Zenga-Zenga rules OK!
TECHNOLOGY is against the dictators today. An Israeli named Noy Looshe has remixed the deranged speeches of Colonel Gaddafi from his balcony in Tripoli, replacing that soundtrack with Hey Baby! by American rap artists Pitbull and T-pain.
The hilarious result – titled Zenga-Zenga - has been posted on You Tube and had three million hits in a couple of days. T-shirts have been printed bearing a caricature of Gaddafi and the words Zenga-Zenga. (Zenga apparently means an alleyway).
Alooshe has received death threats. He's also received requests from Iran for him to do the same with the nutcases in government there.
Dictatorship simply can't survive this kind of lampoonery. The Big Man requires respect. Without that he is nothing. That's why aspiring Big Men in this country have things stacked against them while people like Zapiro and Fedler are around, let alone internet videos.
A pity nothing of the kind was in place for Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. History could have been different.
Lambeth Walk
THE BRITS did, of course, lampoon Hitler. During World War II they doctored newsreel footage to hilarious effect.
To a soundtrack of The Lambeth Walk – a popular dance tune and song of the time – footage of goose-stepping Nazi troops would be run forward and backward in time to the tune. At the moment Lambeth dancers would shout "Oi!" with a thumb pointed over the shoulder, up would flash a shot of the Fuehrer giving the Nazi shoulder salute.
It was very funny and no doubt it lifted morale during the Blitz. But it showed only in British cinemas. The Germans never saw it at all.
Not so today. Can any dictatorship survive?
Skonk Nicholson
THOUSANDS seemed to have packed into the Alan Paton Hall at Maritzburg College last Friday for the funeral service of rugby legend Skonk Nicholson. All kinds of statistics and anecdotes have surfaced.
With Skonk as coach over 35 years, College played 504 matches, of which they won 403, drew 49 and lost 52. Fifteen of his teams were unbeaten in the province and 10 unbeaten overall. It's an astonishing record. He assisted rugby at club level – Collegians (both Maritzburg and Durban) and DHS Old Boys (he was himself a DHS old boy). He was called on to assist at provincial and national levels as well.
The Zulu slogans with which he revved up College rugby were recalled: "Tatani isikali yethu!" (Take up your weapons!)' "Vutan' umlilo!" (Play with fire!); "Faka nduku!" (Beat them with a stick!); "Faka emgodini!" (Put them in a hole!); Asha 'mazambana!" (The potatoes are burning – we're in trouble!); "Liya shon' ilanga!" (The sun's setting – it's getting late, we need to score!). All with the word "College!" added.
Nicholson spoke immaculate Zulu. He was also a geography teacher and co-author of the geography text book, Man's Environment. Once he coached one of the school's gardeners in the dynamics of a tropical cyclone so he could produce him to shame his geography class who had failed to absorb what he was telling them.
Translate this craftiness to the rugby field and much of Skonk's success is explained.
As his coffin left the school to which he had devoted most of his life, the war cry with which he was so closely associated rang out: "Jimalayo! Ji!"
Awu! Indoda!
More limericks
IT'S LIMERICK season. A brand-new one comes in, written by Sally Stretch, who once lectured me in Afrikaans/Nederlands.
A seamstress who lived by the Thames
Made a living by sewing up hames,
While her brother in Leicester
Was a wealthy inveicester
Who owned some magnificent games.
Another comes in from Margaret Greene.
There was a young man from Japan
Whose poetry never would scan;
When his friends told him so
He said, 'Yes I know.
But you see I always try to get as many
Words in the last line as I possibly can'.
Clever stuff, all of it!
Tailpiece
FROM the Poona Club in days gone by.
"Bad show about Ponsonby."
"What happened to Ponsonby?"
"Got cashiered from his regiment. Was having an affair with his horse."
"I say! A mare or stallion?"
"Oh, mare most definitely. Nothing queer about Ponsonby!"
Last word
I've done the calculation and your chances of winning the lottery are identical whether you play or not.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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