South Africa A Decade Down the Line.

This weekend, my grandson turns three years old. Before I know it, he'll be thirteen. What will the South Africa he'll live in be like ten years from now?

I've no doubt that mobile phones and the social media will be just as prevalent to the  lifestyle of teenagers as they are now - but the handsets will, no doubt, be fully-fledged computers, a lot faster, smarter and with oodles more memory than they have now - and maybe even have marginally more battery life! Snowballing technology will be even more amazing than the gains its made during the past ten years.

But how about Life here? Somehow, I don't see much changing. Probably the same proportion of youngsters will be using weed, drinking and misbehaving as they are now. Crime will be much the same. Potholes will be bigger, some of them perhaps even being declared "National Heritage Sites" and be protected by law from repair.

Zuma may have acquired another wife or two, and Malema will be still be making the same noises, this time with the inexperience of an elder rather than the inexperience of a youth. No doubt Helen Zille will still be dancing in the streets, probably no closer to making it on "Idols" for her performance.

Sad, but frankly the only real changes I can foresee are technological. Corruption investigations - only names and places will change; and perhaps the size of the budgets for those investigations that the taxpayer has to foot the bill for. That'll be a tough burden for taxpayers, considering what the price of meat is likely to be, not to mention cheese. The presently-popular "bring and braai" will be replaced by "bring a coupla beers and the ashes from your last braai and let's discuss the good old days."

I guess there's some security there for those who battle to accept change............; not much to worry about here.