Tuesday, March 21, 2017

The Idler, Thursday, March 16, 2017

The Games, booze-ups and breweries

WE'VE lost out on the Commonwealth Games. If we really couldn't afford it, perhaps it's a mixed blessing. But we surely weren't going to be suckered the way Fifa and the rest of the bloodsuckers did with the Football World Cup? This is, after all, the Commonwealth, not a bunch of schmoozers..

The full reasons are not entirely clear. Could it be that other happenings in this country made the Games organisers apprehensive? The reputation for being unable to organise a booze-up in a brewery? The social grants debacle? News gets around.

Investment analyst Dr James Greener tells us in his latest grumpy newsletter that, Bathabile Dlamini  landed a sucker punch on Parliament and the Constitutional Court.

"The point to keep in mind when trying to make sense of the Social Grants payments debacle is that the privately-owned Cash Paymaster Services is the only game in town. They have grown up alongside the huge increase in beneficiary numbers and are alone in having the institutional memory and in-place capacity needed to tackle this mammoth monthly task.

"They are not going to share that with any competitor – even Sassa itself. Minister Bathabile Dlamini and the top people in her ministry clearly have known this for some time. Indeed, they appear to have been comfortable with it. They did nothing until way too late to seek alternatives, and even that was very half-hearted.

"She sucker-punched everyone including Parliament and the Constitutional Court into believing there was an alternative to the reviled CPS and that her department was on top of a change-over. But it was simply not true and so with just days until the next grant distribution date there is absolutely no alternative. And there probably won't be for a very long time."

Makes ya think!

 

More breweries

FORMER England rugby coach Clive Woodward says we can rest assured that the Irish are hatching a plot to spoil England's run of success when they meet at Lansdowne Road this weekend.

Now reader Dave Bramble lets us in on the secret plot.

"The Poms can't stand the smell of Guinness. So what happens, when they are playing Ireland in Dublin the Guinness brewery produces extra and the smell drifts over the city and it puts them off entirely.

"Add to that the odour from the crowds present (I mean the Guinness odour) and the Poms have very little chance."

Dave's quite right about the smell of Guinness that drifts over Dublin. But I've always found it strangely invigorating.

 

Riders

BRAVEHEART rides again. It was probably inevitable that Scottish Nationalist leader Nicola Sturgeon would call for another independence referendum, given the turmoil in British politics over Brexit. It's quite possible that the same turmoil will re-ignite problems in Northern Ireland.

How did the Brits get into this mess? Blame it on the Bullingdon Club. This is a drinking and dining club of Oxonians such as former prime minister David Cameron and current foreign secretary Boris Johnson.

The Bullingdon fellows specialise in wrecking the restaurants they visit, afterwards snootily paying for the damage by cheque. But it seems they've turned their attention from restaurants to international institutions like the EU and ancient political entities like the UK. (And this time they won't be able to just pay by cheque).

Meanwhile, GCHQ – the techno-whizz end of British security – has warned the Brits to expect a deluge of computer hacking and social media disinformation from Moscow in the delicate times ahead.

A weakened Europe, a weakened Britain – Vlad the Impaler rides again.

Bursting

A MAN who police and border officials described as "bursting out of his pants" was taken aside at JFK international airport, New York, for investigation last week after he arrived from the Dominican Republic.

"His pants appeared to be rather snug," the officials said.

It turned out he had about 5kg of cocaine in packets taped to his legs, with a street value of $165 000 (R2.1 million) .

That's a great coincidence. At King Shaka international the other day I saw a girl who was just about bursting out of her blouse. I'm sure she was smuggling watermelons.

 

Tailpiece

MARRIED women are heavier than single women. Single women come home, see what's in the fridge and go to bed. Married women come home, see what's in bed and go to the fridge.

Last word

Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.

Timothy Leary

 

 

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