Since Lemmer discovered that he is married to Mrs Glenda Sherman of Nutcracker Grove, and that he has been deceased since August 1986, he’s been waiting to see if any public apology was going to be issued by the improbably inept Department of Home Affairs. So it was gratifying this week to see the department take time off from its busy matrimonial schedule to ask forgiveness in the television advert for its wholesale cocking up of every document in its possession. At least, Lemmer thinks it was an apology: all he managed to hear was the new Home Affairs motto: ”Caring, compassionate and responsive.” If only they had just opted for ”Competent”.
Gentleman of the press
They say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but whoever said that obviously wasn’t at WordFest last week, the literary micro-festival running under the auspices of the Grahamstown kunstefees. Under normal circumstances Lemmer takes compulsively publishing academics with a very large pinch of salt, but he and the manne had to feel for a certain Dr Laban Erapu, whose (second) book launch was reported on thusly in the student-run newspaper covering the event: ”Dr Laban Erapu … despairingly began his second relaunch of his five books yesterday, to a disappointing audience of one. Me.” Which, the writer took pains to explain, was one person more than had been at Dr Erapu’s first launch. Investigative journalism is one thing, but the manne reckon this borders on sadistic. Eina.
The blasted Heath
The first headline on e.tv news on Sunday night threw the Dorsbult Bar into an uproar. The diction was poor, the tone as nasal as Naas, but there was no mistaking the words: ”Zuma’s legal adviser says he’s the victim of a plot masterminded by President Thabo Mbeki.” Vrot Snoek was stunned. Mbeki wanting to get rid of Jacob Zuma was one thing, but why on earth would the president be masterminding a plot against Willem Heath? The manne were just settling down to start designing some ”100% Heath” T-shirts, when it occurred to them that they might have been victims of e.tv’s plot to sideline grammar by 2007 …