Welcome to Hogsback Diaries

I thought to entitle my periodic posted-to-HBT ruminations on the state of the Village and beyond, "Hogsback Diaries", if I may be so indulged: prompted to do so by a member of my fan Club. Those who do not count themselves among that number should press "delete" now with no offence taken.

So! 2011 is upon us. To someone born in the 50's or below that baby boomer number, this is the realm of science fiction. Those who do not have their heads buried below their knees ( possibly trying to kiss their anuses goodbye) might agree that we are in trouble.

The Country's in trouble, the Region's in trouble and the Village is in trouble. Without dwelling too much on the devolution from the Centre of the trouble ( Government ) we should, however be watching our own ripples in the pond, expanding as a result of our own stones thrown.

What do we see right here among us?

1. Groups of good folk concentrating on issues that interest them, in need of attention, to make things better for everyone.
2. Individuals or consortia conducting businesses, hoping to add value to the Village and still make a profitable living.
3. Residents with a stake in the land just going about their daily lives as private citizens.
4. Residents and nearby-dwellers reliant on jobs from forestry, tourism or private households.
5. The unemployed, unemployable, don't works, won't works and their visitors.

What is wrong with this picture? Let's play the numbers game, whereupon it may be concluded that too few are doing too much for too many and that too many are doing too much to too few.

1. The groups and individuals giving of their time and expertise for no reward do so prompted by their Eurocentric requirements for a sense or order and lawfulness, peace and harmony and in the hope of creating an "expanding universe" capable of embracing the aspirations of "lesser ( poorer) beings". These persons are in the minority, as have they
   always been. Be that as it may, their efforts are stymied and strangled to a large degree by dissenters and fence-sitters too passive-aggressive to be useful and too self-righteous to allow majority consensus to reign. Pity that, it is the scourge of Hogsback, going back decades.
2. People conducting businesses do so mainly out of necessity, sometimes also out of greed...profits are not always retained at source ( this is perfectly legal) but still this group consists in the main of tax-payers and otherwise beneficent citizens.
3. Retirees or the wealthy live on the proceeds of whatever they have accumulated in their earlier lives or had bequeathed and that is none of our business.
4. The employed workforce is a shifting, rolling mass, larger in number than the previous 3 categories put together. At its centre are productive and decent folk, many of whom can show stable employment records going back many years. At the periphery are another group of somewhat more shifty character, job-hopping among us with impunity ( no one has ever phoned me for a reference for anyone no longer in my employ, though I have been in all instances aware of those persons being later employed, thereby pooh-poohing any possibility of there being a legitimate cause for dismissal ...I have, however also had the experience of someone "passing on" a contemptible thief as a "reliable worker" in order to avoid their own obligations to that worker...which adds up to the same problem among us employers).
5. Ah yes and what to say of this lot? Some known, many not, especially of late. Always someone known's aunty's, sister's, brother's cousin uncle. Came to visit and used their last buck to get here, just need to sell the proceeds of a housebreaking to get back to wherever. Just came to party at the kraal and now thinks hogsback is kwaai, a broer kan maar a plan maak. These whiteys are mos half geslaap in the daytime. Brought by a Builder as a handlanger, got fired and what to do but hang about looking for a buck for a paarl and lookie here, no one's home, hulle's kerk toe en niks honde. Lekker in die Berge. It's a kind of perfect stomping ground, isn't it? Us with our heads in the skies of idealization or stooped to smell the roses, or just buried in the sand ( or halfway there, between our knees) . Current science fiction decreeing it VERY un-PC to call a spade a shovel.... And if upon the Spade where the local pond-ripples are, we have insane property rates-hikes / nonsensical water bills for occasional delivery of alternatively muddy , then over-chlorinated then NO water / a when-we-feel-like-it refuse-removal system / no internal roads maintenance ( Provincial scores a few points here) a bunch of locals who prefer infighting to working together to solve their own local problems, break-ins, thefts, rapes, tourists being accosted, drunks falling all over the place, flippin baboons with more rights than property owners / a half-baked Police force / no reliable electricians or plumbers or other maintenance okes...and never mind the cost if you find one who actually comes when he says he will!

Dear God. What the hell's on the Shovel?
Happy New Year.
Ingrid