Just When You Thought it was Safe to Get Back into the Posts … (scary music)

I notice that I last posted a whole week ago. I have missed me, even if nobody else has.

Don’t ask!

(You don’t need to, I’ll give you the highlights anyway, such as family down in the Cape and all chores falling on us, computer doing a few polite coughs and suddenly reverting to XP from Windows 10, and when that was sorted the monitor packing in. Then, TV refusing to come on, microwave going on strike, the grilling element in the oven that has to do the turkey going dead, almost a whole tree of leaves going into the pool, delivering books to people living the other end of town, collecting new prints from the other other end . . .)

Above is a visitor to my study some days ago. The cats and I competed in catching him. I won, and released him out of their reach. A large variety I haven’t seen before, but I have fairly reliably identified it as the Verdant Hawk Moth (Euchloron Megaera), confused by some as a Gaudy Sphinx.

Anyway, a number of local residents will have seen my writing this morning. I offered one of my Really Awful Rhymes to Graeme Linscott, of Natal Mercury, and it duly appeared in his entertaining ‘Idler’s Column’. My outpouring came from noting everyone and his granny suddenly forming political parties (far) left, (far) right, and (sort-of) centre, adding to my annoyance at never knowing when lights would stay on or go off.

Here it is below, and it includes a stanza left out of the paper for the sake of PC.

I, of course, don’t do PC. A misleading term, anyway. Most of what politicians do is violently incorrect. Would you like to guess which one was omitted? I offered a modified version, but that was also declined.

Current Affairs (from Eskom) and Parrot Parasites (Polly Ticks)

A custom has now started
In pre-election days
Of getting all light-hearted
In entertaining ways.

(Light-hearted, though, can only come
In rationed little lumps,
Between the periods when some
With shedding, Eskom dumps.

Though called ‘Supply Commission’,
Renaming should take place:
More like, ‘Supply Omission’
Would tend to fit the case.)

Still, form a brand-new party
To benefit the trades,
Or yet another, tarty,
That can be joined by maids.

A party that’s far-righted
To kill off all the blacks,
Or one that’s left-ward blighted,
Ensuring whites one lacks.

Next, maybe, comes a leader
Who will distil free beer;
Or some quite nasty bleeder
Just out to instil fear.

And then a Party-Party,
For partying all day,
Quite popularly start-y
For those who like to play.

A party for the San and Khoi,
Who want their land back, please;
And then one, purely to annoy
For paying legal fees.

And, come to that, a lobby
To bring back Zuma rule,
Where everybody’s hobby
Will be to play the fool.

I don’t suppose will come to pass
When those we will elect
Are best, ignoring race or class
As things of no effect.

© December 2018 Colonialist