Eureka! That’s a nice name for a girl, isn’t it? And a natural progression, methinks, on all these Storms and Summers gaily trotting around clutching Daddy’s cycle-gloved hand in breakfast places on a Sunday morning. If you have been hanging out under Julius Malema’s bar of soap and not paying the slightest bit of attention, I am dead keen to become a father. And should the old chromos produces a girl child, I shall call her Eureka.
Not because I don’t like the name Jane. Or because I absolutely dig the way “Eureka Hatman” scans… but because, should Eureka get lost while my gaze is disturbingly locked on making sure my bike doesn’t get nicked while having a Full House at some trendy breakfast place on a Sunday morning, and I go into an entertaining panic and shout out her name, all of the other breakfasting cyclist daddies might come running over to see what it is I’ve discovered. I always wanted to be an inventor.
Size does matter. But don’t ask a mosquito or a Jack Russell, ask a sardine.
I don’t think their lifestyle is anything near ideal. But I suppose some life-forms, such as worms, prawns and Paris Hilton, are just feeble fodder for something far larger and hungrier.
So you’re a sardine. There you are, hanging with lots of friends and making your way timidly up the east coast of South Africa, checking out the pretty coral reefs and the colourful undersides of surfboards when… wham, your best mate disappears into a gannet.
Damn. But you put it down to bad luck and swim a little faster. Kapow! Your twin sister gets taken by a tuna. Next thing, there’s a sound not dissimilar to a giant Deluxe Supa-Strength Hoover sucking in bathwater and you look around and find your entire family, including a distant cousin and a few hangers-on, have been baitballed up into a nice, juicy orb and swallowed, along with the tuna still digesting your twin sister, by a chuffing Great White.
Where’s the fun in this, you ask yourself, and hook up with a new shoal who look like they know what they’re doing and head with them for shallower waters. No sooner are you there and some big chick in a sari and smelling faintly of curry powder and assorted exotic spices is scooping you into a bucket. A cheap one from Checkers, nogal.
Not nice. If you drew one of life’s short straws and you’re not much bigger and a lot hungrier, like a Great White or even a Great Big Black… like Julius Malema. He’s always on the right side of a feeding frenzy, isn’t he?
But before I am tempted to digress any further, please pull up the closest deckchair, apply some Factor 30 and enjoy The Greatest Shoal On Earth (as provided each and every July by South Africa’s eastern seaboard)…
How cool was that? I think that even a sardine, if it would just choose to step back for a few minutes and try to be dispassionate about everything, would see the coolness in that spectacular vid. Especially as I threw the inimitable voice of David Attenborough into the mix as well. What a legend.
In which case, you will a) not love it all that much; b) not know what the hell is going on, and c) what are you doing touching me on my blog, JuJu?
The rest of you might like to kick back on Freedom Day, hit the pause button to let this hilarious vid buffer up for uninterrupted viewing… and laugh until your studio hurts…
Classic, hey? “His Worship” certainly got that “bloody agent” removed, didn’t he? Too funny!
I really wanted to write “SA-positive” stuff about the World Cup today but, after enormous pressure was exerted on me, I have agreed to allow Mr Julius Malema, through his newly-appointed public relations officer Hugh Mangazi, to disseminate a press release in the wake of his exoneration by President Jacob Zuma…
From the desk of Hugh Mangazi, press relations officer to Mr Julius Malema, President of the African National Congress Youth League – April 20, 2010:
My dear comrades, my fellow citizens of South Africa and loyal members of the African National Congress, I have been quiet. I have kept a dignified silence since the outrageous attack on my integrity by that boy from the BBC, right there in Luthuli House, the inner sanctum of the ruling party and the heart of our struggle.
My personal struggle continues. But I have lost it. I won’t keep quiet any longer. I have been asked to keep quiet, people have pleaded with me to maintain my dignified and honourable silence. I have been forced to bear witness to further attacks on my person, my very own studio, by an army of agents masquerading as journalists, bastards and cowardly desktop activists.
But now that I have been exhilarated by President Zuma of the nonsensical charges of bringing the party into disrepute, I will be quiet no longer. I have a right, indeed a freedom of speech, to address the concerns of my supporters, my followers, my adoring masses and, indeed, my hangers-on.
No longer shall I lurk in the shadows like a scolded dog while the imperialist agents of the world’s media take turns to whip me on every part of my massive studio. I shall never be silenced in my untiring efforts to return my country to the people. The people who really matter. Like my tailors, my shoemakers, my bodyguards, my chauffeurs and my party planners.
I’ll have you know that, when it comes to studios, I have the most expensively assembled one of them all. The biggest and most powerful equipment. Size matters. And, when I am ready to make my move and grab the biggest microphone of them all, I will father multitudes of children by many wives and an assortment of other women who are just gagging to fall under my spell.
And I will preside over them all. I will be their President. My nation of children. And their tailors, shoemakers etc. They say that power is the best Afrodisiac. Well, when they are given a tour of my studio, some lucky enough to be cast on my couch for potential first ladies, they will know that I am the man.
The only man to take them to the promised land. Land where they can grow their own mielies, fully orgasmic and free of pesticides… and other nasty agents like those Boere who refuse to pay our people for their hard work.
Yes, my people, my adoring masses, the future is bright… and the future is, like, fully Malematic.
Take this World Cup. The media, the agents, the bloody bastards have been saying that the songs I sing, those released from my studio, have been destabilising South Africa just before the World Cup. This is complete kak, the work of the imperialist agenda. I say to them, go and jump in the English Channel, where you belong. The bloody agents must jump. And that Brazilian agent who gets all that money to coach our Bafana Bafana… he must go and jump in the sea near Rio. He doesn’t know our soccer, our culture, our slow foreplay from the defensive back four through midfield before we score.
The boy from Brazil doesn’t even speak our language. How can our players even understand him. Bloody agent. No, I will take over Bafana Bafana for this World Cup. The players will understand me, my tactics. And when they are out on the field, representing South Africa in front of the same number of people that I get at a rally, they will certainly hear me when I shout instructions. “Kill the ball! Play it to feet! Keep it on the grassroots!”
Yes, I will lead South Africa to a glorious victory on our own soil. The soil of my fathers. And I want to wear the No 6 jersey when I lift the World Cup trophy… after we have beaten those bloody agents from England in the final. And then that boy from the BBC must interview me.
I look forward to making him apologise. But now, I must go back into my studio. I have a new song that I am working on. It’s going to be a No 1 hit. I’ve called it “Don’t Shoot the Messenger, Kill the bloody News Agents!”
It’s happened! Who knew this blog had such influence, such power? Last week I suggested that Julius Malema, president of the ANC Youth League, might be well served by appointing a public relations person to improve his image in the media. And he has! He has appointed Hugh Mangazi, former Editor of The Limpopo Larynx and massage therapist to the Springbok netball squad, to this post and, what’s more, Mr Malema has insisted that his press releases be fed to the world’s media through this humble but reputably “SA-positive” blog.
I am thus hugely honoured to publish Mr Malema’s first official press release, written by Mr Mangazi, in the wake of the media feeding frenzy directed at Mr Malema since the unfortunate fracas witnessed at Luthuli House. the headquarters of the African National Congress, in Johannesburg yesterday:
From the desk of Mr Hugh Mangazi, official public relations officer for Mr Julius Malema, president of the African National Congress Youth League. For immediate release on April 9, 2010:
“I am not amused by the way the media have responded to the fact that I had to have that BBC journalist removed from my press briefing at Luthuli House yesterday.
Like most white journalists, and especially the ones from Britain with their imperialist agenda, he clearly came to cause trouble with me. And he had the insolence and colonial arrogance to think that he could come to my place, the home of the ANC steeped in the proud tradition of the struggle, and carry out his mischief. He is just a small boy from Britain, one of those pimply whites who still keeps a train set under his bed.
But this British boy agent comes here and tells me I’m talking “rubbish”. Why should I tolerate this? Did I go to 10 Downing Street and tell Gordon Brown in his home that what he is saying is rubbish? Did I go to 10 Downing Street to ask Gordon Brown where he lives? No. I didn’t. Because I don’t care where he lives… as long as he doesn’t try to steal my people’s land in Africa and grow rhubarb on it and pay my people R20 a week to grow it. And as long as he doesn’t let that Victoria Barkham with no bum come here with her right-wing agent husband to our World Cup and colonise our TV news.
This boy from the BBC, an agent for imperialism and the whites who occupied Zimbabwe and tried to run South Africa… who had the cheek to say I live in Sandton… why did he come to my press conference to do that? Why does he want to know where I live? Does he want work as my garden boy? I’m sure he stays in a nice house in Windsor, or wherever white people like to live when they’re at home, and has a Sony Playstation 4 and his own collection of toy Ferraris… so why does he come here and insult me? No, he had to go. Why didn’t all the media follow him out? Because they need me, they feed off me, they eat up my words. I don’t need them. That BBC boy can work in my garden, if he behaves himself and plants my mielies in a straight row and listens to me in my home. Then I will even give him lunch. He can have samp and rice. And I’ll even pay him his wages on time.
I live in Sandton because I can. I’m not a garden boy. I am a leader. My people want me to live where I like. Because I am an inspiration to them and show them what they can become. The media dig around in my life because I have money to buy a big car and wear good clothes. They think I must ride a bicycle to work in those white shorts with the red piping around the legs like a garden boy. They want to know where I got the money from. They think I am corrupt. They don’t understand how a black man can have these things while they drive around their suburbs in big cars and wear a Rolex. I can do what I like in my country. This is my home, not theirs. I am not their garden boy.
Look at this skeleton that has been dug up in Maropeng. A white boy dug it up. The whites are always digging around in Africa for what they can find. These are the bones of my ancestors. African people. My people. These bones could be my relatives but white people have dug them up… do they want to take my dead family back to London? They must dig around in their own backyard and see what they can find. Maybe they’ll find their Churchill and a few dead kings and queens there. If they want to dig here, they can find their colonial emperor Cyril Rhodes and take him home. He was the worst white gold-digger of them all.
These colonialists have taken enough from Africa. They must leave us alone. A white boy found our bones because he has nothing better to do than dig around in Africa, looking for what does not belong to him. Like that BBC agent yesterday. Why wasn’t it a black boy who dug up this skeleton? Because he has to go to school so that he can get a proper job, not digging around in a white man’s backyard. I have had enough of these whites who come and dig up Africa and make trouble. And I will not apologise for sending that BBC agent home with a big fly in his ear.
No, my friends. My comrades. My fellow Louie Vittons. We must stand up and say enough is enough. As the imperialists’ own William Shakingspear said: “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock. The meat it feeds on.”
There are children who grow up to be adults. And there are children who, despite growing very tall and wearing corduroy jackets with leather elbow patches and having a mane of hair bearing an uncanny resemblance to that of Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant but with grey streaks, remain children.
Thank goodness. This phenomenon allows us to feed on stories such as James May and his new house. You might know of James. He’s the tall, somewhat posh oke who often hangs out with Jeremy Clarkson and Richard “Hamster” Hammond on the BBC’s Top Gear show, in which they drive very fast cars and make lots of very funny jokes. Well, Jeremy handles that side of things while The Hamster crashes cars and James stands around doing a very languid Stephen Fry impression while teaming a houndstooth blazer with that Robert Plant barnet.
All very entertaining. But it’s showhouse day so let’s have a butchers at the house that James has nearly finished building in a vineyard in Surrey, England…
Colourful, isn't it? And, yes, made out of Lego. Er, James, you appear to have forgotten to put in windows, old chap?! Pic: Murray Sanders
Settle down, children. I know that this is terribly exciting for you. It’s Lego overload, isn’t it? But, and this is worrying me, where are the windows? Hang on. I think James has just found the window he forgot to put in…
Unless, of course, this is James auditioning for a job on National Geographic.Pic: Murray Sanders
You have to love the English. So much of delicious eccentricity. James is building Legoland because, as he puts it, “‘your imagination is always bigger than your stockpile [of Lego bricks] when you’re a kid”. And we’re fine with that, aren’t we, Hatpeople? Nothing wrong with being a big kid. That’s why I’m petitioning the municipality to close down the roads of Umdloti for a few months while I build the most humungous, most radastical Scalectrix set ever known to man. Or boy. That’s how we roll, James and I.
To be entirely honest, James is building his house – kitchen, toilet and all – out of plastic toy blocks for a new BBC show, Toy Stories, and you can read all about it right here.
I liked the comment from a concerned reader who worries that sitting on the Lego brick loo in James’s house might leave quite a lasting impression on his bum. It worries me, too. But not as much as the lack of windows.
