The real lesson of Crotchgate
OH DEAR, the pitfalls of the digital age. The Weinergate/Crotchgate scandal in Washington reaches denouement. Congressman Anthony Weiner now recognises the crotch in grey underpants that arrived on the screen of a female college student living in Seattle as belonging to himself. He now recalls having sent the image to her on Twitter.
Why he should have done so is a matter for the shrinks to debate. What we can concern ourselves with is how easy it is these days for somebody to come unstuck the way he has. Not too many years ago a fellow who had the urge to send a girl a photo of his crotch and underpants would have had to go through quite a procedure – posing while somebody else took the shot; getting the film developed and printed at the chemist's; putting the print in a large addressed envelope; going down to the post office, licking a stamp and putting it in the postbox.
At some stage during this protracted procedure he would have had time to reflect on the error and foolishness of his actions and change his mind. Can anyone recall college girls in Seattle or anywhere else receiving through the mail photographic prints of the nether regions of US congressmen? I think it seldom happened, if ever.
Yet now it's too easy. A quick shot with the camera gadget on the Blackberry. Then put it out on Twitter. What a lark! A few seconds' madness – and a career ruined.
We all of us need to be careful. The laptop has on it a thing that calls itself Crystal Eye, used to transmit video images on Skype. Never sit down at the keyboard in your Y-fronts or less. Who knows what Crystal Eye might not pick up and put out on Twitter, reaching female college students in Seattle?
It's a strange and unsettled world we live in.
On the plaas
MEANWHILE the computer age has also arrived on the platteland. No longer are our deep rural districts slow-moving relics of a bygone age. They are up to the minute, up to the nano-second. The platteland farmer is as attuned to the digital age as the urban stockbroker or commodities dealer.
A South African Farmers' Computer Dictionary has come this way, presumably compiled by Agri SA. Some entries:
· Monitor - Keep an eye on the braai.
· Download - Get the firewood off the bakkie.
· Hard drive - Trip back home without any cold beer.
· Keyboard - Where you hang the bakkie and bike keys.
· Windows - What you shut when it's cold.
· Screen - What you shut in the mosquito season.
· Byte - What mosquitoes do.
· Megabyte - What mosquitoes at the dam do.
· Chip - A bar snack.
· Microchip - What's left in the bag after you've eaten the chips.
· Modem - What you did to the lawns.
· Dot Matrix - Oom Jan Matrix's wife.
· Laptop - Where the cat sleeps.
· Software - Plastic knives and forks from KFC.
· Hardware - Real stainless steel knives and forks from Checkers.
· Mainframe - What holds the shed up.
· Web - What spiders make.
· Website - The shed (or under the verandah).
· Cursor - Oom Tos, who swears a lot.
· Search Engine - What you do when the bakkie won't go.
· Yahoo - What you say when the bakkie does go.
· Upgrade - A steep hill.
Let nobody accuse our farmers of being backward.
Quirky verse
READER Eric Hodgson sends in some limericks by Kirk Miller. They have about them an appealing quirkiness and an unusual metre. An example:
A bad over-actor named Sam
Explained his philosophy to Pam.
'Like Descartes, I can see
The real essence of me.
I think and so therefore I ham.'
Tailpiece
VAN DER MERWE goes into the pharmacy to get something for the weekend. He's tongue-tied with embarrassment as an attractive blonde comes up to serve him. He also has a bit of a language problem.
"Kondome asseblief."
"I beg your pardon."
"Kondome."
"Can of Doom? Is it for flying insects or crawling insects."
"No, no! Is sommer for ordinary sex!"
Last word
Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public. - H L Mencken
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