"Birth flu claims 9th Indonesian," declared the online poster for one of News24.com's top international stories last week. So, a new disease scare joins the looming bird flu crisis.
A radio ad for SABC TV soap opera Isidingo urges young men to "come out of the closet" and admit they love watching the show. After all, burbles the voice, "this is the 20th century".
No wonder TV is called the idiot box.
At a slide presentation on China, two FM readers were intrigued by a photograph of the signs for a pair of men's and women's toilets in Beijing.
They showed the usual male and female figures, with corresponding Chinese words. But the male sign also carried the translation: "Genitil Emen".
No translation for the "Ladies", genitil or otherwise. It really is "e-male" world.
A man dies and goes to hell. There he finds a different hell for every country. But he can choose.
At the German hell he asks what goes on, and is told: "First they put you in an electric chair for an hour. Then they toss you on a bed of nails for another hour. Then the German devil comes and whips you for the rest of the day."
He doesn't like the sound of that, and so moves on. After checking out numerous hells - American, Chinese, British, Swedish and so on - he finds they are all equally bad. But, when he reaches the South African hell he finds a long line of people waiting to get in.
"What happens here?" he asks.
"First they put you in an electric chair for an hour. Then they toss you on a bed of nails for another hour. Then the South African devil comes and whips you for the rest of the day," is the reply.
"But that's the same as all the other hells. Why are you all trying to get in?"
"Well, maintenance is so bad that the electric chair never works, someone has stolen all the nails from the bed and the devil is a municipal official, so he comes in, signs the register and goes to sleep for his whole shift."
To keep his queens in the comfort to which they are accustomed, King Goodwill Zwelithini has asked government for six new Mercedes E280 models at R410 000 each, the Cape Argus reports. For himself, His Majesty has indicated that a top-of-the-range, R1,1m Mercedes S600 will be acceptable. He has not had a new car since the bomb-proof S500 bought three years ago (for which replacement bullet-proof tyres, at R26 000-plus a throw, are proving heavy going).
Perhaps it would be cheaper to build him a high-speed train.
Denying that the fuel shortage in Zimbabwe was affecting Air Zimbabwe's operations, a spokesman for the airline was quoted in Business Day as saying: "As we speak, our flight to Harare is about halfway through the trip, and it's about to land."
Part of the halfway flight plan?
Police telephoned an FM staffer recently to tell her they had recovered her car, which had been stolen.
They found it in northern Limpopo province, they said - in the town named, appropriately, Soekmekaar!
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