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Christmas in January, but…
The month of January has not been as long and dry as we feared it would be as Christmas returned quickly, albeit in low key. The trickles from the civil servants have definitely helped to brighten the scene and keep our throats a bit wet. We really love the idea of staggered payments coming hot on each other’s heels after a few days.

This has certainly been great for those of us with many friends who get little white papers from the SSB each month. But we really must make our displeasure known to the minister responsible.

The problem with paying bonuses after the festive season is over is that the spending bug has come and gone and sombre sobriety has hit everyone.

Schools have opened and other domestic issues are insistent on the pocket, hence very little makes its way to the bartender.

So the cheer is rather muted. Regulars who would normally drink their pay packets into the bar and treat us till our sight is blurred have turned out to be different animals this month.

They avoid the usual place until they are only left with a few measly dollars in their pockets.

Of course we are grateful for any cold one we can grab, but we know that things could be better, much better.

Given a choice between a short but intense party in December and one long dribble that lasts into January, we would sooner have the first one, thank you.

So Mr Minister, may you please plan accordingly and make sure that all civil servants are paid their 2015 bonuses in November and December so that we regulars at the usual place can get the full benefit of this windfall.

Otherwise everything just goes to the spouses and the brats and that retailer whose parents were of Indian origin.

We thank you in advance for your kind understanding and your commitment not to mess up our festive season again, sir.

Giants in the mists

Remember those childhood tales of giants that were feared by everyone until someone discovered that they were really just small boys playing tricks?

Or maybe how the fearsome Goliath was felled with a simple catapult, nerekeni chaiyo? One giant ogre in the Eastern Highlands has been disrobed and all manner of Davids are coming out of the woodwork to line up for their own blow in retaliation for all the protection fees and other taxes that the ogre was demanding all these years.

Now you know how at the usual place we believe in kicking scum once it has been removed from the top of the pot where it will have been frothing and suffering from self-delusion that it is untouchable and slapped onto the ground.

We especially like to see repeated kicks to the teeth when a person who deserves to fall refuses to lie down and take what is due.

So no mercy comrades, kick the Mafioso as hard as you can while wearing the strongest pair of boots you can find until he lies flat.

Musiye anyatsoti tasa! But meanwhile, let us make sure that no new ogres are being reared in the backyard while we concentrate on flogging dying horses.

Extra small

This craze of going to perform outside the country which has seized musicians was bound to misfire sooner rather than later.

And sure enough, X-tra Large and Madiz managed to draw an extra small crowd of two paying patrons who were so ashamed of their own poor taste in turning up for the show that they slunk away before the boys hit the stage.

At the usual place we have nothing against the singers, in fact we will admit that the X-tra Large duo is a great favourite of ours.

But all the same we think it is foolhardy to take people who are not riding high on the local scene and try to palm them off onto the people in the diaspora as the music of home.

What do you think the use of WhatsApp and Facebook are?

It is to let those who are far away know what is what.

The banana bending machines are as outdated as Madiz’s Congolese dances, please.

God is a Muslim

No we are not putting our two cents worth into the Charlie Hebdo attack which we think grossly misfired for the attackers.

They went and murdered grunts who were down the greasy pole and just trying to earn a living, instead of targeting their own size in the form of the real movers and shakers.

Before they shot those people some of us did not even know Charlie Hebdo from a heap of sadza and did not care.

We still do not give one bond coin cent about the hate rag whose freedom of expression plea is as valid as a rapist pleading his freedom of sexual pleasure.

But now we and every goatherd, nerd, prostitute and tout know about it and the publisher is laughing all the way to the bank as the magazine becomes a best seller.

Three million copies sold just like that and prices jumping like crazy on E-bay for a magazine that has been struggling to stay alive!

They could not have dreamt of a better marketing strategy if they had tried.

But anyway, that is neither here nor there.

What we are really on about is something closer home. Remember that gentleman who hit the news for all the wrong reasons.

Many are the curses that were called down on his scheming and evil head when students found themselves stranded in foreign countries after he had squandered their fees in the name of procuring scholarships for them.

From the mouths of all the angry students and parents, word went to the right place and divine Sharia law was implemented.

You know how that law says if you steal then the hand you use should be amputated.

Last laugh

This one comes courtesy of some Twitter character called Harare Cynic who we believe is a regular at the usual place who believes in placing his brilliant light under the bushel of a pseudonym like all geniuses we know, ahem:

Bartender: What will it be for you sir?

Important Personage: Diesel on the rocks

Till next week, bottoms up!

Facebook: Bra Gee email: [email protected], Twitter: @brageesbar