‘Ha Ha’, said the Clown.

Having been preoccupied these last few days, trying to catch up on news from Zimbabwe is a hell of a task. As usual it is all gloom and doom. Sometimes I wonder why I bother at all! Surely there are more important things to report locally, that directly affect me, rather than some banana republic thousands of miles away who blames its own demise on the colour of my skin.

Lets see…

First off, I notice that there is much more noise pollution since Wales instigated a total ban on smoking in public places. I smoke, but I don’t do it in my flat for the simple reason it stinks the place out. So I go out onto my balcony to puff on my cancer sticks in what use to be, relatively speaking, peace and quiet. Not any more though. Not far from me is a pub frequented by a social class of clientele whose ability to comprehend the English language is restricted to looking at large breasts on page three of Britain’s best selling newspaper, The Sun. Whilst it was always a tad noisy on Friday and Saturday nights, especially at closing time when half the village is given verbal education in badly pronounced sexual obscenities, screamed out by fat young women at octaves high enough to shatter a pint glass, things have got worse.

This part of the world is rather wet. In fact, it hasn’t stopped pissing down for the last 10 days and that would normally keep the fag puffing louts exchanging social and sexual intercourse, whilst their feet were glued to the beer drenched rags called carpets, inside. But, due to the new rules, they now spend their time outside, under the marquee. So, instead of a quite fag, my eardrums are bombarded with alcohol fuelled laughter of inebriated wit and the little path I use, which exits near this said pub, now has used condoms scattered artfully among the piles of dog shit.

Other things of note – I went away for a while and when I returned the price of a tin of evaporated milk at the Co-Op shot up from 45 pence to 49 pence! Who do I turn too? Is the UK going the same way as Zimbabwe? Rampant inflation rearing its ugly head?

I was invited for dinner in a local restaurant this week, which according to the blah blah on the menu, prided itself on true blue cooking and that if you want fast food, to look elsewhere. Sadly the opposite was true and I will be looking very fast elsewhere – like my kitchen!

Ahh, come-on, I give this town a hard time and it does deserve it, although I blame the council for most of its problems, but one thing I cannot deny is its location of stunning natural beauty. All this place needs is a large section of it having a Mugabe style operation ‘Clean out Filth’ with a few JCBs to sort it out.

A few years ago the UN released one of its million odd reports, where it stated that Africa is unquestionably the King when it comes to spouting rhetoric, and Zimbabwe was listed at pole position. I believe this to be true, but I tell you what, this lot in the UK must be a close second!

Time for a few laughs…

Some ZANU clown campaigning for election in some dried out devastated part of Zimbabwe, some where near Msvingo, told the somewhat bemused voters that he didn’t give a monkeys toss whether they voted for him or not, as Bob, the man, Mugabe is a great pal of his and under the constitution can give him the seat anyway. This makes us recall that the late Simon Muzenda, who was vice president of ZANU PF and the government, who in 2000 once told voters in one rural constituency in Masvingo province, that even if the ruling party chose a baboon as a candidate, their duty was to vote for the animal without ever questioning the party's choice.

Now I think that is an excellent idea! Imagine all the money that could be saved on Mercedes Benzes and 4 by 4s, not to mention all the farms these so called politicians receive, if they were replaced by baboons! At least they would keep their thieving down to a few cobs of maize they might find.

Whilst Sir Bob Geldorf, Bono, et-al, are handing out the begging bowl for the starving, perhaps they should take comfort by the massive support from Zimbabwe's hardliner Minister of Lands, Didymus Mutasa. Two weeks ago he
repeated threats to expel the few white farmers left in the country and said
a United Nations (UN) report warning of more food shortages in the southern
African country would not deter the Harare government.

"The position is that food shortages or no food shortages, we are going
ahead to remove the remaining whites.” He vowed "we would rather all die
of hunger, but knowing full well that the land is in the hands of black
people."

This was presumably said by a rag clad skinny thin Ghandi look-alike, busy at work weeding his piece of liberated land, whilst his equally thin children chased away the newest elected member for Msvingo, Bono Bobo Baboon, from his wilting maze crop.

Finally… Keeping up with world events –

I was made to remember an old joke the other day whilst watching the news. As the years went by, the joke was constantly updated to keep up with the times. Robert Mugabe was the only character that was the constant, simply because he has been in power for 27 years. Now the joke has to be radically changed, so here is my new version.

Together the President of Zimbabwe, Robert G. Mugabe, the soon ex Prime Minister, Tony Blair, of what’s left of the United (falling apart) Kingdom, Prime World Overtaker Winky Wanky Woo of China and the President of the United States, George Woos Bush, are flying around the world. Suddenly Tony Blair says,

‘I know we are flying over England right at this moment.’

‘How do you know this?’ the others cry. Tony points to a 125 mile nose to tail traffic jam visible on the M25 circular motorway surrounding London,

‘all the cars have Polish number plates,’ he says.

The others are suitably impressed. A short time later Mugabe shouts out,

‘we are flying over Zimbabwe now.’

‘How do you know this?’ the others cry.

Bob, ‘The Man’, points proudly to millions of acres of devastated farmland, clearly visible,

‘because I see 8 million people holding out begging bowls!’

The others are suitably impressed.

A short time later, Winky Wanky Woo (known affectionately as WWW.UCensored.com), gabbles excitedly,

‘we now fly over China.’

‘How do you know this?’ the others cry.

‘Plumes of black smoke from our new industries cover the earth as far as the eye can see’, he smirks contently, thinking he has won the war of posing.

George Woos Bush, now wracking his brain to think of something to impress his fellow passengers, gathers his secret service bodyguards around him and suddenly he opens the door of the aircraft and sticks his left arm out and screams triumphantly,

‘we are now flying over Albania.’

‘How do you know this?’ the others cry.

‘Some thieving peasant has just stolen my watch!’