Got your attention yet?

Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed off the Sardinia coast. For us non-Brits, flippered literally means having flippers on in the water but in urban slang it has a flip-flop sexual connotation. And surely everyone knows what a leg-over is? Lima Oscar in old military jargon. Have I got your attention now?

My serious blogs get minimal attention. The short, sharp and trivial ones get a ‘hobho’ of hits – plenty, as in our Shona language. This is according to an algorithm’s ‘hit-o-meter.’

People say I’m a misery guts. Always criticising Africa and Zimbabwe, the place of my birth which was none of  my choosing, after all. But facts speak for themselves in present circumstances the world over.

Holed up in my mostly housebound solitude with a non-fatal mobility ailment complete with a geriatric walking aid I switch to the execrable Zimbabwe state broadcasting monopoly. I have to say to their credit they have given Tina Turner a terrific send-off.

There’s a lot Christian debate on air, as though the poorly-paid broadcasters look for their own salvation too.

The last elections in 2018 in Mbare township. Notice all the satellite TV dishes of folk who don’t tune in to the state broadcaster.

Today they are banging on about the announcement of our election date, August 23, the expiry of the 5-year presidency that came after the bloodless coup that saw Robert Mugabe retire at the age of 94 (and Americans say Biden is old.)

It is interesting that for the first time the announcement says a run-off vote is scheduled for October 2 if one is needed.

Are they trying to tell us the election will be free and fair and a close call is expected? Are the rulers admitting at last there’s a groundswell of discontent amid poverty and misrule?

Oh dear, there he goes again, Mr Serious.

Back to ZBC, I had almost forgotten how beautiful our National Anthem is, especially the children’s choir version, played at the break of day and around midnight.

Nevertheless, I am reminded of the prayer we learnt at school here all those years ago.

May the Lord support us all the day long. Till the shades lenghten and the evening comes and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. – Irish Cardinal John Henry Newman.

Busy world is hushed, fever of life, our work is done  – crime, corruption, poverty, hunger.

Crikey, there he is, he’s at it once more …

+ I couldn’t find the children’s version that had me in tears on ZBC the other day. Cry the beloved country…