Under a month to election day in South Africa. Some may even take the over on the below (a lot depends on what the MK party does, and how in shape the ANC's machinery is, I guess), but it's an under-appreciated possibility.

As Armando Iannucci has noted, the opening line shares prosody with the theme tune of the Flintstones. (Of Man’s, first dis-obedience / Flintstones, meet the Flintstones, etc).

(Also how often the words wander/wonder and variations thereon appear as foreshadowing. That’s good.)

It seems every EM portfolio manager I meet these days is either going to Riyadh, has just come from Riyadh, or is telling me to go to Riyadh. So, naturally, this is just as Riyadh is now scaling back plans for more Riyadh. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

Good reminder that if South Africa's election does remove the ANC's majority next month, the constitution effectively sets a 14-day deadline to put a working coalition/minority government together. constitutionallyspeaking.co.za/the-slippery-p…

Few companies have shaped a nation the way Anglo has South Africa, for better or worse, over a century. “Fewer and fewer companies have invested in it like Anglo. It has a rapport with gov, understood lay of the land and I don’t see BHP filling that gap” ft.com/content/2d68bd…

Anglo officially rejects BHP. The offer structure (ie the South Africa spinoff) is “highly unattractive, creating substantial uncertainty and execution risk borne almost entirely by Anglo American, its shareholders and its other stakeholders,” Anglo says. otp.tools.investis.com/clients/uk/ang…

“It’s also important that without South Africa, Anglo is approximately the shape of BHP’s existing operations. Sticking the companies together would make BHP usefully bigger but it wouldn’t really change the investment case, nor the corporate structure.” ft.com/content/2bfe0d…