A sense of déjà vu
THE FORENSIC inquiry announced into the top administration of Ethekwini Municipality is not quite as unprecedented as some imagine. Back in the 1960s the provincial administration appointed a judicial commission of inquiry into the doings of the Durban City Council.
This ended in the sitting mayor going to jail. The chief constable also went to jail and a senior councillor and former mayor just happened to be overseas at the time the James Commission reported, and he somehow mislaid his return ticket and never did come back.
What were the major offences uncovered? Er, dodgy deals with the municipality actually.
The more things change … The folk of Durban look on with interest.
Dilemma
THE REPORTING of the James Commission in 1966 presented Durban newspapers with an agonising dilemma - this one especially. The commission had been investigating for years. Its report had been compiled and released to the press under strictest embargo.
The contents were dynamite. The embargo was until midnight on September 6, 1966. The Mercury had its front page cleared for the next day to carry the report's sensational content and recommendations. Page after page inside was filled in advance with other James Commission material.
Then, around 2pm that afternoon, Prime Minister Hendrik Verwoerd was assassinated in the House of Assembly when a parliamentary messenger plunged a carving knife into him.
What took precedence? The explosive James Report that recommended prosecution of the mayor of Durban and others? Or the murder of the prime minister? For this newspaper it was a terrible predicament. Remember, there was no TV in those days, all of this was hot, hot news.
In the end The Mercury ran the James Commission as the main item on the front page, as planned. Then we had a wraparound with the news of Verwoerd's assassination – in effect we had two front pages.
It was about all we could do. It never rains but it pours.
Balance sheet?
EUPHEMISM corner: the US, the Brits and others are reported to have deployed various "assets" to the Mediterranean, Malta, Italy and elsewhere. Where did they find these assets? On a balance sheet somewhere?
No, these assets are warships, submarines, stealth bombers and other aircraft. Why not just call them what they are? Things in Libya are bad enough. There's surely no point in trying to disguise the military aspect.
Bolshoi blackmail
THE NIGHT the awful night that Spitzikovsky split his tights ... the head of Russia's Bolshoi ballet troupe has resigned after hundreds of pornographic pictures of him appeared on the internet.
The pictures of Gennady Yanin, aged 42, were posted online and circulated via a web link to thousands of e-mail addresses. He had led the troupe since 2005. The website where the pictures appeared has since been closed down.
Newspaper critic Tatyana Kuznetsova says it seems the talented dancer was the victim of a smear campaign similar to those used in the past to unseat politicians.
Bringing KGB tactics into ballet? What an intricate entrechat!
Big bust
FRENCH detectives have recovered jewellery worth R150 million, stolen in a daring heist from a boutique on the Champ-Elysees, in Paris, by four gunmen, two of them dressed as women.
While Christmas shoppers passed by outside, the gang took only 15 minutes to steal the jewellery.
The detectives discovered the stash in a plastic container that had been cemented into the rain outlet of a house in the city's Seine-Saint-Denis area. Nineteen rings and three sets of earrings - one pair valued at R120m - were recovered from the hiding spot.
You don't mess with Inspector Clouseau.
Och aye!
IAN GIBSON, bard of Hillcrest, obliges with some verse to compensate for the mistake he made in describing the Arbroath Smokie, a delicacy in Scotland, as a herring instead of a haddock. "Lang may yer lum reek," he says. "Dinna fash yersel'."
There's a Scottish town called Arbroath,
Where folk are clearly not loath
To eat a smokie a day,
Cured in the old Arbroath way
For high tea, with a dram and a proud Gaelic oath.
Tailpiece
EPITAPH on the gravestone of a blues singer: "I didn't wake up this mornin' …"
Last word
If you haven't found something strange during the day, it hasn't been much of a day.
No comments:
Post a Comment