Sex, shrinks and videotape
The manne are often puzzled by business practices in the big city, and also often by sex. When the two come together, you can imagine how much head-scratching goes on in the Dorsbult Bar. First of all we heard that the latest film by Larry Clark, the American director of Kids, was coming to South Africa at last.
We were very excited because Kids was a notoriously explicit depiction of teenage sex, which is something we in the Groot Marico need to learn about. Clark’s new movie, Ken Park, goes even further in that direction. So much further, in fact, that Ster Kinekor took it upon itself to make some cuts in the film before release in December. It wasn’t the scenes of parental violence or the exposed breasts of a teen girl that bothered Ster Kinekor it seems. What did bother it very much was one shot that showed the results of a boy’s masturbation session. That was felt to be way too much.
So Ster Kinekor called in a shrink for advice. The shrink saw the movie and said it was all right. This is all very puzzling to us. What did the shrink tell Ster Kinekor that it didn’t know already? Even here, in the rural backwaters, we know that the natural result of male masturbation is ejaculation.
Touché
Last month the prez declared that he did not know anyone who died of Aids, which struck Oom Krisjan as a little disingenuous: everyone knew Liberace. But this week, the Prince formerly known as Gatsha realised he could possibly score a political point over Mr Mbeki.
The Prince told a gathering in kwaMakutha on Sunday: ”I know of too many people who are infected and affected by HIV/Aids. I know of too many people who have died and who are dying because of HIV/Aids. I have seen too many funerals of people who could have been saved, or whose death could have been delayed had proper HIV/Aids treatment been available many years ago. I have shed too many tears with my people who are suffering because of the neglect of our war against HIV/Aids to be complacent and to be satisfied with what we have achieved.”
Even Lemmer could not have rubbed it in better.
Elementary
In honour of all the pupils soon to be writing matric (a sum total of 0, apparently, as pupils have been outlawed to the far reaches of learnerdom), Oom Krisjan will now assist Professor William Smith with some intense science revision.
A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest chemical element yet known to science. The new element has been tentatively named ”governmentium”. Governmentium has one neutron, 121 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 151 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 448.
These 448 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact.
A minute amount of governmentium causes any one reaction to take more than 194 days to complete when it would normally take less than a second.
Governmentium has a normal half-life of about five years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganisation in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places freely.
In fact, governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganisation will cause some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes.
This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to speculate that governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as ”critical morass”.
You will know governmentium when you see it. It can be found in large concentrations all over Southern Africa.
Cheap
Considering it costs an arm and a leg to board an aircraft these days (and sometimes other parts of the anatomy, if you accept the links between long-distance flights and deep-vein thrombosis), kulula.com’s efforts to offer no-frills cheap air travel is to be applauded. But Oom Krisjan wonders whether one of the frills it has dispensed with recently is advertising originality.
A few months ago it ran a ”Winna” poster that was, if you’re being kind, a parody of the movie poster for National Lampoon’s Vacation.
And the ”’I never fly kulula.com.’ Twit” campaign bears more than a passing resemblance to The Economist‘s hugely successful ”’I never read The Economist.’ Management trainee — age 44” originally flighted in 1986. To make matters worse, Easyjet, a British company offering similar services to kulula.com was in hot water earlier this year for using the quote ”I would never fly Easyjet. George Smith, management trainee, aged 47.”
The Economist didn’t regard Easyjet’s efforts as parody, but as another word beginning with p (think Darrel Bisto-Gravy), and threatened to sue.
Definitively SA
The manne have had some hearty laughs at the wonderful reader response to Lemmer’s call for South African responses to The Washington Post‘s Style Invitational. Though some stretch the rules a bit, Oom Krisjan has reproduced them because they’re so apposite.
Hippopotamush: Large road kill.
Agcent: The clumsy maneouvre performed by the tongues of white radio journalists faced with yet another Bulelani story.
Mboyki: Presidential wannabe Tony Leon.
Unethnical: The unscrupulous disregard for another’s culture.
Ruggermortis: A state of petrifaction after losing a game.
Springback: Where hope springs eternal and supporters believe that the South African rugby team will some day regain its form.
Abaclone: Genetically modified perlemoen.
More next week…