How to win friends and …
The losers in last month’s election (Oom Krisjan isn’t PC enough to buy that ”we are all winners” gumph) seem to be at a loss to understand why the African National Congress peformed so well at the polls. Despite concerns about lack of delivery (Lemmer sympathises, Mr Delivery is boycotting the Dorsbult, too), the ANC increased its majority to almost 70% of voters. If Tony Leon and the Prince formerly (and if colleague Hogarth is to be believed, still) known as Gatsha wanted a tip about winning over the people, they should review events of the past week. ANC heavyweights — including President Thabo Mbeki, Pallo Jordan, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma — all took time out from inaugurations and Cabinet tidying to be at the bedside of music icon Brenda Fassie, who is seriously ill.
Gone fishing
Not present at the hospital — or anywhere else, it seems — were members of the Free State executive council. Sapa reports that new Premier Beatrice Marshoff had to cancel the announcement of the council last Friday when many of those due to be sworn in could not be found.
Her mouthpiece, Kgotso Tau, tried to put a gloss on this rather embarrassing blaps by saying that the list was so surprising that ”many of those who were to be sworn in were not expecting to be sworn in”. It’s an excuse Oom Krisjan might try next time he bunks off on a Friday.
Name of the game
The Democratic Whatever has several times over the past couple of months taken Lemmer to task for calling it the Democratic Whatever as opposed to whatever its calling itself now. Such sticklers for correct names and titles should not, therefore, have sent out a media statement (from David Quail, the party’s Gauteng spokesperson on education) asking whether the new education minister (Naledi Pandor) will deliver — yet giving her name as Naledi Pando. And this from a former principal of Jeppe Boys, the place where Herman Charles Bosman (and so, indirectly, Krisjan Lemmer) went to school.
Ups and downs
But neither Lemmer nor Quail can compete with the mangling of the language performed by FW de Klerk on Carte Blanche last weekend. ”We were in a terrible descending spiral of escalating violence,” was how the former prez described the nation’s pre-1994 predicament.
We shall C
The manne are a little confused by the ”Take a Girl Child to Work Day” campaign. Not about the campaign itself (though ”why” is never far from our thoughts), but by the fact that one of the main sponsors is Cell C, owned by Saudi Arabian firm Saudi Oger. Lemmer wonders if this concept could fly in Saudi Oger’s home country? That is, after all, the place where special Islamic police, the al-Mutawa’een, roam the streets checking that women wear the head-to-toe black abaya. Women walking unaccompanied, or in the company of a man who is neither their husband nor a close relative, risk arrest on suspicion of prostitution or other ”moral” offences, according to Amnesty International. Oh, and perhaps one should drive A Girl Child to Work to honour the quaint Saudi law that forbids women to get behind the wheel of a car?
Many happy returns
Another marketing campaign that Lemmer finds a little inappropriate is the one by AIG insurers. To mark a client’s birthday, the company sends out a special, pretty blue envelope, decorated with ribbons and balloons. ”Ag foeitog,” you might say — but the enclosed letter goes on to punt (no fewer than five times) a Personal Accidental Death Plan that serves to remind the client in no uncertain terms that not only is he or she a year older and wiser but also a lot closer to kicking the bucket.
Larger than life
Lemmer always believes that if you’re going to screw up you might as well screw up big, so the manne raise their glasses in admiration for the people at The Star responsible for ”INTERNATIONAL FRANCISE EXPO” in beeg, beeg type across the top of an advertising feature.
Zimbabwe ruin
How, oh how, do you explain to your insurance company that the Harare street simply opened up and ate half of your vehicle?
Cape of bad sports
First there was Corné Krige, using his head to settle an on-field argument, then there is the sad tale of Percy Matlatse, who decided to stand up for his rights and stab an opponent who had racially abused him. Let Oom Krisjan quote from the letter Matlatse (18) wrote to the Cape Times on Monday: ”On April 10 we were playing away at Edgemead when one of their players called me ‘kaffir’ because I was dribbling past him the whole time. I decided I had to stand up for my rights, so I ran off the field to go and fetch my knife out of my bag and tried to stab this player. I was given a red card and later, at a disciplinary hearing, the association suspended me for the whole year. The other boy was not even shown a yellow card and has not been taken to a disciplinary hearing. He is still playing while I am sitting at home with nothing to do. My dream is to play for a professional team but that has now been taken away from me for another year, after I spent last season on the touchline because I was injured. Please will someone help me.” The kindest spin Lemmer can put on this is that it is a request for free psychiatric counselling.