Minister of Humours, Vapours and Sulphuric Unguents, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, wants greater control over how foreign government funds are spent fighting HIV/Aids in South Africa. ”Our view is that external funding must be coordinated through government structures to achieve better outcomes,” she told news agencies this week, alluding directly to all the other programmes that have been coordinated through government structures to achieve better outcomes. The list is available from the ministry, printed on one side of a napkin and comes free with any subscription to Roots & Tubers Monthly.
Sporting trivia
You’d expect crazy talk from someone who spent years in the National Assembly defending the policies of Kortbroek. But when Deputy Minister of Sport and Recreation Gert Oosthuizen said that ”sport is being trivialised in our country”, the manne realised he’d moved up to a whole new level of dwaas. Now they’d love him to explain just how the national pastime is being trivialised. Is it the eight dedicated television channels? The 1 500 square kilometres of playing fields and facilities? The 700 megalitres of water poured onto golf courses every day? Perhaps the R125-million given to South African cricket by MTN? Or is it the R20-million a year for Springbok rugby from Sasol? Ja-nee, it looks like you can take the oom out of the National Party, but you just can’t take the National Party out of the oom.
Low expectations
According to Gershawn Coetzee, e.tv sports anchor, England were ”off to a dream start” in the World Cup. Just how dreamy? 1-0 over Paraguay. The manne wouldn’t admit to their more melodramatic yearnings, but Lemmer shared their disappointment. Somehow he always thought a dream start in a World Cup would be 15-0 over Brazil.
Right address, wrong century
The stereotype insists that Canadians are old-fashioned. After all, their cops ride horses and wear 19th-century polo outfits, and they have log-sawing competitions for fun. But Lemmer now suspects that there may be something behind the cliché. This week a letter arrived from the frozen north, meticulously addressed to the Oom, who apparently lives in ”The Union of South Africa”.