Keeping it in the family
Scanning the African National Congress’s list of election candidates this week, Lemmer discovered that at least two premiers’ wives feature on the list.
Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile’s wife, Nomvuyiso, appears on the province’s list of hopefuls for Parliament, while Ouma, the spouse of Limpopo boss Ngoako Ramatlhodi, has made it to the provincial list.
Since both premiers are on their way out for different reasons, Oom Krisjan wonders if it’s a way to ensure that at least one government salary keeps coming in.
And could the fact that Tony Yengeni’s wife, Lumka, is on the national list of hopeful for Parliament be the party’s attempt to ensure the Yengenis can keep their 4×4 running.
Dress for excess
Down here on the Southern tip of Africa, we try to be nice to the tourists. That’s not just because Afrikaners is plesierig, but because those foreigners have lots of foreign lolly.
Ever since the mid-Eighties, when the Groot Krokodil’s wagging finger sent the rand scuttling for cover, the tourism industry has discovered that there’s not point in trying to get money out of your average, broke South Effrican holidaymaker when you can get rich milking the European and American cash cows. Talk of South Africa being a value-for-money destination is all relative when there’s about a zillion rand to the D-mark. No one’s really going to count the zeros.
In this entrepreneurial spirit, some of our hotels elevate the price of a bottle of plonk to the price of a fine wine, and the price of a bottle of fine wine to the price of an airticket.
Now these fine establishments have decided to fleece the tourists for trying to stay smart and presentable. Daaronder in piesang- land, at Lynette’s Laundry, around the corner from the Elangeni, a whole load, washed and ironed will cost R42. At the Elangeni itself, R42 will wash about one and a half shirts.
But like in most things, the visdorpie takes the cake. At the new glitzy Arabella Sheraton, R42 won’t even do one shirt. A pair of slacks washed will set you back R75.
At those prices, Lemmer thinks, it would actually be cheaper to junk the dirty laundry and make a trip to Mr Price for new stuff instead.
Poetry in motion
People’s poet Mzwakhe Mbuli, he of Born Free But Always in Chains fame, who was arrested and jailed for robbing a First National Bank in Pretoria, will return to the city for his first gig after he regains his freedom. It will be at Moretele Park in Mamelodi, east of Pretoria. And Oom Krisjan is fascinated to see who is sponsoring the do: Standard Bank.
Considering that Mbuli was arrested a few yards from the scene, maybe the sponsors think he could learn from doing things simpler, better, faster.
Old chestnut
Clearly too many Klippies make you see things, but when the manne double checked while sober, it was clear that Carte Blanche had developed the ability to time travel.
They kept this useful piece of information to themselves, but it can clearly be seen on their webpage. Here they have story listings. One is about a story aired in 2009.
”Horse Chestnut 08/15/2009.”
”He is described as the fastest horse ever to come out of South Africa. He is also, according to the experts, a horse whose full potential has yet to be tested. This week the hopes of a nation bade Horse Chestnut farewell as he departed to test his mettle with the best in the world.”
A case of Aussie whine
Here in the Dorsbult, we’ve been trying to ignore the World Cup. But it’s impossible. Not only has Jonny Wilkinson taken over from Naas as the best kicker in the world, but it turns out that instead of practising how to hold on to the ball in the wet, the Boks spent the weeks before their antipodean adventure learning how to wet their balls in the hole.
As Oom Gerhard says, the reason Rudolf Straueli stuck the Bokke kaalgat into that hole with a tarpaulin over them is, of course, because that’s the way you prepare if you have to go down under.
Even the SABC couldn’t avoid getting politics and sport confused. Last week, at the bottom of the SABC website’s coverage of Judge Joos Hefer’s boreathon in Bloem, there was a link to ”SABCnews.com feature on Hefer Commission”. And that took you straight to … its rugby World Cup special.
After all the pom-bashing Martin Johnson’s men took in Australia, it’s not surprising that this vintage picture was quickly doing the e-mail rounds in England this week.
See the print edition