The Mahendra Simulacrum/ Simulacra of Riaan: or, how the machine makes many of us

So, in an idle moment during the news of last night* - i.e. when they show footage and not Mahendra - I switched to Channel 2 and, by god, there was Riaan going all stripy and channelling near-revolutionary waves: charcoal chalk-stripe jacket, white shirt and stripy tie. I identified pink, light blue, powder blue, orange, white and dark grey stripes. It's a tie you wear when you want to be colourful without being uitspattig, gauche. But, overall, the tie gave off a mauve hue. Sinister...

I do think, however, that Mahendra should have a chat with Riaan. I like Riaan's modestly sized knots, the ideal samoosa-knot** of my youth, an equilateral triangle, an equiangular polygon. Welcome to the machine.

Extra special bonus!

I think it's high time we introduce our super new, non-interactive, strike-busting category, in a pitch high enough to send cats running scared: the Moleketi Moment. Last night, our Minister of Public Service and Administration*** whined on about how badly behaved public service strikers have been (the bad apples example raised to general moral outrage) and how this behaviour had been the worst ever in SA history. !

* See TM's entry below.
** See 'Black, Buttermilk, Salmon' for a brief disquisition on the samoosa-knot.
*** I remember a period at university where Public Administration was seen as a soft option, especially by students who would be struggling against academic exclusion because they didn't pass History, Politics and/or Sociology.