High regard for those pieces of scum, you really do take the biscuit. The IRA lost, they had nowhere to go.. Do we have a united ireland, , no and we're not going to. Adams and McGuiness haven't changed, they're just drunk on power.

Looks like I'm moving here (I'm in joburg now for a four day orientation) next year for a couple of years, so - update to follow!

Everyone pretty sad here in SA. No protests or demos or anything like that though.

Good luck. A lad I worked with went back home to SA for good a few years ago. Within a few months he came back here.

You only need to look at the lovely houses you can get so cheap there to realise what most people's long term view is. They are cheaper than in alot of poorer African countries.

There is something predictable and slightly nauseous as World leaders fall over each other in their haste to out eulogise each other, with Obama being a prime example. All apparently signed up to the mantra that it doesn't matter where you start from, but where you end up. And I wonder who will be the first to mention that for many Politicians, for many years Mandella as head of the armed wing of the ANC, was viewed as a terrorist, whose freedom fighters committed atrocities in their pursuit of their political goals.

Don't get me wrong. I firmly believe if you feel within yourself that any act in pursuit of what you believe in is justified.....the ends justifies the means.....is ok, then you must accept the consequences of that mindset, and I'm sure Mandella, as a young man was prepared to give his life in the pursuit of his goals.

That he emerged from that lengthy incarceration unbroken, and willingly took the hand of his oppressors, shows that he had evolved into a better human being and is a great example of the strength of the human spirit. As dear departed Kirkstallers may have said.....he displayed perfectly, the very best of the Christian Spirit.

Personally, I tend towards the Rod Liddle point of view. Nice guy....outstanding human being.....but is there really any need for the wall to wall media coverage?

If it gets a complete [is[/ihitbag like Liddle animated, then I'd encourage it even more

Mention nothing of the Diana-esque outpouring of 'grief', both in the media and on social networks.

I really don't understand why people feel the need to rock up outside the SA Embassy in London in floods of tears to leave flowers.

Oh i got plenty of pelters on Facebook yesterday for this:

Unless you're South African or were somehow affected by the Apartheid... Shut.the F**k.up...

Thanks

Yet we don't have the discrimination that existed on the basis of religion.

And I'll have a custard cream, thank you.

I remember Nelson Mandela cutting that woman down to size with a few well chosen words when she tried to cosy up to him.
A great thinker , orator and freedom fighter with compassion for all, something that woman would struggle to even start to comprehend.

Did Mandela like Israel?

Yes, he worked on a kibbutz when he was on day release from Robben Island.

Don't envy you that one bit. I visited in 2010 on a rugby tour and Joburg is a scary place. You drive from one secure place to another e.g your gated secure housing to the equally secure shopping mall. Personal security is big business and forget any idea of wandering round the streets after dark. Or indeed just wandering round the streets period!

One night on returning to Joburg from a visit to a safari park we arrived after dark and the owners of the place we stayed in were very nervous about having the security gate open long enough for a coach load of us to unload.

How people don't go even slightly mad given the caged existence they live in that part of the country is beyond me.

Cape Town is different. You still have to be careful but it's more in line with common sense of how you would behave in a big city. Some of the smaller towns down that area are also much more relaxed.



I have a friend who lives in the Cape Town area and he says the same thing.

Did he like it there ?

Enjoyed it although the conditions were quite spartan.

It's been alright really. Yes, all middle class housing is in gated communities. However we have walked around Sandton and Norwood during the day, and eaten at pavement cafés in areas that are not secured away. I'm in the airport heading back now. Mandela still dominating the local news, lots of road closures for events tomorrow, but all very peaceful.

Only been in Jo'burg long enough to walk between airport terminals and get a connecting flight, but Pietermaritzburg is bonkers. Tom Sharpe's first two books, [iRiotous Assembly[/i and [iIndecent Exposure[/i were set there – it's absolutely recognisable and I swear I met at least one of the characters on one visit.

I've also been carted to every bloody shopping mall in that town – all of them bland and utterly boring.

TB's mother used to get very funny comments from other white people because she was perfectly happy to get one of the combis into town to go shopping and they had a mindset that assumed she'd get raped or butchered when alone with all those black people.

The British ex-pats can be mad, but Afrikaaners are in another class.

Some of TB's old schoolmates held a braai to which we were invited as guests of honour.

All the blokes stood around the fire with cans of beer. I was expected to sit with the women in a corner: none of them were drinking and they weren't even talking to each other, let alone me, the 'guest'.

We also visited the mother in law's bowling club – like stepping back in time to the beginning of WWII: I felt as though I was sitting on the set of [iTenko[/i before they're all carted off to prison camp. Flowery dresses and lipstick that should have been in a museum; not being allowed in the main bar and having to listen to this complete fruitbat explain how she carried a picture of her dead son in his coffin with her at all times after he'd been killed in a car crash.

And when we stayed at a resort in the mountains, the Afrikanner guests never talked to any of the non-Afrikanner visitors, at all. The cocktail lounge would be quiet as a mouse in the evening – fortunately, we discovered the sports bar by the second night, which was where some of the staff and all the European guests socialised.

Lessons I learned while there on how to shock/horrify Afrikaaners:

1) be female and wear football shirts;

2) be female and drink beer;

3) be female and insist on getting a round in when it's your turn, and then actually going to the bar.

Sounds very "White Mischief".

That bowling club was very much so – just not quite as upper class. But then, for a lot of the people who went out there from the UK, it was the chance to have a standard of living that they could not have dreamed of here, with swimming pools and servants/staff.

Plus there were quite a few old colonials around who moved south as the assorted liberation struggles had seen their ideal world die out.

Greta Scacchi back in the day.
Mmmm!
Yes please.

If I'd been asked to name who would pick that angle, it would have been WIZEB

Good to see Bono at the memorial service today.
He's a very important person.

[urlhttp://thebackbencher.co.uk/3-things-you-didnt-want-to-know-about-nelson-mandela/[/url

Cameron proves that simply being a statesman is no guarantee of statesmanlike behaviour, by photobombing Obama and the Danish PM's (Kinnock's daughter in law) selfie at Mandela's memorial service.

Compares pretty well with any UK PM or US President over the last 200 years then. They have all signed off on far more deaths of civilians, cosied up to more ruthless dictators and sold arms to anyone who'd front up the price (often in the form of UK/US loans).