Do you know who Pretty Boy Floyd was? Late last night I just couldn't remember, though I badly wanted to. Obviously I had Not-so-Pretty Boy Floyd Shivambu, to whom we shall return, on my mind. My father told me about him (PB Floyd, not Shivambu) when I was little(r). I think that's why the name was lodged in my medulla oblongata. But I just couldn't recall.

This lack of recollection on my part is a serious matter. For, my friends, "if we lose our recollections, we lose our history", as I once said. (I could deliver an eight-hour paper on those nine words at Wiser, the Wits intemellectual think-tank, provided my paper contains a number of references to Foucault [pronounced fook-o - but not to be confused with Walter Batiss] and so long as it's suitably incomprehensible ...)

For the point is that certain unscrupulous people are fiddling with our history, and as Solzhenitsyn, the great Russkie, said: the re-writing of history is one of the great challenges that has to be dealt with by democrats and bearded people alike.

Por ejemplo, did you read that the learned fellows at the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled at the end of February that Robert "Rhubarb" McBride, one of the sweetest fellows you could ever hope to meet, never set off any bomb or murdered any people?

He was given amnesty, therefore he didn't do it. (Poor Descartes.) Eish. You should, if you haven't already, read Pierre de Vos on the subject (see here). For once I am in agreement with the snarky little Capetonian legal beagle.

"My brother," I asked my learned friend, Lawless Shaynele-Punim SC, "what in tarnation are they smoking down at the SCA in old Bloemfontein? Or has the injury to Heinrich Brussow of the Cheetahs, or the proximity of goody-two-shoes Jonathan Jansen, depressed them so badly there that they have temporarily lost the plot?"

"Ein-li musag (which is isiXhosa for "I have no idea")," Shaynele-Punim SC replied. "But don't sound so righteous about it all. You guys in the fourth estate ain't doing so well yourselves."

"But I'm not in the fourth estate any more," I ejaculated. But it was a defensive exclamation - because I knew deep inside that Shaynele-Punim SC was right. There are at least three stakes in the collective heart of democracy's watchdog, the media.

First off, I can divulge that the full staff (minus two) of The Sunday Independent - Morag Ben-Yitzhak (aka Maureen Isaacson), Eleanor "Mommies" Momberg, Edwin "Naai-diddley" Naidu, and Aaar-ja Salapoepchik (aka Arja Salafranca) - have complained to the editor-in-chief of the Independent group, Moegsien "baie moegs" Williams, that their editor, the Venda Nostra fellow, the fellow who hasn't quite got the hang of forecasting circulation figures - yes, one Makhudu Sefara - had said they were all "useless".

Gadzooks. How dare he?

You understand what I'm saying here, don't you? If an editor is no longer allowed to tell the full and unvarnished truth publicly, I don't know what the world is coming to. What's left for us all? This attack on Sefara's right to tell the truth was undoubtedly a major attack on press freedom. One can hear that bell tolling; and don't ask for whom it is tolling; it's tolling for you, china.

Second, it's come to my startled attention that the phalanx of political journalists presently serving us has gone soft, wimpish, weak, fragile, feeble, witless, imbecilic, lame and sickly. In short - as Deon du Plessis of Daily Sun fame was wont to say in his youth - "they're all behaving like a bunch of girls".

It all revolves around the issue of the aforementioned Pretty Boy Floyd Shivambu, yet another prize bozo foisted on Seffrica courtesy of the ANC youth brigades. It's a long, tedious and barely comprehensible story, but essentially (George Orwell said you should never use words like "essentially") this: PB Floyd wanted to stop the newspapers from attacking his highness Little Julie Malema and he somehow got hold of some confidential material related to a City Press journalist called Dumisane Lubisi. Naughty stuff, but what did anyone think? That Malema and PB Floyd were nice guys?

Anyway, realizing he was on to a good thing, Pretty Boy then let on that he had "files" and so forth "on" journalists, including proof that certain journalists had been having the big chiluga slipped to them by, or were slipping the big chiluga to, certain politicians in exchange for information - and that he was going to tell the world who they are.

Now this is clearly a bullshit story. Think it through. If journalist A were slipping the big chiluga to Politician B, or vice-versa, in exchange for information, then we would have read some truly remarkable political stories during the last 12 months, wouldn't we? I mean stories that would not normally have seen the light of day (my emphasis, as the scholars say).

And have we? Well, there was that story about Jesse Duarte's e-mail to Gwede Mantashe, complaining sub-textually about Lakela Kaunda. So am I supposed to believe that Moipone "pretty pony" Malefane is having it off with Duarte? I think not, folks. Or maybe Malefane and Comrade Gwede are over-friendly? I think not, folks. One thing about Malefane is that she's a young woman with excellent taste in clothing. Now how could she come anywhere near those jackets and ties that Mantashe often wears? It's just not possible.

Or there was the story about Jacob Zuma's love child with Sonono Khoza. I don't remember who wrote the original piece in the Sunday Times (Prega Govender maybe) but whoever it was, are we supposed to believe that JZ gave the story of his love child to this person in return for sexual favours? I don't think so; he may be proud of his kids but not that proud. Besides, is Pretty Boy going to "out" the president? Pretty Boy and Little Julie might be stupid, but not that stupid. QED.

There's a second point that needs, I'm sorry to say, to be made. I don't mean to be personal or hurtful, but there are not too many major politicians to whom I would want to slip the big chiluga, or too many whom I would like to slip me the big chiluga. How about you? Be honest.

No offence, but the same observation applies to the 19 political correspondents who wrote a letter complaining about Pretty Boy Shivambu's modus operandi. Look at the list (here). That lot wouldn't exactly get to stay overnight at Hugh Hefner's place. Okay, I wouldn't mind a bit of a cuddle with Stephen Grootes - but he's the only one, mind.

But about that letter of complaint to which I just referred. The only way to deal with the likes of Shivambu is to wait outside Luthuli House, lure him into the shadows, and to give him a swift, sharp kick in the nuts. That's what Lin Menge, Diana Powell, Helen Zille, Peta Thornycroft, Amy Musgrave or Karen Bliksem would have done - none of this sissy letter-writing stuff. Ons is blou bulle, mense - ons tjank nie onder die palle nie.

Finally - the last and unkindest blow that the fourth estate has had to brace itself against this week - was the announcement that Andrew Donaldson is not going to be writing his column any more.

I don't know if Donaldson's leaving the Sunday Times or Eish! is merely stopping ...he didn't say much; he sort of slipped his departure in right at the end. Oh well, I'm sorry. He was - is - a very funny oke and we need all the funny okes we can get. There were times when Donaldson's obsessions - Melville drunks, Zuma's wife's brassiere, Shaik the zombie - used to get me down. But there were times when I used to howl with laughter - like a zombie or a Melville drunk tripping the light fantastic or a Zulu maiden dressed only in a bra.

Go well Donaldson. I'm going to miss you. I would like to have seen you hiring a couple of Cape Town sherpas to carry your amp and a battery up to the top of Mahogany Ridge - and then for you to give us a rendition of Hendrix's Voodoo Chile at midnight. Well, maybe you'll still do that.

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