Lucky Packet

Intergalactic Tabloid Headlines, 2065: “Humans Fail! Parktown Prawns Rise to Claim Earth!”

I missed a great many things last week, partly on account of being busy helping an old lady to cross the road (no, really. She was moving house and had been standing in the queue at the municipality being ignored by the cashiers for a fortnight. Whether that’s just the MO of municipality cashiers, or whether it’s because she’s really short and can’t see over the counter, I don’t know) but mostly on account of suffering from Chronic Futility Syndrome (see Intergalactic Tabloid headlines). This always makes me retreat into Terry Pratchett. So I spent most of my time hanging out with Johnny in Only You Can Save Mankind, and also with Tiffany Aching and the Nac Mac Feegles, and I had a lot of fun. Fiddling, while Borneo burns, but anyway.

Most sorely missed-out on, though, was Mr Eaton’s column in the M&G, which was a Poem about sheep and toy poms and crocodiles, and other animals, and would have gone down a treat in these parts. Unfortunately I can’t link to it because the M&G has gone and pulled a “Subscribe to view” trick on us. This is fair enough but also unfair to those of us who buy our papers the retro way while also relishing the copy paste option, for the simple reason that a stapled sixty page document of favourite columns is easier to read in the bath than is its equivalent in newspaper clippings. Bah.

This week, Mr Eaton has gotten hold of Mbeki’s Secret Travel Diary. I don’t know how he does it. A snippet: “…it was discovered by our interpreters that [our Chinese hosts] are referring to us by our exports rather than our names: apparently Nigeria’s Obasanjo is “Honourable Diamonds and Shit Movies”, while I am known as “Honourable Gold and Afrikaans Engineers”. Mugabe is known simply as “Mr Refugees”.”

Have I ever mentioned the fact that I am his Number One Fan?

And, speaking about Spud (no, I know we weren’t, but Mbeki was, in his Secret Diary), I wonder how Dan Brown feels about being so solidly overthrown by John Van De Ruit on the Sunday Times top 10 fiction booklist. And how John feels about being single-handedly responsible for the ten-year waiting lists at SA boarding schools. Who knew that so many teens were actually reading, in any case? John, please can your next novel be about how cool it is to tidy up your room?

The Afghans scrub carpets with stones, to make them look older. I bet it makes the carpets look older, too.