Paul Jacobson

We watched a report on a local current affairs program called "Carte Blanche" on the weekend.  They had an item on the mindblowing incidence of armed robberies in shopping malls in South Africa.  This is frightening stuff and a very strong motivation to shop online as much as possible:

Ruda Landman (Carte Blanche presenter): “Shopping at your local mall used to be a pleasant way to spend your morning or a boring housekeeping chore, but lately it has become edged with danger. Armed gangs have hit on shopping malls every three days for the first six months of the year and that’s in Gauteng alone. The rest of the country is not that far behind.??

Vernon Tarr (Partner Broadacres Superspar): “My brother was confronted in the early hours of the morning and he was shot.??

Ruda: “Vernon, what happened???

Vernon: “Apparently three armed guys, [that] had about half an hour before the time taken the security guards to a secluded area, held them at gun point, unclothed them and their uniforms. So he was unaware of what was going on.??

Condolences are pouring in for this family business. Pat Tarr and her three sons have run the Superspar in Broadacres for four years.

Ruda: What does your mom say???

Vernon: “My mom is heartbroken. She is really struggling.??

A Pretoria supermarket, another armed robbery and another store manager shot dead.

Ruda: “What happened???

Armed robbery victim: “One guy came in with a rucksack. Next moment there were two guys at my back - one pointing a gun into my back, the other guy with a tyre leaver, and they asked me and said, “Robbery, robbery! Where is the cash?’ And as I was about to punch my code into the door, the guy inside - the other manager - pulls the door open and pushed me out the way. And the one guy pointed his gun at him and shot him in the chest.??

Armed robbery victim: “The guy was lying on the floor not moving. He had a bullet shot through his heart. Gruesome…??

Armed robbery victim: “They went back into the shop and broke some of the tills open, made the customers lie down, took their wallets, took their cell phones and they left the shop. I think there [was] maybe ten of them.??

Armed robbery victim: “You are in such shock you don’t know what is happening. It’s like it is not happening, it is not happening to you.??

Surely this can’t continue indefinitely?!  At the same time this is our scary reality at the moment and it has reached a point where you take a big risk going to a shopping mall here.

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The Supreme Court of Appeal has recently handed down a very interesting judgment in the matter of SA Breweries v Pieter van Zyl.  This case highlights the importance of ensuring that your suretyships are up to date, especially where there has been a change in legal entities. Here is the media summary:

Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa

MEDIA STATEMENT

From:    The Registrar, Supreme Court of Appeal

Date:        Thursday, 29 September 2005

Status:    Immediate



The Supreme Court of Appeal today dismissed an appeal by SA Breweries Ltd against an order of the Pretoria High Court dismissing its claim against Mr Pieter van Zyl for payment of certain moneys allegedly due to it by Ray’s Liquor Store. Mr van Zyl had admittedly stood surety for Ray’s Liquor Store’s indebtedness, not in favour of SA Breweries Ltd but another company with the same name, which had since become dormant.

Ray’s Liquor Store had had a credit facility with the old SA Breweries Ltd, which later sold its business to Lexshell 159 Investment Holdings Ltd. Lexshell changed its name to SA Breweries (Pty) Ltd and later became a public company, assuming the name SA Breweries Ltd. When the erstwhile SA Breweries Ltd sold its business to Lexshell it ceded to Lexshell its claims against its debtors. Lexshell then continued to sell liquor to Ray’s Liquor Store on credit and when the latter could not pay, Lexshell, by then renamed SA Breweries Ltd, looked to the surety, Mr Venter, for payment.

Mr Venter’s argument that he was liable to SA Breweries Ltd only for such amounts as may have been owed by Ray’s Liquor Store to the erstwhile SA Breweries Ltd at the time of the cession, was upheld by the SCA. Mr Venter had never stood surety for the present SA Breweries Ltd. Because there was no proof of the amount owing at the time of the

cession, the appeal was dismissed with costs.

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I followed some advice I was given to identify the cause of my inability to connect to my ADSL router using an ethernet cable.  I spoke to a couple people about it (thanks Rich and Andre amoung others).  I eventually took my PowerBook to the Apple store I bought it from and it turned out I had a faulty ethernet port/board/thingy on my PowerBook.  Thankfully my wi-fi, Bluetooth and dial-up connectivity options still work and the nice people at Cool Apple Buddy are going to sort this out for me next week.

In what can only be described as suspicious timing, my PC started refusing to turn on this morning so, left with the unhappy option of no meaningful internet connection until my PowerBook is sorted out, I bought an AirExpress (you are absolutely right Rich, it rocks!).  Loads of money later I am connected and doing stuff.  Now if only my tech guy can get my PC back on I can start trying to figure out how to move my Outlook contacts and data across to Entourage.

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Yay, I did it!  I bought myself a funky 12inch PowerBook today.  The catch is I don’t know how to connect it to my ADSL Modem/Router.  Does anyone have any ideas?

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Tonight is one of those nights!  I got to bed around midnight which is usual for me and by 1am I was already swatting mosquitoes.  I think one of the buggers took a fair dose of my blood cause when I swatted it about half an hour later it left a nice big patch of blood on the wall.

To add to the mosquitoes our puppies cried almost non-stop since we put them to bed.  They didn’t settle down after I took them outside and even G’s lap didn’t calm them enough to go to sleep.  It can be maddening trying to calm puppies when you feel the rage building and all you want to do is go to sleep.  So I thought that given I work from home and can pretty much work when I want (provided I get my work done of course), I’ll get up and get started on some stuff I need to get done later (when the sun is up) and sleep during the day (hopefully when the puppies are sleeping).  At least G can get some sleep.  That is the plan.

Anyway, it occurred to me that the puppies may be complaining because they are also being harassed by mosquitoes which seem to have infested my home with a vengence.  They are sleeping on a single couch in my office while I work right now.  I’d show you a picture of them sleeping but my phone is next door and I’m not disturbing G.  Besides, there are loads of photos of the puppies, sleeping and awake, in my Flickr photostream.

You know, Tracy Chapman is great 3am music!

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