Almost every political leader with any kind of following has pronounced on the extent of our ‘World Cup legacy’. The most usual examples given are tangible ones – the bricks and mortar infrastructure upgrades to roads, airports, stadia and hospitality providers. Highest on the list of intangibles is the marketing effect of having the world’s attention on South Africa. So far so good.

The most unexpected – well, certainly least well-documented – effect may turn out to be the shift in attitudes amongst South Africans towards public transport. For those who can afford it, private transport is the default option, and for good reason. However, it’s just not practical to provide parking for 60 000 spectators, and in any case, the thousands of foreign supporters need to be provided with public transport.

Consequently, thousands of South Africans who otherwise would have driven to matches have been using public transport. We caught the MyCiti bus into the city centre on Friday night, as the South Africa vs Mexico game was about to kick off. The experience was inexpensive and painless – once we boarded the bus, which is not something one can say for my attempts at researching the route and schedule online. The City of Cape Town is keen to get as many people using the service as possible, but they’ve done a pretty dismal marketing and communications job (Slingshot can help them out with this problem!).

Flush at the excitement of using public transport to assist in getting into the spirit of international sporting contests – not to mention avoiding traffic jams – we decided to use the train to get to Newlands for yesterday’s rugby match between South Africa and France. Cape Town station has recently been refurbished, which is all very nice. However, no-one’s bothered to put up signage to assist passengers in navigating their way to a ticketing counter.

We approached the most likely spot, where three Metrorail employees were occupying a glassed booth. One of them had pasted a piece of newspaper over the hole, in an apparent attempt to indicate that she was not currently available to serve anyone. The middle person was lolling in a chair (no need for a sign; his body language told us in no uncertain terms that he was taking a break). At the third position a women was hunched over piles of coins she was busy counting. It took a little while to explain that we wanted return tickets to Newlands. At this point I’d already given up attempting to buy kids’ tickets for the non-adults, and just asked for six return tickets. She responded by handing me four tickets. Thank you, but we need six tickets. She duly printed them out, but then had to get her lolling colleague to multiply R13 by six people on his cellphone to establish how much money I had to hand over.

No part of this experience implied any degree of efficiency, professionalism or reliability. The staff were untrained and under-resourced; there’s a lot more to running an effective public transport system than moving people from A to B and then back. Indeed, upon our return to Cape Town, the signs at Newlands station indicated the next train as 18.05. Except that a train was there at 17.48. We were very happy not to wait the additional 17 minutes, but we weren’t sure if it was a case of the earlier train running late, or the later train running early.

Our public transport corporations have a window of opportunity, during which they have the opportunity of winning over people who have traditionally used their own cars. Based upon my experiences over the past few days they’ve got a lot of work to do on some pretty basic stuff. Our World Cup legacy depends upon it.

The Euro zone is in the news for all the wrong reasons at the moment. In fact, if the currency continues the way it’s going, South Africans may not be as keen to accept Greeks bearing euros. OK, maybe not only Greeks, but also Germans, Dutch and French.

The most troubled European economies make up the unfortunately acronymed PIIGS countries – Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. Soccer is not a sport one associates with Ireland – who would have made it a PIIGS full-house were it not for a crucial handball by Thierry Henry – but it’s huge in all four of the others. Imagine what the World Cup would look like without its ruling favourite (Spain), defending champion (Italy), or the interesting outsider Portugal. South Africa has a huge Greek community, so some of the ‘home game’ factor needs to be factored into their performance as well.

I venture onto Betfair a few times a year, partly because of the fun of having a bet, but also because the exchange enables one to ‘lay off’ a position. For example, Portugal is currently 33-1. Should they qualify, the odds should shorten. Assuming an initial stake of £10, if their odds shorten to 15-1, one could then lay 150-10, meaning that there is upside (£180), and no downside.

With the exception of the favourites, Spain, the odds against Portugal, Italy and Greece allow margin for some interesting bets. The alternative to laying off the full amount immediately after the Group stage is to lay them at each knockout game. Because these games involve only two teams, the odds will be much shorter, which means one could be laying off at even money. This my PIIGS strategy for the World Cup.

Another strategy is a play on two interesting markets (Betfair has markets for just about every aspect of what could happen between 11 June and 11 July), Stage of Elimination and Position in Group, both of which are accessible under ‘team specials’.

I’ve layed USA to be eliminated at the Group stage, at odds of 1.42-1 (Betfair displays its odds Tote-style, so this is actually 2.42). My potential loss is £1.42 for every £1.00 wagered by whoever is on the other side of the wager. If USA qualifies I’m in the clear, but I’d prefer to go into this with hardly any risk. I can cover most of the risk of this bet by backing USA to come third in the group, at odds of 2.65-1. And, yes, if they finish fourth both bets are losers, but a US Navy battleship positioned off the coast of Algeria should take care of any issues here.

Temporary mis-pricing may also open opportunities in the To Qualify and Stage of Elimination markets, but one does need to take into account the 5% commission on winning bets. These markets are perfect hedges for each other.

I’ve never had any interest in following soccer, but perhaps Betfair can help me get through a month of the stuff happening on my doorstep. My money is on the underdogs. Every PIG[S] has its day.

Women have had a raw deal for thousands of years. Denied education, the right to vote – or, even as recently as the 70s, requiring the counter-signature of their husbands in order to open a bank account – women were burnt at the stake under vague suspicion of witchcraft. In the modern world, they are far more likely than men to be single parents.

Studies regularly show that women earn less for the same work (there’s a reason why the chorus of the song is “SHE works hard for her money”). “It’s a man’s world”, and in this world men are the bosses.

It shouldn’t be necessary, nearly 100 years after Emily Davison threw herself under the King’s horse during the running of the Epsom Derby to bring attention to the suffragette cause, for there to be awards identifying exceptional women in business.

My grandmother, Margaret de Wet (read more about her here), was exactly that type of woman, but it may have taken the tragically early death of her husband to thrust her into that role when she took over the large family farm.

I have similar admiration for my mother, Veronica Foulkes, who at the age of 22 had two young boys to raise on her own after leaving a disastrous marriage. All the success she’s enjoying as an owner-breeder in the Sport of Kings (note the masculine inference) after decades of seriously hard work is richly deserved.

I suppose it’s no coincidence that the woman who shares my life, Andrea, has built an amazing catering business from scratch. And, last night we attended the regional Business Women’s Association regional awards where my sister, Tracy, who created NoMU, won the Entrepreneur category.

There was a point during the evening when I needed the wine list (for the obvious reasons). I was horrified to find Warwick’s First Lady Cabernet Sauvignon priced at R190 (sorry, Crystal Towers Hotel I have to name you). The night before we’d had the same wine at a neighbourhood restaurant. Then, I thought the R135 price tag tended a bit towards price-gouging, but this was just outrageous. Based upon a retail price in the vicinity of R69 per bottle I’m assuming the trade price must be about R50. In my view a wine list price in the vicinity of R100 to R120 would have been fair, but R190?

It got me thinking about profit margins, and what businesses deliver to justify them. In the case of the bottle of First Lady, Crystal Towers took no risk and added no value beyond opening the bottle and providing an admittedly superior glass for drinking it. In contrast, Warwick, which famously had Norma Ratcliffe as woman winemaker and champion for many years, carries a huge amount of risk. It doesn’t seem fair.

The evening ended with an impromptu charity auction conducted by one of the night’s winners, Ariella Kuper. Auctioneers, of course, earn a set, published commission – their margin – which may explain some of the reason why auctions are so popular. Ariella worked the room with humour and no small amount of sass. She is also attractive, completing a package that must stand her in good stead when she’s pushing a roomful of men for an extra bid. In time, gender will become less and less of an issue, but the thorny matter of sex will still be around.

Men may hold the world’s financial power, and to a diminishing extent, the political power, but when it gets to the bedroom their women wear the pants. Perhaps women have been denied so much in the real world in retribution for withheld conjugal ‘rights’. OK, I’m sorry, I’m straying into territory better handled by a doctoral thesis.

The point of the story is that I’m enormously proud of the women in my family who have so convincingly beaten the odds. You guys rock!

Trawling the ocean of e-books can be an entertaining pastime. Today I came across a book (they call it a kit) that was clearly not in the libraries of either the Labour or Tory campaigns – How to Win Any Election.

The author, “an accomplished political consultant” covers a wide selection of resources from fund raising to writing press releases and much more.

Granted, it would probably have taken more than the expenditure of $87 on an ebook to keep Gordon Brown in no. 10, but surely it was worth a shot?

I was highly stimulated after reading John Sculley’s book Odyssey: Pepsi to Apple in the late 80s. Ask a question, get an answer, ask another question was the mantra of the world of knowledge navigation he foresaw.

In a sense, the internet has made this a reality. However, I don’t think even he could have predicted the extent to which the internet would democratise the world, by giving a voice to everyone with some form of electronic connection – even a mobile phone set up for Twitter.

Essentially, the Big Brother world of George Orwell’s 1984 could not happen in this world of mass broadcast. The further implication is that people within ‘niches’ are not only able to tell the world about their special interests, but they can also connect with other like-minded people.

By way of example, here’s a small selection of e-books relating to diet:

Cabbage Soup Diet 2.0 – The Ultimate Guide: the writer claims a weight loss of 10 pounds in two weeks. I’m not surprised; if cabbage soup is all that’s on the menu you’re likely to give up food entirely.

The Kremlin Diet: “Kremlin bosses secretly commissioned a group of the top doctors in Moscow to create a special dietary system for use only by the highest and most loyal officials of the party, and their wives and girlfriends…. and by loyal party members who were groomed to be the “face of the USSR” to be shown to the world.” I think they were just trying to look like the female Russian spies in Bond movies.

Scarsdale Low-Carb Diet: this one claims a weight loss of up to 30 pounds per month. Just how low are those carbs? One crumb of bread per day?

Detox Diet Secrets: My gut feel (OK, perhaps not the ideal choice of words) is that our bowels are designed as an efficient first-in, first-out system. The writers of this book splash pictures of horrible looking stuff, called Mocoid Plaque, they claim resides in our intestinal tracts, waiting to make us ill.

Celebrity Cookie Diet: Yay! Eat these cookies four to five times per day, don’t take any pills or supplements and certainly don’t exercise. You will look like a celebrity!

The 100 Calorie Diet: my first thought was “of course you’ll lose weight if you only eat 100 calories per day”. The trick here, the writers tell us, is to eat in correctly constituted 100-calorie increments. As if our stomachs have calorie counters telling our bodies to get fat if we eat a 220 calorie snack rather than a 200 calorie one.

The Alkaline Diet: the reason all kinds of horrible things happen to your body and your health is due to a pH imbalance, claim the authors. Inevitable pictures of ironing-board stomachs abound.

Bachelor Diet Method: “cook once, eat for a month” is the strapline of this diet. The author even reproduces the till slip for his monthly supermarket shop to prove how much money he’s saved. There’s no mention, though, of beer, or leftover pizza for breakfast.

The Chocolate Weight Loss Diet: here’s another eureka diet. “End obesity with chocolate” strikes me as being a ‘hair of the dog’ solution, which even offers relief from tooth decay! They go into detail on the claimed “disadvantages of exercise”. This diet appears to be all gain, and no pain (although ‘gain’ may be an unfortunate choice of words in this context).

I could go on, but I leave you with one of my favourites, The Paleo Cookbook. The author has put together a collection of recipes that are free of wheat, dairy, processed sugar and preservatives, based upon prehistoric hunter gatherer diets. “There is a reason you’ve never seen a picture of a fat caveman” says the author. Yes, no-one had cameras on their mobile phones then … duh!

Caveat emptor. The days of snake oil salesmen in the days of the Wild West spring to mind.

Dinner table conversation last night turned to the UK elections. With my daughter and son present (aged 13 and 9) it then turned into a very general introduction to the concepts of hung Parliaments and budget deficits; in essence, the austerity that will need to be imposed upon the British fiscus made this a good election to lose.

Greece was used as a perfect example of what happens when there is an expense overhang (not the same thing as a Parliament being ‘hung’). My son was very quick to spot the inevitable consequence of ongoing deficits. He hasn’t yet signed up for his first proper loan, but even at the age of nine, the downside of perpetually negative cash flow is crystal clear to him. Perhaps I could hawk his insights to a few governments around the world.

I shared with them something I was told last week by a friend – usually well-informed about such matters – that only eight Greeks declare an income in excess of 1 million euros per annum. I later tried, unsuccessfully, to find the source of that intelligence on the internet. Thanks to the Financial Times I was able to establish that fewer than 5,000 Greeks declare annual incomes of more than 100,000 euros. However, more than 60,000 Greek households have investments in cash and securities exceeding 1 million euros. The two bits of data are clearly contradictory.

It is not uncommon, it appears, for specialist medical practitioners to claim to earn less than their receptionists.

The ideal world, we are told, has German engineers, Swiss trains, French lovers and Italian designers. To this list one can now add Greek accountants; while their actions on a collective basis have ruined Greece, on an individual level they’ve saved their clients billions in tax payments.

I’ve had a Cape Town-based Greek accountant since the mid-90s. I’ve never earned enough money to have a tax ‘problem’, so I can’t vouch for his aptitude in matters of this nature. However, he has the most fabulous bedside manner, which is a huge plus when you’re being told bad news. Yes, the numbers side of businesses is important, but it doesn’t take the demeanour of an undertaker to do the job effectively.

So, the unconventional solution to Greece’s problems is to re-train its rioting workforce as accountants, for export to the rest of the world. Think about it, they have a head start on anyone else using spreadsheets – the Sigma sign (Σ) is used to denote ‘the sum of’.

If you end up with a Greek accountant you would certainly have more fun. And, you may even pay less tax.