A Not So Brave So Far 2024

So, we’re well into the third quarter of 2024, and it’s been an endless rock ‘n’ roll festival of bloody conflicts; the mass killing of innocent and defenceless souls in Gaza; a fake assassination attempt of Trump, simply done to boost his chances of re-election on account of him now being put up as being more blessed than Dr Martin Luther King, who wasn’t really, mainly because the shooter knew his gig; alleged “race riots” in the UK – designed, possibly, to destabilise Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government; certain poor boys and girls still not knowing whether to wear dresses or industrial factory overalls to high school; gas-giant-without-a-core – like the planet Neptune – Elon Musk taking on a Brazilian Supreme Court judge and Sir Keir Starmer about alleged free-speech issues. But what exactly is free speech these days when truth is about as elusive as Zuma finally facing a functioning legal system?  

The soap opera carries on. Irrepressibly so.

South Africa has its first post-1994 Government of fictional National Unity. I give it to my brother Squirrel – he truly can negotiate like a meth infused Wall Street derivatives trader who’s been awake for 72 hours straight, where it’s all nerve endings jangling and only the gear is keeping him standing upright and barking orders into a phone; where his adrenaline ran out already weeks before when Bitcoin hit an all-time low of USD 50,000.

Again, I give it to Squirrel – even when his back is against the wall and any lesser man would clearly fold, this dude comes back with plots and plans and wields his superior manoeuvring skills against his lesser souls. I give credit where credit is due, and that is the deal Squirrel closed was simply superb. Especially for the ANC.

Electricity outages and load-shedding seem to be curtains. Whether this is on account of Eskom running a more efficient fleet of hamster-wheel driven power stations, or rather the cost of electricity being so prohibitive that little Johnny switching on his i-Pad would decimate the monthly household budget of a rich expat Colonial living in Bishopscourt, is anyone’s guess.

Now let’s have some fun, care of 70’s English comedian, Bernard Manning.

“I’m glad I’m not bisexual; I couldn’t stand being rejected by men as well as women.”

“Fella’s up in court, the judge says: “you’ve been charged with battering your wife to death with a hammer.” A voice at the back of court shouts: ‘Oh you f***ing sh*those’. Everything goes quiet, then the judge continues: ‘You have also been charged with battering your daughter to death with a hammer’. Voice at the back of court goes: ‘oh you lousy bastard’. The judge says: ‘well this can’t go on, come down here COME DOWN HERE AT ONCE. Now, I can understand your being a bit upset about this case and its nature, but I can’t have you shouting out in my courtroom otherwise I’ll have to charge you with contempt, now, what’s the idea?’ Bloke says: ‘well, I’ve lived next to this bastard now for over twenty years, and every time I asked to borrow a hammer, he said he hadn’t got one!’

Bernard Manning would not get one second of air-time or stage time in 2024. The woke brigade would have killed his working man’s club style of comedy before it even saw light of day.

Now they churn out sanitised comedy on Netlfix, Amazon and the BBC; even Glaswegian comedian Frankie Boyle has to do his own brand of comedy on his own steam at his own held shows. Frankie put the final nail in the coffin of his Channel 4 contract around the time of the London 2012 Olympics by tweeting that: “Saudi Arabian Paralympians are mainly thieves, and Paralympics GB high jumper’s performance was Taliban assisted.”

It’s a sad indictment of the state of affairs. And while I was penning this piece an ex-client of mine (apparently still a mate) told me off for posting a birthday wishes pic for his business partner of a breast surgery enhanced bikini clad woman with the tagline that my ex-client’s ex-lady sends her love from France. He told me to take the post down, that it wasn’t funny, and I must know there are limits in life. Yeah, sure brother – limits like showing blown to pieces Gazan children on mainstream media, but me not being able to say the word “f**k”.

As American musician Tom Waits said: “we are buried beneath the weight of information, which is being confused with knowledge; quantity is being confused with abundance, and wealth with happiness. We are monkeys with money and guns.”

Contributed by:
Barry Varkel, an attorney of the High Court of South Africa and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales.
Author of Nigiri Law, Goy Vey and Big Jon Harry’s Revenge