War of the Words
In October 1938, the day before Halloween, in fact, Orson Welles made his legendary ”War of the Worlds” radio broadcast. It was a dramatisation of the HG Wells novel, but was so realistic that many of those in the United States (what Oom Gerhard now calls Bushmanland) believed they were really being invaded by Mars. It caused national paniek and the authorities were not impressed.
Well, the manne are feeling a bit like members of the Mercury Theatre at the moment, with Oom Robert Kirby as ons eie Orson Welles. And it’s all because of our last edition of 2003.
Not the Mail & Guardian it said on the cover. Not the Mail & Guardian it said on the second cover inside. ”Read my satirical edition on December 31,” Oom Kirby had urged readers for several weeks prior to the issue. And there were warning adverts too.
But still the reports come of mense in the visdorpie planning to move up north in search of a busty boeremeisiemag; of cricketers determined to track down and eliminate Kirsty Naikdu for her heretical piece on St Hansie of Centurion; and several callers offering employment to daily astrologer Juventus Daniel Jouberts, a victim of reverse discrimination.
But the biggest dupes have been Mad Bad Bob’s regime (why is Lemmer not surprised?). In a story in the January 9 edition of the Bulawayo Chronicle entitled ”Mail & Guardian story unfounded”, Bob’s press lapdogs faithfully parroted a statement from the Department of Information and Publicity in the Office of the President and Cabinet. ”’Faithful to its mission to attack Zimbabwe’s resounding and irreversible land acquisition through petty and fictitious denigration of the President, the newspaper [that’s us] alleges that a luxury wine estate in Cape Town is being prepared for the retirement of the Zimbabwe President,’ the department said.”
In case you thought they realised it was a spoof, the Chronicle went on: ”The department said the South African paper and its sister papers in Britain have been concocting stories suggesting that the President had mansions, castles and chateaux in France and Scotland.”
And ”The Mail & Guardian, like all white-owned and apartheid-tainted South African newspapers, may continue to make headlines against the President, but they will not take away the passionate and emotional admiration that the President enjoys among the black masses of South Africa, the department said.”
The Herald ran a similar fervent denial of any wrongdoing on Mad Bob’s part.
Welles explained his famous radio broadcast as ”our version of dressing up in a sheet and jumping out of a bush and saying Boo!” for Halloween, and that got Oom Krisjan scheming.
The manne are now trying to gather enough tickeys together to buy a big radio transmitter to train on Zimbabwe. On some appropriate day, June 28, for example, we plan to broadcast ”The Invasion of the Banana Snatchers”, in which we will describe how Harare falls to legions of pink-lycra-clad queens, all vying to be first to deflower the president.
Lemmer believes this might work a heap better than quiet diplomacy in shifting Mad Bob off to one of his (non-existent) foreign mansions.
Living in the past
Former Times Media (now Johnnic Publishing) MD Steve Mulholland is known to have conservative views. Maybe this comes from using old reference books. In a recent column in Finance Week, Mulholland states that the US population is ”now about 126-million”. It exceeded that number 50 years ago.
Balls to the wall
One of the Dorsbult irregulars went to visit Kaapsehoop, in Mpumalanga, recently. She assures Oom Krisjan that no visit to that quaint tourist dorp is complete without passing a couple of hours in the Green Venus watering hole. In a little shop next to the Venus, however, she spotted ”nigger balls”. Knowing they couldn’t possibly be called that anymore in these politically correct times, Lemmer’s source asked the little old lady behind the counter if she knew what their new name was. ”I don’t know,” she said, ”but it’s all rather silly because it’s not like they’re real balls!”
Skin-tight
Oom Krisjan believes the prince formerly known as Gatsha makes a valid point in objecting to the use of a photograph by the Mail & Guardian depicting him in traditional African attire. This does seem a tad unfair, when every other Cabinet minister pictured was wearing the fashion hand-me-downs of the Western colonial oppressors.
Given the photograph in question, which depicts the said minister draped in the skin and body parts of a Cites-listed endangered species, it is remarkable that the dik-brille at the M&G who score the papers every year failed to nominate Dr Buthelezi as Minister of Tourism and Environmental Affairs in the Nightmare Cabinet for 2014.
Greener on the other side
The law is an ass, Lemmer agrees (although that argument didn’t get him off his speeding fine), and those who work for the law can make big asses of themselves. Take the case of Zachary Tutin, by all accounts a thoroughly nasty 14-year-old from Manchester.
The Guardian reports that this obnoxious blighter has been terrorising his local community and already has convictions for theft and assault.
The powers that be have decided to make an example of him and have made Zachary the subject of an anti-social behaviour order that prohibits him from using the word ”grass”, after he repeatedly abused his neighbours, claiming that they were police informers. The order bans him from saying grass at any time in England and Wales until 2010.
Lemmer supposes this is one way to prevent him ever having to mow the green stuff.