You know something, this sucks mightily. Tourist-hunting season opens, and we hear of it first from the British? Typical of our authorities. This is incompetence at its most apathetic. How African of the government. No wonder the Brits want to re-colonise this place. What, have you never heard Uncle Bob Mugabe speak?
Wouldn’t that be jolly good fun though, having His Awfulness Gordon Brown as Glorious Comrade Leader? Or, if we wait just a bit more, we can have that dreadful oink David Cameron who, ahahahaha, cycles to work. No, on second thoughts, not. Luring them here with the promise of terrible sunburn and massive hangovers then executing them in a hail of machine-gun fire is more ticklish.
I was first alerted to the fact that South Africa’s second favourite pastime had begun (the first being the Currie Cup. Obviously) by a helpful article in the UK Daily Mail. A very orange Victoria Smurfit breathlessly related how she narrowly escaped death in Cape Town’s war-torn streets. (Smurfit. Her surname is Smurfit. My one brain lobe almost fused as I tried to grapple with the sheer enormity of this fact. It’s too much for me. I’ll leave the mocking over to you.) “Crack! Or pop? I can’t really work out exactly which sound is correct as it happened so fast. Maybe it was a crack and a pop as the bullet entered through Charlie’s window,” she gaspingly wrote. “Everything became very slow. No one looked at each other. It was not the sound of the copper bullet that told us we had been shot at, at point blank range, it was that we all felt it journey past us.”
If she wasn’t already being shot at for being a tourist, I’d have thought she was ducking bullets for her direful prose. Ok, onto the serious business. Remember, as a South African of substance and upbringing the assumption across the world is that you know your Kalashnikovs from your koeksisters. It will be egg on the face big time if these foreign okes should find out you’re a tjop when it comes to weaponry. We’re like, the capital of crime, tjina. It gets put in brochures and stuff, bru. What’s that you say? There are Saffas who like, don’t know guns? Ja, rubbish. One half of the country knows guns because they were sent to the Caprivi Strip to shoot comrades, and the other half knows guns because the comrades gave them guns to shoot Boers with, 9mm pistols are so “Mbeki administration”. They play golf, sip on single-malt whiskeys and read deep poetry. They’re a huge no-no. AK-47 assault rifles are all the rage these days, don’t you know. Nowadays you can even buy one with complimentary leopard skin and white takkies thrown in for free. All Saffas know that.
Spotting tourists is easy. If they have bad teeth and wear their shorts up under their armpits, then they’re from the UK. Their elderly have a habit of appearing at the beach in nothing but scants, exposing everyone to the terrifying spectacle of droopy red flesh. Extra points for bagging one of those.
If they wear khaki shirts and go straight for the prostitutes, then they’re German. It’s the female of the species you want to go for here, the much feared German cougar. If you don’t watch out, she’ll accost you in the streets and you’ll never be heard of afterwards. Keep a weather eye out when hunting for a German trophy.
If they’re surprised to see no giraffes in the parking lot at the airport, then they’re American. They make terrible trophies, though. There’s almost never enough room above the mantelpiece for the mounted head. They’re best put to use as fuel for the winter months.
If they take photos of absolutely everything, then they’re Chinese, who can’t run very fast on those little legs. They’re no fun. Leave them for the children.
Jeremy Nell (he of jerm infamy) was kind enough to let me crib some of his tourist descriptions.
yejaundicedeye@gmail.com
She is Irish (you can tell by the orange) and I think the story broke in the Irish press first.
The SA police (after apparently telling her the “kill a tourist” joke) further helped matters by saying, after a decorous period of slothlike inertia, that they had no clue who did it but they are almost certain that it wasn’t intended to kill her in her capacity as a tourist. I understand that the latest hypothesis is that it was a “stray” bullet. Of the kind that floats blamelessly (and aimlessly) around the streets of Cape Town from time to time.
I think it’s fair to say that everyone at this stage feels very reassured about Cape Town, as they are about Cabinda.
Cheap shot Sipho – being shot at is not an everyday occurrence and not very nice no matter how much South African like guns…just ask the Togo football team , and their goalie in particular!
Tut tut, perhaps I missed something here though, and in that case what an hilarious article!
Pfft! Strange that only one journalist in the world wrote an article about this.
I wonder if ‘the collection of veins’ in her elbow have healed from the shattered glass.
That article is so full of holes.
Hysterically funny man! Inherit the Class Comedian title from Ndumiso who seems to be missing in action.
Sipho ,your offering is just another example of how South Africans fail to recognise the effects of such an incident on tourists…and how, in their attempts to dress it up as being a normal occurrence in their country ..they expose their shortcomings.
The Police have so far made an utter mess of this (as normal) and if it was them that coined the phrase “kill a tourist day” …heads should roll.
Of course we all know that will not happen.
Which is probably why South Africans try to ridicule and find humour in such a serious situation…..they know it is out of their control.
Not sure what the thrust of this article is, but as an apparent tourist I had to violently fight off three groups of car driven men while walking in Cape Town in the evening in totally separate events. I am sure it is in hospital records(theirs). I feel sorry for the innocent tourists in SA. There is a wanted poster for a man who stabbed two tourists in Noordhook area, was let off because witnesses left the country, and stabbed two more then and is on the loose, such is the nature of your safety as a tourist.
There is no need for the Brits, the Irish, or anyone else to ‘exaggerate’ the vulnerability of tourists in SA. They are walking targets in a country with 11 (or is it 13, I forget) ‘official’ languages only one of which may be vaguely familiar or–if the accent is thick enough–utterly unintelligible, a bad case of ‘western-phobia’ encouraged by the likes of Mugabe, Mbeki, the late unlamented Manto, Chuene, Malema, most ANC deployees, and a chip as big as the planet on their Armani-clad shoulders.
“Crime happens everywhere”. Yeah, I know. But it goes unpunished here to a far greater extent than in other countries (not all of them ‘western’!). The difference here is that the assaults on tourists are overlaid with a kind of racial/political patina of ‘respectability’ in the ANC and Alliance. ‘Westerners’ can never be ‘victims’ in the ANC universe. Just blacks can never be ‘racists’. LOL
The dirty truth is we need tourists because without tourism we have bugger all to recommend ourselves to the world. Our infrastructure is crumbling, corruption multiplies faster than even the randiest rabbits, the government’s failure to provide housing, education and medical care–despite constant promises to do so–means that SA-cans are more likely to see tourists as everything they are not, rather than seeing them as guests in this country, guests we want to speak well of their experience here so that other guests will come and help SA to prosper and grow.
Brits are always looking for dangerous destinations….well maybe not so much of late since they keep losing….but they invented the term ‘terrorist’. Imagine how many there will be in SA for the World Cup!!…we could have a full on war here!
Sipho – The Joke is on South Africa or have you no sense of irony?
Poor – very poor!
Check out
http://www.richmarksentinel.com/rs_articles.asp?catid=1&recid=1180&pcurr=1
What annoyed me most is the remarks from the irish about SA. and the fact that no one considered maybe they were targetting the taxi driver…we know how sweet and innocent they are.
Anyway, read for yourself
I could not see the humour. But then maybe the recollection of wrestling some kid four years ago trying to press a 9mm against my forehead which was soon thereafter discharged in my direction while I was frantically locking my kitchen door to keep them from getting into my house is still a bit too fresh. Crime is no joke, it destroys lives.
Write this article again after somebody has been killed in your family for wealth distribution, God forbid.
Definitely worth a link bro’ we’re still building the site but stuff like this has got to be read by more people, especially the poor potential vic,.. er tourists intending to come over soon. Tell it like it is, you’re doing the right thing mey bra.
Bra Martin.
Always think its really funny how Saffas think they are sooo tough just because we live with crime every day and are too useless to sort it out. We forget that the truly tough people are the ones from the most militarised nations that rule the planet. Thats right you mighty tough Africans…it is the Americans, the Chinese and the Brits. So just before you start shooting for a trophy to mount on your stoep, remember who has the bigger guns and the meaner attitude and the empires and the cozy holiday homes at Guantanamo that make Robbin Island look like Ibiza in the summer…and your clue here is that it aint us.
And I dare you to take a pop at an Israeli or a Russian.
Oh Dear…so many South Africans having a sense of humour failure!
The satire seems to have been completely lost on you, Grant.
When the goose had been eaten by the family, father started to look outside in order to collect some more golden eggs. As he found none he called his wife: have you seen the goose? You have just eaten it answered mother, oh my gosh! was that the one which gave us those beautiful eggs? You stupid woman, father said (a la René, the inkeeper from Allo’Allo) could you not see that without the golden eggs we will soon be broke?
So yes keep on murdering tourists and assorted Saffrans and keep on making fun out of it. We close a whole coastline for one shark murdering one tourist (and that, the pundits say is really a random killing) but the (ANC) governement seems unable to grapple with the many sharks regularly killing many people all over the country. Or unwilling. @Siobhan is right: without tourism we have bugger all to recommend ourselves to the world. We dont even manage to sell soccer tickets properly. The rainbow is fading…..
Sipho, the satire did not get lost on anyone. It just isn’t there. Your profile says you are still young – hopefully young enough to read and learn from Levin, Waugh, Coren et al. And if you want to sink to making fun(?) of names, what is the translation of Shlong Wane – “Needs Viagra”?
Bob Elder,
Really? “Needs Viagra”? That is the tamest, most overused insult ever.
Surely you can do better than that?
Hahahah Charles this is one of the funniest things I have ever read. I also have a steaming post to write about the Brits but I am saving it until the end of tourist season. Well done Sir!