I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercises; and indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory...

Only kidding. What I have actually been doing of late - for reasons with which I shall not bore you - has been re-reading Charles van Onselen's awe-inspiring The Fox and the Flies. This, as you will recall, is the story of psychopath Joseph Silver (aka Joseph Lis) whom Van Onselen believes was Jack the Ripper.

Van Onselen also describes inter alia Silver's method of physically (and mentally) terrorising various young females so that they became his chattels whom he then rented out as prostitutes; and tells the story of how Silver/Lis and others imported young women from the old country and from the US, into gold-rush Johannesburg, and later to South America as well.

I have been thinking of Silver during the last 48 hours as some of the saga of the apparently thoroughly unpleasant Dirk Prinsloo, an advocate from Pretoria, and formerly the paramour of the woman known as Advocate Barbie, has unfolded in a court in Baranovichi, Belarus.

According to a former Belarusian girlfriend, Prinsloo, that old charmer, said to her that, if she told people about how he abused her, he would "cut my body until I die". Just what Silver/Lis used to threaten - and do.

Anyway, do you realise how far we have come in this country since the days when gold was discovered on the reef of the white waters? In those days, when it came to abusing young women, for example, we had to import expertise and experience from Europe et al.

But nowadays we are exporting - as in the case of Advocate Ken (aka Prinsloo) - to mother Russia! And he's (apparently) an Afrikaner, nogal! They're out of the laager, gadzooks, and not leaving it to the Yids and all the usual suspects to take care of all the entrepreneurial stuff.

And how's the dude's arrogance!? When Judge Vasiliy Petriv, the presiding judicial officer, disallowed something Prinsloo said to his ex-Belarusian Barbie, Prinsloo expostulated: "I was hailed in my country as a brilliant cross-examiner. Now I am hampered by you!"

I feel a little sad however that Prinsloo did not use his own, good Seffrican name but initially introduced himself to "Anastasia" (the abused girlfriend) as Michael Grant, an Australian businessman. I'd rather introduce myself as Julius Malema than as an Australian businessman.

Another exciting story of the last week or two has been the devlopment in the US of A of the world's first "sex robot", a life-size rubber doll that's designed to engage the owner with conversation rather than lifelike movement.

It all sounds suspiciously like real life after, say, 15 years of marriage. But let me not go there. Anyway, if the owner touches Roxxxy's hand, "she" responds: "I love holding hands with you". And if one touches her, er, elsewhere, she responds with something apprently unprintable - certainly on a family site such as this.

What caught my attention, however, first of all, was the photograph of Roxxxy that appeared in The Star. That is some belligerent jaw! In fact Roxxxy looks exactly like any number of young ladies of my acquaintance when I studied overseas 40 or so years ago ... ladies who hailed from the Bronx or New Jersey and whose forebears had originally come from somewhere in the Mediterranean. Serious déjà vu for me. I wonder if I know the robot creator, Douglas Hines? (Interestingly, I see that his company is situated in New Jersey.)

Talking of whom, the second thing that claimed my attention was the man's shamelessness. Apparently he was initially inspired to create a robot after a friend died in the 9/11 attack. He started thinking of a way to preserve his friend's personality so that the man's children would have a chance to "interact" (Hines's word, not mine) with the man as they were growing up. So far, so good, albeit a trifle ghoulish.

But then, looking around for commercial applications for artificial personalities, he decided to create a health care aide for the elderly. This is, I think, also a fine idea. I wouldn't mind mooching around in my dotage with Roxxxy.

But, because "there was tremendous regulatory and bureaucratic paperwork to get through" (to create a health care aide), this Hines bozo promptly dumps the idea - no staying power, no sitzfleisch - and makes a sex robot. You see: Karl Marx, Jeremy Cronin and Blade Nzimande were/are correct: capitalism does not necessarily bring out the good side of a person; au contraire. 

But why, I hear you cry, am I writing about this Pretoria psychopath, now safely in Belarus, and this oke from New Joizey when there so many more important things to talk about?

I guess I'm feeling irritated with the medi-ah - in all its manifestations. One important hard news story recently was the attack on the Togolese soccer team in northern Angola. So what do the local (media) bozos do?

They spend days, column inches, and long minutes of radio and TV footage asking the usual suspects how "we" (meaning South Africa) can possibly host the 2010 world cup when this bus has been shot up in northern Angola. Er, said the Danny Jordaans of this world, we can't quite see the connection. You think?

Or take the recent song and dance about Eugene "Prime Evil" de Kock, the erstwhile commander of Vlakplaas. It all started in The Sunday Independent (TSI) a couple of weeks ago, when the newspaper told us breathlessly - well, its poster told us, but its page one headline was phrased as a question (the kiss of death, my chinas - never have a question in a page one headline) - that JZ, the prez, had been to see De K in April (I think it was) and that he (the prez) was going to give De K a pardon.

There was no source (never mind the requisite "two sources" beloved of journalism teachers) for the story other than someone referred to (again if my memory serves me) as "De Kock's right-hand man".

"Let me tell you something for free," as I said testily to my wife, "De Kock ain't got any right-hand man at the minute - other than Jann Turner, and, as best as I can tell, she's certainly no man. What's more, anyone that cared in any way about De Kock's ‘well-being' would not be telling stories to the media about a forthcoming presidential pardon (even if the stories are true) because they can only do the fellow harm."

How do I know this? Because I wrote a book about (and with) De Kock in 1998 and Turner and I went to see him in February last year (according to Turner's diary), during which visit, to cut a long story short, it became clear that there is a bit of a shortage of right-hand men just now in the De Kock camp. Hence my comment to my wife and hence my irritation about that TSI story. (PS. De K applied for a pardon years ago; it's been sitting in the president's proverbial in-tray for at least four years.)

So what do we get? A completely speculative piece, with no apparent basis whatsoever, followed by days of James "Jimmy" Selfe of the Democratic Alliance banging on righteously about why Zuma can't - or should not - give De Kock and Schabir Shaik pardons.

And of course every Tom, Dick and Harry - even people I usually respect - is saying (as did The Star): "Speculation is rife that Zuma would grant a pardon to De Kock in an effort to ward off criticism over a simultaneous pardon for Shaik."

Is it not clear yet that Zuma pretty much does what he likes? Or, rather, while he might pay some attention to what his lieutenants, political allies and okes on the ANC national executive committee might think, he certainly doesn't give much of a fig for the DA or any of the other whiners.

Are you surprised, dear readers, that I have been far more taken with Prinsloo and Roxxxy rather than matters of great moment?

As Judge Petriv said to Prinsloo: "I am not interested in what expert you were in South Africa, you are now in Belarus."

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