Don't Kill the Tshukudu Game Lodge Cub

If you picked a cat up and it scratched you, some people might think it extreme if you hauled it off to the vet and euthanised its fluffy behind.

But that’s exactly what might happen to a lion cub that bit a Singaporean woman who was holding it up for some happy holiday snaps at the Tshukudu Game Lodge in Hoedespruit.

According to the Mail & Guardian article, she “was apparently posing with a one-year-old cub when it bit her, leaving her with four deep cuts of between 4cm and 8cm on the left side of her face, and lacerations on her left arm and leg, where the lion clawed her.” It goes on to tell us her husband thwacked the poor cub with his camera.

“Tshukudu lodge manager Eric Gander said on Monday night that a decision would be taken about the lion cub’s future after an investigation into the incident.”… Cue dramatic music.

This closing sentence to the article betrays the obvious possibility that the cub will be put to sleep.

The lion can’t talk, so we’ll never know if she was squeezing it too hard or wearing some kind of catnip-infused perfume (‘Feline’ by Britney… or ‘Pussy’ by Ron Jeremy). Maybe it was the lion’s revenge for all the domestic animals Asians apparently gobble.

We’ll never know unless we call in a cat whisperer… and do you know how much they charge?

People have wondered what the hell she was doing holding the thing so close to her face! I’ve read comment-thread-rants about the ‘canned’ lion hunting industry – where they drug ‘em and let Yanks bust a cap – and that this is an extension of such atrocity.

But most people simply believe the lion was acting on instinct, be it a reaction to a perceived threat or misguided playfulness, and that it shouldn't be punished for being what it is.

If you think this is outrageous and that the cub shouldn’t get whacked, why not do something about it. At the very least get your voice heard by the people making this decision.

You can send an email to Tshukudu Game Lodge to: bookings@tshukudulodge.co.za – this email was strangely absent from their website, but I found it on their Facebook page.

Or you can write on their FB wall. The link is here.

Please share this if you give a shit.

SA's Shameful Response to the UK Riots

I have to admit being a bit ashamed, over the past week, to be a South African. For a change this has nothing to do with anything Julius Malema has said, but rather with a seemingly large section of the general population.

It appears that so many of us are taking the time to write letters to our newspapers to express our unbridled glee at the rioters tearing through London.

Ines Schumacher from Johannesburg writes to the Mail & Guardian asking: “How dangerous is the country?”

“…rioting appears to be commonplace,” Schumacher believes, “… each day a dozen people are admitted to hospital… buildings are burning down left, right and centre…”

The tone of this correspondence isn’t hysterical, merely spiteful.

What disturbed and perturbed me was Schumacher then remarks that because of Britain’s pre-Fifa reports on how dangerous South Africa was “what’s the harm in poking a bit of fun at them now?”

What’s the harm in “poking fun” at violence and bloodshed? Must have been high times in the Schumacher household when Anders Behring Breivik blew away dozens of youngsters in Norway, or maybe in 2008 the family spent a weekend in Alexandra to watch our own people necklacing foreigners.

The letter is glib and insensitive and petty, and I must admit that Schumacher’s attempts at humour were lost on me.

Similarly, in the Cape Argus SMS column, readers spewed nothing but clichéd vitriol: “…how the chickens come home to roost…”, “…the grass is not greener on the other side…”; and my personal favourite: “…it looks like they may taste their own medicine…”

The writers seemed to be educated, if not eloquent, at least to the most average standards acceptable, and yet they were actively encouraging our media to childishly ‘get back’ at the UK media.

They want our journos to write about how dangerous it is to visit Britain, and question their ability to hold next year’s Olympics.

I might be wrong, but I doubt that the holders of these sentiments live in houses without thick burglar bars, electric fences or 24-hour Armed Response protection. Funny, because that’s how the majority of Brits live.

In fact, it’s embarrassing that an English community’s response to the killing of a member of that community is pretty much the equivalent of a normal South African council workers’ wage dispute – shops are destroyed and robbed and people are hurt.

The difference is that this happens at least once a month in South Africa as opposed to once in a blue moon in the United Kingdom. And in the UK over a thousand people are arrested because of it compared to the handful of arrests in good ol’ SA.

I imagined that South Africans, because of our violent past and violent present, would have shown some empathy towards those affected by this disorder, but instead all we can show is a ‘tit-for-tat’ mentality and gross insensitivity.

The Fury of Fish Hoek!

Sometimes things are so bizarre it takes a while to gather a reaction.

Walking down Main Road in Fish Hoek, an old guy comes from behind and bashes past me. I comment on it and he turns his head and says angrily, “You bumped into me!”

Dressed in a purple tracksuit and Elvis Presley sunglasses, he was an amusing sight. But what made it more amusing was when, while scowling at us, he walked into a post box.

We couldn’t help feeling as bit sorry for him after that.

Also in Fish Hoek, my jalopy stopped in the road waiting to turn right, a car pulls up next to us and a guy rudely shouts through the passenger window, “It’s illegal to turn across a solid line!”

Even if I was making an illegal turn – which I wasn’t – it’s not like South Africans follow the rules of the road anyway.

“Apparently,” Lucy says, “drinking seawater makes you mad.”

We were deliberating on the reasons behind the mental state of our new neighbours. I reckoned it was the high instance of retirees in the area, she supposed there was something in the water.

I don’t really believe my theory – there’s nothing to prove that getting old means getting grumpy. My gran is eighty-seven and lovely and charming and sweet. The fact is that if you’re young and grumpy then you’ll be old and grumpy; young + happy = old + happy.

As kids we believed there was a military base hidden in the mountains around Fish Hoek, so maybe an experiment leaked into the sea or reservoir and the water does make one surly.

Not as dramatic as a zombie holocaust but reality seldom is.

Or maybe it’s because Fish Hoek is so far away from Cape Town CBD – not so much physical distance as lifestyle – that people have just evolved differently.

Maybe all that free time for Sudoku, television, tea and rusks doesn’t make one more relaxed and laid back, but just annoyed that there are so many people having so much more fun than you.

Way of the Weekend Warrior

When Saturday comes round there always seems to be a surplus of faux Hell’s Angels – fully clad in leather jackets, potty helmets and chaps.

They cruise the highways in large groups, snarling at little children and giving the finger to old people. They'll tell you their name is Sammy Sawtooth or Ted the Decapitator. They'll get boozy and pinch waitress's bums.

These men (and their obligatory ‘old ladies’) are examples of the rather sad Weekend Warrior.

CHAPS IN CHAPS!
The guys on Harley hogs and Japanese superbikes are merely moonlighting.

From Monday to Friday they are mild mannered accountants and lawyers – but when the working week is over the banker becomes the bad-ass, and the dentist becomes the demon.

You can almost see them on a Saturday morning bringing the wife tea and a rusk in bed, and then sneaking off to the hidden room behind the decoupage workbench in the garage.

This room is their Batcave – containing a fake beard, leather-jacket-with-sleeveless-denim-jacket-on-top, and the complete Steven Seagal collection on Blu-Ray. They suit up solemnly and hit the streets… no doubt with a ZZ Top tune playing in their head.

SAD-O OR SUPERHERO?
We all know that Clark Kent’s milksop was the hardcore Superman. And playboy fop Bruce Wayne was really a cover for his nightly pursuits as Batman. So the only imaginable motivation for these sad-o’s would be a deeply buried desire to be a man of mystery.

That explains the denim over leather – didn’t the man of Steel and Dark Knight wear their undies on top of their trousers? And the fake beard would hide their visage in case they came across Betty from the marketing department.

I’m sure some of their colleagues from work join them on their weekend rampage, but these activities are kept hidden from the boringly average ‘citizens’.

The first rule of Superhero Bike Club is: you don’t talk about Superhero Bike Club.

YOU CAN DO IT TOO!
If you can’t afford a Harley, don’t be discouraged. We can all indulge in childhood fantasies.

I once met a guy who donned a top hat and tails and performed magic tricks in his spare time. A friend of mine knew a guy who dressed up in a ninja suit at night and climbed buildings. True fact.

The women of the Beaufort West Scrabble Society dropped their doilies when I thumped their champion with ‘xylophone’ on a Triple Word Score to win – little did they know that I was mentored by the most cutthroat and diabolical Scrabble player of the 20th Century: my mum.

We all hide secret lives – be they ninja surmounter, Scrabble hustler or hog rider – and these lives are the red cape beneath our dinner jacket... so please don't laugh.

South Africa Ready for the Undead!

Luckily, by the time the zombie apocalypse hots up, we’ll all be ordering off Amazon.

Our groceries will be delivered by armed men in armoured trucks, police will be on high alert and stop people randomly in the street to question them, and our homes will all be surrounded by high walls and electric fences.

Of course, the best place to live at the end of the world will be South Africa. If only because it won’t be such a lifestyle adjustment.

We all carry guns with us everywhere and live with thick bars on our windows. The roads are already absolute mayhem – with people staggering in the middle lane, groaning with their hands in front of them.

And Joburgers are already stopping at deserted petrol stations holding jerry cans like they do in Walking Dead and George Romero movies.

Plus, South Africans all have a natural suspicion of anyone they don’t know personally – so none of this eek-it’s-a-zombie! nonsense.

In all likelihood, the scourge of the undead will be the best thing that ever happened to SA.

Black and white will find that we’re not so different after all – at least we breathe air and turn our noses up at bloody chunks of human flesh – and we can unite at the polling stations to vote for more lax gun laws.

Of course, Julius Malema will blame the whole End of Days scenario on Helen Zille and the white racists in the DA… and Jacob Zuma will impregnate one.

Floyd Shivambu should Remove his Foot & Wash his Mouth out with Soap!

I was always under the impression that a spokesperson was a sort of PR person for a company, celebrity or political party – there to make their employer look intelligent, thoughtful and concerned about whatever issues they wanted to appear concerned about.

But it seems to work a bit differently in South Africa, where ANCYL spokesman Floyd Shivambu seems to think the term ‘Rainbow Nation’ refers to the use of politicians’ colourful language.

On YouTube we can listen to the recorded telephone call from News24 reporter Jacques Domisse to Shivambu, in which the rather dim-witted sounding Shiv tells Domisse: “…you cannot force yourself to speak to people if they do not speak to you.” and then proceeds to tell the probably-rubbing-his-hands-with-glee journo to “fuck off”.

Then, a few days later, in lieu of an apology, he said that the report’s aim was to “divert attention” from the League’s national conference resolutions, and that reporters wanted to "engage in disgustingly provocative methods and means of engagement".

The “provocative” engagement on Domisse’s part was to ask for Julius Malema’s comments on the R78 000 His Jujuness spent at the Royal Malewane lodge, seeing as the Youth League prez likes to punt himself as a “champion of the poor”.

Baleka Mbete, the ANC’s chairperson, condemned the behaviour as being “unacceptable” – of course, in ANC-speak this means we’ll wait for it to blow over and forget about it.

It’s easy to write this off as arrogance or stupidity, but I think Shivambo is ahead of his peers when it comes to media relations.

He knows that when the Secrecy Bill kicks off they’ll be able to dispense with the tired response of “No comment!” and simply tell nosy media pigs to just “Fuck off!”

Travel in Style on MetroVuil

For a mere R19 one can experience all the excitement, culture and almost-identifiable odours our fair city and fermenting seaside have to offer.

‘Fair’ because, as we all know, the Mother City not only has an “overconcentration of coloureds” but a hefty surplus of whiteys as well; and ‘fermenting’ because, after a few days of Winter sunshine, the washed-up seaweed and bloated seagull carcasses start to smell a bit poofy.

So, in spite of Capeys calling it 'MetroVuil', with relish I did pay my pony and receive a return ticket on the prestigious Metrorail transport service, ready for all the glamour and garbage that lay in the near future.

Our trains have a reputation among those from the Southern Suburbs as not much more than piss- and blood-stained germ receptacles. German and English tourists might find their journey "picturesque", but locals believe the only souvenir you’re likely to pick up is a scarily scratchy skin scab or a belly-bursting B-boy’s blade.

As the vibrant city, suburbs and seaside passed by the window I shoved my nose in a paperback – this was partly because I enjoy reading, but mainly because the windows had been either spraypainted by mildly inventive taggers, or ignored by wildly indifferent cleaners.

Looking at the state of the carriage, I quite easily imagined being dragged in a rusty beer can tied to the bumper attached to a pair of newlywed cousins’ camper van; the soundtrack to this mini mental motion picture courtesy of the young gentleman behind me with a taste for tasteless kwaito, but not an ear for earphones.

I’m not sure if it was my gentle face – never betraying the cold-hearted bastard beneath – that made the manky petrol-sniffer sit across from me and attempt to strike up a chat, or if it was because I was reading Jonny Steinberg’s ‘The Number’ and she thought I maybe had an affinity for Cape Flats crack whores.

When I looked up and told her, “I don’t want to talk to you. I just want to read my book,” a look of disgust crossed her bruised-fruit tik-face.

“Tjy,” she exclaimed, “what kind of a rude uncle are you?” and moved off to bother someone else who chose to find another seat.

At my journey’s end in Fish Hoek I strolled along the beach licking a vanilla soft-serve, hoping to see some hotties in bikinis or maybe a shark attack.

Alas…

But the lack of babes or bloodshed didn’t disillusion me one bit. There’s still the journey back to the city, I thought, more than enough time to rubberneck a violent mugging or train track suicide.

Big Brother is Listening

On the telephone pole outside the wife’s work is an old poster for that ANC rag, The New Age, advertising the headline: RICA CHAOS REIGNS!

The headline conjured images of burning buildings and frothy-mouthed citizens running around fornicating and screaming – a bit like a Rick Astley concert – but for once in South Africa the truth was not stranger than my mind’s fiction.

RICA is, in a nutshell, the Regulation of Interception of Communications and Provision of Communication-related Information Act. It requires anyone with a mobile phone in SA to register their name, number, and address with the government.

This is supposedly not so they can listen in to your phone calls to see if you voted for Helen Zille, but to monitor despicable acts like trafficking child pornography or buying anything from Verimark.

I eagerly await the first court case featuring a parent who’s little rascal has been filming his mates shagging and sending it around, and the phone’s been registered to the mother because the kid didn’t have an electricity bill in his name.

But that is surely still to come, the alleged “chaos” that TNA (that’s what they’re trying to call it) writes about had nothing to do with RICA at all, but was an unknown fault in the Vodacom and MTN network.

RICA, for over two million cellphone users, caused what couldn’t be called more than an annoyance as their phones were cut off and they had to trudge down to their service provider with a bank statement and ID papers.

By TNA’s standards of verb usage, it seems, the act of looking down to notice that one’s shoelace is untied would be classified as “chaos”.

The irony is that this grotesquely sensationalist headline comes from the mouthpiece for the very government that’s about to stuff a muttoncloth down our throats and wrap duct tape around our heads in the form of the Protection of Information Bill.

TNA’s slogan is “One Country. One Paper.” – hopefully this is not a vision of the future from the ANC’s propaganda arm.

And by then I’d have had to RICA this blog… who will I complain to then?

Little White Lies Are Okay If They're Little and You're White!

It’s about time we heard more about how racist and sexist Cape Town is.

We need to stop hiding the fact that Western Cape wives spend their days with a toothbrush scrubbing the kitchen floor while their husbands beat their black slaves in the back garden.

“Apartheid social engineering is far more expressed in [the Western Cape] with heightened fears within the white community, the insecurity among coloured compatriots and the frustrated aspirations of the African community,” said ANC WC secretary Songezo Mjongile.

Damn straight! The whites are terrified the MK Veterans and ANC Youth League are going to make good on their threat to make the Western Cape ungovernable, the coloureds are worried they’ll be redistributed due to their “overconcentration”, and the Africans nervous that if we go back to ANC rule the service delivery roll out will dry up forever.

Fears like these are ridiculous. And it’s about time those of us at the continent’s tip just accepted the facts.

Comrades Julius Malema and Jimmy Manyi have made it clear that social engineering is just another Apartheid tactic the ANC is keen to adopt – much like the Protection of Information bill; better known as the Secrecy Bill; and soon to be known as the How-We-Became-Zimbabwe Bill.

“Under the guise of good governance and a better service delivery record,” Mjongile continues, “a coded vocabulary of racism and sexism is rearing its ugly head…”

There is nothing more despicable than hiding your contempt for the Other behind competence and honesty.

Much better to wear your bigotry on your sleeve, as Juju, Manyi and our Ugandan ambassador Jon Qwelane are infamous for. Rather live in squalor knowing how those you put in power really feel.

But having strength in your convictions doesn’t just mean a cushy government job after a short spell in prison for corruption. Even our esteemed president Jacob Zuma, with his sordid sexual antics and comments about punching out gays in his youth, shows how committed our leaders are to backpedalling our freedoms.

What nerve the DA’s Theuns Botha has to tell our leaders to “stop stealing, stop corruption, stop infighting… Stop the bad practices the ANC is renowned for.”

Doesn’t he know that this is how dictatorships are built.

Seriously, Botha should just grow up and admit that the whites have had enough of this democracy lark and want to revert back to the way it was. Then we could all be on the same page and let the people decide what colour they want their oppressor to be.

The Secrecy Bill Can Lick My Balls!

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m not convinced that illegal tenders, ministerial overspending, and where Zuma sticks his salami should be considered top secret information.

Sensitive, yes – if by ‘sensitive’ you mean embarrassing and emotional.

One can only assume that the ANC, upon noticing the steady decline in support, has decided not to get their act together but instead to stop potential voters knowing about it.

The proposed Protection of Information Bill would allow ANY government institution to deem ANY information as ‘classified’ and impose a minimum 15 year prison sentence on reporters and whistleblowers.

So if you, as a concerned government employee, happened to notice another, more important employee taking baked beans from pensioners or sticking fingers in schoolboys’ bums – and you decided to tell a journalist about it – and said journalist took a picture and wrote a story – you and said journalist could face anything from 15 to 25 years in chookie.

There is no ‘public interest’ defence, meaning that no matter how much it might rightly concern you and me – taxpayers and citizens – won’t make a difference.

They want us to believe it’s all for our own good, and as far back as 2008 they’ve been trying to trick us into eating this steaming turd. But now they’re happy to aggressively force it through our clenched teeth and down our convulsing gullets.

If you’re unclear on the meaning of this all, check out ‘The Dummies Guide to the Secrecy Bill’ here. And if it’s still unclear, read this.

And if this upsets you, please sign the Right2Know petition here.

This bill will effectively murder investigative journalism. We will never again hear about our tax Rands being raped, our ministers’ wives as druglords, or even the next extramarital presidential impregnation.

Aside from not knowing what is happening in our country, the papers will be downright boring.

Sign the petition here.

The Tea Girl's Beautiful Brew

More prone to racist slurs and incitant songs, it’s not surprising that Julius Malema refused to debate Lindiwe Mazibuko, referring to her as the “tea girl of the madam”.

“I’m not debating the service of the madam,” Malema moaned.

Helen Zille – leader of the Democratic Alliance, Premier of the Western Cape and Juju’s least favourite “madam” – said it was more likely that Malema was “terrified” and (being the sexist buffoon he is) didn’t want to lose to a woman.

Now we all know Julius couldn’t argue his way out of a paper bag, but after seeing Mazibuko’s impressive performance on e-TV where she even managed to shut Debra Patta up I don’t really blame him for running.

It would be like bringing a Ping-Pong paddle to a gunfight; the plastic balls bouncing off a bulletproof Mazibuko as Malema was mowed down with articulate ammunition.

Malema is a kapokkie in revolutionary clothing. Like a big cock rooster he puffs up his chest and struts around like he’s important… but really just makes a lot of noise.

Lindiwe Mazibuko, on the other hand, is well-spoken and knowledgeable. She has been elected to Parliament and is the DA’s National Spokesperson and Shadow Deputy Minister of Communications.

Malema is not much more than a bad stand-up comedian; a raffish rabble-rouser getting grunting guffaws from his asinine audience.

In a unique strategy, the DA has produced a politician who actually answers questions in a way that makes sense and refrains from adopting the clichéd public officials’ trait of ‘talking for a very long time but not saying anything’.

Julius Malema, so fond of pocketing people according to colour, fails to see the yellow glow emanating from his bloated belly.

But the jaundiced Juju should know that his cowardice will not go unnoticed by all, and soon the chickens will come home to roost... and take him along with them.

Finding Diamonds in Dogshit

Saturday night, Long Street. Lucy and I – among the sober minority for a change – fight our way through the crowd of piss-heads and prostitutes dancing to the atrocious covers of Bryan Adams and Robbie Williams, and up the stairs of the Dubliner.

God knows where they find that band, but their aural assault is well worth the light at the end of the terrible tunnel.

It is something akin to digging through dogshit to find a shining diamond; but if you can manage getting stepped on by inebriated tourists and the accompanying market of meat with their bovine eyes on all the Dollars and Pounds, you will meet the Piano Man.

His name is Dave. Cooler than a Tarantino movie, he drinks Southern Comfort on the rocks and has a voice like an icy glass of blended honey, angel wings and gravel. An odd combination, but much like stopping along a country dirt road for lunch, staring at the majestic mountains and thinking of God as a given.

If you can grab a seat at the glass-topped piano you’ll have a front row vision of his nimble fingers banging out everything from Neil Diamond to Coldplay and, of course, a large helping of Billy Joel.

His fans shout out requests and cheer like punters at an underground kung-fu death match – and more often than not someone from the industry passes by, gives Dave a kiss and a drink, and lends their voice to his soulful magic.

Now if they could only build a bridge over the dodgy, downstairs dancefloor, it wouldn’t feel like pulling teeth to get an icecream.

A Cock In The Arse Really Gets Me Down

They used to say, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time!”

Nowadays it’s probably something like, “If you do the crime and the time starts you cryin’, then it’s fine.”

When Shabir Shaik gets off a fifteen year jail sentence due to depression you can’t help losing faith in our system of justice. It’s as if the authorities completely lack any form of bullshit radar.

Of course he’s gonna be a bit blue… fifteen years without a decent curry will do that!

When I was a kid, my mum told me that in prison all you got was stale bread and water – kind of like a long-haul flight on SAA cattle class except with more legroom – but she never mentioned the bumsex with a guy lacking his front teeth, which would have made me a lot less likely to step out of line.

Unlike my mum, the booze pushers last year released that ad totally focused on the unromantic interludes you can expect in a South African jail. Like speed-dating with the Numbers gang, the commercial told you that with more than two beers in your system you ran the risk of a brutal bumfucking from a grizzly gangster.

The irony is that the very same arse-rapers are probably prone to calling you a moffie and beating the crap out of you on any other day.

But the high-flyers don’t have to bunk with the plebs and degenerates, the politically connected surely get their own room with a telly and tea every hour.

And now that Shabir is walking free, drinking and playing golf, with a parole officer who more than likely wears shades at night and sends a seeing-eye dog under the table for a fat envelope of cash every month, you’d think he would have cheered up a mite.

But still the man punches reporters who dare to take his photo, and doesn’t seem appreciate his butt-cheeks’ escape from the clutches of a tattoo’d tsotsi.

This English Dewani fellow, whom South Africans seem more upset with over the bad press our tourism industry received than the death of his beautiful young wife, has been pulling the same “ooh, I’m depressed” shite. I’d like to meet the guy who’s the prime suspect in a murder case cracking a bottle of bubbly and popping an Abba disc in the karaoke machine.

I’d bet the reason these guys are so bummed is because they’re imagining the literal bumming they’re likely to get in Pollsmoor.

And if that’s enough to get you off, then I don’t understand why we have such a problem with overcrowding in our prisons.

POpuLarITICS

After the last elections a lady I know from Khayalitsha told me about how at the eleventh hour she changed her allegiance from ANC to Democratic Alliance because the DA were handing out “nicer things” like t-shirts and boerewors rolls.

I also hear it’s not uncommon for candidates to hand out cellphone airtime to prospective punters.

I suppose with no hope of any real change the best bet seems to be ‘take what you can get now!’

It smacks of ‘stepfather syndrome’ – like your mom’s new boyfriend buying your good graces with gifts; it gets him in the door and into her panties, and later when you find out he’s a dickhead it’s too late.

I suppose giving away free stuff is one way to make friends, but the ANC know that to be prom queen you’ve got to get people to want to be you.

That’s why the ruling party big wigs tool around in cars that cost more than 520 weeks of wages, bring bodyguards to court sporting Armani and artillery, and base their campaigns on how good a dancer their president is.

And if status don’t do it, star power will. That’s why jazz guitarist Jimmy Dludlu can now be seen traipsing door-to-door telling his fans to vote the right way or it’s not only Jesus that will hate you, but celebs as well.

Having “offered [his] services to the party for this election campaign”, one wonders what those might be besides lending his famous face to election hopefuls.

Maybe he’s planning to strum along as Zuma sings his famous ‘machine gun’ song, or possibly an up-tempo version of the ‘kill the boer’ ditty comrades are so fond of.

Poor old Helen Zille tries to keep up – learning to toi-toi and boning up on some struggle tunes – and we can only hope she won’t get an Idols runner-up to tag along with her this time.

A friend of mine reckons politicians shouldn’t be allowed to bang on about what they’re going to do, they should only be allowed to talk about what they’ve done already. If the best they can come up with is a keyring and hotdog then it might give us something to think about.

If our democracy keeps sinking deeper into a mere popularity contest, with issues given brief lip service and the real question being how many famous people we can get on board and how many t-shirts we can hand out, then we might as well make the elections an SABC reality show and we can all phone in our votes.

At least then the airtime will be useful.

Read This!

Every South African should read this... and then this!

Prime Slime

Maybe E-TV should just go ahead and change its name to WWE-TV.

No matter what time of the day, if you switch over to this channel, you’re sure to witness two guys pretending to beat the bejeezus out of each other. We all know it’s an act, and that no one really gets hurt, but we call it ‘sport’ and watch it anyway.

I’ll admit it makes for better daytime television than Days of our Lives reruns and infomercials for snail goo face packs, but the fact that it’s Prime Time viewing is a pretty pathetic reflection of public intellectualism.

Why is this American theatre on in a South African Prime Time slot anyway? Is the target audience for ETV really so undiscerning? Or do we as a nation like to unwind after a hard day’s slog by watching grown men slap and pull hair?

WWE Wrestling is kind of like a violent soap opera for boys. The men tend to spend more time scheming and insulting each other on-stage (or in-ring?) than actually fighting, and the costumes are so camp they could be rejects from the set of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

For decades parents have expressed concern about their children being exposed to such violence, but to my mind there is a lot more to be worried about if your kids idolise these artificial athletes.

I’d feel as though I’d neglected my duties as a responsible parent if one day my son asked for a t-shirt bearing the flexing bicep and growling mug of some bulging steroid case who dressed in tight luminous bicycle shorts and bickered like a menstruating fishwife with other, similarly-attired men.

Having your kids grow up to think all problems are solved through violence is one thing, but if they have to pop on a yellow one-piece and police-dog muzzle first, you know you’ve got problems.

With more of a sense of social responsibility, the SABC often televises boring ministerial debates during the day. And I’m sure the housewives and unemployable alcoholics who watch our politicians look down on those who choose the sweaty beefcakes.

But I suppose in Parliament the characters are as ridiculous, the arguments even more childish, and the eventual outcome just as pointless.

Reservoir Hyenas

Looking at the photos of his court appearance, I reckon Julius Malema might just be the greatest politician South Africa has ever seen.

Like a Tarantino creation, he strutted into the Johannesburg High Court flanked by automatic weapon wielding bodyguards, afraid that the Afriforum tree-huggers might pop a cap in his taxpayer-fattened ass. Or maybe he was afraid that the “boers” he so wanted to “shoot” would do the job.

The case of hate speech has been brought against him by human rights group, Afriforum, for singing Ayesaba Amagwala, known as the ‘Kill the Boer’ song.

There were no angry Afrikaans protesters. No placards saying “kill the doos”. No “bloody agents” with “rubbish in [their] trousers” calling for his thick head. There were only ANCYL supporters out for some Malema magic – better than old Steven Seagal reruns on SABC any day.

But he knew that already, and calling him thick-headed is wrong.

Malema is smart enough to know that by making him a martyr would only make his legend greater. And without any real threat, he knows he needs to create a threat in the minds of his supporters. Even if the threat is a fiction, it still gives him power.

He is right to call the prosecution “Mickey Mouses”. Compared to the movie star that is Malema, they are lowly television continuity announcers.

Like Jacob Zuma, singing his machine gun song and dancing his way into power, Malema is a showman of the highest order.

He knows that the South African political arena is a circus; a show not meant to inform or educate, but to entertain. He knows the public is becoming bored with just comedy and drama, and in a successful effort to score points with his audience, has added an element of action to it all.

As long as he keeps his audience entertained they will keep watching, keep supporting.

I believe this boy will be president one day. And when that happens, we can expect the horror movie to begin.

Is Lady Rugga A Muncher?

Local television sucks.

Most of the time our comedies are as amusing as stepping barefoot in dog shit, our dramas are less controversial than the general family get-together, and our game shows are low-budget replicas of better-produced, more entertaining overseas ones.

We follow the American formula when it comes to everything from our scripts to our cookie-cutter, assembly-line television presenters, and viewers should keep this in mind when anticipating the forthcoming selection of the “first female rugby commentator in South Africa”.

That quote is being trumpeted at the moment louder than the Stormers fans’ boo’s at an opposing team; like it’s a gigantic, stiletto’d leap forward for gender rights.

Following from the success of the ‘Player 23’ marketing campaign, Vodacom has created ‘Lady Rugga’ – which I’m assuming is a female version of the Jan and Elton characters from their adverts.

What they don’t realise is they’re setting themselves up for an epic fail no matter what the outcome.

Most girls I know don’t know much about what should really be called the beautiful game, and the handful of women’s rugby matches I’ve taken in haven’t held my interest as much as, say, Anna Kournikova in a short skirt at Wimbledon.

At risk of a black eye, let’s just say the girls who pass around the pigskin ain’t dainty. But having said that I’m sure they know a hell of a lot more than me about the game’s strategy and rules and psychological burdens.

And therein lies the rub. Because of our broadcasters’ insistence that any member of the female persuasion on telly must be eye-gogglingly and mind-bogglingly beautiful, petite and slim, where are they going to find a sexy presenter with the rugby chops to keep up with Naas Botha and the other guy with the flat hairdo?

Is it going to be a blonde bimbo who knows nothing about the game? Just throwing a petrol bomb onto the fire of the chauvinistic ignorance of the average rugby fan?

Or a meaty, hairy-chinned female forward to do the job? Perpetuating the other stereotype of the rugby chick being an over-testosterone’d vagina-tarian?

I await the result with bated breath.

Paying for Propaganda

I remember when the government-aligned New Age newspaper hit the streets. I wandered across to the supermarket in the morning and there it was proudly boasting that, like tik from a schoolyard dealer, the first one was free.

By the end of the day the massive pile was untouched – they literally couldn’t give it away. Not surprising because, as Julius Malema no doubt realised long ago, we are all “bastard agents” in the Western Cape.

So I could only groan upon news that another government publication, Vuk'uzenzelei, will be hitting the streets in April.

Published by 'coloured-redistributer' Jimmy Manyi (see: 'Too Many Capeys in Cape Town?'), the monthly tabloid will be free to the public. It will also be free of commercial advertising, lest it “clutter” the newspaper. “It might create confusion. Don't be surprised if we don't allow commercial advertising,” said Jimmy.

So the first question from any taxpaying packhorse would be, “Well then who’s paying for it?”

You are, of course! Propaganda don’t come cheap, and you can’t expect Zuma to forgo his right to a BMW for each of his wives.

And it definitely won’t come cheap. Jimmy told probably less-than-awe-inspired journalists, “We want it on the streets, in every township and rural area. It will be bigger than all of you guys put together!”

And with an impressive print run of 2 million copies each month at a cost of R1-million per edition, you can bet it will be the most pricey distribution of toilet paper and birdcage-lining in the history of the world!

Unless they somehow get people to read it, which fills me with dread of Lynne Brown as a ‘Page 3’ girl, and a ‘How to pick up chicks’ column penned by Jacob Zuma.

One can only hope that the taxpayers will march on Parliament to stop this nonsense, and that the unemployed will question whether R1-mill-a-month could be better spent elsewhere.

Soccer Saves The World

For me, when it comes to sports, size matters.

Aside from rugby, I don’t follow much, but when a World Cup comes along I stock up on flags and facepaint and embarrass myself.

I don’t even think the games matter much to me; I just like being in a large group that’s laughing and shouting and emoting. It’s so easy to find common ground with strangers.

After the Fifa World Cup last year a newspaper columnist commented that events like this in SA don’t show us how we are, they show us what we could be like.

There was none of the clichéd violent rivalry associated with soccer. What the World Cup did was make it easier to talk to those from different backgrounds and contrasting cultures. Not just internationally, but local ‘Others’ we South Africans know so little about, and associate so seldom with.

And even now, when the cricket is being played so far away, it still seems natural to talk to the guy at the table next to yours. But if you took away the sport on TV it wouldn’t happen.

Other events lack this dynamic. At the recent Cape Town Festival I felt none of the camaraderie and Oneness a major sporting event infects us with.

Why is this? What is it about two teams smacking, kicking or passing a ball around that brings us together? How does a game dissolve the fear we seem to have about interacting with strangers?

Is it because we now feel we have something in common with the ‘Other’? Of all the people I met over that amazing month in 2010, I found I had a lot in common with most, if not all, of them.

I wonder if we had more things like this – things that somehow made us forget our fear and randomly befriend strangers – I wonder if our ideas would shift to such an extent that the attitude would become natural.

It would be natural to just talk to anyone. And it would be natural to not look at someone randomly talking to us as weird or over-friendly. We could learn so much when it became natural to not just stick to our ‘group’.

Imagine a South Africa where the goal isn’t to find a common identity – something that makes us all the same – but to enjoy and find fascination in the amalgam of identities and differences within our nation.