Carnivorous Cow

"I don't buy that!" the Cow muttered to Gramsci. "This survey found that the greatest source of workplace annoyance was gossip! That doesn't seem very likely!"

"They clearly didn't include the Knowledge Factory in the sample," agreed Gramsci. "If people really hated office gossip that much, the grapevine would have died off ages ago, instead of growing new shoots and leaves all the time!"

"And it's been particularly busy of late," added the Cow, "what with all the recent events down the Hill."

"Alleged events," corrected Gramsci. "It was all a dream, remember? But isn't it interesting that gossip beat that heinous crime of 'reply all'? Now that, IMO, ought to be a capital crime, or at least a dismissable offence!"

"Even more than playing with cellphones during meetings?" asked the Cow. "Mind you, I suppose it depends on the ringtone. One more William Tell Overture and I haul out my bow and arrow!"

"Perhaps we should conduct a poll here at the Knowledge Factory," Gramsci suggested. "I'm sure people who come late to meetings, or don't send out agendas and minutes timeously, or Jammie Shuttles who cause students to rush into lectures late, would all feature!"

"Or snotty groupmails instructing rather than advising, or students who park in staff parking bays!"

"Hmmm..." mused Gramsci. "It could get quite lengthy."

"Almost as lengthy as the alleged climate survey," agreed the Cow. "If that ever sees the light of day!"

"Perhaps," suggested Gramsci tentatively, "that was also just a dream?" 

"UCT really is like a soap opera!" the Cow exclaimed as she opened her email. Gramsci looked up, expectantly. "The Bald and the Beautiful?" he asked facetiously.

 "Dallas!" announced the Cow. "Do you remember that entire season, that turned out to be 'only a dream'? Well, the same thing has just happened here!"

Gramsci looked bemused. "You mean...?"

"Exactly!" the Cow sighed. "The 'rumours' and 'allegations' are just 'rumours' and 'allegations'. At least, according to the statement from the VC. None of what 'happened' really happened." 

"Do you think..." Gramsci began timidly.

"Not remotely!" asserted the Cow. "And I'm sure the 'reported threats' of wanting bloggers dismissed for what they blog are also just 'reported threats', and of course the Not the Monday Paper has made clear how powerful a discursive device inverted commas are, so I'll just 'quake' in my 'boots' instead of quaking in my boots." She looked down at her canvas-clad hoofs. "If I had any to 'quake' in, of course..."

"Well..." Gramsci cautioned. "It's been done, you know. When the monks in Burma 'spoke the truth to power', the plug got pulled on them, and the whole internet was closed down."

"Gmf!" the Cow spluttered. "Who'd notice if they closed the internet here? There's no bandwidth to speak of, anyway!"

  (More)

"South Africans think they've got ancestry problems!" chuckled Gramsci. "Seems to me deciding who is and isn't African is small potatoes to the problems this guy's got!"

The Cow shuffled closer. Peering over Gramsci's shoulders, she saw the article he was referring to.  "Now that's downright scary!"

 "Isn't it?" concurred Gramsci. "Imagine hoping to become the first black president of a country, and being outed as family of both the current president, and the current vice president!"

"The Bush dynasty sounds a lot like the Bothas," remarked the Cow. "There was a Thozamile Botha too, wasn't there, in amongst all the PWs and Stoffels and Piks. And, of course, a Gatsha Botha-lezi..."

"And don't forget," Gramsci added, "that Thabo is an anagram of Botha, too!"

The Cow paused. "Do you suppose..." she began nervously, "the same way that certain afflictions are hereditary, like haemophilia and a predilection to alcoholism, that politicianism might be genetically linked, too?" 

The Cow was most delighted to see that the new Deputy Registrar had decreed that the University was "being run like a boarding school for rich white kids" - at least according to Varsity.

"Can you imagine," she chuckled to Gramsci, "they'll have to start wearing those funny straw hats, and stripey blazers, and pinafore dresses made of itchy material in unflattering colours?"

"Don't they already wear a uniform?" asked Gramsci, perplexed. "It seems that the girls all dress out of the same Truworths catalogue every morning, and the guys out of the same bargain bin at Clones-R-Us. And it seems as unrelated to the weather as any uniform - naked bellies in midwinter, and thick pantyhose in midsummer!"

The Cow flinched. 'Flattering' was clearly an unknown concept to many undergraduates compiling their wardrobes for the day. "And all that green!" she added in horror. "It's like a plague of sea-sickness, in technicolor!"

"At least the Deputy Registrar isn't exposed too much to the vagaries of student fashion down at Toad Hall," Gramsci added. "The only students he'll be faced with are the naughty ones dressed in their funeral best coming to beg for their academic lives at the Tribunal hearings."

"Hmm..." mused the Cow, "perhaps that's what he was alluding to, with his boarding school reference? Issues of misconduct? Isn't it always the precious schools whose kids beat homeless people to death?"

Gramsci had a twinkle in his eye. "Perhaps," he suggested, "he's really proposing that we out-compete Stellenbosch with a really hectic initiation for newbies?"

The Cow paused. She wasn't sure that corpses piling up on Jammie steps was a good idea, or that naked nubiles being chased around the Campus at dawn every day would be good for the average staff member's heart.

Gramsci sighed. "Only problem with that is," he scratched his spidery abdome, "if it's to be a boarding school, we'd need more residence places. And since there aren't any, they'd have to platoon into offices at night. Would you really want half of your bookshelves taken up with someone's hip hop collection?"

A shudder ran through the Cow's nervous system. "Can't we rather settle for a poncy day school instead?" she begged.

Free Burma!