Move over Chuck Norris, here comes Bheki Cele

EVEN if President Jacob Zuma ignores the damning finding contained in the report by the board appointed to probe Bheki Cele's fitness for office, he should fire the Cat in the Hat for believing himself to be the South African version of Chuck Norris.

In a letter to Zuma, Cele argues that he should stay in office because, among other things, there has been an increase in cop killings since his suspension and police morale has been at its lowest since his departure. He also claims to have almost single-handedly reduced levels of violent crime.

We know that Cele grew up watching too many action movies and that as an MK guerrilla back in the 1980s it was his propensity to brandish weapons Rambo-style in unsuitable places that led to his imprisonment.

But it is about time he learnt that Charles Bronson and Norris succeed in single-handedly fighting crime only in the movies.

Fractional battles

COUNTING skills are in short supply in parliament, it seems. On Thursday the DA raised a stink in the National Assembly when it tried to prevent the adoption of some committee reports under the guise that the House was short of the required one-third quorum to take decisions.

What followed was a comedy of errors as MPs from the ruling party and the largest opposition party tried to show each other up over the quorum matter. It all ended up going to a vote, when the drama was finally settled. There were 156 MPs in the House at the time. A quorum is formed by 134 MPs.

Tender is the right

KACHUNG kachung! Calling all tenderpreneurs! President Jacob Zuma says the government is open for business. He told the National Assembly on Tuesday that it was OK for anyone, even those politically connected, to get a slice of the state's R700-billion infrastructure pie.

He was replying to a question from DA head girl Lindiwe Mazibuko on whether the ruling party's investment arm and similar investment vehicles owned by labour federation Cosatu and the SA Communist Party would be tendering for state business. Did anybody say Arms Deal 2?

Dazed and confused

TALKING of the giggling president, Hogarth's spy in the press gallery was taken aback when a DA MP protested that Zuma's replies in the House were deurmekaar, expecting Zuma to rebuke the disrespectful MP and put him in his place. Zuma not only laughed him off but went on to use the phrase in his own response to a follow-up question from that MP.

Measuring the marigolds

THIS from the author of a newsletter called Green Times: "Dear readers - Sometimes us humans resemble the inchworm. Annie Dillard describes them beautifully in her book The Writing Life. These creatures wear out their days in constant panic, hanging from the side of a grass blade. With head thrashing from side to side, its front three pairs of nubs rearing back and flailing in the air, apparently in search of a footing, seeming to wail: "What! No further? End of World?"

A bad day at the office, perhaps?

Essop's fable reworked

HOGARTH notes that the dusty doctrine of Essop Pahad has been dusted off by the ANC, which is calling for a boycott of City Press over publication of The Spear artwork on its website. A word to the wise: it didn't work when you tried it against the Sunday Times and it won't work now.

Pop quiz

WHO said: "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it"? Was it:

a) Bheki Cele;

b) Adolf Hitler; or

c) Richard Mdluli?

ANSWER: b) Adolf Hitler, but don't be too hard on yourself, you could easily have got this one wrong.

Write to hogarth@sundaytimes.co.za