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Old politicians don't die...
12/08/2008 13:17 - (SA)
David Moseley
I know what I do. I mostly annoy people, but it's a living. One of my mates is a personal trainer. This involves lifting a few weights and charming disenchanted housewives.
Nurses nurse, doctors doctor and policemen and women police. I even know what the bum outside my flat does. He stands there. Sometimes he holds up the wall, sometimes the wall holds him up. At least he's consistently doing nothing.
But politicians? What is it exactly that they do? Dredge up the past? Berate the communists? Rebuke the capitalists? Blame the devil? Sing songs in the street? Keep Mercedes Benz from going bankrupt? Uplift the community...? Naaaaah!
Bickering is a good place to start. The news just isn't the news without a clip of one enraged MP spluttering indignantly and finger-wagging at another, equally ticked-off politico.
Just this weekend Patricia de Lille had a magic moment on screen when admonishing an ANC MP. "Don't tell me what to do," she bellowed, "I'm not a member of the ANC." If she carries on bollocksing those dopey looking parliamentarians I might just have to give her the cross of approval next year for sheet bolshiness.
At home and abroad
George Bush was also on the telly over the weekend, though disappointingly, not at the same meeting as Patrica.
While his chum Vladimir was invading Georgia on Saturday night, the leader of the soon to be not so free world was with his old man watching Michael Phelps claim his first Gold at the Beijing Olympics. Luckily a gold-hearted aid had given George Jr an American flag to wave, though he did look slightly bemused while flapping it. This, no doubt, could only have been a direct result over the confusion of what to do next.
"Phelps is about to strike gold, but Putin is about to strike Georgia. Heck, Pop, what do I do?" No fear, son. Hopefully by morning Georgia will be gone and we can watch the rest of the Games in peace.
Thank heavens Gordon Brown is the most hated PM in Britain since, well, Tony Blair and his bonkers wife. If he rocked up in his Great Britain flannels at the Games' opening ceremony, his disaffected constituents might have finally pulled the plug and let the UK sink to the bottom of the North Sea.
Barack, Hillary and McCain? Theirs has just been one long, tepid reality show without anyone getting voted off, eaten by a snake or sexually harassed. That's no kind of entertainment. At least JZ keeps it intriguing.
After retirement
Old politicians don't die. They just retire and write books, ala our man Tony, whose book is being dished out slowly to the public through a newspaper serialisation. To be fair, the excerpts have been pretty interesting so far.
It is just a pity that he had to write a book after the fact to become an interesting character on the South African political landscape. Though he did always have the sharpest shirts when he was fighting the good fight for the DA.
Then my favourite: those utterly gormless and perpetually dazed looking governmental hangers-on who are continually getting hauled into court. They look like they've been eating pepper steak pies since the first days of "unity" and only stop munching to breathe or bellow not guilty.
There is no doubt in my mind that if you asked one of them why Harare, Mogadishu and Abuja were living in your back yard, they'd look you square in the eye, take a bite out their chicken and mushroom pie, and answer, "I don't understand the question".
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