Gold in them thar hills
EVERYONE'S talking about Nkandla these days, even though the government is doing its level best to classify it "top secret". I sense that few have actually been there. Helen Zille didn't quite make it – not to JZ's pad anyway.
It's refreshing then to encounter somebody who also knows Nkandla (where I used to spend school holidays). John Burger, of Eshowe, says he was born in Nkandla and grew up about 8kim away at Vumanhlamvu, where his parents had a trading store.
"Our playgrounds during the holidays were the surrounding rolling hills and the beautiful Nkandla Forest. We fished in the Nsuze River and on Saturday afternoons joined the whole village for social tennis at the local club – followed by a cool drink and chips at the hotel, while our mothers enjoyed curry and rice in the lounge and the dads made merry in the bar."
Spot on, John. That's exactly the Nkandla I knew, though some years ahead of you. It's in the Zululand hill country, rolling and green, crisp and cool. I too fished and swam bare-assed in the Nsuze, one of the cleanest rivers I have ever known.
Its sand had little gleaming flecks in it, which everyone said was fool's gold, though I wonder to this day because there were two productive gold mines in the district. They closed not because the gold ran out but because they became uneconomical when Britain went off the gold standard.
Nkandla village is on the edge of the forest. The hotel bar counter was made of a slab of quartz from the mine. On special occasions the barman would pour a bottle of whisky onto it and each miner would station himself at the end of a runnel to collect. Yes, a good place to make merry.
JZ's pad is not in the village, it's down in the Tugela valley. But I'd better not say too much. Top secret, y'know.
Thrice-cursed
THE AUTHORITIES in North Korea are infuriated by claims by defectors abroad who say dictator Kim Jong-un ("The Young 'Un") has ordered officials to use Mein Kampf, Hitler's Nazi manifesto, as a leadership skills manual.
News Focus International, an online portal run by the defectors, says Kim handed out copies of Mein Kampf to the officials on the occasion of his birthday in January.
"Mentioning that Hitler managed to rebuild Germany in a short time following its defeat in World War I, Kim Jong-un issued an order for the Third Reich to be studied in depth and asked that practical applications be drawn from it."
But North Korea's police have reacted angrily, calling the report "a thrice-cursed crime" and threatening reprisals against the defectors.
"We are determined to take substantial measures to physically remove despicable human scum who are committing treasons," declared a police statement carried by the state-run Central News Agency.
The police also vowed to launch "merciless punishment of justice" against South Korea and the United States, accusing them of encouraging the defectors to defame Kim.
That's telling 'em. It's intolerable that a good Stalinist should be defamed by being falsely associated with liberal Nazi rubbish.
Crash! Crash!
WORKMEN drop in, cows drop in. Twelve-year-old Maya Pur was watching cartoons in the living room of her family home in Philadelphia, in the US, when a workman came crashing through the ceiling and landed on her.
He had been fixing a leak in the roof. Maya suffered broken fingers and concussion but it could have been worse. The man did not land directly on her.
The other side of the Atlantic in Devon, England, a cow came crashing through the roof of a farmer's garage and landed in a vehicle inspection pit, from which it had to be rescued.
How it got on the roof is anybody's guess.
What cartoons was Maya watching? Animated nursery rhymes perhaps?
Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon. It seems the only logical explanation.
Tailpiece
A HIGHWAY patrolman pulls alongside a speeding car on the freeway. He's astounded to see that the blonde behind the wheel is knitting.!
She ignores his flashing lights and siren so he winds down his window, turns on his bullhorn and yells: "Pull over!"
"No!" the blonde yells back. "It's a scarf!"
Last word
A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.
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