This is no silence of the limbs. It is all cacophony streaked with sleaze. The start of the Oscar Pistorius murder trial is expected to top the charts for sheer matinee entertainment. Going LIVE over the TV waves no trial in the world since OJ ruined the purity of orange juice forever has generated so much excitement. This is prime time viewing at its overwhelmingly worst. Every minute is a testament to bad taste.
This is the Practice, Boston Legal, JAG and Shark all rolled into one…and then some. It has all the elements of a hit show. There are high priced ads, there are bets being offered by bookmaker Paddy Power with the odds on Day Three tilted in favor of acquittal, there are screams in the night (Friday the 13th) gore, blood, drama in the bathroom (Psycho) and the Blade Runner is playing his role with the panache of Leornado di Caprio (Wall Street).
Dapper, dressed like a lawyer himself, he is sitting with the slain Reeva Steenkamp’s family (sympathy on a stick) and the whole thing has a soap opera texture to it. Short of the collective gasps one associate with Victorian theater the series of ‘discoveries’ reverberate with delicious shock value. Was there porn downloaded on his video? Did he lie when the prosecution accuses him of not calling the police? How do you explain neighbor Michell Burger hearing a woman shriek in fear and Oscar be unaware of the sounds?
To add to this ‘nonsense’ the ANC Women’s League who are protesting in favor of their rights and those of the murdered girlfriend are being drowned by the vociferous support from a growing group of pro-Oscar buddies who call themselves Pistorians. Their numbers are growing by the hour.
And in thousands of homes the nation sips soup and watches even as the ratings go through the roof.
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Sorrow. Michael Schumacher enters his 69th day of coma with the family holding onto a fragile tendril of hope while medical specialists in Grenoble shake their heads in weary resignation that the odds are slimming. Wife Corinna and the family spent her 45th birthday by his bedside Sunday talking to the F1 legend and although he did twitch every now and again doctors feel that is just a reflex and no indicator that he will come out of it…and even if he does after so long there will be severe trauma. That is truly sad. And makes you wonder how life happens to you when you are making other plans.
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Finally, the sanctimony. There is clearly no good reason for the IPL7 to shift to South Africa and several terrible ones. For one, the teams are all unhappy since they have to cut back on expenses, which means far less the number in the entourage. So no experience for many youngsters who will be cut, thereby negating the raison d’etre of the IPL credo. Then again, no guarantee of crowds, seeing as how Indian teams from different states scarcely resonate with South Africans. And don’t forget in 2009 when the shift did occur 41 members of the South African Cricket Board awarded themselves hefty bonuses. Chief Executive Gerald Mjaola was sacked on charges of dispensing unauthorized largesse. So much for that clean chit.
On this bleak canvas there are still forces in India lined against the ECB. This inimical and ungrateful attitude toward a place that started off the one-dayer revolution and gave several millions dollars worth of benefit to players is pegged to that old bogey of middlemen operating from this region. Oh,stop it. The whole world knows the bookies control things from India where cricket is concerned and it doesn’t matter whether you play in Durban, Dhaka or Dubai, the string stretches to Mumbai. These same officials who are now dragging their feet have enjoyed huge dollops of hospitality and generosity from officials and the massive brigade of adulating Indian expats who live here since the late eighties. On each visit they were spoilt rotten.
This piety on display is not only absurd and without basis it is a cheap shot by old enemies who won’t give in to the fact that if IPL7 has to go offshore then the emirates is the best option. So much for professionalism.
