Guineas and Krugerrands are back
THE FINANCIAL system is in turmoil again. Karl Marx couldn't have dreamed of anything like this. He foresaw a crisis of capitalism in which ownership was in fewer and fewer hands. He could not have predicted shyster financial traders in America selling off derivatives of sub-prime bonds, used tealeaves and nannygoat manure, while in Britain jumped-up barrow boys with computers were rigging the interest rates in banks.
And now it turns out British banks were also guilty of misselling financial products, to the ruination of small and medium businesses.
The City of London is supposed to be the world's premier financial centre? How naff can you get?
The free market system is in crisis all right (only Marxists would call it the capitalist system) but at least the dreadful alternative offered by Marx is dead and buried, having credence only in places like Cuba and certain parts of the Union Buildings.
We'll just have to get back to basics. Golden guineas and Krugerrands – bite them to make sure they're true.
Jefferson
MAYBE Thomas Jefferson had it right when he said in 1802:"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property - until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
Makes ya think!
Up a gear
EVERY now and then the St Clement's gig goes up a gear or two. So it was this week as Jean-Marie Spithaels launched his little book of verse, Rocks, Stones, Vugs and Pebbles.
It was several things at once: a poetry reading; a lesson in the creative act of writing poetry; an art exhibition – Jean-Marie illustrates his verse with the most marvellous sketches; a lesson in the creative act of sketching; and a geology lecture.
It was also interspersed with melody from Jerome Pillay on guitar. His rendering of Starry Starry Night was exquisite.
What is a vug? Jean-Marie tells us.
Vugs are swollen veins
In rocks where crystals
such as quartz or ame-
thyst glow in the dark.
Those gems may one day
Adorn the alabasterrine
Neck of some Charleze
Theron or Angelina Jolie,
but my poems, out of reach,
will remain hidden deep
in some remote rocky land
where life belongs to
dreams, maybe of some ala-
basterrine neck.
Jean-Marie, a retired doctor, is a French-speaking Belgian – a Walloon – who was born in the Congo. He writes in French as well as English and sometimes mixes them together.
He's a man of quirky humour and the sharpest perception. He sometimes livens up his poetry readings with bursts on the harmonica, but this week he left the music to Jerome.
An unusual and highly entertaining evening it was. The place was packed. St Clement's goes from strength to strength.
All that jazz
MEANWHILE, jazz, jazz, jazz, jazz … For those of us who have been suffering deprivation of old-fashioned, red-hot, syncopated Tin Pan Alley jazz, respite is at hand.
Last Saturday friends took me to a place in Umbilo called the Merseyside where, every fortnight, a whole lot of old geezers led by a fellow called Barry Varty raise the roof for three hours.
Wonderful stuff – trumpet, trombone, bass guitar, keyboard and drums. All the old numbers – Summertime, My Blue Heaven, Take Five - they play it all. What an atmosphere.
It's a very old-fashioned place. The beer prices are rock-bottom. And if you pay with golden guineas or Krugerrands, the barmaid bites them to make sure they're true.
Brilliant idea
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-40s: "So they want to make a United States of Europe to save the Euro, with Germany in charge? What a brilliant idea. Why did nobody think of that before?"
Tailpiece
A DUCK checks into the Royal Hotel. He phones room service and asks for a condom.
"Shall we put it on your bill?"
He quacks furiously: "What kind of pervert do you think I am?"
Last word
To punish me for my contempt for authority, fate made me an authority myself.
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