An advertisement in the back pages of last week’s Mail & Guardian, placed by the government of the North West, announced a conference on ”stonewalling”. Turns out they were talking about building dry stone walls, and not about local government’s communÂÂications strategy. You live and learn.
Cussed gizmos
Gadgets and whatnots tend to frighten Dominee Nogmaals Nagmaal, who has only just made peace with the idea of biplanes; but when he returned to Dorsbult this week after hatching, matching and despatching in Jozi, his suspicions had been confirmed. If technology wasn’t the work of the devil, he yelled, why else would OR Tambo International’s new self-service check-in service be called Common Use Self Service, or CUSS for short? Amen, broeder.
Immovable objects
And speaking of airport acronyms Lemmer reckons it’s a good thing Oom Tambo was called Oliver and not Ernest. ORTIA is florid enough, but how would you explain to the taxi that you’re waiting in ERTIA? Inert indeed.
Separated at birth.
Ever noticed the likeness between the President’s adviser Mojanku Gumbi and United States Secretary of State Condi Rice? And we’re not just talking about their politics.
A spot of good sense
The Oom hears that Dr Snuki Zikalala was at it at Fawlty Towers again this week. Special Assignment planned to air a fly-on-the-wall account of life in the great Zimbabwe. Bought in, the programme showed all the messy stuff we don’t see on the public broadcaster: the black market; empty shelves; pissed-off Zimbabweans including one symbolically flogging a donkey and telling the reporter: ”You know who brought us here.” Flog. Flog. Snooks called in his reporters who told him there were no empty shelves; the programme was almost canned, like the Mbeki doccie last year. Good sense prevailed, but only just.
Banal
And while on the subject of bull, Tony Yengeni’s cleansing ceremony has quickly degenerated into allegations of racism, a curious thing since the victim is an animal, and not a thin-skinned person. But it’s all summed up by an anagram: ”Tony Yengeni stabs a bull” produces ”Bossy, ungentle banality.” You said it.