Before the shock had set in that Zimbabwe might be an easier place to do business than SA, at least by this miner’s lights, I had another conversation.

I am currently, literally, an ocean away from the homeland doing my semi-annual gig lecturing on a modern, rather sumptuous cruise ship which has journeyed up the west coast of Africa and now approaches Mediterranean Europe. Happily, the ship’s generator keeps it fully lit, so no load-shedding. But my role, along with some eminent Washington DC journalists, former US ambassadors and other luminaries, is to offer some wit and apparent wisdom to keep the well-heeled, well-informed passengers up to speed on current topics. My offering on Brexit led me to a sad conclusion. Even the most established first-world democracy, housing the “Mother of all Parliaments”, can in the case of the current chaos coursing through the veins of Britain’s body politic, have chaotic consequences. However, after having borrowed the rather witty putdown on the poor and soon to be exiting British PM that “for the first time in calendar history, the end of May will be before the end of April”, a thoughtful gue...

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