Little green men
HERE'S another cover-up. The CIA has at last declassified documents relating to "Area 51", that secret site in the Nevada desert where, as everyone knows, UFOs have crashed, the bodies of little green men from outer space have been found and all kinds of other things have happened that are denied by the American government.
Books have been written about this, magazine articles; there are posts on the internet. Area 51 is fenced off, photography is forbidden. It is Top Secret. What are the Yanks hiding from us?
But at last the truth is out. The top secret parcel of land, which never before appeared on any government map, was used in the 1950s for … er, the development of the U2 spy plane that was used during the Cold War for surveillance of the Soviet Union from an altitude on the fringes of outer space.
Eh? No little green men? No androids from Venus? No flying saucers? This is ridiculous! Clearly it's just THEM trying again to put us on the wrong trail. Recently the Brits said they were abandoning their UFO investigation service because no evidence had come up in 50 years that there actually were extra-terrestrial beings buzzing our planet.
The Americans – Obama in person – have said much the same.
This is preposterous, don't be fooled! THEY are trying to fool us, it's a huge conspiracy.
Who are THEY?Well, that's part of the conspiracy. It could be the CIA. It could be the G-8. It could be the international bankers. It could be the girl guides. It could be dinosaur-like reptiles from outer space. These could all turn out to be one and the same.
Lay off our conspiracies!
Stalkers
HELP! I'm being stalked by two songbirds. Wherever I go these days – Wilson's Wharf, two places in Morningside and now, the other evening, the Berea – I find myself being serenaded by two gorgeous girls who call themselves Leather and Lace.
How do they track my movements in this way? It's most uncanny. Unless it's a trick done with mirrors and they're playing simultaneously in every nightspot in Durban.
Their harmonising is absolutely beautiful, it's like a feminine rerunning of Simon and Garfunkel, something very fresh and different. Leather and Lace – Megan Prior and Carmen Keating. When these gals make the big time, remember where you read it first!
Tourism opportunity
COSATU functions by the principle of "democratic centralism", according to supporters of the embattled general secretary, Zwelinzima Vavi. This expression hasn't been much in vogue since the heyday of the Soviet Union and Mao-tse-tung's China.
Could this sort of thing not become a tourist attraction? Visit South Africa and relive revolution and the Cold War. Immerse yourself in retro-rhetoric: dialectical materialism … conscientisation of the masses … capitalist-imperialist oppressors … dictatorship of the proletariat … lickspittle compradorists … capitalist lackeys … Yankee-imperialist running dogs … bean soup tigers … Bring back the good old days!
Satour really need to get onto this.
Scary stats
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "Do you know, 25% of the women in this country are on medication for mental illness? That's scary. Seventy-five percent must be running around untreated."
Breaststroke
CHIMPANZEES and orang-utans prefer doing the breaststroke to dogpaddle when they take to the water, according to research in America. They adopt a style of swimming that is very close to when humans do breaststroke.
The research is based on close study of a chimpanzee named Cooper, who lives in Missouri, and an orang-utan named Suryia, who is in South Carolina. Both have conquered the fear apes have of deep water and regularly take a dip.
What of our vervet monkeys? I seem to recall a reader from Yellowwood Park sending in photographs of vervets doing the Australian crawl and butterfly in her pool at home.
All this research needs to be pulled together. We need to properly harness our swimming resources. Vervets could lend vital extra support to Chad le Clos and Cameron van der Burgh in the medleys in international competition.
Tailpiece
A FELLOW with two left feet walks into a shoe shop.
"Have you got any flip-flips?"
Last word
Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.
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