With Donald J. Trump, one-time Acting President of the US of A and fulltime leader of the MAGA movement, darling of the NRA, Evangelicals, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, anti-abortionists and any number of disaffected idiots and conspiracy theorists, election, climate change and vaccine denialists, things get messy pretty quickly.  And complicated.  So, bear with me in this long intro.

Once upon a time in 2006, Donald Trump, probably frustrated at not getting any nookie from his pre, neo- and post-natal Melania, ended up in a one-night stand with a leading porn star, one Stormy Daniels.  This was to end badly for him.  Not necessarily that night.  As I haven’t read her Full Disclosure book, I can’t give you the skinny, if that’s the right word with Donald, on his performance.  No, it came back to bite him ten years later on the eve of his winning the 2016 Pestilential erection.   

He tried to cover his arse, a technical legal term, by buying her off.  The problem was the source of his funds.  His fixer, one Michael Cohen, has already been sentenced to three years in chookie and is spitting mad.  Trump is now belatedly facing a court case in New York State, starting in March 2024.  This is slap bang (which is probably was he did to Stormy with a bit of tickle to show his softer side) in the middle of the Republican primaries.  He recently tried to get it moved to Federal court which would kick the can down the road until, he hopes, he’s Acting President again and hence untouchable and completely declassified.

And so, the countdown begins on his comeuppance on his godownance a long, long time ago.

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No, this delightful word, Kakistocracy, meaning rule by the least suitable, is not made up by some disenchanted South Africans.  It actually exists and is particularly apt for the situation in SA.

Inspired by Rodin, click on A SMAC in the Face #54:  Kakistocracy – The Casual Observer for SMAC’s thinking man’s look at the proven outcomes of this form of government for South Africa.

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At some time most of us have idled away our boredom trying to spot the 10 differences in two drawings in magazines that lie around. I have reprised a SMAC from one year ago – #31: Hollow Victory Day Parade. Apart from the naughty snails who just do their own thing, the eagle-eyed, well in fact even the myopic, will spot two major differences, namely that the tanks are now T-55s and the presence of a chef as Putin’s right-hand man. Russia celebrates the victory against the Nazis on May 9 each year. These have always been grandiose affairs, as befitting dictatorships, with serried ranks of neatly starched soldiers and endless columns of military hardware grinding over the Red Square cobbles to cow the proletariat while engendering (if I’m allowed to use that word) militaristic fervour and scaring its enemies.

Last year was quite muted contrary to expectations. Their invasion of Ukraine had not gone according to plan. In fact, it was disastrous. In the two and a half months up to the Victory Day Parade, Russia had lost over 1000 tanks and 2500 APCs (armoured personnel carriers) and their military cupboard was looking a bit bare. That was why I portrayed the parading T-72 tanks as mere stage props trundling past.

Things have just got worse. They were humiliated first in the north east when their front collapsed and a few months later when they were ignominiously forced back across the Dnieper River in the Kherson region. In the 439 days of ‘special operations’, Russia has now suffered losses of more than 3600 tanks and 7000 APCs, most spectacularly blown to smithereens. Their war chest is looking decidedly bare by now and, first T-65s and more recently, T-55 tanks have been photographed being railroaded to the west. The latter was Russia’s first post WW II design and production terminated in 1958. Talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel.

The other difference is Putin’s Chef, Yevgeny Prigozhin, restauranteur and oligarch, or is it oleaginous orc*. He wormed his way into the inner bowels of Putin’s cabal and created the Wagner Group which essentially is Putin’s private army. They operate beyond the law and are used externally to do Putin’s wet work. With his special operation going awry, Putin called on him to bolster his army. The head chef scraped the bottom of the barrel and recruited rapists and murderers from the Gulags who were promised freedom if they survived 6 months. Good odds they thought. With not enough time to train them properly and employing suicidal charges that made the Japanese banzai attacks in WW II seem quite reasonable, they were served up to the Ukrainians rare, very rare. The Ukrainians promptly returned them well done, if not crispy, with the message that they did not cut the mustard.

* The Ukrainians refer to the Russians as orcs. Orcs are humanoid monsters created by J. R. R. Tolkien.

Thabo Bester put the con into convict.  The convicted rapist and murderer, led a fantastic (using the original meaning related to fantasy) life until now.  While serving his life sentence at the Mangaung Correctional Centre, he managed to first ensnare the beautiful Dr Nandipha Magudumana and inveigle her into his conman lifestyle.  He then proceeded to create a fake persona, one Tom Mosepe, a fake business empire, 21st Century Media, and successfully run a massive scam from a zoom studio within the prison!  This starts to put the original ‘Catch Me If You Can’ protagonist in the shade.  He then went one step further.  He escaped without anyone knowing about it.

By bribing several prison officials and getting his beloved Nandi to do the grunt work, he managed to get a dead body burnt in his cell in the dead of night and slipped out unnoticed into something more comfortable on 3 May 2022.  I can just imagine the advert that Nandi would have placed in the Jobs section of Gumtree.

WANTED:  Body double wanted for a remake of The Crypt which is about the undead.  A once in a lifetime opportunity to make easy money.  No experience required.

CONTACT:  dr_strangelove@nandi.con

That was part un of the greatest South African pantomime ever.  Part duh is what the official organisations did about it.

The next 9½ months witnessed a bizarre dance between the DCS (Department of Correctional Services), G4S (the private security company who ran the prison, oops, correctional centre), the SAPS (South African Police), JICS (Judicial Inspectorate of Correctional Services) and the DoJ (Department of Justice).  All that was missing in the mendacious menagerie was the DOOS (Department of Officious and Odious Supernumeraries).

On 11 August, SAPS provided JICS with a copy of the autopsy stating that the body did not die in the fire and that it’s DNA did not match Bester’s.  Did SAPS open a case?  No! 

The buck passing by the five groups involved, and the failure by any party to admit that Bester was actually dining out with Nandi’s at home enjoying her hot sauce, is too Byzantine to relate.  Suffice to say, it took the investigative team of GroundUp to elicit routine denials when they published their first article on 8 November.  The official response was a profound insouciance (the antidote to Nandi’s hot sauce), if not outright denial.  This laissez affaire attitude continued with GroundUp grinding them down until 15 March 2023 when the DCS finally admitted that Bester was in the wind. 

The silly saga was not yet played out.  After Thabo and Nandi were captured in Tanzania, another three-letter acronym had the final say.  During the subsequent parliamentary inquiry, the DHA (Department of Home Affairs) revealed that far from being undead, Thabo was, in fact, unborn as they have no records of him!

Inside every living cell is the key to life, the template.  This is the DNA and it defines all the characteristics of the organism in which it is embedded.  It is surprisingly simple in concept.  It consists of two helical antiparallel strands, each of which have a sequence of bases namely T, A, C and G.  The two helices are intertwined and crosslinked but only T can link to A and C can link to G.  This unique structure can be unzipped and replicated to form two new DNA molecules and, in that way, the complete organism is built up.

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The ANC is riven with fools but if there’s a court jester then that title belongs to Fickle Mbalula.  Ten days after the Russians invaded a sovereign Ukraine, Fickle tweeted to his groupies that he had just landed in the Ukraine.  Pray tell, what macabre joke was that coming from a supposedly responsible cabinet minister?  Well I suppose it’s only to be expected from a manchild who styled himself as Mr Razzamatazz in a previous incarnation.  A more recent persona which he adopted was Mr Fear Fokol* when he was made Minister of Police.  This is from the manchild who had such a hard on for Beyonce that he kept on wanting to invite her to perform at the annual sporting awards at eye-watering cost.  His most recent falter ego is Mr Fixit which he anointed himself with when he was appointed Minister of Transport. 

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Someone described Trump as a sentient naartjie, although I think he was stretching the sentient bit.  This self-proclaimed ‘stable genius’ actually brags about aceing a comprehension test which is really designed to test for Alzheimer’s.

This week saw Liz Cheney reveal another cutting description of him by a Republican Representative who muttered, “The things we do for the orange Jesus,” when asked to sign a petition on 6^th January objecting to the outcome of presidential election.

Let’s see how well this description fits him.  Orange he undoubtedly is.  In fact, his overuse of fake tan has probably indelibly stained him for life.  Isn’t this delicious irony for a man who routinely accuses anyone and anything of being fake while he is the mother of all fakers – the ultimate motherfaker.  Enough of that – on to the Jesus bit.

Jesus performed many miracles in his short life.  With just the laying on of hands he cured blindness, got cripples to walk, and if he lived today, he would have cured Covid.  He also prayed to his dad for a bit of help which I found a bit confusing as he would be talking to himself if the Catholics are to be believed. 

Trump also needed the helping hand of his dad when he inherited his fortune but is quite impressive in his own right.  Just by talking about Chloroquine as a cure for Covid he managed to help the planet rid itself of some idiots who took his word as gospel.  Powerful stuff, idiocy.  He further advanced the cause of reducing world population with his daily unhinged sermons, proselytising against all scientific advice and exhorting people to praise him and worship him in that parallel universe – the Church of Trump (let’s hope he’s not resurrected in two years time).

Where Jesus promised heavenly riches by believing in God (himself, I suppose), Trump promised investors, who believed in him, fantastic earthly returns when he magically inflated the value of all his assets manyfold to show what an astute businessman he was.  This ability to conjure up things out of mid-air was matched by Jesus with his bread and papsak trick.

But where Trump trumps Jesus is that he doesn’t have to pray or say anything to get a result.  In a sycophantic interview with Sean Hannity on Faux News he mansplained that he didn’t even have to say anything but just think about it and highly secret documents, privy to only a few cognoscenti, would be mystically declassified and, I suppose, become public documents and could be distributed to the masses to cogitate on.

As I said before, powerful stuff, idiocy.  Really, really powerful stuff.

Of course, ERII does not refer to season 2 of that long running soapie, ER, but rather to an even longer running reality show, namely the reign of Elizabeth Regina II with all its plot twists, infidelities, deaths and scandals.  After 70 years on the throne, she bowed out this past week with the quiet dignity with which she lived her life.  The Queen is dead.  Long live the King. 

I don’t wish to make many comments on her reign as small-minded people like Julius Malema have already taken their cheap shots at her.  The only time Julius takes expensive shots is when the EFF High Command toasts their latest trashing of Parliamentary rules with Johnnie Walker Blue.  All I can say is that South Africans have had a schizophrenic relationship with her.  The Afrikaners hated her, my generation of English speakers by and large had a soft spot for her, and the Blacks lived with her as much as one lives with piles.

The UK is the only country where the country’s name has never appeared on its stamps.  They merely bore an image of the current monarch. The number 8 must be bad luck for the monarchy.  In between jousting, King Henry VIII went through 6 wives trying to produce viable male issue.  King Edward VIII abdicated in 1937 after less than a year after insisting that his jousting with the divorcee, Wallis Simpson, be made a more permanent sport.  The result was that his brief reign is only marked by the issue of 4 basic definitive stamps and no issue to trouble the royal genealogists.  

By contrast, Queen Lizzie set world records – she appeared on 736 definitive and commemorative stamp sets.  The commemorative sets ranged through British history, achievements, current events and art and literature.  Apart from the classic writers like Shakespeare and Wordsworth being celebrated, the Queen also lent her profile to two sets in 2010 that celebrate the stories of A.A. Milne.  I am talking about one of the nicest bunch of literary characters ever conceived – Winnie-the-Pooh and Friends in the hundred acre wood.  These comprised 10 stamps made from the original 1926-8 illustrations by E.H Shepard which are as classical and timeless as the lovely, innocent stories which we could have far more of in these dissipated times of fatwas, elementary school massacres and narcissistic presidents and selfies.

Until 1966, the Queen’s head appeared as a photo (or a woodcut version of it) looking to the left in a ¾ view.  Since then, she appeared as a side-on view, either as a marble bust with a crown on the definitive stamps, or purely as a silhouette without a crown (maybe a tiara) on the commemorative stamps.  

Some people would not care a groat for her.  In the philatelic world, she’s the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time).

Oh well.  Time to turn over a new leaf in my neglected childhood stamp album.  My last British stamp was from about 1974 so I’m missing more than 600 sets of stamps.  Maybe I’ll keep up this time.