Is SABC anchorwoman Lerato Mbele about to be sent for re-education? The manne had to wonder, after Monday’s 10pm newscast. Having revealed that ”President Mbeki” had addressed the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation conference in Rome, she hastily backtracked with ”President Mugabe”; but things got ugly when she apologised for the confusion. ”A Freudian slip on my part earlier on,” she smiled, pinning her political colours firmly to the mast. Vrot Snoek reckons she is angling for a promotion: given Mbeki’s relationship with Mad Bob — the adulation of a laatlammetjie for his ouboet — confusing the two may be the smartest move Lerato has ever made.
Diamonds in the rough
‘Character,” said Blue Bulls coach Heyneke Meyer on Tuesday, ”is like a piece of charcoal: if you put pressure on it, you can get a diamond.” Lemmer thought you got black dust, but he is keeping that to himself down at the ardently blue and bullish Dorsbult Bar …
Fence sitting
Lemmer sees that Egyptian authorities plan to build a 20km security fence around the resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, where Western tourists have been made to feel as welcome as Western tourists in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Cape Town (although the Visdorp’s hostility has less to do with fundamentalism than it does with a deep-rooted resentment at having to fetch the wine list). No doubt the fence will be impressive, but Oom Krisjan wonders how long it will be before frustrated suicide bombers and their backers start complaining about neo-apartheid and the violation of their right to freedom of movement.
Crazy Publicists
Whoever said that James Brown is the hardest-working person in show business obviously hasn’t heard of the Crazy Monkey publicists. Oom Krisjan hears that Straight Outta Benoni is doing well locally, and now he understands why: people are going to see the fillum just so the publicists will stop sending them e-mails every day. This week, it was a short briefie urging the volk to vote for the fliek on the extremely comprehensive and authoritative Internet Movie Data Base (www.imdb.com), so Lemmer thought he would oblige and logged on. So far, the movie is holding its own with a solid 6,7 out of 10, and is doing a whole lot better than 1965’s Monster-a-Go-Go, ranked the worst film of all time by the website’s users, who gave it a 1,1. But before we get carried away, perhaps a vote count is in order: the local fliek had 59 votes on Wednesday. The Godfather, ranked first, had 139 500 …