Generalisations of the year

Everybody knows generalisations are the heartbeat of truth. Leonard Cohen, the greatest living poet, said: “Everybody knows the dice are loaded, everybody rolls with their fingers crossed, everybody knows that the war is over, everybody knows that the good guys lost.”

So the panel of pundits at TopEditor have put together the generalisations of 2007 — the good and the bad, the rough with the smooth, the best with the worst — in the interests of balance and fair comment.

We haven’t sucked these things out of our collective thumb. This was serious scientific research conducted during the year to find the best and worst and most mediocre in South Africa.

Our findings have been backed by the Manto Foundation and certified authentic and accurate by the Munusamy/Bristow-Bovy Institute, and carry the Msholozi Seal of Moral Rectitude. Although he did not understand what they were about, US President George Bush endorsed them, as did Pope Benedict XVI, Minister Charles Nqakula, police National Commissioner Jackie Selebi, Oregan Hoskins, Jackie Maarohanye and Jimmy Manyi. Dicky Dawkins thought they were about God and rejected them without reading them.

The listings speak for themselves and everybody knows they are accurate (oops, that generalisation slipped in, but we’re certain it’s right). So here are the generalisations for 2007.

1. All whites are racists who continue to benefit from apartheid, hold the wealth of the country and whinge about it all the time (in fact, this has been top of the list since we started generalising).

2. All blacks are victims, disadvantaged, brutalised and incompetent (and this has been number two).

3. The rudest shoppers in South Africa are those in Rosebank/Killarney.

4. The best-looking women in the country are in Pretoria — especially after schools close.

5. The worst drivers in South Africa are in KwaZulu-Natal (outside holiday seasons when the standard is raised by the influx of tourists). The most bellicose are in Gauteng, the rudest are in the Western Cape and the most dangerous are in Limpopo (the province, not the river, though there are many in the river too).

6. The most reliable government official is Manto Tshabalala-Msimang.

7. The most unreliable one is Thabo Mbeki; you never know who you’re dealing with.

8. The scariest show on TV is SABC News (because you don’t know if it’s true or not).

9. The best trained pets in Africa are Sneaky Snuki and Dilly Dali.

10. The least predictable script in a TV programme is the weather forecast.

11. The worst newspaper is the Daily Sun with the Voice as runner-up.

12. The best South African movie of the year is Poena Is Koning.

13. The best place for witness protection in South Africa is Karrasburg.

14. The worst place to live is Clifton.

15. The most effective police are in Draghoender/Marydale (his name is Petrus Koen).

16. The coldest shops in the country are Woolworths (see also most overpriced).

17. The most popular brand of car in South Africa is Toyota (mostly because of parts availability or interchangeable parts like vice-grip for steering wheel etc).

18. The least reliable brand of car is Jaguar for its propensity to sommer crash into walls with judges inside.

19. The most reliable car in South Africa belongs to Oom Gert van Pittius of Reivilo (it started as a Ford in 1932, but not even Oom Gert is quite sure what it is now).

20. The best friends in the country are mine.

21. The best return on investment remains the Lotto.

22. The song of the year was Umshini Wami (see also worst song of the year).

23. The most overrated place in South Africa is Cape Town.

24. The most promising place to buy property is in Noenieput.

25. The worst environmental pollution in South Africa is on the West Rand (Roodepoort/Krugersdorp) for the millions of hideous little boxlike ticky-tacky townhouse developments.

26. The sporting highlight of the year was winning the Rugby World Cup, though team of the year goes to Bafana Bafana for sheer stick-togetherness.

27. The sporting lowlight was the ANC conference in Polokwane where not one blow was thrown and everyone was declared a winner.

28. The best advert of the year was for the wearing of seatbelts awarded posthumously to Lebo M.

29. The best drivers in the country are taxi drivers. (See also most dangerous, least polite, most incompetent and worst serial killers.)

30. The stupidest people live in Pretoria and Cape Town, but only for six months at a time.

31. The cleverest people in South Africa have emigrated.

32. The worst service providers are jointly Telkom and Eskom (Telkom has won this category since before Jan van Riebeeck arrived).

33. The most dangerous crime hot spot of 2007 is your home, your shopping centre, your kids’ school, your favourite restaurant, your work, your church, your holiday home and the corner café.

34. The lowest number of suicide bombers is in Cabinet (this confounded our pundits because all indications were they should all top themselves as a sign of patriotic duty).

35. The thickest people are female metro police speed trappers (see also world’s most humungous bums).

36. The best advertisement for belief in God is Richard Dawkins.

37. The worst advertisement for belief in evolution is Jacob Zuma.

38. The most overlooked sector of the population is dwarfs.

39. The most overrated individual of the year is Zwelinzima Vavi.

40. The eco-warrior of the year is the scumbag Pommie ponce who started the Western Cape fires.

41. The most efficient public-service department is home affairs (shared second spot with Kenhardt, Keimoes, Kakamas and Kanoneiland for witness protection because you can disappear completely there. The Rosicrucians, Bilderbergers, Knights Templar, Illuminati, Cosa Nostra and the survivors from Roswell are all accommodated there, as are Elvis, Jimmy Hoffa, Adolf Hitler and Jack the Ripper.)

42. The most common untruth told: “South Africa: Alive with possibility”.

43. The cleanest place in South Africa is about 4km long on the road between Griekwastad and Postmasburg.

44. The most trustworthy and honest person in South Africa is Jacob Zuma.

45. The greatest wastes of the year were Paul Mashatile’s R170 000 lunch and David Rattray’s murder.

46. The best work of literary fiction was Thabo Mbeki: Fit to Govern (the best work of pure fiction were the projections on the nation’s profit and growth from the 2010 Soccer World Cup).

47. The greatest disappointment of the year was finding out Annanias Mathe had not lathered himself with Vaseline and miraculously squeezed through the bars, but had just walked out of C-Max prison.

48. Best actress in a leading role was for the first time shared three-ways among Najwa Pietersen, Jackie Maarohanye and Dina Rodriquez.

49. The worst cliché of the year: “Things will get better”. This was first said by Herklaas Lambrecht, leader of the Dorsland Trekkers. Nothing more is known of them.

50. The most neglected name change of the year — the scientific name for one of the Big Five, the Cape buffalo, or Syncerus caffer, which weighs two tonnes and looks at you like you owe him money.

51. The least known of South Africa’s fauna — the Little Five.

52. Greatest PR gaffe of the year — the unnamed graduate media-liaison officer from the City of Jo’burg who demanded the Sowetan apologise for editing her press release. In describing yet another of the countless committees set up to assess the validity of certain unknown projects, the Sowetan had referred to the committee as a “sounding board”. The very next day the indignant woman phoned investigations editor Joel Avni to say she had personally searched through the full list of each and every committee, council and task team and their members in Joeys and indeed in Gauteng and found no “Sounding Board” listed. Joel was as polite as he could be and promised to bring the egregious error to the editor’s attention.

We decided to stop the list at 52 — one for each week of the past year. The remaining 4 948 may be run some other time. Here’s hoping 2008 will live up to the noteworthy achievements of this year.

Happy 2008, everybody!