The World Summit on Sustainable Development is the biggest thing to hit Jozi since the Jameson Raid — considering Krugersdorp and Sandton are about equidistant from the city centre — and next week’s shindig has driven the citizenry even crazier than usual. To counteract this, a sign has gone up on the gates of the licensing department in Marlboro saying: ”No public excess during the Johannesburg Summit.”
Locals can’t go anywhere without being confronted by people wearing enormous accreditation badges round their necks — a week before the summit starts. Receptionists are wearing the things while sitting in their (own) offices and even when they’re out having a jol at night.
To be on the safe side, Lemmer and the rest of the manne will be sheltering in the Dorsbult for the duration, but Oom Krisjan is pleased to hear that South African businesses are turning on the style. A food vendor was refused service at the Standard Bank at Ubuntu Village (daar by die Wanderers) because he wanted change for humble rands, not valuable foreign currency. The bank later reversed this decision, perhaps remembering that, when all the junketeers have left, its customers will (it hopes) be the same ones it had before.
Death wish
Embattled visdorpie mayor Gerald Morkel, the former premier who cavorted with German fraudster Jurgen Harksen, does not miss a beat, even though he no longer fulfils any ceremonial duties on behalf of the council.
A recent media alert that Democratic Alliance leader Tony Leon would be accompanied by Western Cape DA leader Helen Zille sparked the self-proclaimed Charles Bronson’s fury. A complaint to the office of the national leader followed to insist he (Morkel) was still in charge of the province — at least until the October provincial conference during which the DA hopes to dump this liability.
The DA spin doctor responsible had to eat humble pie and apologise.
Tonight on e
Troubled times at e.tv continue. Staffing and financial difficulties aside, Oom Krisjan has recently discovered that the broadcaster’s slogan ”Be free with e” has taken on a new meaning on a T-shirt, which should quickly become a firm favourite with the Cape’s hoards of young ravers.
Boep and jive
Oom Krisjan came in for some stick for his comments on Pieter van Zyl’s pitch invasion last week, with several readers questioning his allegiances. So let’s just make it clear: being a Boer does not mean having to be a boor.
However, my good friend Schalk in the visdorpie did have some very constructive suggestions on how people can show their support without getting a bloody nose.
Instead of sending out the fat blokes with feathers and spears ahead of the national anthems, Oom Silas and Co should provide a South African version of the All Blacks’ haka before the kick-off. Picture this: the massed umbilici of Potchefstroom bumping and grinding, burping and farting to music, possibly syncopated by that most famous of all South African poets, Leon Schuster. Maybe singing something like Hier kom die Boere. The sight of this ”impi” advancing menacingly towards the opposing team — brandishing Castle Lager cans — should really strike the fear of God into the players and would obviously also focus the attention of the ref on the matter at hand.
Buy George
The Mail & Guardian‘s sale continues to excite plenty of attention in rival media organisations — and to provoke some of the tallest tales heard outside the Dorsbult.
Zimbabwe’s Sunday Mirror (Uncle Bob’s mouthpiece) deserves this week’s award for creative writing, however. Under the headline ”Mbeki slams paper’s take-over: George Soros bankrolls Trevor Ncube’s M&G deal”, Tawanda Majoni has produced a quite wonderful work of fiction.
His claim that United States financier Soros provided money for Ncube’s buyout is based on hard evidence such as this quote from the Sunday Times‘s new editor Mathatha Tsedu: ”I will confirm that Trevor’s money has been said to have come from George Soros, but I do not have greater detail.”
It would be nice if the M&G had Soros’s billions behind it, but you know what they say: if wishes were horses, I’d have the biggest ranch this side of Texas.
Choc drops
The manne were very taken by The Sunday Independent‘s brave new back page where last week there was a close-up photograph of a female vulva being plastered with blue putty, but not a baked bean in sight. Charming Sunday morning stuff nonetheless. There was also a photograph of a chocolate mould of the same vulva. As one of our columnists — who refuses to be named — commented: ”that makes two single- and one double-barrelled, all on the same page”.
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