode of Westworld is calling like the One Ring called to Frodo. The character of that show is changing. Anyway, supper time and reruns of Would I Lie To You? put me into a dream-filled slumber in the early am hours.

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W PR I HE ALTHR8ORTHIZOESN PROM OT IN G 1 8 VER KI TC HE NS 00 TIPS TO R Y E NATU RE -IN SP IR ED OUR KI MODEL TC H BATH RO OM S EN G IN IN D F IN E N IT U R E R FU

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Yolisa Mkele puts up a brave resistance to the creeping onslaught of sloth and skineroding hand washing in part two of his diary of coronavirus desolation

l Ta x)

10

Day 6 E-mails, text conversations with people I rarely used to talk to and omnipresent notifications from Houseparty. This has become life now. Everyone is bored and running out of new things to talk about so, like Roman roads, all conversations lead to coronavirus: insert eyeroll emoji. We get it. More people in Italy died, Cyril is doing a great job and Trump’s inability to keep his story straight is yet another feather in his dunce cap. We are all staying home, even though it’s cripplingly boring and we’re washing the skin off our hands. Can someone please talk about something else?

Day 8 Holy donkey scrotum, that was a good show! I thought I’d knock the season out over a few days but Marty and his family dramas are like visual crack. So I’ve managed to hoover the entire show in 11 hours. God! I feel drained, like I’ve just had the kind of sex that leaves your legs weak and your chest heaving. There are about 100 red bubbles on my phone telling me something, but I don’t care. That was amazing. It’s also weird because I started Ozark around midnight and now it’s 10am. I haven’t been awake at this time in a week.

Being awake with the rest of the world feels weird, intrusive, like the earth has had too much coffee and can’t keep still. It’s too much. A nap is needed. ******* That’s better. Now it’s 7pm and everything is calmer. Type, exercise, eat, bath. With that out the way, it’s time to see what Friday night holds. On second thoughts, Would I Lie To You? has been particularly funny and I need to conserve wine anyway. The world can see me tomorrow.

Day 9 Somehow I slept through an entire day. I went to bed when it was dark and when I woke up again it was dark. Oh well, time doesn’t really matter anyway. At this point I discover that I have a date in a few hours, so time to spruce the study up, get the candles going, put on a pretty shirt and get the wine open. ******* Well, the date went brilliantly, stayed up talking till 3am.

Day 10

LifeStyle

Day 7

Sundays are for sleeping and YouTube.

We had our first proper Zoom meeting today. It was fun watching that pan out. And now, because the next person who mentions coronavirus in my presence is going to get coughed on, I am retiring to my room, closing the door and bingeing on the third season of Ozark. But before that, some light YouTube viewing.

Watching 13 seasons of Would I Lie To You? has led to an affection for comedian David Mitchell. Apparently he did a show called Peep Show and its on Netflix. After I get through the usual routine of typing, eating and bathing, I think I’ll explore it.

12•04•2020

Sunday Times

Day 11

HEALTH

IT’S GYM LIFE, BUT NOT AS WE KNOW IT

I

If you don’t want to emerge from lockdown looking like the ‘after corona’ part in a meme, you’ll need to get your workout in somewhere between the front gate and upstairs loo. Some of the LS team tell us how

have to own that I’m constitutionally stationary. I always have been. I didn’t even crawl as an infant, I just dragged myself around, half-sitting, presumably only when the impetus was great enough. Naturally, then, my parents are exercise fiends. My mother is a runner (of marathon proportions); my father cycles in what looks to me like a wrestler’s leotard, and takes special relish in lifting heavy things. In short, the lockdown affects them in a way that it does not me. They repine without regular intervals of enervating activity. I don’t.

I’m worried about staying fit, in a manner of speaking, though. I may not be worried about losing muscle tone, per se, but three or four hours of The Sims, played in unbroken succession without so much as a concession to reality, cannot be altogether good for my brain. And I worry about my brain, I do. She was expensive.

If you’re concerned that your current routine is gnawing away at the last vestiges of your intellect, you needn’t despair: I have solutions. Not unlike doing squats on your balcony or running in place, some of these require a modicum of self-discipline — but if you’re typically happy to be unhappy in the name of exercise, you should be able to extend your mind and your memory the same grace. Here are some lockdownfriendly foils to mental inertia.

Try your hand at a new language. Apps like Duolingo have made it fun and free for you to expand your linguistic horizons, and you can spend as little as 10 minutes a day placating cartoons in a language of your choice. Studies have shown, moreover, that grammar and vocabulary drills of this kind have a beneficial effect on both your attention span and on your long-term memory.

Read. Read long-winded nonfiction and tawdry romance novels alike. Read for longer than is strictly comfortable or pleasant, even if you’re not a reader. Forego television series for books, because reading is a rare form of escapism that actually strengthens neural pathways, affects emotional catharsis, and won’t prevent you from being able to get a good night’s sleep.

Unless you favour Stephen King.

Take up old hobbies. Adopt the habits of a post-war pensioner: do crossword puzzles.

Bake. Knit. So many of the things we did as children enhance the strength and speed of our recall. Paint badly.

Become unabashedly creative.

And try to do some of this without a tablet, TV, or screen.

M

otivating myself to exercise is a gruelling task on any given day. On a bad day in lockdown it’s near impossible. To counter this I think of the “before corona/after corona” memes doing the rounds: if the ripped guy doing sexy Latin dancing can slide into a world of unsightly fat rolls, what’s to become of me?

Sharing sweat with hundreds of people at the gym — those machines are gross — has never worked for me, but I can get stuck into the classes. Zumba has been one of the most enjoyable, blending abcrunching moves with spirited tunes. Stuck at home, I’m doing Zumba in my living room, adding the occasional weight to keep flabby arms at bay.

But when I’m not in the mood for Zumba, I can comfort myself with the fact that I live in a duplex and the more glasses of wine I drink, the more trips to the toilet at the top of the stairs.

I find it easiest to exercise vicariously.

For this, the latest season of Survivor Winners at War is the best. Watching four people scale a mountain to retrieve a pile of 20 logs at once really gets your heart rate

up. And if you swap your pyjamas for gym gear, the imagined results are guaranteed to double. Sanet Oberholzer

M

y furry ears are coming in nicely — it’s another day of my hamster life and I am living large. I run 5.5km religiously every day in the driveway. My neighbour spotted me in the midst of my laps from across the road. This is a chap who’s barely made eye contact over the years — he wanted to know how I was doing.

“Going loopy,” I said, “quite literally.”

Then there are the virtual classes. My pilates teacher, Taniel, has probably seen more of all my angles than she bargained for. Isaac, one of my boxing coaches, is trying to work on my technique, while coach Andy is sending ever more intense thrice weekly workouts.

I have signed up for two remote HIIT sessions with Morne. And then there is the cleaning — let me tell you about the cleaning! I now understand why the domestic goddesses of the ’50s were all minuscule — I have their vintage dresses for proof. Those ladies were busting a gut — nothing like scrubbing the floor to activate

the core. So, yes, it seems that I am keeping up with my exercise routine. I own the Lycra I am wearing from dawn to dusk — own it, I tell you. Aspasia Karras

H

onestly, curtailing my access to the gym has been the easiest coronavirusrelated inconvenience to deal with.

That’s mainly because gyms tend to be filled with vain people and perverts who enjoy grunting loudly to make sure you can see them lifting heavy objects and discussing the lofting of these objects while standing a pubic hair’s breadth away from you in the locker room, starkers.

So to keep myself tasty during this global timeout we’re on I have adapted a few Nike-inspired home workouts.

The first focuses on abs — those will be important when the lockdown gets extended and I have to sell images of myself shirtless to survive. Start off with knee hugs, hip lifts and leg raises. Throw in some planking. Add three sets of leg bicycles.

Next is three sets of dead bugs (check Google for instructions). More planks. Hold for 1:30 three times.

Take a break and eat a sandwich.

Next comes three sets of pendulum legs (Google again). Followed by lots of situps, but you do them sitting on your coccyx.

You’re done and your stomach hurts, so wash your progress down with a glass of wine. After that, do pushups until your arms don’t work. Congrats, you should have officially used up 20% of your day.

Good luck with the rest. Yolisa Mkele

I

’m not much for organised exercise under lockdown (or out of lockdown, for that matter). So far my recipe for exercise success is the following: one nine-yearold boy (soaked for a few hours in screentime); one out-of-sorts ridgeback; a garden; a sprinkling of cabin fever, and liberal doses of parental anxiety. Mix them all together and shake. When done, you should find yourself running around said garden playing games you haven’t in years — like catches and Running Red Rover. The dog always wins.

It also helps to live with two “boys” — every pair of underpants picked up from some random location is a squat; every dirty plate carried in a huff from the coffee table to the sink is a few more steps towards one’s daily quota. Elizabeth Sleith

Paula Stephanie Andropoulos

Pictures: 123rf.com

What others in the team are doing to keep fit Matthew Mcclure, Wanted managing editor

Jennifer Platt, Books editor

I pack a backpack with bricks to get in some weighted cardio.

It’s about 30kg, which I load onto my back and then do luges, squats and steep stairs up and down at my block of flats.

Creating a trench garden to grow veggies. I didn’t think it would be as tough as it is, hacking through hard soil and chipping at rock despite the drenching rain we’ve had. Can feel it in my core and I’m knackered after just half an hour of digging. At this rate the trench will be done in about two weeks’ time. My partner is very suspicious though ...

Leana Schoeman, Home editor Yoga with Adrienne on YouTube. There are different practices for every need, plus no squeaky American voice or esoteric bullsh*t (and I love her dog Benji). I also do skipping and lots of dancing.

Sharon Armstrong, Fashion director Zoom Pilates with my regular instructor twice a week — a class of three or four. It works better than YouTube as I still get personal instruction. leigh@stretchpilates.com

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Andrea Nagel, Lifestyle editor Table tennis. It’s high intensity; provides a great arm workout, aids mental functioning, is competitive, and keeps the kids amused and not nagging for a moment.

Thereafter, a compulsory swim for winners and losers.

Toni Singer, Digital editor Walking to and from the fridge a lot. Does that count?

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ENTER TO

WIN

YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH

S

o this is Easter Sunday … for many secular folks, a day for overindulging in chocolate, lavishly lunching with loved ones, and basking in the languor of a long weekend. For Christians, of course, it is the culmination of a week of solemnity as the events leading up to Jesus’ death by crucifixion are observed. Today, one of the most important days on the liturgical calendar, commemorates Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

Our picture shows a square in Vatican City, the headquarters of the Roman Catholic Church, which would typically be standing-room-only today as worshippers come for the special mass given by Pope Francis, followed by his traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing “to the city and to the world”.

In fact, the image marks a rare moment in late March when the Pope broke with tradition to give the blessing — usually reserved for Christmas Day and Easter Sunday — in response to the ongoing coronavirus crisis. He stands alone under a canopy in front of St Peter’s Basilica, rain falling, as he gives the address to an empty square.

With crowds being impossible, Pope Francis has continued to conduct all of the Holy Week rites — starting with last week’s Palm Sunday — “without the presence of the faithful”, according to Vatican News. Last week, only a few bishops, nuns and aides were present in the basilica —

ELIZABETH SLEITH

staggered apart to abide by social-distancing restrictions.

The ceremonies have all been live-streamed, however, and today is no different. The Easter Sunday mass can be attended via the Vatican Media YouTube channel, as well as on Facebook. It starts at 11am in Rome (same time in SA), and will be followed by the Urbi et Orbi blessing.

The Vatican’s YouTube channel ( search for Vatican Media Live), incidentally, broadcasts constantly, so you can pop in any time and catch a prayer, or quite often just a webcam view of the square.

Judaism, meanwhile, is in the midst of Passover, which commemorates the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt. Wednesday marked the first night of the festival, the Seder, a feast to remember the Israelites’ liberation from bondage in ancient Egypt. Usually it involves the coming together of multiple generations of families for readings, prayers and food.

Under restrictions this year, many families were set to gather by Zoom, and again on Pesach, the last day of Passover, this Thursday. Whichever holiday you celebrate, let’s remember that they are all ultimately about resilience and overcoming. We wish you a safe and happy one. ● To stand a chance of winning R500, tell us the name of the square.

E-mail travelquiz@sundaytimes.co.za before noon on Tuesday April 14. Last week’s winner is Robbie Malema of Soshanguve, Gauteng.

The correct answer was East Lake Cherry Blossom Park.

EASTER BUNNY ’EGGS-EMPTED’ FROM TRAVEL BANS

PASSION PLAY POSTPONED he Bavarian town of Oberammergau has postponed its world-famous celebration of Christ — only the fourth time in its almost 400-year history that the Passion Play will not go ahead as planned. It’s poetic, perhaps, that the reason is Covid-19, since it was a different health crisis that marked the tradition’s beginnings. In March 1633 the bubonic plague, which had begun ravaging Italy in 1629, was making its way to the other side of the Alps. Terrified, the residents of Oberammergau — on Germany’s southern edge, about 30km from the Austrian border — attempted a bargain with God. Should they be spared, they would put on a play telling the story of Jesus’ life and death — not just the once, mind you. They would do it every 10

years in perpetuity. Whether by coincidence or divine intervention, the plague largely spared the area and the villagers kept their word. The first play was put on in 1634 in the churchyard alongside the graves of those whom the plague had taken.

In the summer months of every year ending in a zero, the Passion Play went ahead, and it soon became tradition for visitors from the surrounding regions to come and see it.

The graveyard soon became too small to contain the many pilgrims — hopeful that God’s favour might fall on them too — who flocked in to watch the play as the decades passed. The first permanent stage was built in 1815 and a proper theatre, with a roof and seats, was begun in 1890. This is the same space, updated over the years, to which

modern visitors go — a space that now accommodates 4,700 people.

This being 2020, the next instalment was due to run from May 16 until October 4 — five performances per week over almost five months. The season has now been pushed out to start in May 2022.

It has only been postponed or cancelled three times before. The first time, in 1770, was because of a ban on such productions imposed by Maximilian III Joseph, the then Duke of Bavaria.

In 1920, as Europe recovered from World War 1, it was put off until 1922.

And it was cancelled outright in 1940 as Word War 2 raged. ● See passionsspieleoberammergau.de

W

ith travel bans in force across the world, there is a VIB (Very Important Bunny) who has the all-clear to keep moving: the Easter Bunny. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern this week confirmed that both the bunny and the Tooth Fairy were on the list of essential workers, and thus free to visit. Tasmania’s premier Peter Gutwein said the bunny would be allowed to enter without the mandatory 14 days’ quarantine currently being applied to other travellers. And Australia’s chief medical officer Brendan Murphy said that, as “an essential service, he or she will be allowed to continue to operate”. PM Leo Varadkar also granted the bunny a special “eggsemption” to enter and travel within Ireland.

MEMOIRS OF A HOTEL CRITIC

I

n my two decades travelling the world as a hotel critic I’ve regularly had to pinch myself in order to quite believe the lucky life I’ve fallen into (though I promise you, it does entail hard work too). For many years my column was weekly and I would make forays from London to review several hotels in, say, Scotland, Wales or the West Country, scooting each day from one to the next. There have been highs, of course, but also a few lows.

On one occasion I borrowed my son’s soft top to drive the entire length of the M4 — from west London to southwest Wales. It rained — hard. I tried to put the hood up. It wouldn’t work and I arrived at the hotel drenched from head to foot.

One thing I’ve learnt is that the best hoteliers stay cool when critics call. At one hotel in Cornwall they got wind I was a critic and quickly moved a couple’s unpacked bags from the best room while they were out.

But the couple still had their key. They went to the room, unlocked the door and found me, stark naked, in their bedroom.

At another hotel, years ago, an unctuous manager insisted on taking my flimsy overnight bag. I resisted; it broke and about a dozen tampons scattered across the marble floor, which he had no alternative but to pick up one by one.

Elsewhere, a similarly enthusiastic manager offered to show me, on a whim, the shiny new kitchen, much to the horror of the head chef. That’s because he had blown up a photograph of me, complete with devil’s horns and fangs and stuck it on the wall by the pass so the wary staff could recognise me in the restaurant.

One thing I mourn is that as groups and brands take the place of independents, eccentric British hoteliers are becoming as rare as a moment of sanity at Fawlty Towers.

FIONA DUNCAN

Do you have a funny story about your travels? Send 600 words to travelmag@sundaytimes.co.za and include a recent photo of yourself.

Seven big cats at a New York zoo were suspected of having Covid-19 after one of them, a tiger, tested positive.

The Bronx Zoo said in a statement that the four-year-old female tiger, named Nadia, had developed a dry cough, as had her sister, Azul, two Amur tigers and three lions and that Nadia had been tested “out of an abundance of caution”.

Only Nadia was tested — by a laboratory of the US department of agriculture in Ames, Iowa — because of the anaesthesia required to get a sample from a big cat.

The zoo said it believed the cats had been infected by a zoo employee who was asymptomatic at the time. All are doing well

Oh, Snap!

Lezanne van Zyl of Hermanus sent us this picture taken in Cappadocia, Turkey.

After just six days in the country, Van Zyl had to cut her holiday short in order to make it home in time for SA’s lockdown.

“We only had a taste of Turkey, but will be back. It was a fantastic,“ she says.

Want R500? Send your picture (at least 500KB) with a brief description of what’s happening in the photo, plus the full names of the people pictured and where they’re from, to ohsnap@sundaytimes.co.za.

EDITOR: ELIZABETH SLEITH CONTACT TEL 011 280 5117 DESIGNER VERNICE SHAW PROOFREADER HELEN SMITH PUBLISHER ASPASIA KARRAS HEAD OF ADVERTISING SALES BELA STANDER 011 280 3154, E-MAIL STANDERB@ARENA.AFRICA SUBSCRIBER HOTLINE 0860 52 52 00

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Sunday Times

My earliest hotel memory involves an English couple who owned the long-gone Pension Miravista in Cala Ratjada, Mallorca. I clearly remember a shouting match coming from the kitchen, and then the proprietor rushing into the dining room, tearing up a passport. His wife followed, brandishing a carving knife. Chairs flew, guests had to intervene. Then they kissed and made up and peace descended. Similar eruptions happened regularly, and yet my parents went back four years running, for the Miravista had charm, location and, crucially, character.

Sadly, character could not survive at Knoll House, in Studland, Dorset, where I found strict meal times, fruit juice for starters and trifle for pudding. “We like routine,” the owner told me. “And by the way, we’ll never have those newfangled trouser presses,” he added, at least a decade after the last trouser press had died and gone to hotel heaven. Knoll House is now in new hands.

Hoteliers should also remember that it’s a bad move to judge a critic by her clothes. I thought I was looking pretty presentable for my visit to the five-star 45 Park Lane in London, sister hotel to The Dorchester, but as I got off a bus trundling my own suitcase, the doorman, used to glitzy ladies stepping out of limousines, had a different opinion.

“What address are you looking for?” he asked me as I attempted to enter. “I think you have the wrong one.”

“I’m looking for 45 Park Lane,” I replied. “I believe I am staying in your new penthouse suite. If you would let me pass, that would be very kind.”

Sweet revenge. — © The Telegraph

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Sunday Times

and are expected to recover.

This is the first confirmed case of animal infection in the US. A few other animals, all pets, have tested positive in other parts of the world. All, however, had been in close contact with already diagnosed humans.

“It is not known how this disease will develop in big cats since different species can react differently to novel infections, but we will continue to monitor them closely,” the zoo said.

Experts have said there is no evidence that animals play a role in the transmission of Covid-19 to people other than the initial event in a market in Wuhan, China, where it is first believed to have made the jump from animals to humans.

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PICTURE: 123RF.COM/SAFIBNRAHMAN

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ILLUSTRATION: © PIET GROBLER

PICTURE: © VATICAN POOL - CORBIS/GETTY IMAGES

Sunday Times

AKS BUSH BRE

GAME ON

PICTURES: © GETTY IMAGES

PICTURE: © MOTSWARI PRIVATE GAME RESERVE

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PICTURE: © TINTSWALO.COM

Virtual safaris have seen a huge surge in traffic under lockdown, especially from South Africans. By Sanet Oberholzer

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Sunday Times

t’s 6pm on a Friday. You’re halfway through your second sundowner, watching a giraffe lazily munch a juicy leaf. A monkey dashes past the game vehicle and you instinctively pull the bag of biltong closer to your chest. A message flashes before your eyes: battery low.

Irked, you get off the couch, peek inside the fridge, realise no snacks have magically reappeared since the last time you checked and head back to your sunset game drive à la maison.

Since practically the whole world has gone into lockdown, there has been a huge surge in virtual safaris. You can go on a morning bush walk with a friendly guide, enjoy a sunrise game drive in your fluffy pyjamas or reflect on your state of wellbeing as you watch an elephant quench its thirst or lion cubs scuffle in the dirt.

But virtual safaris aren’t a new invention.

Eighteen years ago, Graham Wallington and his wife Emily started Wild Earth, a live wildlife broadcaster. Having started Africam before this in 1998, when the internet was just being introduced to the general public, Wallington is a pioneer in the industry with more than 20 years of experience in virtual tourism.

Infinitely enthusiastic about what he does, Wallington says the idea behind Wild Earth was — and is — to connect people with nature.

“We recreate the experience of going on safari by putting a camera on the back of a game-drive vehicle in exactly the same position that a guest would be sitting and having an authentic guide drive around.” In real time, viewers can ask questions via e-mail or Wild Earth’s social-media platforms and these will be answered by the guide.

The licence to broadcast these live safaris is sold to television networks across the world such as National Geographic, BBC and even SABC closer to home. The revenue from this enables Wild Earth to provide this content for free on channels such as YouTube, Twitch, Facebook and Periscope.

Apart from daily broadcasts from Djuma Private Game Reserve in the Kruger Park, they usually also broadcast from a camp in the Maasai Mara in Kenya, though these have been temporarily suspended as it is currently in lockdown.

can get our viewers to understand that each individual animal has a life story and has challenges and opportunities, they stop seeing that animal as a representative of the species and they start seeing it as an individual being.

It is at that moment that people have empathy for nature,” says Wallington.

I

CUBS CAN CURE

Behind the scenes at Wild Earth. Picture: © Wild Earth

THE BIG 5 VIRTUAL SAFARIS 1

Wild Earth

2

Tintswalo Safari Lodge

3 4 5

Shamwari Private Game Reserve

Drives take place in Djuma Game Reserve in the Sabi Sands Private Reserve as well as in &Beyond Ngala Private Reserve in the Timbavati, both adjacent to the Kruger National Park. They’re live at 6am – 9am and 3.30pm – 6.30pm daily and really manage to create the feeling that you’re on the vehicle too. Send questions via social media and the rangers will answer you there and then. See djuma.com/djuma-waterhole or https://wildearth.tv/safarilive.

Head guide Neil Jennings and regional manager Alistair Leuner film their daily drive in the Manyeleti Reserve in Mpumalanga, then edit the footage into a six- to eight-minute video and post it on social media. Find links to all their channels at tintswalo.com/safari.

Head ranger Andrew Kearney is doing a series of “lockdown” episodes, with highlights from his daily walks and drives, along with other titbits such as insights into life at the Eastern Cape reserve. Links to all their channels at shamwari.com.

Motswari Private Game Reserve Motswari in the Timbavati has two guides patrolling daily, and they film their drives and post highlights on Instagram. @motswari_private

SPIKE IN SOUTH AFRICA Singita Sabi Sand

Singita Sabi Sand is live-streaming game drives by resident photographer and former guide Ross Couper twice daily on Facebook and Instagram. The feed is also worth scrolling through for its phenomenal collection of photos from several lodges in Africa.

Links to the channels are at singita.com.

LIGHT IN THE LOCKDOWN the rest of the world will want to come and visit when they finally can travel,” says Wallington.

On one sunset safari this week, 11,300 viewers went along for the ride. Comments poured in from across the globe, from those who have a real-life safari on their bucket list,

people who watch on a regular basis and many who have started watching since going into quarantine. “Goosebumps everytime. It never gets old,” wrote one viewer in a Facebook post.

“Our animal characters are named and we keep revisiting them every single day. If we

PICTURE: © VOLUNTEERWORLDINTL.COM

But lockdown is also providing new opportunities. A recent partnership with &Beyond Ngala Private Game Reserve in Timbavati is offering viewers a change of scenery. “They have two white lion cubs, which we have been sharing with the world since April 1. We’re helping &Beyond to turn those animals into the kinds of characters that

Another viewer from the US was thrilled at the sighting of hyenas. One in particular, named Ribbon, was having a leisurely nap as the sun was setting. The six-year-old hyena had given birth days before and kept the audience in suspense as we hoped she might feed her cub, but she’s a tease: not a single cub was in sight.

Not to fret. A quick Google search revealed YouTube footage from Wild Earth taken the day before. You’ll be surprised just how incredibly cute a baby hyena is and the ability this little creature has to lift your mood.

Cuteness always has a way of stirring the spirits but at this juncture in our fight against Covid-19, I feel this hyena cub has a special power.

Wellness coach Nikki Temkin explains, “Being in nature is healing and used in stress management. During lockdown, being able to ‘get out there’, even in a virtual space, can be very relaxing. And to be reminded of the world outside, the natural world which still exists and keeps on going despite everything, is comforting.”

Wallington concurs. “A children’s hospital in Ohio discovered that when kids or adults are undergoing chemotherapy, if they watch our live safaris it completely distracts them and vastly reduces the pain and discomfort that chemotherapy causes.”

Following this, Wild Earth expanded their network and they now work with 10 other hospitals across the US. “What we’ve found is that there is a huge amount of healing that comes from this. People’s cortisol levels drop, they become more relaxed and it’s just a real process of healing,” says Wallington.

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LifeStyle | Travel

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Sunday Times

Apart from their partnerships with hospitals, Wild Earth has a special mission to reach children. Teachers can register to the live safaris and the first 45 minutes of the daily sunset safari are dedicated to answering questions only from children.

When SA went into lockdown, several teachers shared messages on WhatsApp groups to encourage parents to watch the live safaris with their children. Following this, the percentage of Wild Earth’s South African audience increased overnight.

Within 48 hours, between March 31 and April 1, the percentage of Wild Earth’s South African audience jumped from 5% to 65%.

They now have five times more audience in South Africa than in the US. Before this, 75% of Wild Earth’s audience were in that country.

Other game reserves have similarly reported huge interest in their live safaris. In the first week of SA’s lockdown, Tintswalo Safari Lodge started running virtual safaris in the Manyeleti Game Reserve. “Not only are we bringing the bush into the minds and hearts of our viewers, but we are also out on the reserve as the eyes and ears to potentially help with injured animals or to report to the reserve management anything that is going on,” says Alistair Leuner, Tintswalo’s regional general manager.

He says they have been blown away by the support their live safaris have received and his hope is that they will inspire South Africans to consider Tintswalo as a holiday option postlockdown.

The travel industry is reeling. While the immediate focus is on keeping the lights on and staff paid, long-term concerns are not a distant thought.

Wallington says “live safaris” and “virtual tourism” are buzz words at the moment and that these kinds of innovations are going to be huge. “It could be a very long time before this industry recovers. I think that virtual tourism is going to be a huge part of the future.”

While these virtual safaris don’t necessarily pay the bills, they at least offer a semblance of normalcy. They give us a sense of the outside, of the wisdom of nature, and they continue to inspire and urge us to dream. In a time when crazy is the new normal, that means a lot.

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Above, the KonMari Concrete Desk Set 2; Marie Kondo, below

String.se

THAT MINIMAL LIFE

If ever there was a perfect time to start decluttering, it’s now. Here’s our guide for some lockdown therapy WORDS MILA CREWE-BROWN, IMAGES SUPPLIED

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ith the lockdown affecting millions of people across the globe, it seems as good a time as any to think about thinning out the clutter in your home.

While decluttering yields neater cupboards and drawers, leading to greater efficiency, psychologists also say a minimal approach to our “stuff” brings a sense of lightness and wellbeing.

Sustainably speaking, opting for quality over quantity results in us leaving a lighter footprint on the earth. Plus you can donate your extra belongings to charity organisations that really need them.

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things into perspective before you embark on the journey.

Have a vision: You need to know what you want to achieve and be able to envision the results.

Tidy by category: Sentimental items or books should be tackled separately. Finish each category before another is started.

Fold: To save space, Kondo folds clothing smaller and smaller and stores items upright on their sides, rather than piled flat.

SPARK JOY

Marie Kondo, who is a major advocate of minimising clutter, rose to fame after the airing of her Netflix series Tidying up with Marie Kondo. She has a characteristically Japanese respect for things — such as thanking items before parting with them, which brings a rare element of gratitude to our materialistic society.

The KonMari method in a nutshell: Make mountains: Making a physical heap of all your clothing or hauling out all your kitchenalia puts

Stylist Louise ParkRoss

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LifeStyle | Fashion

Spark joy: This is classic Kondo — hold each object and ask yourself just one question in deciding whether to keep it or not: does it spark joy for you? konmari.com

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ENLIST A PRO

Louise Park-Ross is a Cape Townbased personal stylist and a stylist in the advertising industry. She supports having less and only having what you love.

On Instagram @lovingthelookbabe, ParkRoss broadcasts fantastic styling videos, one of which is a wardrobe cleanse for artist Michael Chandler. “I help curate what you own, to maximise your wardrobe and your life,” she says. We asked her for some of her top tips: The cull Make Yes, No and Maybe piles and cull by category (ie pants, tops, dresses). Be quick and decisive. Don’t get distracted with the Maybe pile — this can be dealt with when you enlist my services and I hand over my secrets ;) The storage Hang what needs to be hung and fold what needs to be folded. Hanging T-shirts and jerseys compromises the integrity of the garment and, anyway, nobody likes droopy shoulders.

The organising

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Sunday Times

Organise your hanging and folding by category and by colour, moving from darkest to lightest, longest to shortest and left to right. This makes it easy to find what you want.

The night before Plan to wear those special clothes more often. Lay out tonight what you’re going to wear tomorrow. In other words, you can’t trust your morning brain. louiseparkross@gmail.com

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TAKE A CHALLENGE

Created by Courtney Carver, whose Project 33 Challenge went viral last year. Essentially, you select and wear just 33 items of clothing (including shoes and accessories, but excluding sleepwear, underwear and lounge wear) for three months. At the end of that time you’ll realise just how little you can live with. bemorewithless.com/project-333

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DONATE & GIVE AWAY

There are many charities to which you can donate clothing and household items. These are just a few: Hospice, Salvation Army, Nkosi’s Haven, Joburg Child Welfare and animal rescue organisations like Kitty and Puppy Haven and SPCA.

THE FASHION QUARANTINE SURVIVAL KIT From Anna Wintour to Franca Sozzani, Hampton Court to Versailles, we have the perfect recipe for surviving these days of fashion isolation TEXT: THANGO NTWASA, PHOTOGRAPHER: TRAVYS OWEN/ LAMPOST

TOP 10 DOCUMENTARIES

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‘Franca: Chaos and Creation’: the film follows the journey of late Vogue Italia editor-in-chief Franca Sozzani as documented by her son, Francesco Carrozzini. It takes an inside glimpse into the most thrilling and "forward-thinking" work done by the visionary fashion journalist, including a spread on the BP oil spill, and the all-black issue published in 2008.

Dior and I: a must for every fashion lover, the documentary details Raf Simons’s debut collection for Dior. Beginning months before the collection hits the runway, the documentary takes viewers on a breathtaking journey as Simons pieces together his collection and finally sees it realised in an emotional extravaganza.

The September Issue: famous for a number of its quotable one-liners, the documentary is an unforgettable glimpse into the work that goes into the pages of Anna Wintour’s American Vogue as she whips her editorial staff into creating the biggest edition of the fashion bible’s coveted September issue. The film also created a cult following for famed American Vogue fashion editor Grace Coddington, just about the only person to stand her ground against the intimidating voice of Wintour.

Grey Gardens: a departure from the rest of our glamorous list, Grey Gardens is a look into the dishevelled lives of Jackie Kennedy Onassis’s relatives Edith “Little Edie” Beale and her mother Big Edie. Excommunicated by their wealthy family, the two become recluses in their once-glamorous home in the Hamptons. Diagnosed with alopecia, Little Edie swathes her head in fabric she can find, creating eccentric looks that inspired the likes of Andy Warhol and John Galliano.

McQueen: troubled by money, drugs and fame, Alexander McQueen became one of the most respected designers — and one of the most resented among friends and the media. With footage from friends and family, the documentary highlights his rise as footnoted by his collections at his own fashion house and for Givenchy. The documentary also sheds light on his friendship with fashion journalist Isabella Blow and their eventual reconciliation.

Catwalk is an intimate look into the life of Christy Turlington during her heyday as one of the big four supermodels of the ’90s.

With cameos by fellow supermodels Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss, the documentary also features the ever enigmatic Karl

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PRODUCTION: SHARON ARMSTRONG PHOTOGRAPHER’S ASSISTANT LUNGHELO MLATI HAIR KAREN VAN WYNGAARD/LAMPOST MAKEUP LESLEY WHITBY/LAMPOST MODEL BETHANY D/FANJAM

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Lagerfeld and a wet-behind-the-ears John Galliano – a definite must-see for any fan of the ’90s era of fashion models.

Diana Vreeland: The Eye has to Travel: never was there a personality in fashion as infectiously ostentatious as Vreeland. From her youth as a party-loving twentysomething to a career that saw her launch the Met Ball, Vreeland’s life makes for the perfect bookmark to 20th-century fashion.

House of Z: a detailed look into the “rise, fall and comeback” of Zac Posen, House of Z can play out either as a fun look into the designer’s journey or a cautionary tale for aspiring designers. In interviews, archival footage and plenty of paparazzi shots, the roller-coaster narrative unravels the story of how he rebuilt his flailing brand.

Versailles ’73: American Runway Revolution: the boxing fraternity had Evander Holyfield vs George Foreman, and locally many still rave about Madiba magic when the Springboks met New Zealand in 1995. In fashion, there was Versailles. In 1973, a showdown saw French designers go toe-to-toe with US designers to raise funds for the Palace of Versailles. Versailles ’73, as narrated by The Devil Wears Prada star Stanley Tucci, tells of the day US fashion designers (including Oscar de la Renta and Halston) knocked the high-fashion socks off French fashion houses including Dior and Givenchy.

The Next Black: have you ever imagined that kombucha could be a key ingredient in creating faux leather? Well, this might be the tamest of innovations explored in The Next Black, a deep dive into the future of fashion and the people behind its innovative flight.

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(Hathaway) as an aspiring journalist who scores a difficult job with the editor of the biggest fashion publication in the world, Miranda Priestly (Streep). With a sleek makeover montage in the tone of Madonna’s ’90s hit Vogue, and that unforgettable cerulean sweater monologue, the film is littered with all the Chanel, Dior and Prada you could dream of.

The Women (1939): in what would perhaps be regarded a feminist move today, The Women is a movie for women, by women and starring screen sirens Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford. The elaborate costumes

by Adrian Adolph Greenburg are a stellar embodiment of the different personalities of each female star in this ritzy comedic drama.

To top it all off, a Technicolor fashion show dazzles the otherwise black-and-white screen midway through the film.

Memoirs of a Geisha: an epic that won a number of Oscars, including the award for best costume design, Memoirs of a Geisha tells the thrilling tale of a young woman navigating an ancient tradition and war. The skilful art behind the makeup, choreography and clothing to become a geisha is beautifully explored in this romantic affair, all while paying homage to its eventual hybridisation after World War 2.

The Favourite: when it comes to period pieces, not many costume designers can hold a candle to Sandy Powell. She brought her genius with colour to bear on The Other

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Crazy Rich Asians: the fun-filled romcom that follows two lovers from different worlds is anything but predictable when it comes to its fashion. Whether it’s a look at the gauche excesses of new-money tycoons or the effortless sophistication that comes with generational wealth, by the time you finish the movie you will know what it takes to be on the cover of American or Japanese Vogue. Keep a couple of tissues near for the magical wedding scene.

The Devil Wears Prada: a classic for the ages and a rare case of a film that is better than the book. Starring Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep, the movie follows Andy

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TOP 10 FASHION FILMS

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Boleyn Girl, Edward II and Caravaggio, but took a moody and often monochromatic turn in a trip to 17th-century England in The Favourite. The movie details the power play of two women in Queen Anne’s life as portrayed by Emma Stone and Rachel Weisz.

Funny Face: it’s no fashion secret that Audrey Hepburn was a muse to Hubert de Givenchy, so when the character of nerdy bookshop-owning Jo is turned into a fashion model, you can expect nothing less than scenic romps around Paris in just about Givenchy . With the movie set in the late ’50s, there are also a couple of nods to the trends of the time, including her now iconic allblack beatnik ensemble.

Sex & the City: Eric Daman came to define the early days of the iconic looks in the series, but it was Patricia Field who won hearts for its cinematic debut. From Carrie’s bridal gown (that bird included) to that blue Manolo Blahnik shoe proposal, or the mock fashion spread in Vogue with that Dior dress and gloves to boot, Sex & the City’s cinematic debut is sure to make you gag in shock or gawk in appreciation.

Heathers: fashion fans might think Clueless is the quintessential go-to flick for lovers of preppy fashion, but it is the Winona Driverled Heathers that set the bar for girls with a killer sense of style, whether they are attending funerals or playing croquet. The movie deals with a murderous trail of teenage angst among power-dressing frenemies. It has inspired a bevy of animations and series, including the characters from Disney’s Recess as well as characters in Gossip Girl and Scream Queens.

Orlando: a bizarre movie perfectly set off by its appreciation of glamour. Tilda Swinton stars as a young nobleman whose simple life as an aristocrat takes an unexpected turn when he transforms into a woman. In costumes from 1600 to the early 1900s, Swinton becomes the canvas for the journey that men’s and women’s fashion has taken.

Marie Antoinette: historians discuss her “Let them eat cake” quote and the extent of her political power play, but director Sofia Coppola takes a new direction with a glimpse into the rock-star adolescence of the young queen. Starring Kirsten Dunst, the flick features costumes by Milena Canonero (A Clockwork Orange, Miami Vice) that were inspired by different pastry treats, of which there are plenty in the multiple confectionery and fashion montages in the film.

Sunday Times

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Onion, spinach and coriander bhajis with chilli tomato salsa

5 WAYS TO SAVOUR A LONG WEEKEND Lots of lovely homemade goodies for you to try. By Hilary Biller, pictures: Christoph Hoffman

1. SNACK Makes about 20-24

Nuggets of deliciousness, crisp on the outside, packed full of veggies in a spicy dough on the inside. If you don’t fancy onion, use extra spinach and coriander or replace spinach with cubes of brinjal or baby marrow. A little mixture goes a long way and because they will be gobbled up quickly, the recipe can easily be doubled, except for the baking powder — add 5ml (1 tsp) instead of 10ml (2 tsp).

ONION, SPINACH AND CORIANDER BHAJIS WITH CHILLI TOMATO SALSA (CHILLI BITES) Batter: 125g (250ml) flour 10ml (2 tsp) baking powder 5- 7.5ml (1 - 1½ tsp) chilli powder 3ml ground turmeric 7.5ml (1½ tsp) ground cumin 5ml (1 tsp) salt 2 extra-large eggs, beaten 125ml (½ cup) water 2 large onions, sliced thinly 250ml (1 cup) torn spinach or baby spinach, 125ml (½ cup) chopped fresh coriander, Oil for deep frying 18

LifeStyle | Food & Drink

Salsa: 1 large firm red tomato, cut into cubes 1 fresh red chilli, seeded and finely sliced 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped A handful of fresh coriander, chopped Pinch of sugar Salt and freshly ground black pepper Sift the dry ingredients and spices into a large mixing bowl. Combine the beaten eggs and water. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and add half the egg mixture, mixing through. If too thick, add 12•04•2020

Sunday Times

more egg mixture and stir until you have a smooth batter.

Add the onions, spinach and coriander and mix through the batter.

Preheat the oil in a large pan until a square of bread dropped into the oil browns in seconds. Drop tablespoons of mixture into the hot oil and fry on both sides until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towel.

Just before serving, make up the salsa by combining all ingredients in a small bowl.

Serve with bhajis.

2. CELEBRATE

LAMB SHANKS WITH RED WINE CHOCOLATE CHILLI SAUCE

Add the fresh or dried chilli and taste to check seasoning.

If it requires a little more heat add a little extra chilli.

Serve with some creamy mash or cauliflower rice and green beans.

lemon or lime, soda or sparkling water, ice and a splash of vodka if you fancy.

250ml (1 cup) limoncello Splash of vodka, if using Zest and juice of 3 large lemons or 6 limes 1 litre ice-cold soda or sparkling water.

Ice cubes and lemon slices to garnish

3. BAKE

QUICK YEAST-FREE HOT CROSS MUFFINS

Quick yeastfree hot cross muffins

5. SWEET SURRENDER

Makes 8-12

Delicious enjoyed hot from the oven with butter or on the day of making. The muffins have all the hallmarks of an original hot cross bun — fragrant and lightly spiced with soft chewy centres studded with plump dried fruit and icing crosses on the top. Yet these are made in a fraction of the time and effort of traditional buns made with yeast.

I made the muffins in extra large silicone muffin cups which made 8. Using a standard muffin tray will make a dozen and for smaller bites in a a mini muffin tray you will get 18.

The muffins are made with dried cranberries and dried fruit.The cranberries can be replaced with the same amount of dried fruit.

You can replace the shanks with a small leg of lamb about 1.5kg or same amount of stewing lamb, removing the excess fat.

Serves 4-6

4-6 lamb shanks Salt and freshly ground black pepper Olive oil 1 large onion, chopped 1 stick of celery, sliced 2 cloves of garlic, crushed 1-2 red chillies, seeded and finely chopped A small handful of fresh thyme 1 large sprig of rosemary, remove fronds from stalk, 750ml (3 cups) red wine or chicken stock 1 x 400g can chopped tomatoes 45ml (3 tbsp) balsamic vinegar 85g dark chocolate, roughly chopped 1 fresh or dried chilli, sliced or broken

125g dried cranberries 250ml (1 cup) mixed dried cake fruit Boiling water 310g (2½ cups) self-raising flour OR same amount of cake flour, adding 10ml (2 tsp) baking powder 2.5ml (½ tsp) bicarbonate of soda 5ml (1 tsp) mixed spice 15ml (1 tbsp) ground cinnamon 2.5ml (½ tsp) ground cloves 170ml (¾ cup) sunflower oil 250ml (1 cup) amasi or buttermilk 2 large eggs 200g (1 cup) caster sugar Sugar glaze: 30ml (2 tbsp) sugar 30ml (2 tbsp) water Icing crosses:

Limoncello cooler

Trim and clean the lamb shanks of any gristle and season liberally with salt and pepper. Heat a little oil in the base of a large heavy-based pan and brown the shanks on all sides till golden brown. Remove and set aside.

Add the onion, garlic, chilli and herbs and sauté, adding extra olive oil if necessary.

Deglaze the pan with a little wine or stock.

Return the shanks to the pan with tomatoes and balsamic vinegar and pour over remaining wine or stock, ensuring the shanks are covered. If not, add water or extra stock.

Bring to the boil, reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 3 hours, adding extra liquid if needed, until the meat is tender and almost falling from the bone.

Remove shanks and keep them warm.

For the chocolate chilli sauce, strain the cooking liquid into another small pan. Add the chocolate and stir until melted.

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mid much cheerful drinking, every Good Friday a Royal Navy sailor adds a hot cross bun to a net of old buns from previous years hanging above the bar. Legend has it that in the 1820s a widow lived in a cottage which had stood on the site of the pub in the East End of London.

When her son, a sailor, wrote home asking to have a hot cross bun ready when he arrived home over Easter, she did. But he never arrived home, so she kept a bun for him and added one every year for the rest of her life.

A pub was built on the site of her cottage in 1848 and it carried on the tradition. The sad widow may have been simply keeping her yearly buns in a basket to follow the medieval belief that if you hung

In a large jug combine the limoncello and vodka if using. Add the lemon/lime zest and juice. Just before serving, pour over soda water. Top with ice and add lemon slices, if using, and serve.

S’MORES Makes 10

125ml (½ cup) icing sugar, sifted 10-15ml (2-3 tsp) fresh lemon juice Preheat the oven to 200° C. Place the fruit in a mixing bowl and pour over boiling water to cover. Set aside to soften for 10 minutes. Drain and dry.

In a large mixing bowl sift the flour, bicarb and spices.

In a jug combine the oil, amasi, eggs and caster sugar. Whisk until sugar has dissolved.

Make a well in the centre of dry ingredients and add the fruit and oil and egg mixture.

Using a wooden spoon stir through no more than seven times, or the muffins will rise unevenly. Spoon into muffin cups ensuring they are ¾ full.

Bake for 25-30 minutes for the large muffins and 20-25 minutes for standard and smaller muffins.

While they’re baking, combine the sugar and water for the glaze in a small pot, stirring over low heat until sugar has dissolved.

Remove the muffins from the oven and brush the tops with sugar syrup before cooling them completely.

Make the crosses by sifting the icing sugar and adding the lemon juice a teaspoon at a time to mix to a thickish glace icing. Place in an icing bag or plastic bag and snip corner. Pipe crosses on muffins and allow to set for a few minutes before serving.

TIP: For chocolate crosses add 10ml (2 tsp) cocoa powder to the icing sugar.

4. A TIPPLE

S’mores

LIMONCELLO COOLER MAKES A JUG

With the ban on the sale of alcohol you may find yourself rummaging through those dusty forgotten bottles in the back of the booze cupboard, as I did, and came upon a couple of bottles of limoncello made with last season’s lemons. Happiness. Add a sparkle with fresh

one hot cross bun up in the kitchen it would ward off evil spirits as they were holy and would never go stale. The buns were also believed to prevent house fires and even cure the sick if they were given a bite of one.

For devout Christians, the cross of course represented the cross of Christ, and the spices in them were a reminder of those used to embalm his body. The first-ever reference to “hot” cross buns in the Poor Robin’s Almanac (1733) also linked them to old women.

“Good Friday come this month, the old woman runs, With one or two a penny hot cross buns”.

Traditionally, a monk at St Alban’s Abbey north of London, Brother Thomas Rodecliffe, started

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The history of

THE HOT CROSS BUN

There are many tales about the origin of the Hot Cross Bun, writes Andrew Unsworth

LifeStyle | Food & Drink

12•04•2020

American in origin, these decadent fireside biscuit creations enclose a soft, squishy marshmallow that will delight any sweet tooth.

And because it’s Easter, double the joy with a filling of chocolate marshmallow eggs. I used Cadbury’s Fluffies only to discover they have purple centres but taste just as good.

For a surprise make a small slit in the bottom of the marshmallow egg and press a couple of Smarties, jelly babies or fruit gums into the centre of each egg. Get everyone involved in the preparation and heat over the coals or gas flame. For a dash of speed (and greed) microwave the s’mores on high for 30 seconds and watch how the marshmallow balloons and then pops in a sweet, squidgy puddle of yumminess coated in melted chocolate.

20 flat biscuits 10 chocolate marshmallow eggs Using a braai grid lay out half the biscuits on one side and top each with a marshmallow egg.

Top with another biscuit, pressing down lightly and close the grid.

Place over the coals or a gas flame and heat till the marshmallow softens and the chocolate melts. Serve immediately.

making buns spiced with cinnamon and marked with a cross in 1361 and handed them out to the poor. These Catholic traditions meant that Elizabethan Protestants disapproved of them.

The buns were too popular to ban outright but in 1592 the London Clerk of Markets limited their use to Good Friday, Christmas and at funerals. Anyone baking or selling them outside of those days would be forced to give them all to the poor.

The decree soon fell away and it unfortunately does not apply to modern supermarkets, which sell them all year. The price has also risen somewhat since the nursery rhyme first published in 1798: “One a penny, two a penny, hot

Sunday Times

cross buns!

If you have no daughters, give them to your sons, ‘One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns!”

For those uncomfortable with the religious affiliations of a little bun, there are options because the buns are probably far older than Christianity. Ancient Greeks and Romans made buns in honour of Diana, the goddess of the hunt.

Pagan Saxons baked crossed buns in spring to celebrate the fertility goddess, Eostre. Eostre was a beautiful young blonde woman fond of birds, spring flowers and young animals, including rabbits.

But no, neither hot cross buns nor Easter bunnies make you pregnant.

So, enjoy.

REVIEW

Sunday Times

Flamboyant redneck tiger breeder Joe Exotic inhabits a world in which people’s arms are ripped off and everyone owns at least 10 tigers. You’d better believe it, because it’s all true. Picture: Supplied

YOU HAVE TO WATCH ‘TIGER KING’: IT’S INSANE

20/21

If Netflix’s docuseries on the underworld of big cat breeding were a work of fiction, you wouldn’t believe it, writes Yolisa Mkele

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urder, madness and mayhem.

Seldom has a phrase so accurately encapsulated the events of a documentary. If you’ve not heard about or seen it yet, the new Netflix docuseries, Tiger King, is arguably the best coronavirus distraction anybody could have come up with.

Ostensibly the show documents the wacky life of tiger breeder Joe Exotic, the embodiment of redneck flamboyance, and his descent from mildly successful tiger salesman to US presidential candidate to prison inmate. Along the way it ropes in the insane cast of characters orbiting his life, including an arch nemesis who probably

fed her then-husband to her own ambush of tigers, a mentor whose own life is verging on a tiger cult, and a gaggle of Joe Exotic’s meth-addicted husbands, who may or may not be gay.

Trying to make out what’s going on in the show is an exercise in hillbilly astrophysics but, good God, it’s entertaining.

It starts out relatively innocuously with the show introducing Joe Exotic, Carole Baskin (the nemesis) and Doc Antle (the mentor). Each of them owns a bizarrely high number of tigers and other big cats.

Joe Exotic, who’s usually seen sporting a mullet and sequined shirt, runs the GW Zoo, an open-air menagerie where people

can interact with tigers, lions and other apex predators. Relying on a bunch of excons, drug addicts and a toothless husband who looks like he has meths with his corn flakes, Exotic operates the zoo with all the flair of a redneck Liberace with a drug problem.

Fighting to bring his operation down is Baskin, a lady more cooked than a burnt steak. On the surface she’s an activist hoping to topple the big cat trade in the US but it very quickly becomes apparent that she’s a tiger-striped rose by another name.

The feud between Baskin and Exotic is spectacular, with murder threats and accusations par for the course in their general interactions.

In short, someone gets an arm ripped off, husbands go missing, condom wrappers get printed with Exotic’s face on them, a con man gets involved and everybody snitches.

Oh, and everyone owns at least 10 tigers.

Tiger King is the kind of show that would have failed as a work of fiction because all of it is so epically unbelievable — and that’s what makes it such fun to watch. The real world sucks right now and the world of Joe Exotic is just the kind of escapism we all need. So get the popcorn out (if that’s still legal) and prepare for the wackiest examination of the human condition we’ve seen in a very long time.

Tiger King is on Netflix

BACKGROUND CHECK

How seriously do you take the opinions of ‘experts’ when the TV interview is beamed live from their living room, asks Juin Cassie PRESIDENTS & POLITICIANS

JOURNALISTS

BORIS JOHNSON From his sick bed, before he was admitted to intensive care, his backdrop featured a nice black and white etching of what looks like his favourite pub on the wall behind him.

Take him seriously, he was obviously planning to get back to normal as soon as possible — well, those plans have been scuppered.

DONALD TRUMP Always flanked by a bevy of sycophantic ‘yes men’ all within coughing distance.

Don’t take him seriously at all as he finds it difficult to stick to his own rules — he changes them every day, butts in and is known as being a spectacular example of the Dunning-Kruger effect — a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability.

ANDREW CUOMO The governor of New York chooses relevant backdrops — hospital yards, food banks, bustling ambulance parks,

Picture: www.123rf.com

plain black curtains and crumpled flags.

It’s very dramatic. Take him very seriously.

ALEXANDER LUKASHENKO The president of Belarus’s backdrop is an ice hockey pitch while he advocates drinking copious amounts of vodka and doing lots of exercise as a cure all. Not really to be taken seriously. On the other hand, he might be right.

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reduced to filming at desolate airports or from sparsely decorated rooms. Take them seriously if they have an earnest expression and a new story.

LOCAL REPORTERS Nine out of 10 times there’s a bookcase with shelves containing books graded in size and colour co-ordinated plus a set of 1960s encyclopaedias that have never been opened. Take no notice.

Bookshelves with books, framed photographs of dogs/children, an ugly vase or a nondescript watercolour all give a welcoming family feel. Take more seriously as you can generally relate and see they care.

Books and greenery: healthy pot plants on the windowsill — listen, they’re keen for everyone to survive.

Enormous triffid-type plant straight out of the Little Shop of Horrors which might gobble them up any moment: fascinating, but takes your mind off what they’re saying. They’re possibly more interested in saving the planet anyway. Ignore.

THE NUTTY PSYCHOLOGIST His cluttered backdrop includes a world globe, half a bookcase filled with motley paperbacks, a large triffid and what looks like a map of Benoni. Very confused, as is his message. Can’t take seriously.

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS Now the bars are closed and the streets are empty it makes it difficult to illustrate a story. No bullets, no bombs, no trudging refugees. Foreign correspondents are

MEDICAL DOCTORS Hospital backgrounds. Take very seriously indeed, except for the one who appeared on Love Island. Can you take anyone from Love Island seriously?

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Sunday Times

HEAR YE, HEAR YE GET YOUR QUARANTUNES HERE

HEALTH EXPERTS THE NUTTY PROFESSOR You’ll spend more time looking at the background than listening to the message. You live in fear and dread that this fragile man will disappear under an avalanche of files, books and dirty coffee cups teetering on the shelf behind him.

You can take him seriously next time, once you’re used to the backdrop.

To ease the lockdown blues, Gallo Record Company has released a series of five-song playlists featuring some of the music label’s top artists, including The Parlotones and Idols winner Luyolo Yiba.

Playlist titles include Don’t Touch Your Face - Just Move Your Feet and Mom’s Not Available Right Now Go Bug Your Dad. Playlists are available on Gallo’s website, Facebook and Twitter pages, and can be played through any streaming service.

Book Bites

CRIME IN A TIME OF EXTREMISM

All books are available as eBooks

fellow classmates, especially Dash Maynard. Wilde searches for Naomi and becomes embroiled in the lives of Dash’s parents, Crash and Delia, and through them, Rusty Eggers, a true-to-the-books-worse-thanvomit presidential candidate.

It’s the first of Coben’s novels that delves so much into politics. “It’s reflecting what I’m seeing,” he says.

“It’s not my intention with this book to be right wing or left wing.

There’s no stand here. It’s about how we are living in an era of extremism, in an era of misinformation, fake news and manipulation. This is something that we can all agree on.

At the same time, incredibly important is that the last thing I want to do is have more politics. We have enough of that. I want people to pick this book up at 10 or 11 at night and not be able to put down. My job is to entertain you. It is to make your world disappear for a while.”

Coben’s thrillers are gripping page-turners. In 30 years he has written 32 books and has sold over 70 million copies worldwide. His books have also been adapted for a few Netflix limited series. There’s Safe, with Dexter’s Michael C Hall, about a doctor whose daughter goes missing, set in England (not New Jersey as it was in the book) and the latest sensation, The Stranger, also set in England. More are to come.

I ask if his writing has changed now that his domestic thrillers have become successful TV adaptations.

Coben immediately responds by saying never, not at all.

“The biggest kiss of death for a book is to write it thinking that it will make a great TV series. And the opposite of that is true; you never write a TV series thinking that it will make a great book. It’s one of the reasons why I am willing to make changes, add twists, bring in characters. I keep the heart and soul of the book, but it’s a different experience. It’s a great deal of fun to change things, and I want to make it fun for those that have read the book.”

Coben goes on to say: “It’s like the famous quote from James Cain, who wrote The Postman Always Rings Twice: ‘People tell me, don’t you care what they’ve done to your book? I tell them, they haven’t done anything to my book. It’s right there on the shelf’.”

Harlan Coben adds politics to his oeuvre but espouses no ideologies, only entertaining thrills, writes Jennifer Platt

A

ny new writing project ought to be a book that the writer doesn’t feel equal to the task of writing. Writing what you know you are perfectly capable of putting into words I call journalism. No book was more difficult for me to write than A Childhood Made Up, the intensely personal story of growing up with a mother who I loved deeply but who was diagnosed as schizophrenic. Yet I knew I had to write it.

My mother’s life was a constant battle with a tragic, debilitating mental condition, hardly understood in South Africa in the 1970s, even less so when she was first hospitalised in the 1950s in Valkenberg. She tried to have a normal life and, against her doctors’ advice, proceeded to marry and have children, me being the youngest.

There are possibly over 250,000 people with schizophrenia in South Africa. The number of family members affected is a great multiple of these. Yet stigma and silence pervade.

A handful of people suffering from schizophrenia have penned their own stories, even fewer tell the story of growing up with a schizophrenic parent because of the difficulty of coming to terms with what is a very confusing experience for a child.

I was also motivated by my deep irritation with how schizophrenia is more often than not grossly misrepresented in books and

Picture: Pexel.com

W

ilde has been living in self isolation for most of his life “in a customised spheroid-shape pod called an Ecocapsule … a micro smart house or off-the grid eco-abode ... created by a Slovakian friend he met while serving in the Gulf”, writes Harlan Coben in his latest book, The Boy From the Woods. Sounds like paradise now.

I speak to Coben via telephone at his home in New Jersey, the state where most of his books are set. He says he got the idea for this book while hiking in the Ramapo Mountain State Forest.

“I was hiking in the same woods I use in this book. I don’t think many people know that the Appalachian mountain range goes all the way to New Jersey and that it forms the Ramapo Mountains. So I was hiking, and it’s not something I particularly like to do, and I’m kinda getting bored and I saw this boy walking who was about six. And all my fiction writing starts with a what if.

What if we just found this kid? And I thought of this character, this boy just found in the woods. Who has no idea how he got there.

Who doesn’t know anything about his life before. He’s sort of feral and he has to break into cabins to find food. And what if 30 years go past and he still has no clue to who he is and another kid goes missing in the woods?

This seed became The Boy From the Woods.”

Wilde is all kinds of awesome — the stereotypical fantasy: smart, strong, tall, handsome and mysterious. The woods are his, since he was left there as a child. As Coben says: “It’s almost like they gave birth to him. The woods are his parents.”

Wilde is contacted by 70-year-old lawyer Hester Crimstein, a beloved character well-

The Boy From the Woods

★★★★

Harlan Coben, Century, R290

known to Coben’s readers. Her grandson, Matthew, is concerned about his classmate, Naomi, who is missing. Like Wilde, Naomi does not fit in and is ruthlessly bullied by her

Jacket Notes BRENT MEERSMAN

films, even highly acclaimed ones. Having had long discussions with my mother in her later life, I was able to draw on this intimate account of her psychotic experiences. I also had her letters and diaries and her paintings.

She was a talented artist.

Faced by such a daunting task, I first wrote A Childhood Made Up as a novel, 21

LifeStyle

The Trouble With My Aunt ★★★ Hedi Lampert, Porcupine Press, R290 Leah Fine has always been a single, selfdisciplined career woman until a fling leaves her pregnant. As she debates continuing the pregnancy, she begins to probe into her family’s past. The truth reveals her Aunt Vi’s intellectual disabilities were not caused by poor prenatal care but due to Fragile X, an inheritable genetic mutation. Based on real events, this heart-warming family saga, spread over three generations of women, will be an entertaining, educational delight.

Tiah Beautement @ms_tiahmarie

Reggie & Me ★★★ James Hendry, Pan Macmillan, R290 Through the eyes of a young boy during apartheid South Africa, the reader embarks on a journey of discovering hard truths about ordinary life. It’s tough to be a shy child who has no friends and speaks from the heart when restraint is expected. Grappling with the unfairness of white privilege while still enjoying its benefits, Hamish Charles Sutherland Fraser is on the slow journey of becoming a man. And the transition isn’t always easy. This is a beautifully crafted novel. Jessica Levitt @jesslevitt

@Jenniferdplatt

The Boy From the Woods is available as an audio and eBook.

referring to myself in the third person. It was an extremely fast-paced, almost manic book and darkly comic; someone compared its style to Kurt Vonnegut. I’m rather fond of it.

Having completed the novel version, I was ready to confront my past more directly.

The role of a writer in society is to articulate things we have all felt and done but which we have not articulated yet for ourselves or would prefer not to own up to in public.

I learnt a great deal writing this book and I wish such a memoir had been available to me when I was growing up struggling to understand my mother and what was happening to our family.

We are all a little bit mad and there is much reason and truth in madness too. As psychoanalyst Christopher Bollas puts it: schizophrenia can be seen “as an understandable way of responding to our precariousness in a highly unpredictable world”.

I hope this book does much more than entertain, move and sometimes amuse readers, but is a testament to a brave and talented and often misunderstood woman, my mother.

A Childhood Made Up: Living with My Mother’s Madness by Brent Meersman is published by Tafelberg. Available as an eBook.

12•04•2020

Sunday Times

The Holdout ★★★★★ Graham Moore, Orion, R285 Ten years ago Maya Seale agreed to take on jury duty, partly because she didn’t have much else to do and partly because of her strong sense of social responsibility. She had no idea the next four months would come to define her life in both good and terrible ways: good because she found her calling and went to law school; bad because she convinced the jury to set free a man widely believed to have murdered a 15-year-old, and for this she was hounded, isolated and vilified. Now a criminal defence lawyer, Maya is horrified when her boss insists she attend a reunion of the jury members who presided over this infamous case. They are hosted in the same hotel where they were sequestered a decade ago, for the taping of a documentary.

When one of them is murdered, suspicion falls on the rest of them as well as on others related to the still-unsolved case. In trying to clear her own name and find out if she was wrong in her original judgment, Maya wades ever deeper into the secrets and lies of others and has to reassess her own view of justice. She holds fast to the belief that if guilt cannot be incontrovertibly proven then it cannot be possible to convict a suspect: “The fate they would all have to live with was the hardest one to accept — that they would never know for sure.” Fortunately, the same does not hold true for the mysteries in Moore’s novel. The solutions, once they are teased out, are both surprising and satisfying. Sue de Groot @deGrootS1

Television

Sunday Times Page 22 April 12, 2020

SUNDAY April 12 SABC1

05:00 Geleza Nathi | 06:00 Teenagers on a Mission | 07:00 Siyakholwa | 07:30 Bonisinani | 08:00 Imvelo | 08:30 Gospel Avenue | 09:30 Skeem Saam (omnibus) | 12:00 Uzalo (omnibus) | 14:30 Safa Women’s League soccer: University of Johannesburg v Mamelodi Sundowns (recorded on September 8 2019) | 16:00 Safa Women’s League soccer: Tshwane University of Technology v University of Johannesbrug (recorded on September 14 2019) | 17:30 Gospel Unplugged | 18:00 Break Da Beat | 19:00 News | 19:30 FILM: Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014) (13) Sci-fi action adventure | 21:30 The Agent | 22:30 Loxion Lyric | 23:30 Selimathunzi

SABC2

05:00 Raven the Little Rascal | 06:00 Numtums | 06:30 Music and the Spoken Word | 07:00 Morning Live | 08:30 7de Laan (omnibus) | 11:00 Simcha | 11:30 Oh My God | 12:30 Music and the Spoken Word | 13:30 Sport on 2 | 14:30 Countdown to Tokyo | 15:00 The A-Team | 16:00 Good Friday Special | 16:30 Gospel Superfest Holiday | 18:00 Nuus | 18:15 News | 18:30 Red Cake — Not the Cooking Show | 19:00 The Cube | 20:00 Speak Out | 20:30 RSVP: Dare to Change | 21:00 Titans | 22:00 Supernatural | 22:30 Hosanna | 23:30 Full View

SABC3

05:00 Special Assignment | 05:30 Psalted (double bill) | 06:30 An Nur | 07:00 Sadhana | 07:30 Chuck’s Choice | 08:00 Www.ExFrontiers | 08:30 Nowhere Boys 09:00 Terrific Trucks | 09:30 Isidingo (omnibus) | 12:00 Top Billing | 13:00 The Table | 13:30 Funny You Should Ask (double bill) | 14:30 FILM: Vanamagan (2017) (13) Action adventure | 17:30 Mela | 18:30 Animal Babies | 19:30 Spirit | 20:30 Joyride | 21:00 News @ 21:00 | 21:30 FILM: Love Me If You Dare (2003) (16) Romantic comedy drama | 23:30 Koze Kuse

e.tv

05:00 Just for Laughs Gags | 05:30 Joseph Prince: New Creation Church TV | 06:00 I Am Soul Precious | 06:30 Camp Sizanani | 07:00 Care Bears: Unlock the Magic | 07:25 Elena of Avalor | 07:55 Trolls | 08:25 Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu | 09:00 Rhythm City (omnibus) | 11:00 Checkpoint | 11:30 Films and Stars | 12:00 Just for Laughs Gags | 12:05 FILM: Despicable Me (2010) (PG) Animation | 14:00 FILM: Men in Black (1997) (PG) Sci-fi action adventure comedy | 16:00 Impact | 18:00 Family Feud USA | 19:00 eNews | 19:30 Blackish | 20:00 FILM: The Medallion (2003) (13) Fantasy action comedy | 21:50 eKasi: Our Stories | 22:50 FILM: Resurrecting the Champ (2007) (13) Drama

M-Net

06:00 American Housewife | 06:30 The Unicorn | 07:00 Splitting Up Together | 07:30 Young Sheldon | 08:00 Homefest: James Corden’s Late Late Special | 09:00 American Idol (double bill) | 13:00 FILM: The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017) (PG) Animation | 14:50 The Bachelor South Africa | 16:00 Great Parks of Africa | 17:00 MasterChef Junior USA | 18:00 Survivor | 19:00 Carte Blanche | 20:05 FILM: Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (2019) (13) Action adventure | 22:20 Last week Tonight with John Oliver | 22:55 Still Breathing 23:45 FILM: Amundsen (2019) (PG) Norwegian historical drama

MONDAY April 13 SABC1

06:00 Kids News and Current Affairs | 06:30 New Ben 10 | 07:00 YoTV | 08:00 Generations: The Legacy | 08:30 Muvhango | 09:00 Uzalo | 09:30 Skeem Saam | 10:00 Nomzamo | 10:30 Daily Thetha | 11:30 The Real Goboza | 12:00 Yilungelo Lakho | 13:00 Mi Kasi Su Kasi | 13:30 Mam Sakhile’s Story House | 14:00 Break Da Beat | 15:00 Degrassi | 15:30 YoTV Live | 16:30 The Chatroom | 17:00 Zaziwa | 17:28 Aum | 17:30 News | 18:00 Orange Couch | 18:30 Skeem Saam | 19:00 News | 19:30 Sgudi' Snaysi | 20:00 Generations: The Legacy | 20:30 Uzalo | 21:00 20 Years Of Loxion Kulca | 22:00 Against All Odds | 23:00 Making Moves

SABC2

05:00 Baby TV | 05:30 Thabang Thabong | 05:57 Motheo | 06:00 Morning Live | 09:00 SABC News: Covid-19 updates | 09:30 Going Strong | 10:00 Voetspore | 11:00 7de Laan | 11:30 Muvhango | 12:00 Uzalo | 12:30 Generations | 13:00 Skeem Saam | 13:30 Ga Re Dumele | 14:00 Magnum PI | 15:00 Dinopaws | 15:30 YoTV | 16:00 Epic Hangout | 16:30 Hectic 9Nine | 17:00 Naruto | 17:30 News | 18:00 7de Laan | 18:30 Nuus | 19:00 Voetspore | 20:00 Nuus | 20:15 News | 20:30 Leihlo La Sechaba | 21:00 Muvhango | 21:30 Lithapo | 22:00 FILM: Disturbia (2007) (16) Crime | 23:30 Full View

SABC3

05:00 Xcellerate | 05:30 I am a Work of Art | 06:00 FILM: Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus (2005) (PG) Animation | 07:00 Expresso | 09:00 Top Chef Junior | 10:00 News | 11:00 Isidingo | 11:30 Judge Faith Jenkins | 12:00 Magnum PI | 13:00 On Point 14:30 Truth Be Told | 15:00 Vibez | 15:30 Rat Race | 16:00 Hectic on 3 | 16:30 Judge Faith Jenkins | 17:00 The Backstory | 18:00 Top Chef Junior | 19:00 Isidingo | 19:30 Survivor | 20:30 Unfiltered | 21:00 News @ 21:00 | 21:30 MotherFatherSon | 22:30 High Rollers | 23:30 Magnum PI

e.tv

05:00 Cool Catz Legacy | 05:30 Judge Judy | 06:00 The Planet’s Funniest Animals | 06:30 Friends: Girls on a Mission | 06:50 FILM: Diagnosis Delicious (2016) (PG) Family drama | 08:30 Tanto Amor: So Much Love | 09:30 Days of Our Lives | 10:30 Gebroke Harte | 11:30 Rhythm City | 12:00 Scandal! | 12:30 Imbewu: The Seed | 13:00 eNews | 14:00 The Wild | 14:30 Peppa Pig | 14:35 Care Bears: Unlock the Magic | 15:00 PJ Masks | 15:15 Wissper | 15:30 Transformers | 15:55 AI Football GGO | 16:20 Judge Judy | 16:45 Days of Our Lives | 17:30 Bittersoet | 18:30 e.tv News - Covid-19 update | 19:00 Rhythm City | 19:30 Scandal! | 20:00 eNews | 20:30 Chicago Fire | 21:30 Imbewu: The Seed | 22:00 Queen Sugar | 23:00 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

M-Net

06:00 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 07:00 MasterChef Australia | 08:00 The Unicorn | 08:30 Survivor | 09:25 MasterChef Junior USA | 10:20 The Bachelor South Africa | 11:30 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 12:30 MasterChef Australia | 13:30 Carte Blanche | 14:30 The Code | 15:30 Starlight Classics March 2020 | 17:00 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 18:00 MasterChef Australia | 19:00 Station 19 | 20:00 Grey’s Anatomy | 21:00 Little Fires Everywhere | 22:05 Westworld | 23:10 The Late Late Show with James Corden

TUESDAY April 14 SABC1

06:00 Kids News and Current Affairs | 06:30 Wild Soccer Bunch | 07:00 YoTV | 08:00 Generations: The Legacy | 08:30 Muvhango | 09:00 Uzalo | 09:30 Skeem Saam | 10:00 Nomazmo | 10:30 Daily Thetha | 11:30 Instapreneurs | 12:00 Against All Odds | 13:00 Lunch Time News | 13:30 Mam Sakhile’s Story House | 14:00 Break Da Beat | 15:00 Degrassi | 15:30 YoTV Live | 16:30 Yilungelo Lakho | 17:28 Izwi La Bantu | 17:30 News | 18:00 Nyan Nyan | 18:30 Skeem Saam | 19:00 News | 19:30 Selimathunzi | 20:00 Generations | 20:30 Uzalo | 21:00 Expressions | 21:30 Cutting Edge | 22:00 Nyan Nyan | 22:30 The Chatroom

SABC2

05:00 Go Jetters | 05:30 Thabang Thabong | 06:00 Morning Live | 09:00 SABC News: Covid-19 updates | 09:30 Ke Zaka | 10:00 Meeulanders | 11:00 7de Laan | 11:30 Muvhango | 12:00 Uzalo | 12:30 Generations | 13:00 Skeem Saam | 13:30 Ga Re Dumele | 14:00 Magnum PI | 15:00 Dinopaws | 15:30 YoTV | 16:00 Epic Hangout | 16:30 Hectic Nine-9 | 17:00 Naruto | 17:30 News | 18:00 7de Laan | 18:30 Nuus | 19:00 Dekatv | 19:30 Melody | 20:00 Nuus | 20:30 Nhlalala Ya Rixaka | 21:00 Muvhango | 21:30 Lithapo | 22:00 Gospel Superfest Holiday | 23:00 Naruto | 23:30 Full View

SABC3

05:00 Chuck’s Choice | 05:30 Www.ExFrontiers | 06:00 FILM: Casper: A Spirited Beginning (1997) (PG) Animation | 07:00 Expresso | 09:00 Top Chef Junior | 10:00 News | 11:00 Isidingo | 11:30 Judge Faith Jenkins | 12:00 The ATeam | 13:00 On Point | 14:30 Unfiltered | 15:00 Vibez | 15:30 Rat Race | 16:00

Ease the homebound blues with a vicarious trip to the South Pole with the historical adventure film ’Amundsen’, tonight on M-Net at 11.45pm. If sci-fi is more your thing, ’The Day the Earth Stood Still’ (below) airs on e.tv on Saturday at 9.50pm.

Hectic on 3 | 16:30 Judge Faith Jenkins | 17:00 The Backstory | 18:00 Top Chef Junior | 19:00 Isidingo | 19:30 Tropica Island of Treasure | 20:30 Special Assignment | 21:00 News | 21:30 MotherFatherSon | 22:30 High Rollers

e.tv

05:00 Camp Sizanani | 05:30 Judge Judy | 06:00 The Planet’s Funniest Animals | 06:30 Friends: Girls on a Mission | 06:50 FILM: Operation: Neighborhood Watch! (2015) (PG) Family adventure | 08:30 Tanto Amor: So Much Love | 09:30 Days of Our Lives | 10:30 Gebroke Harte | 11:30 Rhythm City | 12:00 Scandal! | 12:30 Imbewu: The Seed | 13:00 eNews | 14:00 The Wild | 14:30 Peppa Pig | 14:35 Care Bears: Unlock the Magic | 15:00 Elena of Avalor | 15:30 Dreamworks Dragons | 15:55 Pokémon | 16:30 Judge Judy | 16:45 Days of Our Lives | 17:30 Bittersoet | 18:30 e.tv News - Covid-19 update | 19:00 Rhythm City | 19:30 Scandal! | 20:00 eNews | 20:30 Chicago Fire | 21:02 Powerball (insert) | 21:30 Imbewu: The Seed | 22:00 Checkpoint | 22:30 Forensic Files | 23:00 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

M-Net

06:00 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 06:55 MasterChef Australia | 08:00 Supernanny USA | 09:00 Madam Secretary | 10:00 Starlight Classics March 2020 | 11:30 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 12:30 MasterChef Australia | 13:35 American Idol | 15:30 The Code | 16:20 The Goldbergs | 16:50 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 17:50 MasterChef Australia | 19:00 Chicago Fire | 20:00 Chicago Med | 21:00 Chicago PD | 22:00 Shameless | 23:05 The Late Late Show with James Corden

WEDNESDAY April 15 SABC1

06:00 Kids News and Current Affairs | 06:30 Marco Polo | 07:00 YoTV | 08:00 Generations: The Legacy | 08:30 Muvhango | 09:00 Uzalo | 09:30 Skeem Saam | 10:00 Nomzamo | 10:30 Daily Thetha | 11:30 Gospel Unplugged | 12:00 The Chatroom | 12:30 iDentity | 13:00 Lunch Time News | 13:30 Mam Sakhile’s Story House | 14:00 Khumbul'ekhaya | 15:00 Degrassi | 15:30 YoTV Live | 16:30 Ispani | 17:28 Listen for a Moment | 17:30 News | 18:00 Mi Kasi Su Kasi | 18:30 Skeem Saam | 19:00 News | 19:30 NFVF Films: Hells on Wheels | 20:00 Generations | 20:30 Uzalo | 21:00 Khumbul'ekhaya | 22:00 Sport @ 10

SABC2

05:00 GoJetters | 05:30 Thabang Thabong | 06:00 Morning Live | 09:00 SABC News: Covid-19 updates | 09:30 Stories Untold | 10:00 Health Talk | 11:00 7de Laan | 11:30 Muvhango | 12:00 Uzalo | 12:30 Generations | 13:00 Skeem Saam | 13:30 Lithapo | 14:00 Magnum PI | 15:00 Akili and Me | 15:30 YoTV | 16:00 Disney Cookabout | 16:30 Hectic Nine-9 | 17:00 Naruto | 17:30 News | 18:00 7de Laan | 18:30 Nuus | 19:00 Fokus | 19:30 The Riviera | 20:00 News | 20:30 Ngula Ya Vutivi/Zwa Maramani | 20:56 Live Lotto draw | 21:00 Muvhango | 21:30 Lithapo | 22:00 Health Talk | 23:00 Naruto | 23:30 Full View

SABC3

05:00 48 Hours | 05:30 Restyle My Style | 06:00 FILM: Barbie: The Princess and the Popstar (2012) (PG) Animation | 07:00 Expresso | 09:00 Top Chef Junior | 10:00 News | 11:00 Isidingo | 11:30 Judge Faith Jenkins | 12:00 Knight Rider | 13:00 On Point | 14:30 Special Assignment | 15:00 Vibez | 15:30 Rat Race | 16:00 Hectic on 3 | 16:30 Judge Faith Jenkins | 17:00 The Backstory | 17:30 Top Chef Junior | 19:00 Isidingo | 19:30 Ready for Love | 20:30 At the Table | 21:00 News @ 21:00 | 21:30 Narcos | 22:30 High Rollers

e.tv

e.tv

05:00 Just for Laughs Gags | 05:30 Judge Judy | 06:00 The Planet’s Funniest Animals | 06:30 Friends: Girls on a Mission | 06:50 FILM: Lucky Dog (2015) (PG) Family comedy | 08:30 Tanto Amor: So Much Love | 09:30 Days of Our Lives | 10:30 Gebroke Harte | 11:30 Rhythm City | 12:00 Scandal! | 12:30 Imbewu: The Seed | 13:00 News Day | 14:00 The Wild | 14:30 Peppa Pig | 14:35 Care Bears: Unlock the Magic | 15:00 Lego Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu | 15:30 Spirit Riding Free | 15:55 Trolls | 16:20 Judge Judy | 16:45 Days of Our Lives | 17:30 Bittersoet | 18:30 e.tv News - Covid-19 update | 19:00 Rhythm City | 19:30 Scandal! | 20:00 eNews | 20:30 Chicago Fire | 21:30 Imbewu: The Seed | 22:00 The Fixer | 23:00 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

M-Net

06:00 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 06:50 MasterChef Australia | 08:00 Young Sheldon | 08:30 Chicago Fire | 09:30 Chicago Med | 10:30 This Is Us | 11:25 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 12:25 MasterChef Australia | 13:35 Station 19 | 14:30 Grey’s Anatomy | 15:30 The Code | 16:30 The Goldbergs | 17:00 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 18:00 MasterChef Australia | 19:00 The Bachelor South Africa | 20:10 Still Breathing | 21:10 Madam Secretary | 22:05 Noughts and Crosses | 23:15 The Late Late Show with James Corden

FRIDAY April 17 SABC1

06:00 Kids News and Current Affairs | 06:30 Jabu’s Jungle | 07:00 YoTV | 08:00 Generations: The Legacy | 08:30 Muvhango | 09:00 Uzalo | 09:30 Skeem Saam | 10:00 Nomzamo | 10:30 Big Up | 11:00 Throwback Thursday | 11:30 Live Amp | 12:00 Imizwilili | 13:00 Lunch Time News | 13:30 Mam Sakhile’s Story House | 14:00 The Chatroom | 14:30 Teenagers on a Mission | 15:00 Sportbuzz | 15:30 YoTV Live | 16:30 Restyle My Style | 17:90 My Nights | 17:28 Reflections of Faith | 17:30 News | 18:00 Lip Sync Battle | 18:30 Skeem Saam | 19:00 News | 19:30 Live Amp | 20:00 Generations: The Legacy | 20:30 Uzalo | 21:00 FILM: Shaolin Temple (1982) (16) Action drama | 23:00 Mzansi Insider

SABC2

05:00 Go Jetters | 05:30 Thabang Thabong | 06:00 Morning Live | 09:00 SABC News: Covid-19 updates | 09:30 Koskaskenades | 10:00 Musiek Roulette | 11:00 7de Laan | 11:30 Muvhango | 12:00 Uzalo | 12:30 Generations | 13:00 Skeem Saam | 13:30 Lithapo | 14:00 Magnum PI | 15:00 Akili and Me | 15:30 YoTV | 16:00 Against All Odds | 16:30 Hectic Nine-9 | 17:00 Naruto | 17:30 News | 18:00 7de Laan | 18:30 Nuus | 19:00 Soul’d Out Sessions | 19:30 #Karektas | 20:00 News | 20:30 Visionaries | 21:00 Muvhango | 21:30 Mopheme | 22:00 Mmampodi | 22:30 Boxing magazine show | 23:30 Naruto

SABC3

05:00 Nowhere Boys | 05:30 Terrific Trucks | 06:00 FILM: Barbie in a Mermaid Tale (2010) (PG) Animation | 07:00 Expresso | 09:00 Top Chef Junior | 10:00 News | 11:00 Isidingo | 11:30 Judge Faith Jenkins | 12:00 Miami Vice | 13:00 On Point | 14:30 At the Table | 15:00 Vibez | 15:30 Rat Race | 16:00 Hectic on 3 | 16:30 Judge Faith Jenkins | 17:00 The Backstory | 18:00 Top Chef Junior | 19:00 Isidingo | 19:30 Christina Milian Turned Up | 20:30 Truth Be Told | 21:00 News @ 21:00 | 22:00 FILM: Fatal Memories (2015) (PG) Thriller | 23:30 The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe

e.tv

05:00 Life by Design | 05:30 Judge Judy | 06:00 The Morning Show 08:00 The Morning News | 08:30 Tanto Amor: So Much Love | 09:30 Days of Our Lives | 10:30 Gebroke Harte | 11:30 Rhythm City | 12:00 Scandal! | 12:30 Imbewu: The Seed | 13:00 News Day | 14:00 The Wild | 14:30 FILM: Once Upon a Forest (1993) (PG) Animation | 16:20 Just for Laughs: Gags | 15:55 Judge Judy | 16:45 Days of Our Lives | 17:30 Bittersoet | 18:30 e.tv News - Covid-19 update | 19:00 Rhythm City | 19:30 Scandal! | 20:00 eNews | 20:30 Chicago Fire | 21:00 Powerball (insert) | 21:30 Imbewu: The Seed | 22:00 FILM: Eliminators (2016) (16) Action thriller | 23:55 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

05:00 Cool Catz Legacy | 05:30 Judge Judy | 06:00 The Planet’s Funniest Animals | 06:30 Friends: Girls on a Mission | 06:50 FILM: The Wedding Chapel (2013) (PG) Family drama | 08:30 Tanto Amor: So Much Love | 09:30 Days of Our Lives | 10:30 Gebroke Harte | 11:30 Rhythm City | 12:00 Scandal! | 12:30 Imbewu: The Seed | 13:00 News Day | 14:00 The Wild | 14:30 Peppa Pig | 14:35 Care Bears: Unlock the Magic | 15:00 Barbie Dreamtopia | 15:15 The Littlest Pet Shop | 15:30 Supa Strikas | 15:55 Power Rangers Ninja Steel | 16:20 Judge Judy | 16:45 Days of Our Lives | 17:30 Bittersoet | 18:30 e.tv News - Covid-19 update | 19:00 Rhythm City | 19:30 Scandal! | 20:00 eNews | 20:30 Chicago Fire | 21:30 Imbewu: The Seed | 22:00 Kingdom | 23:10 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

M-Net

06:00 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 06:50 MasterChef Australia | 08:00 Splitting Up Together | 08:30 Station 19 | 09:30 Grey’s Anatomy | 10:30 Supernanny USA | 11:25 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 12:25 MasterChef Oz | 13:35 American Idol | 15:25 The Code | 16:20 Abby’s | 16:50 The Kelly Clarkson Show | 17:50 MasterChef Oz | 19:00 American Dynasties: The Bush Years | 20:00 9-1-1 | 21:00 Prodigal Son | 22:00 Jett | 23:05 The Late Late Show with James Corden

SABC1

M-Net

THURSDAY April 16 SABC1

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Trapped by the prison of gender We’d all love to escape circumstances not of our making, but it’s hardly ever possible, writes Darrel Bristow-Bovey

23/24

I

have always loved the word “escape”. I was once locked down in study week before my law exams when a friend sent me a handwritten note. “Let’s escape,” it read. Oh, how my heart swelled and soared. He picked me up in a battered old VW Beetle, and for that glorious night (and others), we escaped and I was alive. Of course, it meant I didn’t write my final law exams that year, so I am not a lawyer now. So I suppose it was a double escape.

Everyone knows about Houdini. He was a very mediocre illusionist and magician when he discovered a fundamental truth: not everyone can escape, so we love to watch others do it (and a small part of us is always watching for them to fail).

Houdini reinvented himself as an escapologist. “No prison can hold Houdini!” shouted his posters, and people flocked to watch him jump manacled from bridges or break free from sealed milk cans filled with water or twist inside a straitjacket while dangling over Times Square. He was loved by workers and labourers and immigrants who felt trapped in circumstances beyond their making, pinned by a big machine from beneath which they could never wriggle. Houdini gave them hope — or showed them what it looked like.

So everyone knows about Houdini, but I wish we could know more about one of his rivals, the female escapologist, Minerva.

We don’t even know her real name. It might have been Margaretha van Dorn, but it could also have been Minna Riedel or Marge Snelling. We know she sometimes worked with the Amazing Vano, the Handcuff Expert. We know she performed many handcuffed bridge jumps and Buried Alive routines and claimed to have escaped

By Linda Shaw NOMASONTA MAKENA April 5 1964, Joburg, 03h00 Sun sign: Aries Moon sign: Capricorn Rising sign: Aquarius Nothing has come easy for you and you’ve always had to fight for what you wanted. But you have the heart of a lion, and enough courage to take on the universe single-handed. What trips you up is your lack of self esteem. Your childhood left you feeling worthless and, despite a wonderful determination to keep going, your sense of yourself has never improved. Difficult relationships have added to your fear of being unloveable. But your search for truth and beauty has kept your spirit alive. You’ve made your own money and despite challenges, you’ve always managed to pay the bills. Now is the time to seize your power and improve your life. The next two years offer opportunities you’ll need to consider carefully. For now, learn to trust yourself. You have wonderful instincts and the courage to take your life to a new level. Start soon.

Want your chart read?

E-mail linda@hixnet.co.za

Talented escape artist Minerva was so popular that Harry Houdini sued her for stealing his ideas — but she could not escape being a woman. Picture: Supplied

from 173 different prisons, and was paid the princely sum of $75 for a week of performing escapes at Merryland Park in Cumberland, Maryland, in 1908.

We know that she became so popular that Houdini himself sued her, accusing her of stealing his Milk-Can Escape routine (hers was the Water Barrel Escape, and she was actually more heavily bound than Houdini was). We also know that in a counter-suit she accused Houdini’s people of putting acid in her water barrel during a tour of England. We know that in 1913 she married the illusionist, Guy Jarrett, the man who designed the trick that enabled Bela Lugosi to appear and disappear in the original stage production of Dracula, and that after the wedding she suddenly

ARIES Mar 21 - April 19 Even with every bicep rippling and every socket plugged in, not even you can manage everything at once. Which means you’ll have to ask for help or learn to tackle one task at a time. Surrender the idea that you’re in charge of anything and you’ll slowly find gears you didn’t know you had. This is one of those times when you’ll move beyond your comfort zones and connect with something larger than yourself.

TAURUS Apr 20 - May 20 None of this is easy. Your life is at a crossroads, and you have no idea which fork to take. So stand still. Write down every random thought until there’s a thread that makes sense. While you’re waiting for inspiration, schedule activities that make you feel nurtured and loved. No point waiting for someone else to do it.

Your relationship needs are changing.

Take your time unearthing a new you.

GEMINI May 21 - June 20 You’re panicking. Half the time you’re convinced the world is doomed and there’s no way out. And the other half is devoted to that long-forgotten optimism and a conviction that everything is going to be fine. Stop dwelling. Do the little things that keep your natural optimism afloat. Most important of all, keep networking. The more people you connect with, the greater your impact.

stopped performing, and that is all we know.

I’m a great fan of Houdini, and he had scores of rivals and imitators, most of whom are forgotten today, but it seems especially terrible that Minerva should be so lost to history. She could escape being padlocked in a hessian sack and dropped into the freezing Potomac River, but she couldn’t escape the erasing glare of Houdini’s fame, or maybe being a woman in a man’s job, or perhaps, like many women before her, she just couldn’t escape the Buried Alive of marriage.

I feel bad that I can’t tell you more about Minerva, so instead I offer you a real-life escape. In 1830 the Limerick gaol in Ireland held a large number of women, most of

them named Mary or Margaret. The ladies were a cheerful lot, and every evening at 8pm they held a rousing sing-along of religious songs. One night it seemed to the guards that the ladies were singing more fervently and heartily than usual. Oh, how their voices raised in praise did lift the very roof beams! Even for an Irish prison, it was quite something. Some of the more suspicious warders did wonder whether someone had perhaps snuck a bottle of peaty devilry into Cell Block H, but what they didn’t suspect was that beneath the lilt and blarney of the singing, the finishing touches were being put to a long-brewing plan.

With a crack and a shriek and a crash, the metal fastenings were smashed from the doors of a communal cell, and nine women — including four Marys, two Margarets and an 11-month-old baby — simply swung open the door and tiptoed out and into the damp Irish night.

Using a ladder, they scaled the outside wall of the prison. But oh no! A hitch! The mother of the baby found she couldn’t climb the ladder while carrying the child, so the first eight ladies went over first and waited on the other side, all in a line, holding their skirts spread out like those sheets firemen hold out in cartoons when a woman has to jump from a burning building. The mother counted a quick rosary and tossed her baby blindly over the wall. History does not record who caught her, but my money’s on a Mary.

I don’t know what the recapture rate was in Ireland in 1830, but I know that a few days later one of the women, neither a Mary nor a Margaret, returned to the prison and turned herself in. She didn’t go far, she said. She had just wanted to stretch her legs.

CANCER June 21 - Jul 22 Pay attention to whatever your aching body is telling you. You’re close to burnout and you need to sit down. Not for long. Just until you’ve figured out a better way of nurturing yourself. You’re spending too much energy worrying about things you can do nothing about. You’ve had enough of other people’s dramas to last a lifetime. Now take care of yourself and the people you love.

LIBRA Sep 23 - Oct 22 You’ve been convinced for so long that no-one really sees you that it has come as a huge surprise to discover you are loved. It’s true most people tend to see life as a competition. But if you leave them to their own devices, and trust your own beliefs, you’ll be seen and understood.

The world’s paying attention to the small things now. It’s your chance to be the role model. Or to be yourself.

CAPRICORN Dec 22 - Jan 20 You’ve been so busy mulling over the world’s dramas, you’ve neglected your own needs. And now your body is tired. Be careful. Exhaustion makes you vulnerable to negative energies around you. Get some rest and stay focused.

There are fabulous new opportunities on the way and you’ll need to be ready.

Don’t waste energy on the people who are trying to stop you.

LEO Jul 23 - Aug 22 You’ve decided to become more forgiving..

Having observed yourself at your most annoying, you’re discovering that people have to be just as patient with you as you are with them. For now, you’re enjoying the extra time. You’re discovering talents and gifts you didn’t realise you had. Your circuits needed a reboot and you’ve recovered your sense of humour. Excellent timing.

SCORPIO Oct 23 - Nov 21 All these pressures are driving you crazy – or they will, until you realise they are coming from you. You’re not fond of change, but it’s not true that you can’t handle it when it comes. What you’re looking for is freedom from obligation. But since that’s not an option, you’ll have to change your perception. Responsibility is a gift and you’re the kind of leader people are looking for now. Be gentle with the people who need your help.

AQUARIUS Jan 20 - Feb 18 You need an opinion for a new idea from someone who won’t think you’re nuts. You’ve wondered about that yourself so you’d like some sensible input before you take the next step. Then, once you’ve affirmed how splendid you are, step outside of that anxious box and trust yourself. You’re finding reasons not to take the next step. Enough. It’s time to expand your world.

VIRGO Aug 23 - Sep 22 Wouldn’t you just love to have a party? You’ve rediscovered your passion for life and now you’re ready to have some fun.

Start with the plans. By the time you’re ready, there’ll be people lining up outside your door. Pay attention to those fabulous ideas whirring round in your head. Make notes. They’ll be useful for a project that’s already in the pipeline. For now, trust those instincts.

They know where they’re going.

SAGITTARIUS Nov 22 - Dec 21 You’re ready to take a risk and you’re even ready to trust yourself to make the right choice.

Excellent. Those heavy emotional clouds are lifting, and your enthusiasm for life is returning. You’re even excited about the difficult parts. Before you start, you may owe a few people an apology for your thoughtlessness. But they’ll forgive you. Now resurrect your fabulous new plans.

PISCES Feb 19 - Mar 20 You struggle to manage time. Not surprising. You live most of your life in a state of indecision, confusion and fantasy.

You’d love the world to be a better place but you’re not sure how to get there. You’ll have to start with some basic discipline. This is where you get to do the things you hate — make lists, organise schedules, manage your time.

There are new opportunities out there.

You don’t want to miss them.

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