Two Bits – Donald is JR on steroids!

Well, the waiting is over. The Ballito Junction regional mall is finally open.

After all the craziness of opening day, I took a quiet stroll through the place on Monday morning to try to learn my way around. First impressions, I like the clean, open lines with plenty of light. The three shopping levels will take some getting used to, though the elevators are well placed so that you don’t have to walk miles before being able to ascend or descend. Some of those stores look really big though – I hope they haven’t overreached.
I can sympathise with the lady who was convinced her car had been stolen on Friday, but eventually was found on a different level from where she thought she had parked. I have lost my car in both The Pavilion and Gateway from not paying attention when I parked.
I chatted briefly to the CEO of Checkers, Pieter Engelbrecht, who took over the reins recently from Whitey Basson. He asked what I thought of his new store and I replied that I could not believe I was standing in a Checkers. The “rustic look” aisles and layout are quite different, as is the colour scheme. The lavish deli, sushi bar and quality feel of the store is more Woolworths than Checkers, but different again.
“Some overseas investors were asking me the other day if I was trying to be like Woolworths. I told them ‘No, I just want Woolworths’ customers’, he laughed.
“The orange floor is my idea,” said Engelbrecht. “They all said I was mad, but I want to make a statement.”
I think it works.

* * *
This weekend I turned the final pages of a book that has been taking up much of my free time lately, a biography of US president Donald Trump that left me shaking my head and still wondering, ‘Who is this man?’
‘Trump Revealed’ is a thoroughly researched and well written biography by a Washington Post team of ‘The Donald’ from childhood, through school and then tracking his every business deal, his marriages and affairs, his TV and media stardom in The Apprentice reality TV show and his behaviour leading up to the presidential elections last year.
By the bye, you might be old enough to remember the TV series ‘Dallas’ on early SA TV. To get a measure of Trump, picture the character JR, but on steroids!
Starting with the help of his father’s money, he did have genuine achievements in New York property developments, but also went through several spectacular bankruptcies with casinos and apartment developments.

The book practically bursts with appalling, outlandish, psychopathic behaviour.

He is a showboating braggart, but he is also cunning and not to be underestimated. Over and over, Trump managed to make major bucks on deals that ultimately lost money. How? By licensing his name. The risk fell to other developers. For putting his name on their building, Trump got handsomely paid, no matter how badly things turned out – and they often turned out really badly.
He accuses the media daily of creating ‘fake news’. Well, he knows a lot about it. The book details how throughout his long career, Trump used and manipulated the press. He used to phone journalists, using a fake name, with tip-offs about his business deals and love life. He was a creator of fake news.
We all know people who are larger than life, insincere and narcissistic, and wonder how they manage to live with themselves. Trump takes that to new levels – he will do anything, literally anything, that improves the odds for Donald Trump. He changes stories so much that it becomes difficult to work out the difference between truth and fiction. He switched political parties seven times in 12 years, and justified it saying ‘You have to make friends’.
As one of his biographers puts it, “He was born with bullshit capabilities beyond what you and I could possibly imagine.”
Many successful politicians use smoke and mirrors to achieve their ends. Trump multiplies that a hundredfold. But whether that will make him a bad or a good president is really difficult to say. There is no doubt that he is a mover and a shaker. It’s his methods that are in question. On the other hand, his brash, plain-speaking manner is a breath of fresh air in the world of political doublespeak and schmoozing, but will he ultimately be good for America and by happenstance, the Western world? Perhaps he will.
* * *
A wife goes to consult a psychiatrist about her husband: “My husband is acting so weird. He drinks his morning coffee and then he goes and eats the mug! He only leaves the handle!”
Psychiatrist: “Yes, that is weird. The handle is the best part.”