Jissie Joost, how could you?

Jissie Joost, couldn’t you have shocked us all a bit sooner? Like, when I was still completing the sex chapter in my new collection of insults (out soon in a bookshop near you and perfect Christmas gifts for people you don’t really like and can’t think of anything to get them, hint hint).

That’s the trouble with writing a collection of the best South African insults of the past two years or so — the moment you commit something to paper, it’s out of date. When I wrote that chapter, Joost was still insisting that the oke in the video’s schlong was too big to be him, and he didn’t wear that kind of underwear. And now we know that meanwhile it was him all along, and he’s got a new autobiography out which includes all sorts of unsanitary details about Amor’s bowel movements, as if the Huisgenoot readers of this world really did spend day and night wondering whether she really did fart like a horse in that book by that tabloid hack, wotsitcalledagain.

(And what’s with Minki getting divorced? Think twice before you get married on Top Billing, people.)

This new collection of insults is the last, which means no more collecting the latest Malemaism, a challenging habit to break. But, like Star Wars, things make more sense in threes, and anyone who saw the last Rocky flick will know about the danger of too many sequels. Rather bow out on a high note, and Droolius certainly is that, a virtuoso insultist who excites the kind of fear and loathing we used to associate with Winnie and then JZ.

Speaking of which, isn’t it funny how we’ve managed to reconcile ourselves to a Zuma presidency? When I wrote the first volume of insults, Jacob Zuma was probably the pharmaceutical industry’s secret weapon: how many people gulped down anti-depressants and sleeping tablets to deal with the fear of Msholozi at the helm?

I wonder what the coming year will bring us. Plenty of material, to be sure: of that I have little doubt. I just won’t be the one collecting it.