African Humour

I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the following stories which are purported to originate from reputable and serious newspapers but they are probably untrue. Anyhow, they have a humourous siside'

1 From The Cape Times (Cape Town):
"I have promised to keep his identity confidential," said a spokeswoman for the Sandton Sun Hotel, Johannesburg, "but I can confirm that he is no longer in our employment. We asked him to clean the lifts and he spent four days on the job. When I asked him why, he replied: "Well, there are forty of them, two on each floor, and sometimes some of them aren't there". Eventually, we realised that he thought each floor had a different lift, and he'd cleaned the same two, twenty times. We had to let him go. It seemed best all round".

It is understand he has now immigrated to Ireland and may be working at the Shelbourne Hotel Dublin.

2 From The Star (Johannesburg):
"The situation is absolutely under control," the Swazi Transport Minister told Parliament in Mbabane yesterday. "Our nation's merchant navy is perfectly safe. We just don't know where it is, that's all." Replying to an MP's question, the Minister admitted that the landlocked country had completely lost track of its only ship, the Swazimar: "We believe it is in a sea somewhere. At one time, we sent a team of men to look for it, but there was a problem with drink and they failed to find it, and so, technically, yes, we've lost it a bit. But I categorically reject all suggestions of incompetence on the part of this government. The Swazimar is a big ship painted in the sort of nice bright colours you can see at night. Mark my words, it will turn up. The right honourable gentleman opposite is a very naughty man, and he will laugh on the other side of his face when my ship comes in."

It is understood that the Minister is now employed as a consultant to the Irish banking industry.

3 From a Zimbabwean newspaper:
While transporting mental patients from Harare to Bulawayo, the bus driver stopped at a roadside shebeen* (beerhall) for a few beers. When he got back to his vehicle, he found it empty, with the 20 patients nowhere to be seen. Realizing the trouble he was in if the truth were uncovered, he halted his bus at the next bus stop and offered lifts to those in the queue. Letting 20 people aboard, he then shut the doors and drove straight to the Bulawayo mental hospital, where he hastily handed over his 'charges', warning the nurses that they were particularly excitable. Staff removed the furious passengers; it was three days later that suspicions were roused by the consistency of stories from the 20. As for the real patients: nothing more has been heard of them and they have apparently blended comfortably back into Zimbabwean society.

100% for quick thinking on this one, so it is suggested that should he apply for asylum in Ireland that it be granted. He's halfway there already, as he at least knows what a shebeen is.

*Many people wonder where the term shebeen originates from.