Trading places with the girls
Oom Krisjan is concerned about what’s put in the drinks when the Democratic Whatever (DW) chooses someone for its trade and industry portfolio. First there was Nigel Bruce, renowned for his Financial Mail phrase about black waiters: ”truculent tribesmen with an eye on the clock and a thumb in the soup”.
Now his replacement, Enyinna Nkem-Abonta, quoted in ThisDay (p14, July 7, 2004) objects in equally eye-catching idiom to black women (whom he calls ”girls”) in leadership positions: ”You’ve got girls of 29 or 30 with a BCom who are directors or deputy directors-general. It’s not good enough. In Australia you get grey old men retiring as directors.”
Lemmer sympathises with those poor grey old men, but Abonta doesn’t mention Ryan Coetzee, the boyish director of DW Strategy, who is in precisely the same age group as the ”girls” who raise Abonta’s ire.
Changing gears
Lemmer was never particularly good at science at school, and now he sincerely wishes he’d paid more attention and followed that up by studying the subject at Tuks. For it seems that the University of Pretoria has found a way to defy the observations of Newton, Galileo and probably even Einstein.
Let Oom Krisjan explain. The varsity has come up with a ”blueprint for change” with the well, inspirational, slogan of ”Inspiring the Innovation Generation”. A glossy publication was recently presented on how Tuks intends to go about this — and one of the examples it used is of interlocking gears.
But during the presentation one potential Archimedes pointed out that if, according to the example, the bottom left gear turns clockwise, the bottom right one should turn counter-clockwise. All well and good, but a gear that connects to both of them will be stuck — unable to turn both left and right at the same time — and will stop the first two gears from turning, too.
The vice-chancellor, Prof Callie Pistorius, who had been waving the document around earlier as the answer to all of Tuks’s ills, was non-plussed for a brief moment, but then responded with the profound statement: ”Yes, indeed you are quite right. Mechanically the gears cannot rotate, but I can assure you that electronically they will!”
Big Brother leader
This week’s African Union summit undoubtedly lost some entertainment appeal with the absence of Libyan leader Moammar Gadaffi. Even his own people did not know before the official opening of proceedings whether he was serious about skipping the event this year. Some delegates called this a snub. But AU commission chairperson Alpha Oumar Konare knew who to call when his aircraft broke down last Friday when he visited Sudanese refugees in Chad. One telephone call got the Brother Leader’s plane from Tripoli to Ndjamena — and Konare back to Addis in time for the meeting.
For kicks
A Saddam Hussein follower bursts into a Baghdad café frequented by old Skudnick’s supporters.
”Bad news — and good news!” he announces. ”The bad news is that Saddam’s in for the death penalty. The good news is that David Beckham’s taking it.”
That’s the way it is
Lemmer remembers a time when the accurate spelling of names was one of the hard lessons drummed into journalism students.
But after reading The Star on Wednesday, clearly that is no longer the case. Having unilaterally decided to change the Ekurhuleni mayor into ”Duma Ndlovu” from the Duma Nkosi it says in his ID, they sought to outdo themselves in the afternoon edition, where Gauteng Local Government MEC Qedani Mahlangu became Dorothy Qedani.
That’s telling it like it is if you’re not bothered to check the facts.
Boot-licking
While on the subject of newspaper training (and ethics), was anyone besides Oom Krisjan a little annoyed by the Sowetan last Friday? The paper carried a huge apology and a picture of Orlando Pirates defender Lucky Lekgwathi in the team jersey. But what was the apology all about?
It turns out the grievous error was that the day before the Sowetan had published a picture of the selfsame Lekgwathi — but wearing the strip of Ria Stars, the team he played for before he joined Bucanneers. Surely using an outdated picture is not sufficient reason for a fullscale grovel to a football team and its sponsors?
Still running
Oom Krisjan is indebted to Frank Keating, The Guardian‘s excellent sports columnist, for the following anecdote. With the Athens Olympics almost upon us, he tells of an event during the third modern Olympiad that took place as a supporting attraction to the 1904 St Louis world’s fair. It marked the first participation by two African athletes.
”The Tswana tribesmen Len Tau and Jan Mashiani were in St Louis for the world’s fair, as members of the cast in a theatrical replay of battle scenes from the recently concluded Boer War.
”As portent of all Africa’s wonderful athletes to come, they entered the marathon.
”Tau finished a creditable ninth and Mashiani’s 12th would have been far better, apparently, had he not at one stage been chased off the course and through a cornfield by two large dogs.”
Times haven’t changed much in the past century, have they?
Go now
The Congress of South African Trade Unions doesn’t pull its punches. Cosatu notes reports ”that several senior SABC staff have resigned from the corporation, but is disappointed that group CEO Peter Matlare has denied rumours that he too is going to leave”.