CAPITOL CRIME
“We’re in! We’re in! We’re in! We’re in!” - Derrick Evans, a Republican politician who was among the mob storming the US Capitol on January 6. Evans faces 18 months in prison for his role in the insurrection.
“Hang Mike Pence.” - Pro-Trump rioters chanting after the former vice-president failed to heed Donald Trump’s call to overturn the 2020 election.
“Go home with love and in peace. Remember this day forever!”- Trump’s message to the rioters.
“My momma always said you’ve got to put the past behind you before you can move on.” - Jacob Chansley, aka Yellowstone Wolf, the QAnon shaman known for his Viking-like horns and fur headdress quoted Forrest Gump in a plea for mercy ahead of his sentencing in November for storming the Capitol. He was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
CLOSE THE AIRPORTS, NOT THE BORDERS
“The disease did not come through Zimbabwe or Lesotho: it came from Italy. It is white people who brought the disease here and when we said to this government: ‘Quarantine these people and isolate them through a forceful isolation’, they didn’t isolate them because they were white. Today, we have this big problem.”- EFF leader Julius Malema on the coronavirus.
SUEZ SNAFU
“The weight of the boat is 200,000 tonnes. A Mil-Mi 26 Russian helicopter can lift 22 tonnes. You just need a perfectly synchronised flight of 9,000 helicopters. You better position the helicopters at different height levels and angles to avoid accidents.” - Entrepreneur Christian Trejo's suggestion about how officials could free the Ever Given cargo ship that got jammed in the Suez Canal in March. You may be surprised to know that officials didn’t try it.
BLATANT RACISM
“I was called ‘brown shit’. It often happened in fines meetings after we won a game, and there was a song that was sung: Brown shit in the ring tra-la-la-la-la.”- Former Protea spinner Paul Adams testifying before the Social Justice and Nation Building hearings in July.
RACISM THAT MAKES SAMUEL THE L IN
“We may all be black and famous, but we don’t all look alike! You’re busted.” - Actor Samuel L Jackson lashing out at entertainment reporter Sam Rubin who confused him with Laurence Fishburne.
BUT IPAID FOR IT
“I’m waiting for my iPad. Somebody stole my iPad. Somebody decided that they want to dispossess me of my iPad, so I want that ... I had my iPad. Do you know where they took my iPad to? I had my iPad, I had it in my hand. It’s gone. I lost it, it seems.” - President Cyril Ramaphosa after the First iPad went AWOL during an address to the nation in June.
GREAT BALLS OF IRE
“My cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding.” - Pop star Nicki Minaj’s tweet explaining why her cousin’s big-balled friend was dumped at the altar.
FAUCI OUCHIE
“What you see on Dr Fauci — this is what people say to me: that he doesn’t represent science to them. He represents Josef Mengele.” - 'Fox Nation' host Lara Logan compared the US president’s chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci to the Nazi doctor who experimented on Jews during the Holocaust
VACCINE COUNTRY
“Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, I’m begging of you, please don’t hesitate. Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, because once you’re dead, then that’s a bit too late.” - Country star Dolly Parton marked her jab with a special rendition of her song, Jolene. She received a vaccine by Moderna and helped fund its trial.
“I am still Zoliswa. No side effects.” - Nurse Zoliswa Gidi-Dyosi, the first person to get the jab when SA launched its rollout in February.
NORMAL SHMORMAL
“I don’t want life to go back to ‘normal’. I want it to go back to ‘better’.” - Woody, an eight-year-old British boy with autism, whose profound lockdown observations have been turned into artworks.
DOUBLING DOWN
“When I was a young Christian, my employee and his wife were struck with HIV/Aids and their child died. They became thin. I said: ‘Let me pray for this: In the name of Jesus the spirit of HIV/Aids leave’.” - Former chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng explaining how he cured a couple of HIV/Aids. This wasn’t double Mogoeng’s first double fault: last year he suggested Covid-19 vaccines were the devil’s work.
CRINGE BINGE
“Biden banned travel from South Africa because of the new Covid variant. Immigrants have recently been apprehended crossing our border illegally from South Africa. Biden is doing nothing to stop immigrants from South Africa entering illegally. Pure politics and hypocrisy.” - Texas governor Greg Abbott tweeted after South African scientists identified Omicron.
“Did they swim? Because if they did you should probably let them in, give them citizenship and put them in your Olympic team.” @AskLudwich tweeted in one of several hundred thousand clapbacks mocking the governor’s geographical blaps.
SHORT ’N SWEDE
“Excuse me, who is leading Sweden right now?” - Journalist Lucas Dahlström asked when Magdalena Andersson, Sweden’s first female prime minister and then its shortest-serving leader, resigned after just seven hours in office. She was voted back the following week to become Sweden’s first female prime minister twice.
ALIEN NATION
“I think this is one of the great questions in physics and philosophy: where are the aliens? Maybe they’re among us, I don’t know. Some people think I’m an alien ... Not true.” - SpaceX mastermind Elon Musk, who may well be an alien.
“My plan is to use the money to get humanity to Mars and preserve the light of consciousness.” - Musk on why he opposes a tax on billionaires.
Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted after Time named Elon Musk its Person of the Year that the decision highlighted the need for the tax code to be reformed “so the person of the year will actually pay taxes and stop freeloading off everyone else”.
HUNGER GAMES
“$6bn [R95bn] to help 42-million people that are literally going to die if we don’t reach them. It’s not complicated.” - UN World Food Programme’s David Beasley. He called on the world’s richest men, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, for support. Musk’s net worth exceeded $326bn at one point this year.
ET GO HOME!
“What’s true, and I'm actually being serious here, is that there’s footage and records of objects in the skies that we don’t know exactly what they are.” - Former US president Barack Obama, talking shortly before a report by the US government in June acknowledged 143 “unidentified aerial phenomena” that could not be explained.
ASTRANOOIT
“Space flight is full of lots of little challenges, this is just one more that we’ll encounter and take care of in our mission.” - Nasa astronaut Megan McArthur confirming that toilets on board Dragon Endeavor were broken and the crew would return to Earth in nappies.
PER-PEPPA-LEXED
“Peppa Pig World is very much my kind of place. It has very safe streets, discipline in schools, heavy emphasis on mass transit systems, I notice, even if they are a bit stereotypical about Daddy Pig.” - UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s speech to UK’s business leaders left them perplexed.
OLYMPIC SPIRIT
“No-one should have to justify the space that they take up and people with disabilities shouldn’t have to be exceptional in order to be accepted.” - Wheelchair racer Madison de Rozario on the importance of the representation of people of all abilities at the Tokyo Paralympics.
OLYMPIC GAMES
“Beds to be installed in Tokyo Olympic Village will be made of cardboard. This is aimed at avoiding intimacy among athletes.” - US runner Paul Chelimo’s joke that the beds were designed to collapse under the weight of fornicators spread even faster than the runner himself.
STEYN POWER
“Morné Steyn, born July 11 1984, is a professional lion tamer, having tamed lions in both 2009 and 2021. He specialises in waiting until the last minute to break those lion hearts. He will only be 49 for the next series.” - A Wikipedia writer editing Steyn’s page minutes after the Springbok flyhalf kicked the points ensuring SA won the series against the British & Irish Lions in August.
“The more things change, the Morné Steyn the same.” - Irish sports writer David Kelly.
“It’s been an incredible journey.” - Dale, another sporting Steyn, announcing his retirement from cricket after a career spanning 20 years.
TABLOID FODDER
“Survé has long pushed the boundaries of credibility, but recently he crossed the line into full fantasy.” - Wits journalism professor Anton Harber on Independent Media boss Iqbal Survé concocting a wild conspiracy about what happened to the Thembisa 10 decuplets.
“The Thembisa decuplets were trafficked.” - Survé decupleting down on the fake news.
“There were six babies. Then eight. Then 10. Then two babies were stuck in a fallopian tube! Then those two stuck babies died. Then all the babies disappeared. Then the government stole Gosiame Sithole. Then Iqbal saved her because he was brave. And now Iqbal is going to save all the other little babies.” - Journalist Rebecca Davis neatly summing up the saga.
“This is all an absolute pile of steaming horseshit.” - Davis again.
IF IT WALKS LIKE A DUCK BUT TALKS LIKE MR T?
“You bloody fool.” - Australian musk duck called Ripper, who actually uttered these words in 1987. Ripper only made the news this year after a biologist heard archive sounds of Ripper, a hand-raised duck from a nature reserve near Canberra. True story.
DO NOT PASS BEGIN
“All I said is that I am not afraid of going to jail, as I was not under the apartheid system.” - Former president Jacob Zuma stated after the Constitutional Court found him guilty of contempt for defying an order to appear before the Zondo commission.
“If they want to arrest Mr Zuma, they must go for the arrest of Mr Zuma, but the only thing we are saying is they will have to go through us. They will have to kill us first before they arrest Mr Zuma.” - Edward Zuma vowing to protect his father.
RIOT RESPONSIBLY
“For the people that are protesting and looting, please do so carefully and please do so responsibly.” - Duduzane Zuma’s advice to looters during the unrest that exploded in KwaZulu-Natal and Gauteng in July, sparked by his father’s imprisonment.
“We have a bloke that wants a big f**k-off TV. He’s chosen a 58-inch set, but a 44 would have suited his car a lot better. Look at all the bloody goody bags already in there! I gotta say, I love that he has his hazard lights on. This is a person that respects the rules of the road. Sure, sure, he’s in the middle of a theft, but he’s a considerate driver.” - Internet commentator Ozzy Man describing footage of a looter struggling to squeeze a huge TV set into his car.
SORRY, NOT SORRY, KINDA SORRY!
“I, without qualification, apologise for the pain and the hurt, and the indignity, and the damage, to black, brown, and Indians in South Africa.” - SA’s last apartheid president, FW de Klerk, in a video released after his death.
“De Klerk has died without us knowing what the truth is around the murders of the Cradock Four and he takes to the grave truth that would have helped us heal, that would have helped us contribute towards building a better South Africa.” - Lukhanyo Calata, who has for years sought justice for the murder of his father, Fort Calata, one of the Cradock Four.
“I won’t apologise.” - DA leader John Steenhuisen refusing to back down on his party’s controversial Phoenix posters: “The ANC calls you racists. The DA calls you heroes.”
“I am deeply sorry.” - KwaZulu-Natal DA chair Dean Macpherson apologising a few days later for the debacle.
“Your personal experiences are completely anecdotal and unimportant to all of us. Sorry.” - Gareth Cliff, host of 'The Burning Platform' podcast, diminishing One SA Movement spokesperson Mudzuli Rakhivhane’s experiences of daily racism.
“I am deeply sorry for all the hurt, confusion and anger I have caused ... I’ve been called a lot of things as a cricketer. Doff. Stupid. Selfish. Immature. But those didn't hurt. Being called a racist because of a misunderstanding hurts me deeply.” - Protea wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock apologising for refusing to take the knee after a directive by Cricket SA.
BLANK ROBBERY
“The work is that I have taken their money.” - Danish conceptual artist Jens Haaning after a museum gave him $84,000 for a new work of art and he returned two blank canvases, titled 'Take the Money and Run', and called it a commentary on poor wages. The museum is considering legal action.
SHADDAP YOUR FACE
“Shut up! Shut up!” - Dali Mpofu put the “cross” in cross-examination when he let rip at public enterprises minister Pravin Gordhan and Gordhan’s counsel, Michelle le Roux, at the Zondo commission in March.
'“Shut up! Shut up!” - On the night of Mpofu’s outburst Cape Town politician Dan Plato also got in on some shut-up action, according to housing activist Aslam Richards, who said the then mayor told him to zip it when he questioned a housing project.
BLAH BLAH BLASÉ
“Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah This is all we hear from our so-called leaders. Our hopes and ambitions drown in their empty promises.” - Teen environmental activist Greta Thunberg says it like it is.
CRUEL BLOW
“I just wanted to hear her final words.” - Arnold Tembo was desperate to see his dying wife one last time but was arrested by the Cape Town traffic department for negligent driving on his way to her. She had already died when he was released a few hours later.
LONG ARM OF THE COLESLAW
“The might of the law has been unleashed upon me and my cabbage patch.” - Djo BaNkuna, aka the Cabbage Bandit, when the Tshwane metro police raided his veggie patch and charged him with growing cabbages on the council-owned pavement.
WINNERS
“This is for anyone who has the faith and courage to hold on to the goodness in themselves, and to hold on to the goodness in each other, no matter how difficult it is to do that.” - 'Nomadland' director Chloé Zhao accepting her Oscar award for best director.
... AND LOSERS
“Let’s toss a huge wig over this thing and pretend it never happened.” - A review of the movie 'Music', which “won” the Razzies, a ceremony held on Oscars’ eve to honour the worst films of the year.
OH MY JOSH!
“We fight, whoever wins gets to keep the name. Everyone else has to change their name.” - Josh Swain’s battle for his name had hundreds of Joshes gather in April in Lincoln, Nebraska, for a pool noodle fight. In the end, four-year-old Josh Vinson, aka Little Josh, was crowned the winner. He received a Burger King crown, a champion’s belt and a small trophy.
Saving the planet
“If working apart, we are a force powerful enough to destabilise our planet. Surely working together, we are powerful enough to save it.” Natural historian and TV legend Sir David Attenborough
OIL SLICK
“We consider the objections to these developments as apartheid and colonialism of a special type, masqueraded as a great interest for environmental protection.” - Energy minister Gwede Mantashe on opposition to oil giant Shell’s plans to perform seismic surveys off the Wild Coast.
“They mobilise you to say you don't want all of that because you love your butterflies, you love your mountains and your grass, so this must stop. That is what you are saying. If the Eastern Cape remains that way, that we don't develop, this is our second Nongqawuse.” - Mantashe a week later on those opposing Shell.
PINOCCHIO IN PARLIAMENT
“May I remind the honourable gentleman that it was the UK that alerted the world to the threat of Omicron.” - UK health secretary Sajid Javid in the British parliament.
“It was a Cinderella moment and I knew I found my true love. I had a glam refresh after because if I walked the aisle with all that mascara running down my face, it would’ve been beyond.” - Tinsel Town princess Paris Hilton on holding back the tears during her wedding to entrepreneur Carter Reum.
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