And so it came to pass on 3 November 2020 that the Orange Jesus was hung out to dry. First Georgia, then Arizona denied him his divine right to rule until Jesus comes. All the while King Biden and Pontius Harris lorded it over him. He was cross and he couldn’t bear it. He had been beaten by a barely sentient Zimmer frame. He did however have his faithful dogs, the only ones allowed into his House, Rudi Giuliani and Sidney Powell, to fight for him amidst his deniers and enemies.
Continue readingAuthor: Blaine McCleland
A SMAC in the Face #51: The DNA of the ANC
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.
Continue readingA SMAC in the Face #50: Mr Fix Fokol
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.
Continue readingA SMAC in the Face #49: SONAR 2023 – RSA Titania
The State of the Nation Address (SONA) normally follows a predictable pattern. This year was no different. It kicks off with a distasteful display of female politicians trying to outdo each other in the mutton dressed as ham stakes. Someone should tell them the address part is about a speech, not a fashion parade. Someone should also tell all the ANC politicians that the walk up the red carpet is not like the Grammys or the Oscars but, for them, a walk of shame and, for some, a perp walk. Then it was on to the address itself.
Continue readingGuy Fawkes: The Big Bang Theory
It was about 1986 and Guy Fawkes was coming up, my favourite day of the year as a kid. I motivated my friends at Kentron to make it a memorable event as I had the ideal place in the sticks at Crowthorne. We passed the hat around the department and collected enough to buy a number of big boxes of fireworks. My partners in crime in those days were Martin Clark (RIP), aero engineer, Grant Wilson, mech engineer, better known for pulling a moonie at the drop of a, well, pants. Other notable miscreants were Dave Thompson (RIP), and Richard Wainwright. The first two and myself formed the Terrible Trio as we shared a lift club and were similarly irreverent and always looking for fun or kak. We decided that between us we had 12 years of engineering study and so were well qualified to design a proper skyrocket – stand aside Elon.
Continue readingA SMAC in the Face #48: The Orange Jesus
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 6th 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.
A SMAC in the Face # 47: ERII’s Final Progress
The British have lost their pre-eminence in just about everything except for their self-effacing humour and, of course, pageantry. Both of these featured in Queen Elizabeth’s life. Who can forget her Jubilee sketch with Paddington Bear or temporarily becoming a Bond girl for the opening of the 2012 Olympics. Now her funeral is probably set to eclipse everything with, at least, the possible exception of Diana’s funeral in terms of the tears. Maybe even that other queen, Elton John, will be moved by the lure of lucre to rejig one of his songs for her as well. I suggest Funeral for a Friend suitably modified. Of course, during the Prince Andrew scandal, he could have re-released an old hit as Don’t Let Your Son Go Down On Me and the royalties could have paid for the legal settlement.
Enough of that. Back to the Progress. In the days of yore, most people never travelled more than a kilometre or two from where they were born and if they didn’t WFH, they WFNH (Work From Near Home). They didn’t have TV, Instagram or Tickle Tockle and so it was important that the Regent routinely do a Grand Tour to remind the common folk of their splendour, power, strength and divinity. These were called Progresses. They were large affairs as the Royal party still had to be kept in sumptuous luxury and there were tournaments, hunting and entertainment organised along the way. It was also a good excuse to get out of the pestilential London which stank in summer with its open sewers. But the grandest was Henry VIII’s Grand Progress all the way to York in 1541 with a retinue upwards of 4000. Henry wished to dazzle the rebellious northerners with his royal bejeweled codpiece and his latest acquisition, the comely 19-year-old Catherine Howard amongst other things. But all good things come to an end as she was too comely and was beheaded within months of their return for infidelity.
Fast forward nearly 500 years. ERII’s majestic 70-year reign has finally come to an end and after 96 years she‘s kicked the bucket, she’s shuffled off ‘er mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisible*. Only two things remain. She will lie in state at Westminster where an estimated 1 million people will try to pay their final respects. Afterwards she will start her final earthly Royal Progress, starting at Westminster Abbey and ending at Windsor Castle, 35km away, in a lead casket for posterity.
There will be much lamentation. I just hope there won’t be some crazy Muslim or Irish terrorist to rain on her final progress.
*From Monty Python’s dead parrot sketch.
Climate simulation and rainwater collection
While I do not deny climate change, I am sceptical of climate modelling. One only has to look at the UK handling of the Covid crisis where their responses were based on simulation models produced by SAGE (Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies). They caused terrible harm to the UK economy. Only in the final wave which still showed scenarios of virtually everyone being infected and overwhelming the NHS did the UK government show them the middle finger and do the opposite to what they recommended.
Continue readingA SMAC in the Face #46: The GOAT is Dead – The End of an ERII
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.
A SMAC in the Face #45: OnlyFarms
There has been much bewildering change over the 28 years of the New South Africa, especially for the Afrikaner. All their favourite institutions are under continual attack and are inexorably swamped. However, one institution remains that, if anything, has got stronger – The Hitching Post in the Farmers Weekly and the Opsitkers in the Landbouweekblad. (Opsitkers = sit up candle. Before the Rinderpest, when a gentleman suitor came a-calling, the parents would leave the young couple alone but a candle was lit. This was not to create a romantic ambience. It was the timekeeper and its length depended on how favoured the suitor was. When the candle burnt down, he had to leave. Ag shame, how sweet.)
Upfront, SMAC must make a few disclaimers and admissions. He is no consumer on the OnlyFans site and hence his detailed knowledge is sketchy. Also in his lonely young adult years, he did occasionally peruse the Farmers Weekly while in the dentist’s waiting room – kind of a distraction before the extraction – but more for the cheap farms than the beefy farmers. It would however seem that on the OnlyFans site, young women can make ridiculous amounts of money for no more than titillating poses which seriously repressed and lonely males can access on their phones for a small fee. There is no requirement for clean-shaven, gynaecologically detailed poses that are the staple of the modern porn industry. In fact, it Is even possible to turn a buck by putting pictures of naked feet out there. It always amazes how people get their kicks.
The average farmer only has his workers, livestock and tractors (and vrou lief of course) for company. Ja, there is still the opsitkers but that is used in the toilet during loadshedding so that he doesn’t miss the bowl. The Hitching Post is all very well and good for the young farmer who needs a wife for breeding stock but what does he do for a bit of excitement, that extra frisson? It is logical then to start a similar thing that is more directly focussed on their needs and desires and OnlyFarms would be an appropriate forum.