Ron’s Thoughts …

End of day-3 of the 5-day cricket match between South Africa and England.

South Africa are streets ahead and  England are 48  for three.

2-Days to play and 7 English wickets needed.

Only rain can save them now !

End of day-2 of the 4th, 5-day, cricket test match between South Africa and England and South Africa are looking like certain winners provided that there is enough time to complete the match.

Again, rain and bad light stopped play.

Come-on you guys upstairs there, stop teasing me and lets get a game played.

Furthermore, why do the organizers not start play an hour earlier each day, given the predictable weather conditions ?

We have just now completed day-1 of a 5-day cricket test match.

A game that South Africa must win to retain the trophy.

England all out for 180. Well done to the Proteas.

South Africa 29 for nought, rain and bad light stopped play.

Please you guys upstairs there, don’t let England off the hook for the third time because of rain !

In South Africa at the present time, Eskom, the national electricity supplier, wants to increase tariffs by 35% per year for the next 3-years so as to raise capital to build massive new power stations to meet projected demands.

They will all be coal-burning  polluters. To hell with global warming concerns and how greatly increased electricity costs will impact upon industry and jobs in our country.

If they allocated 5 % of that projected expenditure to “free” solar water heaters for all households they would not need to build so many new power stations.

I wish some influential ANC politicians would read this Rons Thoughts. They are too busy lining their own pockets to care.

I went today to see the movie “Invictus”, a poem originally, and now a testimony to the history of South Africa, Nelson Mandela and the coming together of a divided nation by the winning of the Rugby World Cup in 1995.

When Mandela was released from jail in 1990 and then the ANC became the ruling party in 1994, violence and killing escalated, especially in the power struggle between Xhosas and Zulus. The majority of South Africans, white and black, and the whole of the outside world expected the country to go up in flames.

Mandela had the wisdom and foresight to see that sport could bring people together and, with the help of Francois Pienaar and all of the Springbok rugby team, they won the prestigious Webb Ellis Rugby World Cup and laid the foundations for a “Rainbow Nation”.

Well done to Clint Eastwood for telling the story and to Morgan Freeman for daring to play the part of Nelson Mandela.

Matt Damon was not physically big enough to convince South Africans that he was Francois Pienaar and Scott Eastwood didn’t ooze the confidence of a hero that slotted the winning drop kick in the dying moments of the game.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t restrain a tear or two of nostalgia remembering the glory of that moment.

I am busy experimenting with the growing of tomatoes in elevated buckets instead of in the ground.

Both the ground and the buckets will have been well supplied with compost and a sprinkle of chemical fertiliser.

The major difference is that the ground-growing plants need to be helped with trestles. etc. to keep on growing upwards whereas I expect that the elevated plants in buckets will simply fall over, hang down by their own weight, and still give me lots of fruit.

I will also put a few worms into the buckets, (the ground already has many worms.)

Watch this space.

In a month or two from now I will report on the results.

South Africa drew the 3rd game of a 4-match series needing the last wicket with 17 balls to play, as they did in the first game, “Damn and double damn,” that is what test cricket is all about !

Come on the final test next week, I am looking forward to it.

Whenever I am tempted to lament my loss of youth, my wife reminds me, somewhat sarcastically, that I have become a Metallic Man.

Gold in my teeth, silver in my hair, lead in my feet and steel in my veins !

Somehow, that does not make me feel any younger.