PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma, it can be said, has a unique style of public speaking and, during the State of the Nation Address, words managed to claw their way out of his mouth, battered and gasping for breath as if they'd fought for their very lives.
True, he was slightly under the weather on Thursday. "The ‘flu can't wait," he explained to the National Assembly before tackling -- or, if your prefer, mugging -- his speech, and being out sorts could well have been the explanation for what followed.
However, the less charitable among the regulars here at the Mahogany Ridge will tell you that upon being presented with the printed page the man does tend, as a rule, to recoil as if from a mamba, and he approaches the task of reading aloud with the sort of enthusiasm that you'd expect from Huckleberry Finn were he to be suddenly confronted with an algebra paper.
Even mindful of the fact that English is not his first language, one would at least expect him to have skimmed through Thursday's address to familiarise himself with some of the difficult words prior to delivery. It's just a suggestion for next time, and perhaps this sort of preparation would contribute further to the illusion that he'd written the thing himself.
But what we got instead was not without entertainment value.
"On broader economic transformation," Zuma gamely announced to the country, "revised Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act and codes are being funnelised. The development of black owned enterprises and black industrialists will be protorised."