Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Kill him with self confidence
A lot of Brits think that South Africans are arrogant. There is a grain of truth in this, and I’ve just worked out why. The South Africans that the Brits meet are inevitably the white ones. This almost certainly means that they are fairly well educated, and are in the upper echelons of their society as far as wealth and education. It occurred to me last night that the feeling that you are definitely one of the bigger fish in your pond is quite a nice feeling, although it can lead to said arrogance.
I was flicking through the Sunday papers, and reading an article about the opening of parliament, and looking at a picture of Mrs Radebe, prominent businesswoman and wife of one of our esteemed ministers, and described as a “mining magnet”. I suppose that means that they wave her about over the ground to see if she can pick up any buried metal. Next I moved to the sofa to watch eTV news, where a brief gloat on the fact that South Africa won the one day series was followed by a discussion about the rumour that “Shane Waugh” was in the running to take over as SA national coach. Now I’m pretty sure of two things, one is that Shane Warne is still playing and therefore not coaching, and the second is that it’s Steve Waugh who is looking for a coaching job. Oh well – it left me feeling smug and intelligent, which is on the road to arrogance.
The trouble is that a little arrogance is a good thing. A little goes a long way too, but it’s really just assertive self confidence. Sometimes I feel like I need a little more of that. Ah kin do the iccent too – think I’m going native.
I was flicking through the Sunday papers, and reading an article about the opening of parliament, and looking at a picture of Mrs Radebe, prominent businesswoman and wife of one of our esteemed ministers, and described as a “mining magnet”. I suppose that means that they wave her about over the ground to see if she can pick up any buried metal. Next I moved to the sofa to watch eTV news, where a brief gloat on the fact that South Africa won the one day series was followed by a discussion about the rumour that “Shane Waugh” was in the running to take over as SA national coach. Now I’m pretty sure of two things, one is that Shane Warne is still playing and therefore not coaching, and the second is that it’s Steve Waugh who is looking for a coaching job. Oh well – it left me feeling smug and intelligent, which is on the road to arrogance.
The trouble is that a little arrogance is a good thing. A little goes a long way too, but it’s really just assertive self confidence. Sometimes I feel like I need a little more of that. Ah kin do the iccent too – think I’m going native.
