Parliament Diary: SONA draws near, Speaker pretends not to hear

For many South Africans, the response by now to the endless State of the Nation Address predictions, speculation and will-they-won't-they tango is probably something along the lines of: Can we just get on with it? Nonetheless, it would be absurd to pretend that when people talk about Thursday's SONA, they are talking about anything other than the possibility of EFF disruption. Absurd, that is, unless you're Parliament's presiding officers – who, in a media briefing on Tuesday, seemed again determined to pretend as much as possible that the EFF threat didn't exist. By REBECCA DAVIS.