Illustrative image: The plenary session of the G20. (Photo: Elmond Jiyane / GCIS) | President Cyril Ramaphosa at the G20 Summit in Johannesburg. (Photo: Elmond Jiyane / GCIS) | Police monitor Operation Dudula members outside Nasrec during the G20 Summit on 22 November 2025. (Photo: Felix Dlangamandla) 
If there is one thing I’ve learnt from waking up early for radio and TV in my life, it is this. Those who say that we need at least six hours of sleep a night are correct.
Without it, I’m grumpy, difficult, and argumentative. Always looking for a fight.
Perhaps this explains our Parliament.
The second is that when you get up incredibly early, it really helps if the facilities you are going to are up to scratch, and if the event you are going to report on is worthwhile.
Dear Reader, it is not often that I start a Monday morning feeling sleep deprived, and yet pleased that I had spent the weekend working.
It is also not often that I get to say this, but frankly, (nearly) everyone in our government who was involved in the hosting of the G20 Leaders’ Summit over the weekend deserves what I hope you are still giving everyone at Eskom.
A jolly good handshake.
I know the fact that many international journalists were present is one of the main reasons that the media facilities were so good, but they were still impressive.
It’s probably old hat to anyone who has spent any time at any event in Asia, but for many of us, to be greeted at the hall by a facial recognition machine that allows you access is still quite exciting.
By my third inspection of the ablution facilities, it was still quite cool to play with.
Inside, it was all cool, calm and collected. There was food and that most vital of journalistic fuels, caffeine. All free, by the way.
I did notice a strategically muted corporate logo or two, which made me wonder if perhaps there was the unhidden hand of the private sector involved. But even so, it was good. It was more evidence that South Africans are happy to work together when foreigners are in town.
Top-class hospitality
I should also just mention something that I think we do, which other countries don’t necessarily do – we try to look after each other.
As people arrived, they were given a G20 backpack, the kind of complimentary thing you might find at a good conference. But this was of a superior quality, something you don’t see very often.
Inside, among other goodies, was that most beloved of items, the only object ever to rival caffeine among my journalistic tribe, a powerbank.
On Sunday morning, many hours after this authorial slowcoach had missed his chance, I went to go and ask if, perhaps, completely unreasonably, there might be one left?
As I started the conversation, my work life caught up with me and I rudely ran off to do something that suddenly felt urgent.
Two hours later, a person comes up to me with the bag and says, “Ah, there you are, I’m glad I caught you”.
Dear Reader, I would not call myself well-travelled, but in most places I’ve been, I don’t think that would have happened.
It says something about our President that he was able to include that spirit in the final declaration of the summit. More than once.
It also says something about him, about the sometimes painstaking approach, that I think South Africa got everything the country wanted out of this summit.
Trump rebuked
I suspect that some of the roots of this declaration, the way in which the entire process was managed, the way G20 nations (apart from Argentina) came together to really rebuke the Trump Administration, were actually seeded in the Oval Office, during that meeting where Ramaphosa was confronted with lies and nonsense from Donald Trump himself.
In the end, despite the frustration I felt at the time that he had not been more assertive in his response, it was better to do it this way.
If you’re going to take on the bully, it’s best to do it with a whole lot of friends around you.
Essentially, that’s what Ramaphosa did. He knew that countries such as Canada, Germany, France and so many others, were looking for a chance to publicly rebuke Trump.
And when he got them all in a room, that’s what they did.
Gatecrashing
I did feel a little irritated, though, by what some other people did.
I’m not sure why Cabinet Ministers such as Siviwe Gwarube or Patricia de Lille were there.
It seemed to me like a naked attempt to insert themselves into the story.
And unfortunately, some social media activity at the weekend seemed utterly shameless.
Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi kept tweeting over the weekend as if he were involved.
Perhaps his worst was his tweet that, “As the world turns its attention to South Africa for the #G20Summit, Gauteng’s security capability stands on a global stage. Our integrated CCTV infrastructure and real-time intelligence systems provide the foundation for coordinated, responsive and world-class public safety”.
I’m just going to give you a moment of empty space to let the sheer cravenness of this sink in:
It was accompanied by a photo that frankly does not look like the inner city I drove back through yesterday afternoon. That city has hardly any working traffic lights.
And frankly, Mr Premier, as anyone living in your province, and you, well know, fear of crime is a massive issue.
The numbers spell it out comprehensively.
But all in all, as I get into my Monday, a litre-flask of caffeine by my side, phone better with fingerprints than faces on my desk, and the buzz of my journalistic tribe around me once again, I keep coming back to the same thought.
What a great weekend for South Africa. DM