When the Visdorp minstrels threatened to cancel their citywide retro-rave on Tweede Niewedjaar if the Western Cape government didn’t give them a squillion rand, Premier Ebrahim Rasool came down on them like a tonne of plastic tambourines. The province would ”not be held at gunpoint”, he said, a noble sentiment but one that suggests he hasn’t been mugged lately. After all, having a gun in your face is quite different to having a man in sequins and a Styrofoam hat threaten to not play his banjo Over my almost dead body
On Tuesday the manne heard that Israeli doctors wanted to ”test the reactions” of Ariel Sharon. Dok Rabie was asked what that would entail, and explained the mechanics of rubber mallets on funny-bones, but Lemmer reckons it would have been much less percussive — and much more fun — simply to whisper into the old man’s ear: ”We’ve given them Jerusalem.”
Blackout
Whenever Oom Krisjan feels he is losing touch with the mense of South Africa, all he has to do is touch in again at the Friends of Jacob Zuma website (www.friendsofjz.co.za) and read the genuflections of the cadres who are willing to fight to the death for JZ, or alternatively send R5 via SMS to his legal fund. Cadres such as John Khumalo, media ethics expert, who bemoaned the proliferation of obscure obscenities apparently dogging the message pages. ”I hope the webmaster is going to black out all words that are not understandable,” said John. ”Comrades, abuse of this kind will bring about a lot of censorship …” Huh? Perhaps the words he wants blacked out are all the nasty ones that deserve censoring, such as ”corruption” and ”sleaze”.
AU RSVPs
Since Lemmer didn’t get a word in edgeways last week, he and the manne would like to extend belated congratulations to the African Union’s Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights for its condemnation of Robert Mugabe’s regime. They now look forward to the AU’s reaction to the release of Nelson Mandela, the outbreak of the Crimean War and the invention of the wheel. Bravely spoken, lads.
In other news
Zim propaganda just hasn’t been the same since Jonathan ”Hotlips” Moyo was booted. Once a weekly wrap-up in the pro-government Herald called ”Week’s highlights” might have included the news that Cmd Mugabe had cured ennui, got his tash tweezed to dazzling effect and proved with alchemy and a ruler that Tony Blair was Satan. But last week the backroom boys just weren’t up to it. The ”Week’s highlights” included such titbits as ”19 perish in accidents” and ”S. African mob murders five Zimbabweans”. Let the good times roll …