Old Mad Bad up north has been relatively quiet of late — or the media are suffering from Bob fatigue — but His Nasty Nuttiness is back with a bang. In a country in economic crisis, with inflation running at 150% and thousands of the citizens starving, what would a good despot do? Well, vote himself a 20% salary increase, of course. Mugabe, who last give himself more moola simply ages ago — February, actually — has boosted his annual pay cheque to Z$1,6-million, backdated to July. To fend off any complaints from members of his Zanu-PF clique, he gave them a similar increase. And, just to ensure that the opposition Movement for Democratic Change didn’t have an axe to grind, he extended the pay hike to them, too.
And what did the people get? Cricket, naturally.
As patron of the Zimbabwe Cricket Union (please notify Lemmer if you can think of any pie he doesn’t have his fingers in), Uncle Bob extended a warm invitation to all his people to flock to Tests against Pakistan starting this weekend. He wants proud Zimbabweans to be seen on international TV to be having a good time. This will prove there’s nothing at all wrong in the country.
Snakes alive
On the subject of cricket, United Cricket Board chief Gerald Majola should have paid attention to billionaire Bill’s take on Ngconde: MSWord’s spellcheck suggests that Balfour might be an Anaconda. A case of a snake in hippo’s clothing?
Bubble, bubble
Every now and again a newspaper publishes a picture that makes Lemmer’s blood run cold. Take the one on the front page of The Citizen this week, of Wouter Basson and Regimental Sergeant Major Jeffrey Ngwenya of 7 Medical Battalion smiling happily and stirring a potjiekos. Shades of Shakespeare’s ”midnight hags” here — for who on earth would want to eat from a pot brewed up by ”Dr Death”?
Flaming firewalls
Several readers have commiserated with Richard Cock and the hassle Nedcor’s MailMarshal creates over his name (reported last week), but few stories were so amusing as the one from the Department of Land Affairs. Apparently its computer system has a firewall that screens out websites containing certain key words, causing a researcher no end of headaches when she tried to access an Indian site about a rural cooperative called Tittykum. The most famous example of a computer’s blind illogic remains, however, the problem people have accessing the site belonging to the town of Scunthorpe in England.
Cheap
Trevor Tutu, son of the former Arch, is one big chancer. Last week, on deadline for applications to be the 51% shareholder in the second national operator to compete with Telkom, he led a consortium of bidders that proved so pathetic that they did not even warrant short-listing. Not only did they miss the 6pm deadline, they also could not put up the R250 000 application fee. The consortium is called Not Just Cheap Talk.
Smoking!
One of the successful bidders shouldn’t think of resting on its laurels though. Oom Krisjan went looking for some more information on the Eskom consortium, Esitel, and was quite surprised at what he found. The website www.esitel.co.za gleefully announces ”The early bird catch’s [sic] the worm” as its ”Thought for the day” on its homepage and, once you press enter, there’s a cute little dagga leaf floating around the screen. There are some useful bits — such as a glossary for those abbreviations and accronyms so beloved of SMS users — but in general the site appears to be a spoof. Seems Esitel forgot to register its domain name in time. On second thoughts, Lemmer hopes the site is genuine.
Bigger they come …
A patron of the Dorsbult has come up with a superbly practical idea relating to the proposed 30-storey high statue of Nelson Mandela in Port Elizabeth harbour. Once the statue is up the new presidential jet should be flown into it to see whether it can withstand a September 11 secenario. If it topples, the insurance money could be used to fund the ever-elusive African renaissance.
Googlies
Mail & Guardian sports columnist Andy Capostagno had cricket viewers in stitches when he intoned, ”One ball left,” after Easterns batsman Dylan Jennings was struck in the groin by the fifth delivery of a Charl Willoughby over during the Supersport Series final last weekend.
Cappy was, of course, quoting Brian Johnstone, an English commentator famous for on-air gaffes such as: ”The bowler’s Holding, the batsman’s Willey.”
Office sweep
Gossip at the Dorsbult focused on the clean sweep at new Cape Town mayor Nomaindia Mfeketo’s office. The mayor has axed all the old officials lingering on from the Democratic Alliance days, including administrative manager Pierre Oosthuizen and mayoral spokes- person Kylie Hatton — and two tea ladies as well.
Meanwhile preparations for the new deputy mayor — expected to be New National Party MP Pierre Uys — are in full swing. He will be getting a bathroom in his new suite, which apparently cost R200 000 to renovate.
Cleanliness is, after all, next to godliness.
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