Hello Darkness My Old Friend

With apologies to Simon & Garfunkel

I hate reporting bad news, but it seems that’s all that’s doing the rounds at this point in time. I realise I must be painting quite a dire picture of SA at the moment, but to be frank, the situation is reaching dire levels.

Don’t believe anyone if they tell you that we’ve hit situation critical though. The World Cup will still be here, so long as people are pragmatic and practical about meeting deadlines.

To make things more entertaining, I’ve come up with a scale to judge the news pertaining to preparations from here onwards.

1 – Horrendous news, detrimental to our preparations and likely to cause the World Cup to be hosted somewhere else. Hopefully I will never report anything of this sort. Events will include, but not limited to, meteor strikes, earthquakes, tsunami’s, England qualifying (because then there is no need for a world cup, we just hand the trophy over seeing as they have so much talent). Any of these events is the equivalent of having Ali Dia as your star striker

2 – Bad News which severely dents preparation times or challenges our ability to host the world cup itself and throws the proverbial spanner in the works. Events include extended striking, civil and political unrest, stadium issues etc. Needless to say I don’t want to ever write about these, but I have to, as you will see further below. The football equivalent is hoping Alberto Gilardino will score an injury time equaliser. A very bad situation to be in.

3 – Neutral news. News that is neither here nor there, but relevant nevertheless. For example, changing the colour of the seats in the stadium from blue to red (I bet you can’t think of an example either). The football equivalent is having to wear your third kit at an away game because your home and away kits clash with the opposition – I’m trying to stick to the rubbish colour theme.

4 – Good news. News that is, well, good. For example, price of steel dropping, estimated times / costs coming down. Meeting deadlines etc. The football equivalent is being 2 – 0 and you are Liverpool playing at Anfield in the Champions League. A very good situation to be in.

5– Very Good news. A gift from the Gods basically. Crime being reduced to zero, Gold deposits in my backyard which make the country exponentially richer. A fully operational power station magically bending time and space and just appearing in JHB. You know, that sort of thing. The football equivalent is getting a dodgy penalty in the last minute of injury time in the Champions League final, and the opposing GK gets sent off. After that, the opposing rock of a centre back throws a punch at the ref and gets banned for life and the match is awarded 3 – 0 to you. Like I said, a gift from the Gods.

Ok, so getting back to the news of today, we have a classification of Code 2, Bad News. Eskom (our power company), can’t meet power demands in this country, which is causing a severe economic crunch. Rolling blackouts leave much of the country without electricity for 4 – 6 hours per day. This is obviously hampering preparations (construction etc) and there seems to be no end in sight. Power stations take years to build of course, and the World Cup is in just over 2 years.

The hardest hit is the GAUTRAIN, which is only scheduled to be completed in 2011 anyway, but the link between JHB and Pretoria was supposed to be done by the WC. Now that too is under threat.

Hopefully the light at the tunnel hasn’t been turned off too.

More news as it happens. Andreas should have a pre match post soon.

Be sure to check it out!