Out of the gutter
Just after last month’s elections Oom Krisjan reported that this newspaper and its hacks were in the Pan Africanist Congress’s bad books to the extent that the organisation’s president, Motsoko Pheko, refused to speak to the ”gutter press”.
The manne at the Dorsbult privately predicted very little future for a party that could not tell the difference between a gutter and a watchdog.
But even though the PAC has managed to lose Patricia de Lille, there are still a few sensible people in the party.
PAC senior leader Jabulane ”Ace” Khumalo has acknowledged that the M&G is not the colonialist, imperialist dark force that Pheko envisaged. In a missive entitled Mail & Gadian fund raised for PAC’s elections Campaign Funds, he pointed out that after the M&G exposed the party’s lack of loot, members responded and the ”PAC came back with three national assembly sits [sic] after the elections”.
Gutters do have their uses.
Canned
Lemmer was in sy noppies when a box full of Coca-Cola products arrived on the Dorsbult bar counter the other day. All wrapped up in a lekker special box was the entire commemorative ”Milestones of Democracy” 10-can set the company has released to celebrate the decade since our first free elections.
A bottle of Klippies was broken open and the manne crowded around to toast the Rainbow Nation with our favourite dop — only to find all the cans were empty.
Faking it
The manne were all excited when they read the headline earlier this week: ”Woman arrested and fined for counterfeiting and selling pornographic material.”
Since its a long time since Lemmer visited that little shop in Jozi (you know the one Oom means) to buy a brand new ”adult” video, the manne have been surviving on 10th generation — and thus a bit fuzzy — tapes. So, a woman with the initiative to pirate porn might be someone to whom we might well offer a seat in the Dorsbult. Particularly as it appeared that she was to be prosecuted under the Film and Publications Act and the main man quoted in the story, Fred Potgieter, is MD of the South African Federation Against Copyright Theft. Were Ster Kinekor and Nu Metro finally dealing in the hard stuff, Lemmer wondered.
Unfortunately, as is often the case, the story turned out a little less promising than the headline. Like many blue movies, really. It seems M Cajee, of Mayfair, Jozi, was arrested for selling counterfeit DVDs and games — as well as pornographic material.
Apparently someone else was disappointed: Cajee’s house was raided after a tip-off from a member of the public.
Crossed wires
Lemmer was amused to receive news that Telkom CEO Sizwe Nxasana is to have a doctorate conferred on him by his alumnus, the University of Fort Hare, on Friday. The release that made its way to Oom Krisjan’s mailbox pointed out that Nxasana graduated from the institution in 1997.
To Lemmer’s Klippies-filled recollection, however, this was around the same time as Nxasana, a qualified chartered accountant, was appointed to head Telkom during its legislated monopoly period.
Just as Lemmer was about to applaud Nxasana’s ability to balance such a high-pressure job, studies and a family a correction came through that Nxasana actually graduated from Fort Hare in 1979. Ah well.
Field of dreams
In the Kevin Costner flik, the voice keeps telling our hero: ”Build it and they will come.” But Sepp Blatter and his Fifa executive committee were not impressed with Morocco’s efforts and gave the 2010 World Cup to South Africa.
Dan’s our man
With vuvuzela and all, South Africa got its first coloured president for a weekend when Trevor Manuel got T-Bose’s nod last weekend. And we’re willing to bet our bottom Ora (that’s the currency of Orania) that should Danny-boy Jordaan have stood for election last week, he’d have been a shoo-in as Finance Minister.
Missing link
From even before he was rejected as a Big Brother housemate (for being too old, too ugly, too sane, whatever), Oom Krisjan has been toying with the idea of making a fool of himself on TV — as long as it was for plenty of cash.
But he thinks he’ll steer clear of the Weakest Link — and it’s not just because he fears the sharp side of Fiona Coyne’s tongue. The TV show must attract some very shady types as the audition application form asks for details of previous convictions.
Purple reign
At least Lemmer is only hurling bad jokes in the direction of heads of state. Unlike the two men protesting against the lack of fathers’ rights over their children, who disrupted the real Princess Tony’s parliamentary Question Time this week by flinging missiles at the British prime minister.
Lemmer almost took them seriously until he read that the missiles contained nothing more than purple powder. ”Why purple powder?” they were asked as they were dragged off to the local nut house via Scotland Yard. ”Because it is the colour of equality”, they claimed.
Nee, manne, purple is the colour of queens, royal and otherwise — not pretty princesses.