Yebo Gogo to the Dorsbult
Here in the Groot Marico, where the main business is making merry and mampoer, we have a rather ingrained suspicion of those big corporations that hail from the urban centres (such as Zeerust). We tend to have a mental image of those who work for these conglomerates as little grey men (and women) who need a sense of humour as much as they need ego.
But the manne were shocked to the bottom of our dop glasses by a response from one of those groot besighede, Vodacom, to an item in last week’s column.
Instead of whining like spoilt children when the media dare to criticise, companies and political parties (can you tell the difference?) should take a leaf out of the book of Mthobi Tymazashe, the cellphone operator’s group executive for corporate affairs, who sent Lemmer the following:
”Dear Oom Krisjan, I was thrilled to see Vodacom mentioned in your esteemed column last week, but wished to clarify an important point.
”Vodacom’s funding of political parties participating in this year’s elections is a once-off decision aimed at celebrating South Africa’s 10th year of democracy. It does not mean that political-party funding is now standard Vodacom policy.
”Therefore, although it may sound like a contradiction, this decision indeed does not constitute a deviation from our set policy of not funding political parties.
”The above aside, investigations within our company have determined that the Dorsbult Bar may qualify for Vodacom funding. After all, it holds many seats and has a proven constituency.
”However, as the Dorsbult is something of a dark horse, we have a few conditions. Please confirm that the manne will change the name of the bar to the ‘Vodacom Dorsbult Bar’ and that the interior will sport lively shades of green and blue.
”Please also advise if the Dorsbult building is more than seven stories tall as the Vodacom sign on the Ponte Tower is looking for a new home.”
Unfortunately, when Oom Mthobi takes up his sponsored stoel in the newly painted Vodacom Dorsbult, he will notice that although there are many more than seven tall stories inside the bar, there are no buildings taller than seven storeys (give or take the odd grain silo) in the entire Groot Marico.
Close to home
The manne at the Vodacom Dorsbult have always wondered why a glamorous outfit like Kaizer Chiefs built their Naturena clubhouse so close to the Johannesburg prison. Some among die manne even suggested that it was a form of corporate social responsibility, showing convicts that they, too, were part of society. Others said the former whites-only suburb of Naturena’s proximity to Soweto showed that the club had bridged the divide between the haves and the have-nots.
But it appears the real reason is beginning to emerge slowly. The club’s superstar, Jabu Pule, is out on a statutory abduction rap after he convinced an under-age girl to go partying with him without the girl’s parents’ consent. Before that Phumlani Mkhize (when he was still on the club’s books) quite literally shot himself in the foot.
Now there is news that the spokesperson of the club that goes by the battle-cry ”love and peace”, Putco Mafani, is on the carpet for allegedly beating up his wife. Club boss Kaizer Motaung has always been ahead of his peers as a visionary, so maybe the choice of a venue close to a prison was not a mistake after all.
Nursery politics
The Democratic Whatever (DW) this week stepped up its campaign to put politics firmly in the playpen. As Oom Krisjan has noted in this space before, the poor DW mites have had a weepy few electioneering weeks. Leader Tantrum Tony’s repeated invitations to playground bully Tubs the Terror to join him in the sandpit have been cruelly ignored, and (as noted here last week) the wretched lad is being rattled around the country in a tiddly little private aeroplane, nothing like Tubs’s huge Boeing.
Now it’s all the nasty name-calling that’s tormenting the DW toddlers. Tubs has gone too far, wept the DW’s Limpopo leader, Mike Holford, this week. How so? In his relentless drive for votes, he has been ”mentioning the names of the opposition parties and this is unfair”, Holford blubbed to the Sowetan. ”If Mbeki really wants the ANC to win the coming elections, he should refrain from doing so at the expense of the opposition.”
Too upset to explain how Mbeki might achieve this miracle, Mikey drizzled on: ”By mentioning other parties by name and saying to the public that they should not vote for those parties opposing the ANC is a clear indication that Mbeki is a coward.”
PC or not PC
Bill Gates and his crew attempt to get hip:
Regular readers might have gathered that Microsoft is not Lemmer’s favourite company — it’s definitely not in the same league as Vodacom — and it seems everywhere Oom Krisjan turns he comes across new reasons for this dislike.
The latest concerns one of those ”Critical Updates” — notification that drives Windows users to distraction whenever they log on to the Net. The update for February 10 said: ”A critical update is available to remove unacceptable symbols from the Bookshelf Symbol 7 font that is included with Microsoft Office 2003.”
A little investigation (and a lot of help from someone who knows something about computers) later and it turns out that the typographical font referred to is the one that gives you all those odd symbols (card suits, dollar signs, musical notes, and so on) — and the ”unacceptable” bits that have been removed are the swastika and the Star of David.
The geek shall inhibit the Earth.