Oz doesn’t need more wizards

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A lot of mainly white South Africans choose to emigrate to Australia because there is plenty of sunshine and pubs. And also because … well, as Australian filmmaker and author Stephen Hagan puts it, “Australians are the most racist people in the developed world for their treatment of the First Australians and I make this claim comfortable in the knowledge that I am sufficiently supported by incontestable statistical data.”

I imagine being among worse racists than oneself can only be good for one’s self esteem.

Australia is also an option if you’re a dog person. The government announced a while ago that it would destroy two million feral cats by 2020 in an effort to protect indigenous wildlife. They will use poison traps and attack dogs to kill the cats. You can’t get more humane than that, Bruce.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of South Africans emigrate to Australia every month. I doubt I will be among them any time soon. I’m not smart or mad enough to understand the visa process, which appears to have been formulated by a statistician incarcerated in an institution for the criminally insane.

If you go over on a 189 visa but don’t have your OTSR because your job is on the CSOL list and you’re still on a 186 but haven’t submitted your EOI for a 489 you’ll need a 457 sponsor and the DIPB will still want the IELTS.

Australia is infested with migration specialists dedicated to helping South Africans reach the promised land. Well, they call themselves migration specialists. They’re really just human traffickers in cheap suits and pencil skirts.

I thought I’d get in touch with one of them for an assessment of whether or not I stood a hope in hell. I knew the answer before I even filled in her questionnaire. Age, skills, academic qualifications and financial means are apparently important to the Australians, and unless there’s a critical shortage of virtually indigent middle-aged columnists who make a living out of shaming and ridiculing the rich and powerful, I’m staying right here.

My “migration agent” said she had taken the liberty of stalking me on the Internet. “It is quite evident you have a very successful career,” she wrote. It’s not how I would describe it, but it seemed a promising start. It went downhill quickly. My occupation – her word, not mine – is on some kind of red list and, because I’m not a teenage virgin, I would need to be sponsored by a state or an employer and work for them for four years at an annual salary of at least R1.2-million. If my current remuneration is anything to go by, I am not worth a fraction of that.

Perhaps sensing that my special skills would do little to enhance Australia’s reputation in the eyes of the world, she offered me another option. Something called the 457 visa stream allows an offshore company to become a sponsor which can then sponsor the employee to work in Australia. In a suggestion that smelled strongly of loophole, she said, “If we can get your current business to qualify as a sponsor, we may be able to get you the 457 visa.” With a masterful use of understatement, she described this as “a long shot”. She clearly had a sense that my current business operated mainly on beer, loud music and long absences from the “office”.

If my personal human trafficker were to handle the visa application, she would require the modest sum of R30 000. The loophole option would cost me another R40 000. And the department of immigration would want R18 000 for both. Then, three weeks later, I’d almost certainly get an email that starts off, “We regret to inform you …”

I’m going to open the gin and have a little lie-down.

The Ben Trovato Files

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Who among us doesn’t remember satirist Ben Trovato’s outrageously subversive trilogy of letters to and replies from the rich, famous and downright dangerous? Well, the madness continues as the letters are reincarnated for the first time on video.

Featuring scenes of the writer himself, the letters come to life in a creative mélange of stop-motion animation, live action and a liberal dose of artistic craziness.

The episodes will be short and punchy, each featuring a letter and its reply, with durations ranging from ninety seconds to three minutes. The team has produced a pilot episode titled ‘The Two Oceans Aquarium’ from a letter Trovato wrote to the big house of fish. He got a reply without even having to bribe them.

Working on this project is a close-knit production team including cinematographer Dave Aenmey and animation artist Lindsay van Blerk. Dave has worked on many commercials, music videos, documentaries and feature films during his 30-year career.

Lindsay has directed and animated numerous award-winning films including The Velveteen Rabbit and The Chimes. He worked as storyboard supervisor and director of animation on the feature film Zambezia and has also directed and animated TV commercials and television series.

The material is drawn from the many letters and replies that appeared in The Ben Trovato Files, Will The Real Ben Trovato Please Stand Up and Stirred Not Shaken.

Anyone interested in helping to finance the series in return for a production credit is invited to contact Ben at bentrovato@mweb.co.za or leave a message right here on his site. Enquiries from producers and production houses are also welcome.

The pilot episode can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmafQMWDkrA

The fast and the furious, the fucked and the feckless

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So parliament has approved yet another malevolent piece of legislation. The Aarto Amendment Bill will now be sent to the president to be signed into law. Its full catchy title is the Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences Amendment Bill. Rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it.

Eleven MPs voted against it. Well done, whoever you are. Twenty-two abstained. Spineless cockwombles. If you don’t have an opinion, get the fuck out of parliament and make way for people who do.

Amendments are meant to be good, right? We look to the glorious United States of America to set the standard here. The First Amendment guarantees freedom of religion, speech and the press. The Fourth Amendment protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures. The Eighth Amendment deals with excessive bail, fines and punishments that are forbidden. And so on. This gives the impression that amendments are good things. A tweaking of laws so the people might be better served.

Not here, buddy. When you hear the word ‘amendment’ in South Africa, you sell your house and get to the airport as quickly as possible. Leave your family. There’s no time.

And when the word ‘amendment’ appears in the same sentence as ‘road traffic offences’, you should know it’s not going to be a sensible amendment that encourages people to drive stoned because they are unable to go faster than 50km/h. Or an amendment that allows men to drink and drive if they are taller than 1.9m because we, I mean, they, can obviously hold their alcohol a lot better than a 1.5m teenage girl.

Instead of making good laws better, we’re making bad laws worse. This is in line with government thinking on pretty much everything, really. There is good news for some, though. Once the president has signed the bill, traffic police will be able to demand far bigger bribes since the stakes are so much higher. I’m happy for them. There’s no reason bribes shouldn’t keep pace with inflation.

In KwaZulu-Natal, traffic officers have already been trained “so that they can adapt to the new law”. Fair enough, although I would’ve thought it more important to train us, the general motoring public, who seem utterly unable to adapt to laws of any kind.

From what I can make out, the amendment is designed to reduce carnage on the roads in the most brutal way possible. On top of being fined, you will have points added to your licence. This sounds like a good thing. But if you go around boasting that you have 97 points on your licence, you’re doing it wrong. The higher your score, the more your chances of losing. It’s like golf, except you’re playing against Tiger Woods off his face on amphetamines.

Will the demerit system reduce the number of accidents on our roads? Of course not. I’m willing to wager that most crashes are caused by people not paying attention. The proliferation of cellphones, social media and infidelity has taken away our ability to concentrate for more than three minutes at a time. Accidents happen when our minds are elsewhere.

So the demerit system is not going to make drivers any less attention deficit. All it will do is take a vicious financial toll on motorists who activate speed traps, don’t use seatbelts and park in loading zones, all of which I do regularly without anyone getting hurt.

Here’s how it works. Do something naughty and you will receive an infringement notice ordering you to pay a fine. Ignore it and a month later you’ll get a “courtesy letter” – for which you will be charged – reminding you to pay up. Ignore that and 32 days later you’ll get an enforcement order notifying you of the number of demerit points against you and again ordering you to pay the fine plus the cost of the enforcement order. Until you pay, you won’t be able to renew your car licence disc. Ignore the enforcement order and a warrant of execution will be issued and the sheriff will come to your house and take your stuff. This is a way of getting rid of the junk in your garage. He is also allowed to confiscate your licence, immobilise your car and report you to a credit bureau, after which you may wish to emigrate.

Let me tell you about the demerit system. You start off with zero points. Skip a stop sign, fail to renew your car licence or use your cellphone while driving and it’s a R500 fine plus one demerit point. Exceeding R100km/h in a 60km/h zone – which even old mad blind people do – will get you six demerit points and a fine. Drive with more than 0.05g of alcohol in your blood – which absolutely everyone does – will also see six points added to your licence. Plus a fine. You will then be stripped naked, given a light stoning by clerks from the finance department and, once the Alsatians have finished with you, banished from your village.

When you reach 12 points, the game is over and your driving licence is suspended for three months. One point is taken off if you behave yourself for three straight months. But get three suspensions and your licence is cancelled and destroyed. If you ever want to drive legally again, you will have to undergo a “rehabilitation” programme. That’s right. You’re going to rehab. And don’t expect any yummy methadone, either.

It doesn’t end there. Get out of rehab and it’s off to the tribunal. Do you know who else appears before tribunals? War criminals, that’s who. But you’re not a war criminal. War criminals aren’t expected to have their hearing repeatedly postponed because the photocopier is broken or their file is missing. War criminals aren’t expected to walk for three days to reach the tribunal because their licence has been suspended. In fact, you are going to be wishing you were a war criminal by the time this is over.

If the tribunal decides that you have learnt from your mistakes – contrition is best shown by wearing sackcloth and lashing yourself with a cat ‘o nine tails – you will be able to apply for a learner’s licence. If you pass, you may take a driver’s test. I’m not making this up. They really think this is going to work.

Pregnant women will be applying for their unborn babies to write the K53 test in the hope that they’ll get an appointment by the time they turn 18. If you do get 12 points and lose your licence, you will be in a retirement home by the time you reach the front of the backlog.

Hooked & Cooked

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There has been a flurry of excitement in shark circles along the east coast.

“Have you heard the news?” said Mr Zambezi.

“Of course not,” said Mr Tiger. “We don’t have ears.”

“Well, we have inner ears which are basically a membraneous labyrinth …”

“Shut up smarty-pants. We all know you went to dolphin school. Just tell me the news.”

“Well,” said Mr Zambezi. “You know those nets that killed Mrs Hammerhead’s entire family last month? They are being removed.”

Mr Tiger was so excited that he accidentally sank his teeth into Mr Zambezi’s tail.

“Oi! Watch that mouth, you bitey dork.”

Mr Tiger made an apologetic face, then brightened up. “So we are finally safe from those death traps? We should celebrate. Let’s go eat pufferfish and get high!”

“Not so fast,” said Mr Zambezi. “The nets are being replaced with drumlines.”

“I like a bit of drumming,” said Mr Tiger. “If we started a band, I’d definitely be the drummer.”

And so Mr Zambezi had the unenviable task of explaining to his slower-witted friend that drumlines were in fact large baited hooks that dangled from floats anchored to the seabed. In fact, the only real beneficiaries of the new system would be vegetarians and things with small mouths. Like sea cucumbers and sardines.

“We can say goodbye to Johnny Mako, then,” said Mr Tiger, thoroughly depressed.

“Yeah,” said Mr Zambezi. “Those speed freaks will eat anything.”

I actually applied for a job at the KZN Sharks Board when I left school. The position was meshing officer. I had no idea what it meant but I liked the idea of getting on one of those yellow boats and jumping off at backline for an early surf while the Zulu dudes fiddled about with the nets. They never even replied to my application even though I assured them that I was familiar with the ocean and agreed with their corporate philosophy that shark lives don’t matter.

Living in Kommetjie, I surf all the time at unprotected beaches. Everyone does. Nobody in the water even thinks about sharks. We think about other things. Like how we are going to catch every wave in every set so that nobody else can get anything. Maybe that’s just a Long Beach thing.

Drumlines are dumblines. What if a shark reaches the floating buffet only to find his buddy already chomping on his last meal? What if all the drumlines are occupied with sharks getting some steel in their diet? The thing is, they don’t really want to eat us. They look at us and think we’re spastic octopuses lacking in the tentacle department. Also, word has got out that we’re full of bones and taste more like pigs than fish.

Announcing that all nets from Westbrook to Umgababa would be replaced, the Sharks Board appealed to the public not to tamper with the new drumlines. Damn. There I was looking forward to swimming out and having a bit of fun with those murderous hooks embedded in chunks of bleeding flesh.

Budgets for eejits

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Here are some of the things that should have been in today’s budget speech by finance minister Tito Mboweni.

R5-billion corruption slush fund which civil servants can access without dipping into money allocated to really important things.

R10-billion for education. To be spent on fire retardant classrooms, mathematically retarded pupils, pocket money for pregnant schoolgirls, admission of guilt fines for principals and Ritalin for attention-deficit teachers.

R40-billion for healthcare. To be spent on buying Scandinavian doctors and implementing a cash-for-euthanasia programme.

R7-million for the provision of basic services including shebeens in white suburbs, home delivery of SABS-approved recreational drugs as well as clowns, whores and rent boys for the sick and lonely.

R20-billion for social grants, including extension of child support to parents of white children up to their 40th birthday or until such time as they manage to get a job or emigrate.

R15-billion for water provision. Reticulation systems to be adapted for the supply of locally produced wine to households in which water is not a viable alternative.

R12-million for industrial development. To be spent on converting medium enterprises into small enterprises into micro enterprises into a man with a woollen cap standing on the side of the road asking for a job that isn’t a drain on state resources.

R50 for agriculture and land reform. To be spent on two bags of fertiliser shared among the agro-fascists who refuse to give up their land to people who would sooner beat their plowshares into swords and their pruning-hooks into spears than do an honest day’s work.

R300-million for information technology. To be spent on educating home affairs and traffic department officials that when their computer screens go blank, it doesn’t necessarily mean the system has crashed. It means they need to move the mouse. Or tap the space bar. Not yawn and go on lunch.

R1-trillion for safety and security. To purchase one-way economy class tickets to Perth for everyone who insists on standing around the braai boring everyone to tears about how their friend knows someone whose friend’s cousin’s uncle was hijacked in the middle of the day.

R1 000 for programmes under the expanded public works umbrella. To be spent on a new umbrella. A much bigger one. In ANC colours. With a frilly fringe benefit around the edges.

R7-billion in tax subsidies over the next three years for labour-intensive home industries that include men whose wives have left them and who are now expected to get off the couch and fetch their own beer from the kitchen.

A simplified tax regime for small businesses. If you don’t pay on time, men with spiders tattooed on their necks will break down your door and crush your kneecaps. Is that simplified enough, you freeloading sack of lies?

A bicycle tax of R25 000 for cyclists over the age of seven.

Increase corporate fraud income tax rates by 5% per widow and 3% per orphan. Tax exemption for companies wanting to strip-mine Port St Johns. Tax the proceeds of charity golf days at 30% for real golfers and 70% for opportunistic booze-hounds who use the occasion to skive off work, rack up a score of 200 and then try to ram their tongue down the barmaid’s mouth while slipping the Cancer Association’s collection box down the front of their trousers.

Personal income tax to be abolished for everyone by the name of Trovato.

War whores

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So the South African National Defence Force plans to “invade” Sunrise Beach in Muizenberg on Tuesday night. On Monday night there’s a practice run.

As part of Armed Forces Day – a day proclaimed by that irredeemable naai of an ex-president, Jacob Zuma – tanks and other armoured vehicles will churn up the beach. Jet planes will scream low in the sky. Flares will be dropped over the sea. Heavy artillery, small calibre weapons and rockets will be fired at targets floating offshore.

We need to tell these military motherfuckers to go and play their bang-bang games somewhere else. Or, preferably, not at all. But certainly not on our beaches. Not in our sea. For surfers and others who love the ocean, these places are sacrosanct. These are places of peace, not war.

We need to pitch up on the night with anything that floats and paddle out into the mother of all impact zones. It’s unlikely they will shoot us and they can’t arrest us all. Well, I suppose they can. But there is safety in numbers. And I have a couple of vicious lawyers on speed-dial.

Don’t worry about sharks – they’ll be scared shitless, like all the pets, children and elderly people living in the area.

Anyone with me on this?

Happy V-Day

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Here’s something I wrote at a time when my so-called marriage was at its best.

………………….

Brenda said she wants me to take her out on Valentine’s Day. This puts me in a bit of a dilemma. Should I pay someone to do it or should I do it myself? Purists might say it would be more romantic to take care of something like this personally. But then what do I use? Poison would take too long. A gun is too vulgar. Perhaps a tastefully arranged accident might be best.

Living an increasingly isolated life, I have taken to musing aloud. I find it helps lull my existential crises into a false sense of reality while entertaining the dogs at the same time. Although giving voice to my thoughts goes some way towards reassuring me that I am still of this world, it does land me in a spot of bother now and again.

“Accident?” said Brenda. “What on earth are you on about?” I pretended to have suffered a stroke and began slurring about the clouds in the trees and the birds in my pocket. She was meant to pick up on the aphasia and rush me to the nearest couch, upon which I would weakly request that she bring me beer and change the channel. Instead, she accused me of being drunk and went off to make a cup of gin for herself.

God know what would happen if I ever had to have a genuine stroke. I’d probably crawl into the kitchen and lie there for days, soiling my broeks and burbling to myself while she stepped over me, reprimanding me for not closing the fridge door.

Anyway. It soon became clear that Brenda was not asking me to Kebble her. She wanted me to take her out in a far less permanent manner. To dinner, for instance. Given restaurant prices these days, it would have been cheaper to have her whacked. I watched her face to see if I had said that aloud but there was no reaction. Then again, she doesn’t react to a lot of what I say.

Valentine’s Day? Really? In a country where a woman can cut open a pregnant mother’s stomach, killing her and stealing her unborn child, and yet we’re more shocked by an increase in the petrol price? Yeah, baby! Bring on the roses and shower me with champagne.

One does not, however, wish to be the curmudgeonly grinch who pours acid rain on the happy parade. There will be festivities today and this is how it should be. It has been this way ever since a clasp of Christians called Valentine were martyred on or about the date in question. Fourteen of them, at last count. Back then, the name Valentine must have been the equivalent of John.

“This is our seventeenth bloody kid. What the hell are we going to call this one?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. You keep making me pregnant, you name him.”

“Right. Valentine he is, then. I’m off to the tavern.”

Saint Valentine’s Day was first established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD. This dude rocked. For a start, he was of African origin. He probably wanted an entire month set aside for candle-lit dinners and unbridled fornicating. On the other hand, he did suppress the festival of Lupercalia, which makes me think he wasn’t as African as he made out to be. Lupercalia was celebrated by degenerate young nobles who would run through Rome naked, striking those they met with shaggy thongs. Girls would line up to be lashed to ensure fertility.

Pope Gelasius was an idiot. He should have stuck with it. I would far rather stay home and be whipped with a shaggy thong than trundle off to a pretentious restaurant, make small talk with a woman I don’t care for, pay a fortune for a meal I never wanted, then get arrested for drunk driving on the way home and sodomised by a fighting general in the 28s. But that’s just me.

Then, in 1969, a grumpy old man by the name of Pope Paul VI deleted St Valentine’s Day from the Roman calendar of saints. With the stroke of his pen, he kicked Cupid in the kidneys and opened the way for Hallmark to flood the world with their nausea-inducing cards.

Hallmark’s V-Day page says, “Valentine’s Day is for saying I Love Us.” What they hell are they trying to pull here? The message was always, “I love you.” What is this “us” business? Why are they screwing with the message? What are they saying? I love us, but I sure don’t love them? Who are them? Maybe them be those who don’t buy Hallmark cards.

Love is no longer the all-embracing thing it once was and it’s fair to say the world changed forever when, on a sultry summer afternoon in a San Francisco bathhouse, a small green simian sweet-talked his way into having hot monkey sex with two men wearing little more than moustaches.

Happy Valentine’s Day. Use a condom.

On brave Americans and goats of darkness

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Dear Bryan,

I do apologise. The world is full of inconsequential Bryans and I am sure the last thing a man of your stature would want is to be confused with the multitude of Bryans who lack the courage to shoot a wild mountain goat. I mean no disrespect. There is only one Bryan Kinsel Harlan in this world. Or in Texas, at least. Dallas, certainly.

I saw your video on social media and was blown away. Not in the same way your goat was blown away, obviously. But watching you scrambling through the rocky terrain of Pakistan’s northern Gilgit region with only a dozen or so heavily armed guides as backup, I felt my loins stir on more than one occasion. And when you raised your rifle and shot that goat, well, it was all I could do not to have an incident in my pants. I can’t begin to imagine how aroused you must get watching an animal through your telescopic sights, knowing it only has seconds left to live.

High-fiving the guides after pulling the trigger was a nice gesture. Americans all too often forget to give credit to the locals who help them hunt goats or Islamic insurgents or whatever happens to be on the list of things to kill that day.

I believe you paid a record price of $110 000 dollars to shoot your goat. You must be a very wealthy man. In my country, that kind of money gets you two cabinet ministers and the CEO of one of our smaller parastatals.

Sadly, not everyone is impressed. There are some people who think what you did is barbaric and cruel. I am outraged at their outrage. I can’t believe that the animal huggers at PETA not only condemned the hunt but went so far as to describe goats as “gentle individuals, not trophies”.

I am sure you know what it’s like to have a goat come on you … I beg your pardon. Come at you. They won’t hesitate to batter you mercilessly until you are forced to run away with your pants around your ankles. Or so I have heard.

And who can forget that the devil himself is portrayed as a goat? You are obviously aware that GOAT is an acronym for Greatest of All Time. How dare they usurp the title reserved for Jesus. This godless arrogance will not stand. I wouldn’t be surprised if this hunt wasn’t part of your broader Christian mission to punish Satan. Good for you. I, for one, will sleep more soundly tonight knowing there is one less evil, cloven-hoofed beast out there.

I read that a gang of Pakistanis are also up in arms. Ha! If only. More arms would mean fewer depraved ungulates to lead our children astray. After seeing pictures of you and your dead goat, these cabbage-eating extremists called for a ban on hunting. Sure, this goat is their country’s national animal, but so what? Ours is the springbok and we can’t get their flesh down our throats, their heads on our walls or their skins on our floors quick enough.

Okay, so there are fewer than six thousand Astor markhors left in the world. But still. Goats. Right? To encourage more Americans to trophy hunt, your Fish and Wildlife Service reclassified them as threatened rather than endangered. Damn right, they’re threatened. By real men like you.

I thought it was very decent of you to give the local press an interview. After all, it’s a well-known fact that journalists are closely related to goats as a result of spending time in close proximity to one another on Noah’s ark and neither can be trusted.

A Pakistani newspaper quoted you as saying, “It was an easy and close shot and I am pleased to take this trophy.” This makes it sound like the goat was still woozy from the anaesthetic when you walked up and put a bullet into the back of his head.

You were obviously misquoted and I hope you are taking legal action. I have no doubt that your original quote was more along the lines of, “The battle between this vicious creature and me, a battle between good and evil, was long and brutal and I knew only one of us would get out of there alive.”

No, wait. What am I talking about? I saw the video. Your big boy goat was sitting next to a much younger goat. His wife? His lover? His child? Who knows. More importantly, who cares. Well, I suppose the other goat might still be wondering why her companion suddenly jumped up, thrashed about and then died in a pool of blood. Still, that’s not your problem. It’s not like she can sue you for loss of income.

At the end of your video, you encourage Americans to visit Pakistan. You say Mexico is more dangerous than Pakistan. Bloody Mexicans. Build that wall. I’m with you on this. Texans especially should check out northern Waziristan. The local Taliban guides will be happy to help out. Just watch out for the drones. You should be okay, though. They’re hunting Muslims, not red-blooded patriots like yourself.

MAGA! (May All Goats be Assassinated).

Care for a little whine with that?

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South Africa has overtaken Britain as the world’s foremost nation in whining and complaining. Service is too slow. Crime is too high. Standards are too low. Too many taxis. Not enough sex. Too many white people. Too many black people. Not enough rain. Too much rain. On and on and on we go.

Sure, every nation complains. But many of them take it a step further. We complain, then sit back and wait for something to happen. And when it doesn’t, we complain some more. Then we shake our heads and talk of emigrating, but then we have a braai and get drunk and suddenly this is the best country in the world to live in.

Our newspapers devote acres of space every month to complaining. Pick up any daily or weekend paper and you are guaranteed to come across an editorial, column or letter written by a professional complainer.

How long will it take before the penny drops?  Hundreds of months? Thousands of years? The people you are complaining about could not give a rat’s arse. The only time anyone responds to a complaint is if when it’s directed at them by a person who has influence over their salary or their job security.

Everyone, with the exception of artists and the homeless (often one and the same), wants to make as much as money as possible by investing the least amount of time and exerting the tiniest amount of effort. I am one of those people. However, I work for myself and were I to shrug off complaints, I’d soon enough end up sleeping beneath a culvert with a toothless crone pawing at me for another suck on my tik pipe. Not that I get complaints. Or work.

There has to come a time when we complain and then, after a decent interval of nothing happening, we change tactics. We get rude. Death threats, whether issued by mail or telephonically, have been known to get results. If that fails, we step it up a notch and take to the streets. If you’re a whitey, ask a darkie to teach you how to make a petrol bomb. Give him some money to make one for himself. It’s that kind of bonding that will be the salvation of this country.

The British, who invented good manners, can change government policy by putting half a million people on the streets. We’ve got half a million people on the streets every day and the government barely notices.

Politicians throughout the ages have forced people to use violence to bring about change. If only they’d just do what we ask them to do, we could avoid all this bloodshed. Governments aren’t overthrown because they refuse to meet demands for free weed and beer fountains on every corner. They get their metaphorical heads chopped off because people want jobs and houses and affordable food and fuel and the people who are in a position to provide these things either can’t or won’t do it.

Fuck the Jabberwock, my son, for ‘tis nothing compared to the underclass. The jaws that bite, the claws that catch. Beware the Juju bird!

You’d be an idiot not to have a vorpal blade in these tense times. I have not yet had cause to use mine, so I know not whether it goes snicker-snack. I hope it does. You can’t return a vorpal blade. Not in these parts, anyway.

We don’t hear much about the underclass in this country. And for good reason. What? You mean there’s another class below the working class? Good god. Where are our passports? Chanteclaire, get the children into the Range Rover. Hurry! Bring the Faberge eggs! Leave the horses!

The underclass is allowed to vote, even though they pose the greatest threat to us all. This is why they say democracy eats its children. I don’t know who said that. Perhaps I dreamt it.

The existence of the underclass is the only reason the EFF has a presence in parliament. Even though their support base is more lumpen than it is proletariat, turn your back on them at your peril. France has plenty of second-hand guillotines they’d be happy to offload on a country with a 0.6% growth rate.

Unlike Britain, we don’t really have a class system. I’ve worked it out, though, and if we went down that road, we’d have eighteen distinctive classes ranging from lower underclass, through middle nouveau riche and all the way up to upper old money, also known as the Oppenheimer class.

Anyway. Where was I? Ah, yes. Complaining. You know what I hate? People who, when you ask how they’re doing, they say, “Alright, I s’pose. Doesn’t help to complain, does it?” I want to shout, “Look over there!” And when they turn to look, I sink my teeth into the fleshy part of their neck and shake them. You gutless drone. Governments love people like you. The given-up. The what’s-the-point brigade.

My job is to find fault with society but I’m not going to back it up with action unless you yellow-bellied bastards are prepared to back me up. I don’t want to be riding into battle against the riot squad and turn around to find you’ve all buggered off to the pub.

This week’s complaint, which requires no drastic action on my part, concerns one of my favourite pubs. I am outraged, not least because my opinion was never solicited before the sweeping changes were implemented. The yuppification of this former house of ill repute will go down as an atrocity second only to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.

It was one of those bars with wooden tables, wooden benches and people you wooden want to take home to meet your mother. Rastas ran the bar, a giant TV played terrible music or sport and stray dogs came and went as they pleased. Neighbours complained regularly. It was great. Now it’s all chrome and glass and ergonomically designed plastic chairs.

Instead of lurking with intent against the far wall, the old bar now cocks its naugahyde hips and poses cheekily as a central feature of the room. The stairs leading down to the bathrooms, which take on Everest-like proportions the later it gets, and which have seen far more casualties than the mountain ever will, now have some kind of effeminate mosaic thing going on. It is now frequented by hipsters in ironically trimmed beards and, god forbid, families.

My waitress was a young white girl, all teeth and no brains. Her manner was awkward and her forced laugh set my eyeballs on edge. She said it was her first time. As a waitress or among people? I couldn’t be sure.

She waited until my mouth was full, then ambushed me and began enquiring about my pizza. It turned into an interrogation. My phone started ringing and still she wouldn’t stop. “It’s very colourful, isn’t it?” she said. Could she not see my mouth was stuffed with pizza? Could she not hear my phone ringing and that I was waiting for her to shut up so that I could answer it? Apparently not. Apparently my pizza was so vivid and exciting that we needed to discuss it as a matter of some urgency.

When I asked for the bill, she said, “Not a problem.” Are there restaurants where asking for the bill is a problem? “I’m sorry, sir. You haven’t eaten enough to warrant dirtying the cutlery and a napkin. You will have to order another course before we can allow you to pay and leave.”

She brought the bill and stood there while I fished out a couple of hundreds. Then she asked a question I’d never before been asked in a restaurant.

“How much change would you like?” Well, honey-bunny, I’d quite like all of my change, if you don’t mind, and then I shall decide whether or not to leave you a tip. Too polite to actually say that, I found myself being pressured into making lightning fast calculations using nothing more than my head. She didn’t try to help, either. I sat there going, “Ummm. Ummm.” She must have thought I was trying to come up with some sort of figure. I wasn’t. I was just going ummm because I didn’t know what else to do. Customers shouldn’t be put in this position. Working out twelve percent of R97.45 and then relating that to the change from a R200 note is the sort of thing you go to Harvard to learn.