SURPRISE of the raised eyebrows sort as President Jacob Zuma this week claimed to know a bit about sleep disorders, telling supporters in Mpumalanga that "when a person is walking while dreaming it means he is unstable".
It means, of course, nothing of the sort - even as a reference to the ruling party's detractors. But then this was in Mpumalanga, which is a strange part of the country and they believe in all sorts of stuff up there .
Like the president's claim that the the ANC would "continue to run this government for ever and ever". That sort of arrogance, of concern to opposition parties, certainly does go down a treat with the faithful and it could well be that even the president thinks it's true.
But here at the Mahogany Ridge we accept that such hubris is par for the course in an election year; all gods, if you must know, were immortal, just as the Soviets and the Third Reich would rule for all time. So, notwithstanding the possibility that it was the president who may have been both walking and talking while dreaming, we were not particularly alarmed at Zuma's comments.
What is a little more worrying, though, was the president's call on supporters to ensure the ANC wins more than two-thirds of the vote in the election, saying that this would enable him to fiddle a bit with the constitution.
"We want a huge majority this time," he was quoted as saying, "because we want to change certain things that couldn't be changed with a small majority, so that we move forward because there are certain hurdles. People talk about a constitution they have never seen. We saw that constitution."