Two Bits: Hands off our Caster!

By the time you’re reading this, you will probably have already cast your vote in these national elections, the fifth since 1994.

As I said a fortnight ago, I’m going to be hoping with all my might that Ramaphosa and his Cleanup Gang succeed in setting the ANC back on the right path, but until then I’m voting DA.

They have a better record of governance and I’ll place my faith in past performance rather than promises by a crowd with a dismal record of failure, corruption and blindness to its own failings.

A strong opposition is a constant reminder to the ANC to pull up its socks.

Anyhow, I wish you all peace and prosperity into the future and trust that our legendary South African “can do” attitude will see us through into a better future.

* * *

The best people in the world are Taureans, but you all knew that, and this past weekend I enjoyed celebrating my birthday with most of my close family. When you’re with family you can relax and be yourself, don’t feel any pressure to make conversation or be anxious about what they might think of you. They already know you, warts and all, and their love is the better for it.

So, tranquil and long walks along the beach were the order of the day. The closest we came to disorderly conduct was playing a new game – one of my birthday presents – called Bananarama.

We’re all Scrabble addicts and this is also a word game, but played fast and furious with a lot of yelling and laughter.

Only two years to go to the big seven oh!

* * *

On Wednesday morning, the public holiday, my wife’s iPhone was dropped and smashed beyond repair. The Vodacom shop (thank you Karen!) very obligingly rushed around and got a new phone. But they had no iPhones, so I got the new Samsung 10 and gave my iPhone to Rose.

Phew! Having owned Apple phones for a very long time, switching phones is like learning to drive all over again, screaming and shouting and swearing included. Most inconvenient is that all my carefully collected music is gone.

I do have it saved to my laptop; I just have to work out now how to get it onto the phone. The Roberts Birds app didn’t survive the transition either, so I will have to shell out for a new one.

A notable difference is that phone calls no longer go via my hearing aids, which was a great feature of the iPhone. Ho hum, I’ll just have to get over it. There are plenty of other oddities, but most irritating is that it keeps beeping at me for no rhyme or reason.

To those who have phoned me over the last few days, it’s not that I did’t want to speak to you, it’s that I couldn’t answer the call! I was used to pressing the green button to answer calls but, oh no, that’s far too simple for this phone. You have to side swipe the screen like a karate arm block movement. Maybe I should shout Hai! at the same time, the phone being Japanese and all.

On the upside, it has an awesome camera – if only I could work out where to find the damned thing!

* * *

I once had the pleasure of watching the Mozambican runner Maria Mutola in action in Durban, where she absolutely demolished the field. She was more powerfully built than most men, yet nobody questioned her fitness to run against other females.

The athletics world has got itself into an awful muddle over our Caster. If I remember correctly, the swimming world was in awe of Australian Michael Phelps, whose absolute dominance was linked to his ability to process lactic acid faster than others, and so avoid debilitating muscle pain. It was considered an advantage.

Caster is big, fast and produces bucketloads of testosterone, if I understand it correctly. This makes her faster than almost all other females.

Yes, she looks like a man and runs like a man but hey, if the science says she a female but with an overactive testosterone thingie, then what was good enough for Phelps should be good enough for her, surely.

It is absolute nonsense that the IAAF has the gall to instruct her to take drugs to inhibit testosterone production and so make her “equal” to other female runners. If she’s good, she’s good and that should be the end of it.

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