I love to truck
A labour lover of note, the Oom was, however, duty-bound to point out this example of union double-speak to his followers. On Tuesday South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) members caused mayhem on the streets of Jozi when they started stoning truckers who hadn’t heeded their call to down gear. The police got the moer in and beat them up, apartheid-style.
This is not good (but neither’s the stoning because workers also have a right to say ”we won’t strike”). Satawu vice-president June Dube said he was ”completely outraged” at the gattas for their ”completely unprovoked” action. Could this be the same Dube who told reporters of the strikers: ”They are behaving like hooligans. This is totally unacceptable.”?
Reach out and touch someone
When Lemmer went to answer Blikkies Naude’s cellphone he was confronted by the smiling face of Patricia de Lille and the legend ”Patricia for President”. At first he thought it was one of the new cellphone viruses doing the rounds, until Naude explained he’d downloaded the picture off the Independent Democrats’s (ID) website. As someone who can never hear his phone ringing, Oom Krisjan can’t wait for the party to offer ringtones, perhaps Patricia screeching, ”You lie!”, that shatter glass, set dogs howling and trigger car alarms.
Reach out and put the touch on someone
Intrigued by the cyber-goodies on offer at the ID site, Lemmer logged on himself and soon found himself being urged to ”Invite Patricia for dinner”. The instructions were frank. ”Besides having to supply your traditional delicacy, you will also be expected to raise a contribution for the Independent Democrats and one of the charities that Patricia supports. This contribution cannot be less than R10 000. We would therefore suggest inviting 10 of your best friends and charging them a R1 000 a plate.” (Gales of laughter in the Dorsbult.)
If you’ve got the green to make the scene, dinner will commence at 7pm for 8pm, and Patricia will stay till 9.30pm. However, she’s a game gal and will stay longer if you ply her with pricey liquor: ”Depending on her schedule for the next day and how well you entertain her (Nederburg 76 Cabernet Sauvignon is her favourite wine) she could be convinced to stay a little bit later.” Decisions, decisions: R10 000 dental surgery or dinner with Pat? Mmm …
Vleiswagen
In Dorsbult, Volkwagens mustn’t put on airs. Golf is a game played by rich Englishmen, and Polo is a game played by richer ones. No, as far as the manne at the Dorsbult Bar are concerned, there are only two kinds of Volkswagen: 1972 Beetles that still run and 1972 Beetles on bricks that might run if the parts ever arrive from Uitenhage. So there was some consternation when a daily newspaper reported this week that the manne in Wolfsburg have released a new Volksie that goes from 0 to 99,7kph in 2,8 seconds and that cruises at 405,5kph. Science teacher Blikkies Naude asked the question everyone was groping towards: If you’re driving at 112m per second, and the average reaction time is 0,24 seconds, and you need half a second to hit the brakes, doesn’t that mean you need a following distance of 83m? And surely the only relevant statistic is how fast she gets from 400kph to 0, and whether it involves the driver being turned into tamatiebredie?
Politicians in the making
Last month Professor Brian Hahn of the mathematics department at the University of Cape Town was severely beaten by, allegedly, a former PhD student, and subsequently died of his injuries. Now the university’s students representative council (SRC) is unhappy over the treatment meted out to the accused, Maleafisha Steve Tladi, by the media. Having offered its condolences in a single paragraph of its official statement, it spent the next four suggesting that Tladi was the real victim.
”We strongly feel that the alleged assailant must be addressed in his proper title as ‘Dr Tladi’ and not merely as an ‘ex-student’,” wrote SRC president Nqobizitha Mlilo. ”It is a fact that he is one of the few black people with a PhD in mathematics, and should be accorded the respect he deserves.”
In closing, Mlilo pondered whether ”this incident is not a reflection of some other deep flaw in the nature of our relations as a community across race, gender, student and staff lines”. So, in other words, Hahn had it coming.
And what respect, exactly, does an alleged murderer deserve, apart from a trial? Oom Krisjan can only assume Mlilo has rejected the humanities — and humanity — in favour of Politics 101.
Wait a minute
Before the Oom disses the SABC again, let’s hear it for the mother of his master’s voice, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation gave two minutes and 35 seconds to the launch of the Movement for Democratic Change election campaign and 18 min- utes to its master’s voice. Things are really coming right there, Ms Dlamini-Zuma.
Cattle parade
Miss Tourism World (Oom hadn’t heard about it either) was held in the glittering Zimbabwean capital of Harare last week in an effort to ”market” the country. This former breadbasket of Southern African, now insisting that businesses repatriate all its foreign lolly so it can buy grain to feed the hungry, paid $2-million for the honour of hosting this most obscure of cattle parades.
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