On a flyer from Virgin Active (or Virgym, as Oom Thys calls it) this week: ”Class Definition”. No, your local gym is not offering Marxist political education, it just needs to explain its exotic menu of physical jerks. Perhaps Richard Branson would like to re-educate the jerk responsible for this quality customer service e-mail to a client with one of those new Virgin Money cards: ”Hi xxxx. please reply us with your card number and id number so that we could track your account,and rectify the error that has been done on your account. ”Mr xxxx would you the like to statement to be sent to you via the post?, please reply us with to confirm what mail system would you like to use.” Oom has seen phishing scams with more class.
Babes in the wood
If new Bafana coach Carlos Alberto Parreira wants an inkling of the depth of experience at his disposal, Oom doesn’t advise him to take a browse on his employers’ website. Jolly old Sepp Blatter at Fifa should also not visit the site if he wants to rest easy about giving the World Cup to this country. For in a list of the South African Football Association mandarins (www.safagoal.net/safa_executive_members/index.asp) they will find that several were born just this year and, even more surprisingly, have been members since last year; others became members the year they were born. That’s really being born with football in your veins!
Housework
The ANC caucus met last Thursday to discuss all kinds of important things but not, they insisted, the report tabled by Chief Whip Mbulelo Goniwe that some MPs saw as an attempt to extract a pledge of loyalty to President Thabo Mbeki. Reporters who turned up for the press conference explaining it all were met with closed doors as the session dragged on. A sign on the door of the caucus room read ”Political Education in Progress”. Stalinism? Cultural Revolution? Or just, as the party flak insisted, a discussion of the role of women in politics? Lemmer believes a woman’s place is in the House, but perhaps some MPs need coaching in addressing a future leader as ”Madame President”.
Extreme makeover
Before the NNP collapsed into the ANC, its youngest MP, Carol Johnson, was the model of a platteÂÂlandse poppie in pastel suits and sensible shoes. With the second parliamentary session since she joined the ANC now in full swing, Oom Krisjan has heard enough reports of her sartorial transformation to confidently declare her political education complete. The Truworths ensembles are gone, replaced by ethnic print skirts, daring blouses and chunky jewellery. Freedom is clearly more fun.