Bowled over by the board
The United Cricket Board (UCB) went to amazing lengths this week to prove it is different from its counterpart in Zimbabwe. Instead of barring certain journalists from the country, the UCB embraced the media by giving them a behind-the-scenes look at its disciplinary procedures.
As reported in the sports section of this newspaper, UCB supremo Gerald Majola was unimpressed with a frank interview Ray Jennings gave to the Sunday Times and sent the coach a fax reminding him of the board’s policies on airing dirty laundry in the press. In a cock-up the size of the Sahara, the contents of this fax were then added to an otherwise innocuous e-mail sent to everyone on the UCB’s media mailing list.
Considering what Jennings was being reprimanded about, the manne at the Dorsbult would be very interested to know whether UCB communications manager Gerald de Kock — who sent the e-mail — can look forward to an equally stern fax. And whether the media will ever know about it.
Blue-blooded
Exclusive! Lemmer can reveal the goings-on at the private apology between the Transfusion Service and the Prez. Said the team: ”We’re bloody sorry, Mr President, we should have noticed it was blue.” So now you know why the president didn’t have to fill in the forms that all us other donders have to.
Let them eat sushi
And anybody wondering why temperatures in the Tripartite Alliance so on the boil last week cooled noticeably this week? The big manne of the union movement all hot-footed it off to Japan where, we’re sure, copious quantities of Tokyo-mampoer (saki) helped to cool things down.
50BC
Science fiction from 50 years ago predicted interplanetary travel by the early years of the 21st century. This picture from a 1954 issue of Popular Mechanics was rather more conservative about progress. The caption read: ”Scientists from the RAND Corporation have created this model to illustrate how a ‘home computer’ could look like in the year 2004. However, the needed technology will not be economically feasible for the average home. Also, the scientists readily admit that the computer will require not yet invented technology to actually work, but 50 years from now scientific progress is expected to solve these problems. With teletype interface and the Fortran language, the computer will be easy to use.”
4x4x419
South African arms deal shenanigans are being put to good use by 419 scammers. Lemmer recently received an e-mail from a Fred Yengeni, who urged Oom Krisjan to share in the millions ($25,5-milllion, to be precise) that his brother Tony, the ”former chief whip of the ruling ANC”, had managed to siphon off.
To prove his bona fides as Lemmer’s future partner in don’t-mention-the-word-crime, Fred ends off by saying:
”I would refer you to these few websites for further information about my family:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2756861.stm
www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/ 10/03/safrica.arms/index.html.”
These are genuine links to BBC and CNN website reports on Tony Yengeni’s discount 4×4 fraud case.
Barbie-Bertha
Everything they say about Metro FM is not true — like the fact that all the DJ’s are dodos. All except Bertha Charuma who on Wednesday regaled Mzansi with a tale about how people in the Northern Hemisphere born in May were more likely to develop osteoporosis. Said Barbie-Bertha: ”So those of us here in the Northern Hemisphere born in May are in trouble.” Now, unless, they’ve recently moved Metro out of Fawlty Towers …
Plumbing the depths
Lemmer is speechless.
Seasons gratings
From reports filtering into the Dorsbult, Oom Krisjan gathers that the festive season has already begun. It promises to be among the silliest in recent memory (the one that stretches all the way back to the turn of the century). So far we have:
Christmas cards and gifts from the Jewish Board of Deputies to Jewish and Muslim staffers at the Mail & Guardian. [You’re just jealous you didn’t get chocolates. — The Editor]
A promise from the South African Police Service that: ”A zero tolerance approach has been adapted towards all forms of crimes, especially the aggravating ones.”
Demands for their money back from parents of British children flown at great expense to meet Santa at a Finnish theme village. ”When you think of meeting Santa, you think of him sitting down by a roaring fire with snow and ice covering the ground outside,” one of the parents told The Guardian. ”What we got was Father Christmas standing in the doorway of a restaurant between the kitchen and the dining area. Behind him were dirty dinner plates and bottles of ketchup. He didn’t speak English and just sat with each child for about 30 seconds. They were given stuffed reindeer toys, but that was only to shut them up.”