A slogan to wow them
AFTER exhaustive research and consultation, the government has announced South Africa's new tourism slogan: "More than you imagine."
My informants close to the process tell me it just pipped "It ain't that bad", which was considered too boastful and over-the-top. "Yankee go home!" was also a strong contender but in the end was rejected because it focused on only one segment of the market.
Meanwhile, SA Tourism is concentrating on cross-border packages that will take in the Wine Route, Kruger National Park, the Zululand reserves, Somalia and Western Darfur. A unique feature of these packages will be the "Pirate Cruise" off the Somali coast, in which tourists will be offered the opportunity to exchange gunfire with real live buccaneers.
Closer to home, there are moves to twin Durban with Mogadishu.
Yep, it's more than you can imagine.
Close that gate!
WILL somebody please close the gate?
In the seventies President Richard Nixon had to resign during the Watergate scandal. This was when Republican Party hoodlums burgled Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Hotel, in Washington, and Nixon involved himself in an attempted cover-up.
Since then virtually every public scandal, anywhere in the world, has had the suffix "gate" attached to it.
In South Africa we've had Infogate – the Information Department scandal that brought down Prime Minister John Vorster and his heir apparent Dr Connie Mulder (It was also known as Muldergate).
More recently we've had Oilgate – a dodgy petroleum deal – and Travelgate, the airline tickets schlenter by MPs.
Now we have the WikiLeaks thing, the release of thousands of US diplomatic cables on to the internet. Yes, it's Cablegate. The gormlessness rolls on relentlessly.
Somebody, please – close that damned gate!
Get-up-and-go
READER Eric Hodgson shares with a us a little jingle on how to cope with the advancing years:
How do I know
My youth is all spent?
My get-up-and-go
Has got up and went.
In spite of it all
My face has a grin
When I think of the places
My get-up has bin.
| Astounding facts LYDIA Naidoo sends in a list of obscure "facts". · Real diamonds can be made from peanut butter. · Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike each year than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined. · Mosquito repellents do not repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquitos' sensors so they do not know you are there. · On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents every day. · Your thumb is the same length as your nose. · Women who read romance novels make love 74 percent more often than those who don't. · Smart kids are more likely to become drunks · Twit is the name given to a pregnant goldfish · The average time a woman can keep a secret is 47 hours and 15 minutes. · Adolph Hitler's mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor. · When Mahatma Gandhi died, an autopsy revealed that his small intestine contained five gold Krugerrands. · In Hong Kong the wife of a husband who commits adultery is legally entitled to kill the mistress in any manner desired, but she may murder the husband only with her bare hands · The total weight of all the ants on Earth is about the same as the weight of all the humans. |
I'm afraid I cannot verify any of this, though the statistic on the lovemaking of women who read romantic novels sounds about right. The secret-keeping bit seems overstated.
I'd challenge the Gandhi bit because the Krugerrand was minted only in the 1960s and Gandhi was assassinated in the 1940s. But it could have been Kruger sovereigns.
If Lydia is correct, the word "twit" applies to more people than we think.
Tailpiece
A YORKSHIREMAN'S favourite dog dies. He decides to have a gold statue made by a jeweller to remember it by.
Yorkshireman: "Can tha mek us a gold statue of yon dog?"
Jeweller: "Do you want it 18 carat?"
Yorkshireman: "No - I want it chewin' a bone, yer daft beggar!"
Last word
I never forget a face, but in your case I'll be glad to make an exception.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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