Long Live

 Dear ANC

That looked like a rather sudden, swift slide to mini-implosion. Truth is, though, it was inevitable. You should have seen it coming. You cannot dig holes and rip pieces off the slide without interesting consequences. Vision and foresight haven't been your strong suit. Hard to see the wood when you're preoccupied with the size, colour and location of each tree.

I do think reports of your demise are premature. You have history on your side. And food parcels, grants, cliches, song and dance. I'm sure that, like a character in a certain type of movie, you will rise again to haunt..., I mean, to fight on. 

Yeats wrote of a once beautiful, young woman:

I know not what the younger dreams - 

Some vague Utopia - and she seems, 

When withered old and skeleton - gaunt,

An image of such politics

Politics of the stomach and the empty cliche can also do that. Only balloons rise on hot air.

And Yeats might have had you in mind with:

Why, what could she have done, being what she is? Was there another Troy for her to burn?

Yours in the struggle to adapt.

Richard 

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

I, too, avoid physicians, Mr Zuma

 Dear Mr Zuma 

While employed by a primary health care clinic, I fell ill at work. 

"You need to see a doctor", advised a colleague.

I went off and was back ten minutes later. My colleague was surprised.

"Did you see the doctor?"

"Two of them", I replied. "Walking down the corridor. I feel better now."

Sir, I tell this story to illustrate that I share your wariness (perhaps suspicion) about doctors. I have discovered the following about them:

1. They have no boundaries and ask the most embarrassingly intimate questions about bodily functions. "Do you have regular bowel movements?" For Pete's sake!

2. They have a very negative attitude. Every time I've been to one, he or she has found something wrong. It's never "Wow, your blood is circulating so well - and in the right direction too", or "Gee, that stomach is almost perfectly round." Words of comfort and inspiration in these difficult times when our favourite political parties are falling apart.

3. They lie. "I'm going to shove this metre long needle into your arm and you'll feel better in no time."

4. They give bad advice. "Lay off the wine, women, song and good, red meat and your quality of life will improve."

I ask myself how different they are from the shamans who peer into chicken entrails but can't give a simple lotto combination.

We are, if not in the same boat, at least on the same marina. 

Yours in the struggle against    poking, pummelling physicians.

Richard

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Angels. Demons and the Mother of Conspiracies

Dear Fellow South Africans 

It troubles me that we are such a divided people. Scouring social media for wisdom, enlightenment and other stuff, one stumbles upon chasms of disagreement and hostility.

Dr Ace, Mr Zuma and other worthies are painted as angels by one group, demons by another. In the age of big-brother technology and investigative journalism, surely we must have evidence one way or the other. 

This puts me in mind of the pro-vaccination / no- vaccination split. On that note, vaccines may play a part in the mother-of-conspiracies I am about to unveil. After the jab, I was overcome by an unaccustomed surge of hostile feelings towards both gentlemen. Fortunately, I knew well enough to chant 'umShini wami' until I entered a trance-like state of serenity.

To the heart of the matter. Applying the sort of superior logic made famous by the EFF. When people differ so violently against a backdrop of mountains of information, something else is afoot (or in an SUV). MERDE (Mann Establishment for Resolving Dire Emergencies) can now reveal that a fourth force is at play. We face a threat greater than swart gevaar (All Blacks rugby), wit gevaar (Rupert and friends) or any other gevaar. We at MERDE will not be caught napping, unlike the politicians and security clusters of certain countries (not ours, of course). We are on the scent, noses to the ground, stench notwithstanding.

All will be revealed at the same time that the full story of the instigators of insurrection is told. Suffice it to say that a bizarre, sinister plot, involving clones of our saintly heroes has been in operation. It's the clones that solicited and took bribes, frolicked with foreign vegetarians and indulged in other murky adventures. All this, while our heroes wrestled valiantly with cares of state and the welfare of the people (you and me, dear reader). It is thanks to their sterling efforts that we are where we are. Now there's a statement neither camp can disagree with.

This mother of conspiracies was partly revealed in Attack Of The Clones : https://thescuffle.blogspot.com/2020/05/attack-of-clones.html

People laughed then, as they did at Pythagoras, or some other Greek bloke who posited that the earth is round. Until the first ships dropped over the top. 

Who is behind this? Shadowy organizations and shady individuals. Foreign powers. Think of the riches beneath and above the earth in our country. Coveted by greedy imperialists. Think of the valuable deposits of guano, produced daily by our politicians. Mr Zuma hinted more than once at the dark deeds of legions of spies, domestic and foreign. I was unable to sleep for a week, after his first Zondo Commission appearance.

In the fullness of time, MERDE will reveal all.

Till then, yours in the struggle against fourth force conspirators.

Richard 

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted Capitec Bank, South Africa 1378565477 O Tichmann +27 833970723

Kubi, Mr Mabe

 ANC's Mr Pule Mabe on salary payment challenges within the Party, as reported:

“A strange phenomenon has emerged now, especially because we have social media and all of that, when the ANC account and answer to staff, that it is unable to perform because of the challenges it faces. The expectation is that disciplined staff members would then rather ask for a platform with the ANC to understand how the problem is being resolved,” said Mabe.

Dear Mr Mabe

Discipline has gone to hell. How dare people go out on social media, complaining about not having been paid? 

Would you or I go publicizing family matters on social media? For example, an alcoholic uncle beating the daylights out of family members? No, sir, such sacred family issues must be kept within said family. We must keep a stiff, if somewhat bruised, upper lip. You are the quintessential example. I've not heard you complaining about not being paid.

One sometimes looks back with nostalgia to the disciplined days of strong leaders like Stalin, Kim Whatsisname and others.I know that decadent pinko liberals will go mad at this; but let's face it, the rack and the thumbscrew had their uses in maintaining discipline in the good old days.

That union bloke, Mr Mdala, reportedly said that management undertook to resolve some of the demands by the end of August.  Well, Mr Smart Alec Mdala, it's only the 28th of August. 

I think you quite rightly pointed out that this me..,pardon, challenge does not indicate that the Party cannot govern a country. Of course you can. And we'd love to find one somewhere for you to govern. Okay, so we have rampant crime, runaway corruption, incompetence, buffoonery, waste and inefficiency. Apart from that, you guys are doing fine. 

Yours in the struggle for discipline.

Richard

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Bean There, Done That, Mr Zuma

 Dear Mr Zuma

I am powerfully moved by your righteous anger and indignation at 'the law being used to target' you. 

I can relate. I was once targeted for doing a mere thirty kilometres above the arbitrary speed limit. What kind of law does not bend to accommodate me..., pardon,  I mean emergencies and special circumstances? For example, the imminent closing of my local KFC. 

Sir, it seems you are on the verge of spilling some long-promised beans. So moved was I that I had to borrow from the Langston Hughes poem, with a minor alteration or two. Apologies to the Hughes family, friends and poetry lovers.

What happens to beans deferred?

Do they dry up like biltong in the sun?

Or fester like a sore and then run?

Maybe they just sag

Like a heavy load

Or do they explode?

I suspect that we may be at the 'explode' stage. We all know what happens with bean-initiated explosions; the sound, the fury, the stench. 

Many South Africans may relate to the original, about a dream deferred. That's not the point. This is about you. After all, which came first: democracy or the ANC?

Sir, I am completely in tune with your implied 'what about others?' argument. During my last court appearance, I pointed out that Al Capone had done far worse. I also once referred my creditors to the national debt, and, for emphasis, the US national debt. To no avail. 'The law is a ass', said one learned gentleman. A soulless ass, some may add.

Sir, let us, like twin Samsons, grasp the pillars and bring the whole edifice down. With our beans.

Yours in the struggle for justice to be done, seen, heard and felt (and smelled?).

Richard 

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted 

Capitec Bank, South Africa  

1378565477

O Tichmann 

+27 833970723

Crazy Stupid

Have you ever undergone the exquisite torture of desperately needing to laugh at a very inappropriate time? 

Happened to me at a meeting at a sister company. I excused myself, found the toilets and - blessed relief - bellowed with laughter. Someone walked out of one of the stalls. I tried to greet him but all I could manage was 'hahaha'. He looked frightened. He also didn't wash his hands.

I had a similar experience listening to the political woes of a friend from Kakistan. It was over a glass of President's Punch at the Saxonworld Shebeen. (Well within curfew and boozing hours, of course).

His president reshuffled his lame-duck  cabinet. The problem was that the shuffle resembled a before - and - after Taliban photo album. The new speaker had not only duffed up her previous portfolio but now had allegations hanging around her neck to rival the Ancient Mariner's albatross. Adding insult to injury, he said, was her speech about the joys of democracy. He quoted my own favourite Auden verses:

Exiled Thucydides knew

All a speech can say about democracy

And what dictators do 

The elderly rubbish they talk 

He paused angrily. 

"What are you laughing at? It's not funny at all."

"Actually it's a cross between Catch 22 and Nineteen Eighty -Four". I replied. "Darkly hilarious."

Getting up off the floor: "It's a miracle that you still have something vaguely resembling a country."

"Barely", he muttered. Then sombrely: "Well you may laugh. You'll never have to go through that."

"No", I replied. "In our country, we're not that stup.., I mean, crazy."

 

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted Capitec Bank, South Africa 1378565477 O Tichmann +27 833970723

Cinders: ANC Fairy Tale

From the province of Dr Ace, philosopher, comes this flash of brilliance.

'The ANC’s Free State branch has said that municipalities should intensify their programmes of naming and renaming as a way of speeding up service delivery.'

According to these thinkers, you were wrong, Mr President. There is a magical solution to our troubles. The magic is in the name. Renaming is the fairy godmother who will lift us from the grime of incompetence, indifference, slothfulness and corruption. Into the ball we will sweep, clothed in a shimmering ballgown of service excellence. But we seem to have missed the stroke of midnight and all we are left with are a couple of mice and some thoroughly rotten pumpkins. More correctly, we have swarms of diseased rats.

You need to smoke some incredibly strong, exotic stuff to make such an interstellar leap of logic. Even Durban poison won't do it. 

This story has elements of both a zol-induced fairy tale and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty - Four. 

Just keep calling incompetence, greed and bull..t something else. In South Africa, we have sufficient numbers of thoroughly dumb or gullible people for this to work better than Orwell ever dreamt. 

When reality bites, no problem. We'll find someone to blame it on. Here's a starter list for our Free State comrades. Please add as the spirit moves you:

apartheid, Gordhan, Rupert, Phoenix Indians, DA, WMC and media, counter-revolutionaries, all of the above. I apologize to the many third-force elements and capitalist running dogs that I have omitted.

We'd like to rename your branch but this blog is for family reading.

To quote a little - known Shakespeare line (not William, the other one): 'Manure, by any other name, still smells like s..t'.

Tips for the blogger gratefully accepted Capitec Bank, South Africa 1378565477 O Tichmann +27 833970723