Are you watching, students of the noble art? THIS. IS. JOURNALISM!
Meanwhile, talking of “journalism”, new levels of desperation have been reached on News24:
Look out for their exclusive Pistorius headline tomorrow: “There Were A Few More People Here Than Yesterday, However Their Numbers Still Didn’t Really Match Up With The Larger Amount Of Observers Which We Noted Earlier In The Week, But Was Obviously Greater In Number Than Last Thursday, Which Was Notable For The Fact The The Courtroom Was Surprisingly Sparsely Attended”
Now I may be wrong but I DO have my contact lenses in and could swear Barry Roux just winked at me. Demob happy ahead of long weekend?
You’re imagining Barry Roux winking at you?
I dunno. Is there such a thing as demob desperate?
Lest we forget, you were imagining his opponent half naked on a tropical beach paradise just yesterday (see above).
Nel, like a man whose opponent has brought a comb to a knife fight, continues to jab at his qualifications and credibility. #OscarPistorius
Really, Andrew? Is this honestly your understanding of what someone would do were their opponent to bring a comb to a knife fight? “Jab at his qualifications and credibility”?
‘Cos I’d guess that they’d probably just stab him. Unpleasant? Sure. But let’s face it, it’s a knife fight and he’s turned up with a comb. What does he expect? His qualifications and credibility to be jabbed at?
I doubt that very much.
No, I think that with your remark, you may be confusing ‘a knife fight’ with ‘a qualifications and credibility jabbing session’ and they’re really not the same thing, their only common factor being that I wouldn’t bring a comb along to either occasion.
And then that was it. For a couple of weeks, at least.
Cape Agulhas is packed. Full of people from all over the country – I have seen cars from each of the nine provinces and I haven’t even left my bedroom this morning. Intersections which usually don’t see more a couple of cars each hour have actual queues at them – sometimes as many as 3 or 4 vehicles long.
Yes, I guess that as with anything in life, one’s definition of “heavy traffic” is relative. That said, I’m expecting heavy traffic even by Cape Town standards as we head down to Struisbaai beach this evening for the traditional New Year’s Eve fireworks.
It’s chilly (20C), breezy and no-one seems to be particularly looking forward to our late night beach trip right now, but we’ll still do it. After all, as they say, it’s always better to regret something you have done rather than something you haven’t. Actually, that might not hold true for murder, but then I’m not planning on murdering anyone tonight.
No-one likes Max Clifford. Employing him is almost an admission of desperation. And yet he still does what he does and he still makes money. His latest client is Shrien Dewani (he seems like a genuinely nice guy) – the husband of the bride who was killed in unusual circumstances in Cape Town while on honeymoon. Now Mr Dewani finds himself as prime suspect in the murder investigation and his hiring of Clifford hasn’t gone unnoticed by Ben Trovato, who writes the publicist an open letter in today’s Sunday Times:
Dear Max,
Congratulations on doing an excellent job of representing Shrien Dewani, the poor fellow unjustly accused of hiring gunmen to shoot his wife, Anni, in Guguletu last month.
As you said, the whole business stinks of a set-up. It is clearly a conspiracy between the South African government, the police, the prosecutors, the taxi driver, the killers and everyone who lives within 5km of the murder scene. I knew he was innocent the moment he hired you and a lawyer before he was even named as a suspect.
Your unremitting passion for justice has not gone unnoticed. This week, I was asked to find out if you would be interested in representing a gentleman from Uganda. His name is Joseph Kony and he heads a youth group called the Lord’s Resistance Army.
Mr Kony has been wrongfully accused of kidnapping, enslavement, murder, rape and the odd bit of pillaging over a period of 20 years. This is an absolute travesty. He is the nicest person you could hope to meet, a committed Christian who loves horses and long walks on the beach.
It would be a simple matter for a man of your talents to convince the world that the Lord’s Resistance Army is on a mission to spread goodwill throughout central Africa and would never dream of using blunt machetes to hack women and children to death.
I should point out that the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Mr Kony. He has been indicted on crimes against humanity which, I am sure you will agree, is a crime against humanity in itself.
You can see what is happening here. The ICC is in the pay of powerful Africanists who hope that by getting Mr Kony to face these trumped-up charges, attention will be diverted from the fact that Africa is a complete basket case and this will be good for tourism and investment. Or something. Feel free to come up with a more plausible explanation.
Should you be reluctant to take on Mr Kony as a client, please be assured that he is a very wealthy man. God has rewarded him for his good deeds. The moment you receive payment, you will have a clearer grasp of the facts.
When you speak to the media, point out that these false accusations have hurt Mr Kony deeply. He is receiving trauma counselling at an undisclosed location in a Congolese forest and will be too upset to appear at any press conferences you may arrange.
Mr Kony wants the truth to come out. However, he has made it clear that he would rather not be there when it does. This is because of his fragile emotional state.
We need to move fast on this. There is money to be made.
Yours truly,
Ben Trovato
Brilliant as ever from Mr Trovato.
Thing is, I can see Clifford happily representing Joseph Kony – as long as he gets his fat fee.
“It is an unfortunate reality that these things can happen to anybody”
The words of Springbok Rugby Coach Peter de Villiers, quoted in this morning’s Cape Times on the Bees Roux incident in which the Bulls’ prop is accused of beating a Tshwane Metro Police Officer to death in the early hours of Friday morning.
De Villers went on to say:
The team supports Bees 100 percent, not on the deed, but rather on the circumstances that led to the situation developing.
Well, let’s have a quick run through on what we know so far, shall we?
It is alleged that Jacobus Stephanus “Bees” Roux (“Bees” being Afrikaans for “Ox”) was pulled over in the early hours of Friday morning (a few hours ahead of the Pumas v Bulls game) when Metro Police suspected he was driving while drunk. What followed seems a little confused – depending on whom you choose to believe, so here’s an independent eye-witness account from Richard Motegeni, a security guard at a nearby building:
Motegeni said the white VW Polo was seen driving very slowly at about 1.36am.
“Suddenly a large man and a Metro police officer tumbled out of the door on the driver’s side.”
He said the big man, whom he only later learned was Bees Roux, was immediately on top of Mohale.
“He shouted, ‘You thief! You want to steal my car!’ and repeatedly hit the officer very hard in the face. The officer did not fight back.
“The big man then twice lifted the officer up by his clothes at his shoulders and back and threw him down hard on the tarred road, head first.”
Motegeni said Roux then kicked the officer, after which he walked away quickly to his car, which was apparently rolling very slowly forwards.
“He brought his car to a stop, returned and started hitting the officer again.”
Netcare911 spokesperson Chris Botha told News24 that when paramedics arrived on the scene the deceased was already dead.
“He had a massive injury to the head. I don’t know what they used (to hit him),” he said.
Botha said there was blood on the road where the body was lying. “It looks like his head hit the tar road.”
Suddenly, all becomes clear. And what seemed like another utterly idiotic statement from the gaffe-prone de Villers makes perfect sense. I mean, who among us wouldn’t support Roux “on the circumstances that led to the situation developing”? You know, having a skinful on the night before a big game and then jumping in your car to head home? Of course the Boks support him 100% in that – after all, it’s the perfect message to be sending out, isn’t it?
Dodgy Headline
And yes, the whole picking up a police officer by his shoulders and throwing him down hard onto the tarred road, head first: that’s the sort of thing that can happen to anybody.
Actually, if I’m absolutely honest, that hasn’t ever happened to me, although I once almost tripped up a firefighter, but that was an accident and he was off duty at the time.
I wonder if it’s ever happened to any of my readers?
Or to Peter?
Or to any of the other Springbok players who are “100% behind Bees”?
There’s long been a suspicion that de Villiers isn’t the man for the Springbok coaching position. They say he can’t handle the media, that he’s out of his depth. Many cite his lack of experience, although the much-loved Jake White had even less experience when he took on the job.
But then others suggest that de Villiers’ detractors are racist and that it is actually not his experience nor his ability which is the problem, but rather the colour of his skin.
Having seen the interview he gave yesterday and read about it in the newspapers today, I’d like to suggest that we look beyond his experience, his ethnicity and his annoying voice and just think about what he has said for a moment.
There is absolutely no excuse for his voicing any kind of support for Bees Roux – either in the alleged fatal assault, nor in the supposedly ubiquitous “circumstances leading up to the situation developing”. I wonder what the players think of this? Are they really 100% behind Roux as de Villiers suggests? And if so, why?
As far as I’m concerned, the diplomatic way to go would have been to choose not to comment on the situation. But he did.
The next best thing would have been to distanced yourself and your team from the situation. To have made some comment about the police investigation being ongoing etc etc and then move on to the next question about why your side doesn’t have a defence.
But at no point do you come out and support a man who has allegedly used his huge size and strength to repeatedly smash a police officer’s head into the road until he was dead.
I don’t care about how good or how crap de Villiers is as a coach. It doesn’t bother me if he thinks there’s a referee’s conspiracy against the Boks. I don’t give a toss if he is coloured, black, white or green and gold. He could come in polka dot for all I care. But when he sits there as the national coach and says what he did, when he sends out the message to kids that it’s OK to drink drive, that your colleagues will support your actions when you have spent the weekend in a prison cell on a murder charge, then I simply cannot understand why this man still has a job. Anywhere else on this earth, he would rightfully already have been sacked.
