As Gerald Majola demonstrated this week, the trouble with Jedi mind tricks is that you need to be a Jedi master before you can pull them off. Otherwise you just end up looking like a chubby bloke in a suit wafting your fingers across people’s faces. Groping in vain in his cassock for the reassuring feel of his light-sabre, the CEO of the United Cricket Board of South Africa said that media predictions of financial disaster in the sport were ”absolute nonsense”. Sponsors, he explained, were flocking. ”For instance,” he said, ”SA Airways has signed as sponsor of the new –provincial amateur league …” Now it seems to Lemmer that, short of being sponsored by Yukos or Enron, those amateur boytjies couldn’t have a less secure financial future if they tried. And he’s sure the manne down on the shop floor at SAA are just thrilled to hear that they’re bankrolling tea-time Oros and cookies for B-grade cricketers.
Oily dealings
And speaking of Yukos, Oom Krisjan had to marvel at the optimism of one Thomas Michael, author of the latest e-mail scam to arrive this week. Nothing new in the details — all Lemmer needed to do was to accept $100-million into his Mzansi account or Post Office book, and he’d get to keep $4-million — but what was truly original was the alleged sugar-daddy behind the deal: Mikhael Khodorkovky, the Russian oil baron and very part-time taxpayer. Naturally Mr Michael (allegedly Khodorkovky’s ”personal treasurer”) failed to mention the court ruling that has effectively wiped out both the tycoon and his company, but he did point out that the Russian owns the ”Menatep SBP Bank (A well reputable -financial institution with its Branches all Over the world).” Which left Lemmer wondering whether our Thomas wasn’t a well skint geezer with a well non-existent grasp of current affairs, living in a well dodgy London housing project and looking for well mental suckers. Innit?
Eats shoots and leaves
Dok Rabie’s crusade for green leafy vegetables has met some resistance over at the Dorsbult Bar, where a vetkoek chip-roll has recently been added to the pub menu. And his allies aren’t making it any easier. Dok was just launching into a graphic speech about spastic colons when the TV over the bar showed an ad for Fruit and Veg City, which concluded with the tagline, ”South Africa’s No: 1 Greengrocer”. How’s that for a spastic colon, said Vrot Snoek, and after a short debate the manne concluded the subtext: South Africans are united in their resistance, and not even one greengrocer should be tolerated. Dok Rabie says he hopes they have a change of heart before they get airlifted to Groote Schuur for a change of heart.