Tag: oscar pistorius

PistoriusBalls 17

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Uh-oh…

I’m no expert in the forced removal of judicial buildings, but I think that this is somewhat unlikely. And with the court still firmly in place, there’s even time during a murder trial for a whimsical reference to that cookbook:

But there’s good news from Andrew Harding:

Meanwhile, Wayne Derman says you need a dollop of butter in that. Probably.      

So many meanings we could read into this. But I think it’s just that Lucy wants to get home before 3Talk with Noeleen begins.

Of course she does, because we should never – NEVER – underestimate the travails of the courtroom journalist:

Also there are communal showers. And each evening you have to sleep with 65 TB-riddled criminals. Or something…


The prison reference? Yes, it is.

I HOPE YOU SURVIVE. But then…


So you can choose your own teatime tomorrow… Enjoy!

REMEMBER: You can see the full PistoriusBalls series by clicking here.

PistoriusBalls 16

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Ah yes. We return, following a month or more of psychological assessment for the defendant. And the first and most important order of business is, of course, that psychological report… Right after we’ve dealt with the Pistorious family’s scent choices, that is:

 
It’s like some sort of twisted reunion:


And we’ve missed your insane ramblings too, Charl. Almost as much as we’ve missed Barry “Oscar gives me followers” Bateman and his incisive and detailed commentary:


Not everyone in the class can concentrate that hard and that long though.
There’s always that one class clown, isn’t there, ruining things for everyone else?


It’s your own time you’re wasting, Phillip. *teacher sighs*
Why can’t you be more attentive, like David?


Was this ring binder the blue file? Why didn’t Bateman tell us about the highlighting? What colour was the pen? What model is the iPhone?

Find out all this and more, tomorrow, in the next thrilling installment of PistoriusBalls!

Is this really the best South Africa can do?

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Nothing to do with sport, or blogging, although I’m sure that the phrase will have been used many times in these contexts.

No, while I am uploading photos from LAST weekend, and indeed this weekend, I thought that you might enjoy(?) this biting column by Mark Gevisser on the 20th anniversary of the first democratic vote in SA.

Gevisser compares Zuma and Pistorius far more incisively and accurately (for me) than Jani Allen’s pisspoor open letter managed to compare the latter with Eugene Terreblanche, and paints a damning picture of the current, rather depressing situation here.

With Nelson Mandela dead and his African National Congress increasingly troubled, Pistorius and Zuma have, distressingly, become the poster boys for South Africa’s 20 Years of Freedom celebrations.

We South Africans love an underdog, perhaps because of our history, and both Zuma and Pistorius have milked that role. From an Afrikaner Calvinist tradition, Pistorius offers a story of triumph over adversity through God-fearing hard work. Then Zuma, from a poor rural Zulu and working-class township background, presents a narrative of the cunning trickster with little formal education who always finds himself on his feet and takes what he needs with a nudge and a wink.

Both men have been breathtaking in their perseverance and achievement. Zuma stopped a bloody civil war in his home province of KwaZulu-Natal. And, as an undereducated peasant who has risen to the very top, he stands as a symbol to black South Africans that they can be masters of their own destiny. Similarly, Pistorius transforms our understanding of what “able-bodied” means, even in the way he strides up to the dock.

It makes difficult reading, perhaps most worryingly because there’s nothing untrue or even vaguely hyperbolic about what he tells us. So, because I’ve apparently been quite grumpy lately (moi? grumpy?!?), I thought you might like to have a read of just how rubbish it is here right now.

It’s not really. We had a great birthday party for Alex today and there was 15kg of Lego and a chocolate fountain involved.

PistoriusBalls 15

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Day 24 and an unexpected change of tack.
We’re now working from the ‘Eye For An Eye’ School of Justice Manual…

bbmurder

Got to suggest that this is premeditated, right?

 

Are you watching, students of the noble art? THIS. IS. JOURNALISM!  

 

Meanwhile, talking of “journalism”, new levels of desperation have been reached on News24:

psit2
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”

 

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).

 

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.

WANT MOAR BALLS? PistoriusBalls Archive.

PistoriusBalls 14

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Day Twenty-something and we’re still trying to knock off before 3pm…

Mmm. People jam is my favourite, just ahead of Strawberry, and Fig.

 

Sadly not. I can still see you.

 

Come on, people. This is very disappointing. It’s almost as if Reeva died in vain.

 

No idea. Have you tried the Asian percussion section in your local music shop?

 

Strange decision. Is the courtroom busy or something?
Oh God… will it be televised? 🙁