Here in the Groot Marico there’s a grand tradition of storytelling. You don’t even need a lekker campfire to warm to your theme – just make sure the old stone jug isn’t too far away. And as any of the manne will tell you, throwing a couple of quotations from a respected source into the mix always adds some gravitas to your offering.
Oom Krisjan believes there isn’t that much difference between spinning yarns at the Dorsbult and addressing major international gatherings. The objective is very similar, it’s just a question of scale: in Lemmer’s case he’s trying to get listeners to buy him another Klippies and Coke, in President Thabo Mbeki’s case he’s usually trying to get listeners to give him enough money to buy the whole country another Klippies and Coke.
Our president’s favourite source of bon mots has until now been Shakespeare, but Oom Thabo’s choice of Bard quotations has occasionally had analysts questioning whether he knows his Othello from his Iago. And there’s always those Africanists who accuse him of Eurocentricity and worse for quoting this long-dead rooinek.
It seems Mbeki has decided to ditch old William Wobbledaggers in favour of another great non-African, Jesus Christ. A couple of weeks ago the president used the ”fishers of men” quotation to fire a broadside against those who look for corrupt souls within the governance system.
The last week, speaking to the International Labour Conference in Geneva, Oom Thabo once again turned to the Bible for his inspiration.
He told the rather puzzled business leaders: ”In the parable of the talents in the Biblical Gospel according to St Matthew, a money merchant, angry that one of his servants did not discharge his duties as a fund manager, by using the talent given to him to trade in the money markets, said:
”’Thou wicked and slothful servant, thou knewest that I reap where I sowed not, and gather where I have not strawed [sic];
”’Thou oughtest therefore to have put my money to the exchangers, and then at my coming I should have received mine own with usury. Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him which hath 10 talents.
”’For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. And cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”’
No, Lemmer doesn’t know what the prez was getting at either.
I spy
Many readers probably saw TV coverage of the new Bond toy handed out to MPs this week during the intelligence budget debate in Parliament this week. It’s a magic cup — pour hot water into the black mug the colour disappears to reveal these messages: ”Exposed! I’m a proud guardian of South Africa” and ”What are you doing to make South Africa a safer place?”
Where the spooks were caught out, however, was on the packaging. The mugs came wrapped in yellow plastic bags — the thin kind! Lemmer wonders whether Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa will find the spooks concerned.
Minister of Intelligence Lindiwe Sisulu also gave hacks a sneak preview of the ministry’s first TV ad, ”Here’s to another normal day”. Pity the projection screen threatened to topple over on the minister a few times.
Another who was ”toppled” was National Intelligence Agency boss Vusi Mavimbela, demoted to deputy director-general, by accident, in the round of introductions.
Local is lekker
Oom Krisjan often marvels at the lengths ministers will go to get a good press. A handful of hacks were flown from Johannesburg to Cape Town for the provincial and local government budget speech by minister Sydney Mufamadi last week. And the free trip to the visdorpie was not all: the Gauteng hacks were put up at the Vendôme Hotel, which charges between R2 100 and R2 630 a night for a single room.
Driven
Being a luxury car manufacturer in South Africa has its drawbacks. Your product is often a target for all sorts of unscrupulous individuals, and Lemmer isn’t just referring to corrupt MPs.
BMW is so annoyed that its cars are the favoured choice of hijackers that it put out this statement this week: ”The use of our vehicles in the contexts is unacceptable to us and will result in a negative connotation being attached to our vehicles in the minds of viewers. This will in turn have a detrimental impact upon our brand and cause us to sustain damages.”
But the Beemers also manage do quite well for themselves when it comes to negative connotations being attached to their brand. At the BMW jazz evening earlier this month, a posh dinner held at Montecasino, all the guests received little boxes, prettily adorned with ribbons, containing chocolates. When the festivities were being wrapped up, an announcement was made saying the guests could keep the contents of the boxes but had to hand back the boxes themselves. A flurry ensued as bemused guests searched for tissues, etc, in which to wrap and convey the chocolates.
Wet, wet, wet
The manne at the Dorsbult were not particularly perturbed about the front-page news from the New York Times that virtually all South Africans have had their water cut off. They usually mix their Klippies with Coke anyway. And they have long known that statistics are flexible and the number of pink elephants (or water taps) you see often depends on what you have been drinking or smoking.
They were, however, amused to note that the paper’s two top editors resigned a week after the story was published. There is still debate on why they actually resigned. Was it because they preferred the Symbionese Liberation Army member, whose book was the source of their stats, over more conventional but boring sources such as governments and municipalities?
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