Chinese spy agency awards highest honour to pedantic, finicky management team

Local spy agencies are on damage control this morning, after the Chinese secret service awarded China’s highest honour to a group of citizens for “their tireless and intricate efforts to derail the capitalist machine at every imaginable moment.”

A spokesperson for the secret agency – which doesn’t have a name, because that’s the whole point of a secret – said that the indefatigable work of Judy McKennen from HR, senior manager Mike Kromanaj and Bob from Accounting to “disrupt and waylay every step of the Western Capitalist ideology with unnecessary Red Tape, endless bureaucracy that boggles common sense, and an unceasing wave of forms, authorisation requests and subcommittee deliberations” was “inspiring to all anti-capitalist patriots and worthy of the Gold Star of The People’s Republic.”

“When it comes to Judy, Mike and Bob’s stance against the disgusting and hateful Capitalist system, no effort is wasted,” said the agency in a declassified statement yesterday. “Whether it’s requiring that all paperwork be filled out in triplicate and each paged initialed and countersigned by the heads of management, or that carbon copies of all minutia be collated and in alphabetic – not chronological – order, these three have the capitalist pigs in their cross-hairs.”

The agency now says that not even their best agents could so effectively halt and hinder good, positive business practices that would otherwise bring order, efficiency and sanity to the work environment.

“They take it to the next level – a level our field operatives could never in their wildest dreams consider possible,” they continued. “Having three-hour-long meetings that deliberate the syntax and semantics of what are in effect trivial policy documents before deferring the matter to a three-week subcommittee inquiry; micromanaging employees to an extent where even the most menial and basic of tasks – such as stacking boxes – can’t be done without oversight; or making sure that all documents of extreme importance are lost, subjected to massive delays or simply filled in incorrectly – this team has the Communist agenda’s manifesto right at its heart.”

And it’s not just the management team that was awarded this prestigious medal – the Honourable People’s Star of Devotion (an equally important award) was given to Erik in sales.

“Erik is also a true patriot,” said the agency at the awards ceremony. “He takes hours to complete even the most simply job, breaks tool and equipment, wastes company time and resources, steals their stationary, and always has to double- and triple-check with management before doing literally anything. And then, after coming in late, fourteen coffee breaks and two hours wasted on social media, he clocks off for an early lunch.”

“And the most surprising thing is that Erik isn’t even on our list of active agents, yet he does our work so well,” said the agency. “The only reasonable explanation we can think of is that he is one of code-red operatives so deeply embedded in the imperialist West that not even we know he’s working for us.”

“I mean, surely no thinking human being could ever be this wilfully shit at their job? Right?”

Flier makes it a record-breaking 178m before being binned

An advertising flier has smashed world records today, after being wilfully carried over 170m before being binned. The astonishing achievement completely destroyed previous attempts, which never got beyond ‘just a few feet from the dude handing them out.’

The flier, which was first handed to 25-year-old Hannah Dout on the intersection of Crosswell and Bosman streets in Cape Town at about 8.45am this morning and portrays a “incredible” and “not to be missed” two-for-one special at Jerry’s Rib Shack, reportedly made it all the way to corner of King Avenue before being palmed into a nearby trash can.

Official reports state that the flier made it this incredible distance, even despite there being “six convenient bins within arm’s reach” between the two points and also despite the simple fact that “she could have tossed that shit in the gutter at any time”.

However, not everyone is ecstatic. Already the record attempt has been contested by the previous winner, Noah Than-Que.

“I have since carried a pointless garbage flier at least fourteen times that distance,” he explained in an angry email to the Guinness Organisation of World Records. “Surely my record should be recognised?”

Controversy is sure to arise, as Guinness officials have not recognised his achievement.

“Eye witness reports state that he read both sides of the flier and nodded with a small smile, before putting it in his backpack,” said Guinness CEO Naim Laikebeer. “Clearly he wanted the flier, even going so far to take it home.”

"Besides," he added, "he willing took it with intent instead of having that bloody guy walk right up to you with a fake smile and force it into your hand while you pretend to be interested in his enthusiastic support of pointless environmental waste."

Readers are encouraged to print this article out and force strangers to take it, or just save us all some time and throw it away as soon as it hits the print tray.

China wins most beautiful sunset award

Years of hard work and extensive investment in large power plants and industrial centres have finally paid off today, after China finally cinched the international award for World’s Best Sunsets.

In a large and mandatory-attendance address given by President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China, the country humbly accepted the award, paying homage to the “thousands of hours and lives” that had gone into the decades- long project.

“It’s been a long, hard journey,” said the president, a tear (that had nothing to do with the high levels of industrial smog in the air) in his eye. “It’s cost us millions of dollars, but it’s all been worth it. I think you and your one child can agree, the sacrifice has finally paid off.”

International awards committees were unanimous in their praise for the magnificent achievement, saying that, in terms of sunsets , there was just no competition.

“It’s utterly breathtaking,” said one reviewer on the awards selection committee panel, “and I mean that both literally and figuratively. Best of all, the sunset starts at about 3pm. The improvements to God’s canvas of light have been stunning – the dense layer of dust and smoke that gives the sun its characteristic beautiful auburn glow starts almost directly overhead, making for magnificent viewing at any moment of the day. Thanks to their ceaseless efforts, there aren’t even any natural obstacles, like trees or low-flying birds, to spoil the view.”

China’s tourism industry has long boasted their twilight spectacle, which is the world’s first ever scented sunset.

“With a robust – and some might say powerfully aromatic – odour, our sunset’s metallic and chemical overtones, which are complemented by a smoky, ashy finish that lingers on the palate, are perfectly representative of the sweet, sweet smell of human and industrial progress.”

The achievement has its controversies too, however, with economists and financial experts constantly debating the issue.

“It might be the world’s most beautiful sunset,” said financial analyst Paul Fiscal, “but it’s also one of the most expensive. Many don’t know this, but China has to keep nearly four-hundred coal-fired power plants running at overcapacity every day just to keep their oranges and golds that vibrant and luminous. This is above and beyond the millions of cars and busses that fill the streets. In today’s competitive market – especially with the fact that the world’s natural weather system naturally spreads our Sunset Beautifying Agents, like Sulphur Dioxide and Heavy Metal compounds, to other countries, China is going to have to step up their game if it wants to stay competitive in a world that is slowly but surely seeing these incredible sunsets becoming more and more commonplace.”

China, however, has taken this challenge confidently.

“Even if countries are stepping up their game and ignoring the Kyoto agreement – even if they triple their Sunset Development Programs – we are confident that China will be the world leader in beautiful sunsets until the end of the world,” said Minister of Natural Development Pol Hu-shun. “Which should be for about seven years or so.”

Pics (modified): Tyvek suits from Jarek Tuszynski, Sunset from PLJ, and nuclear waste from Christian Fischer.

Artistic tendencies turn piece of crap into theatrical genius

It was a close call for local theatre production company UpStage Productions this week, after theatre critics’ and art reviews’ tendencies to obsess over themes and metatextual references made their latest show Glass Grey Sky an “insightful, profound piece that evokes a self-aware critique of postmodernism” instead of just a piece of really crap theatre with no real point or production value.

The show, which was written and directed by Arya Dzjoking and featured out-of-tune violins, out-of-sync choreography and seven instances of actors forgetting their lines, has been hailed by reviewers and physical theatre experts as “just ambiguous enough to be called ‘spectacular’”.

“To the lay man or woman, it might have looked really awful,” said reviewer and long-time Physical Theatre expert Harold Cress. “I mean, if it wasn’t for my ability to look past the flat, dead soundtrack and interpret this as a direct symbol of the paucity of life and lack of vim and vigour in the post-modern subject who inhabits an abyss of futile dreams, or my training which has prepared me to look into those expressionless, bland faces with too much make-up caked on their cheeks and read within them a scathing critique of the deadness of our Self in the modern digitalised era and our obsession with socially mediated appearances no deeper than a thimble that in no way form a meaningful representation of our true selves and beings, then it just might have been the worse, trite piece of shit of I’ve ever watched. But like I said, below the surface, it was genius.”

The show, which has purportedly gone over the heads of over seven thousand people without Dramatic Arts degrees or Arts Journalism training since its opening last weekend, will now tour the country, debuting at R150 a ticket.

“Some people have gone to see our show and been all like ‘oh, I totally didn’t get that, what the hell did I just watch?’,” said show director, producer and choreographer Sim Bolism, “but then again, what would those artless, ignorant pricks know about dance?”

Skrillex now most highly paid, decorated Solitaire player

In a report by competitive solitaire ranking organisation Card Sharks International (CSI), part-time button pusher and mouse-clicker, Apple-product whore and full-time solitaire aficionado Skrillex has trumped other part-time phase/volume knob spinners and soundboard dial turners to win the prestigious title of International Man of Solitaire.

"When it came to picking a champion, someone who utterly defined the lifelong commitment to the game of Solitaire, there really was no other choice," said head of the awards selection committee Dubs Teip. "I mean, his Solitaire skills are off the charts. He jets around the world, practicing and competing almost every night in front of crowds of thousands of screaming fans, even going so far to play the game until the wee hours of the morning, in clubs and festivals filled with hundreds of distracting bright lights, laser displays and loud music, winning game after game after game, even in face of endless high-pace wub wub sounds mixed with recordings of breaking appliances."

Skrillex will now join the ranks of some of the greatest and much-loved Solitaire players in history, such as Deadmau5, Aviici and the Friar's DJ.

"I'm proud," said the Friar's DJ, who took time out of his busy schedule asking if there were any first-years in the club to speak to reporters. "He's finally rolling in the big leagues. Oh, and ten minutes until the Russian Bear special ends, make some fucking nooooooiiise!"

Tiep agreed wholeheartedly.

"The fact that he consistently lights up that MacBook screen with badly pixellated victory fireworks even when he's pretending to actively make music that isn't all premixed and prerecorded is just an incredible testament to his skill as a card sharp."

While many might consider Solitaire a silly waste of time to dabble with because you're desperately lonely, bored, and don't know how to play Minesweeper or have a laptop that can't run a real game, CSI says otherwise.

"It's a bold and world-reknowned game going back thousands of years," said Tiep. "It requires skill and determination. There might be prerecording, shuffling, crossfading and auto-equalising apps for music, but Solitaire is something that you have to do yourself."

Fans of the game should be sure to attend this month's current league Championships, which are being hosted in nightclubs and at trance festivals across the country. Entry is between R10 and R50.

Man wins coveted Fest award

pic by Richie Diesterheft, Flickr

A 42-year-old man has won the coveted Stranded Bank Standing Ovation award at the Grahamstown National Festival of the Arts this weekend, after wowing audiences with his stunning portrayal of everyday life in South Africa.

The four-day immersion-performance play, which was hosted on a very much appropriate venue (the corner of Debonairs) and had several edge-of-your-seat, heart-gripping acts, such as Being Ignored By Rich People, Reeling Drunk, Passed Out and Getting Forcibly Removed By The Police, has reportedly wowed audiences with its true-to-life depiction of the ordeals poverty-stricken people in South Africa face every day.

According to award selection officials, the in-depth production values were just the first impressive point of the performance.

"Fantastic costumes, and the production values were amazing!" said Jake Manders, one of the selection committee members. "The make up was SO real. The sores on his legs and arms were so lifelike, they even appeared to pustulate with some sort of fake blood. Even the clothing appeared to be really worn in, as if he had worn that shirt for months on end without being able to afford a different one to wear."

"No detail was too small," praised the committee in their evaluation. "Even the smell of unwashed body and untreated tuberculosis was a level of verisimilitude not seen in modern theatre," they said. "Even his stomach grumbled realistically. We just don't know how he does it."

According to sources who knew the performer, the man had starved himself for almost a year and a half for the role.

After manufacturing a detailed and heartbreaking backstory (which involved childhood poverty, no education, and being kicked out of his small shack in Fingo), he went on to eat almost as little as once a day - and even then only small, insubstantial foodstuffs.

"His dedication to the act is mind-blowing," said the committee. "We haven't seen performance art be more lifelike. This borders on the insane method acting prep of Christian Bale and Heath Ledger."

The once-off performance ended yesterday afternoon with the tragic and heart-wrenching finale, in which the man passed away.

"It was very lifelike," said one festival goer. "He moaned a little, held out his hands at the audience members as if for alms, and then... his eyes just went blank. The police came and did a very good job of acting the removal of the body, caution tape and all. I felt like I was watching a real person die."

The man, whose name is not yet known, is set to receive his award (which, in unrelated news, cannot be given posthumously) next week.

B&B wins Fest ovation award

pic from FreeFoto

In what is being described as a shock development in the Arts industry, the local bed and breakfast houses and hotels of Grahamstown have been awarded the coveted Bandard Stank Standing Ovation Award for the 2013 National Arts Festival.

According to the prize selection committee, comprising some of the greatest known art, film and music critics in South Africa, the Grahamstonian accommodation industry's portrayal of housing prices was incredibly, mind-blowingly, stunningly and tautologically incredible.

"Usually it's about R700 per person per night," said famed art critic Preeten Shus. "When we saw their bold, stunning and stone-faced presentations of some R1000 per person per night excluding catering, we were blown away."

This bold performance of such crazy themes of insanity and imagination gone wild, said Shus, was an immediate shoe-in for the award.

"The last time we saw the depiction of such science fiction and what would normally be considered ridiculous was early postmodern Absurdism during the 60s," he said.

Some artists have been angered by this development saying that it denigrates the arts industry.

However, many more have resignedly accepted it.

"We took a look at our bill for the weekend of staying here and performing, and we've really got to hand it to them," said Contemporary Dancer Spinan Twist. "They've done a sterling job of making the absurd a reality."

Runner-ups included the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and Rhodes University, who pretended that Tuesday's Braised Club Steak is real meat.

"The DFA had a wonderfully ridiculous claim that they'd take a harder line on diplomacy with our African neighbours, such as Zimbabwe during the elections, but those themes have been kind of done to death by their original director, Thabo Mbeki," said Shus.

"As for the Braised Steak thing, that's just a little to incredulous for our tastes."

Guy two rows behind you now officially biggest prick alive

According to sources from an awards selection committee, the guy sitting two rows behind you chattering away incessantly during that theatre production you were trying to enjoy last night has now been dubbed "the biggest prick currently living on planet Earth".

Nominated by his peers and fellow theatre-goers, the praise for his proficiency in this department was heaped on the man within minutes, after the well-attended premier of this play, held at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown.

"That f*$#ing son of  bitch, he's honestly the biggest asshole in the world. Couldn't he just shut the hell up for two seconds?" reads one of the first nominations. Other sterling commendations of his superiority in this field include shining words like "prick-faced loudmouth" and "Blackberry-thumbing knobhead".

According to the selection committee from the Institute of Deciding Who, Exactly, Is The Biggest Douchebag On This Planet (IDWEITBDOTP), 28-year-old fitness instructor John "Boet" Bradshaw from Johannesburg was the immediate stand-out candidate. Apparently, the gym-loving loudmouth outdid even Mit Romney and that guy who always smokes in the nonsmoking section of your favourite restaurant for the coveted award.

"His loudmouth, inane commentary with his equally intellectually-challenged significant other, his tendency to not turn off his phone and always chuckle at his BBM messages, and his grating habit of snapping flash-always-on-and-as-bright-as-bloody-possible photographs of the shows you've paid good money to enjoy were all factors that made him on par with some of the biggest contenders for this award since we started giving it," read the Institution's report.

Historic analysts have come forward with a detailed history of the man's achievements, showing his long history of experience in ruining performance art.

"He's been ruining theatre for years now, but this is his first real recognition for all his hard work," said Histaree Boeks, a record keeper. "Ever since his first days as a six-year-old in a beautiful wedding ceremony, in which he constantly and audibly nagged to go pee-pee, he's been destined for greatness."

However, insiders on the committee have admitted that it was a close battle.

"Apparently, it wasn't until he started crinkling endless Sparkles packets to death that he sealed his prize," said the source, whose name we would have misspelled misspellt mispelt mispelled gotten wrong if we'd actually had to write it out.

Bradshaw will be honoured at a ceremony later this week, where he will join other awardees Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and the guy who recently ruined the Great Gatsby for everyone who's ever read the book.

Rhodes University posters cinch award for terrible design

The International Association for Worst Design Ever has this morning awarded Rhodes University a completely uncontested award for the worst poster design... ever. In a statement released this morning, the IAWDE said that, in light of the sheer volume of entries and the calibre thereof, the posters and campaigns at RU are, in general, far, far worse than even the lowest comparable standards, such as those set by the fantastic Olympic logo.

One you've seen it, you can't unsee it. Source: Celebitchy.com

The logo in a nutshell. Source: Celebitchy.com

"We first started considering the University for this award after seeing a few of their HIV-awareness campaign pictures being put online. These tactful, tasteful, subtle and informative adverts were not at all creepy in any way and succeeded in raising awareness for HIV and safe-sex practices," said the IAWDE spokesperson Ohgohd Mai-Eyes. "We don't consider the blind or insane for these awards, but once we learnt that the brilliant minds behind these posters were sane and possessed great visual acuity, we immediately jumped to the screening selection," he said.

One of the first posters to receive a nomination.

This is actually not a satirical, bullshit thing. Seriously. WTF.

The campaigns have been met by huge praise by many Rhodes students.
"When I saw those adverts, I felt relieved," said one female student. "At first I thought that my boyfriend's professions that he wanted to be close to me were just a way to get into my pants, but now I know, thanks to Ryan and Rhodes, that he cares. Now I knew that Rhodes men know to buy the hugest, massivest box of condoms out there to show a girl true, deep love. You know, the kind that has no boundaries," she said.

However, according to Mai-Eyes, at this point of the process there were still some other candidates in the field who were neck-in-neck with Rhodes for that winning spot, including the Ryugyong building in Pyongyang, North Korea:

Voted by Esquire Magazine as "the worst building ever"

and the guy who drew this tattoo:

The resemblence is uncanny.

However, Rhodes University's contestation for the award took on new, unforeseen levels of intensity after the SRC elections started. The real problems for the selection committee started here, after they saw the new and sheer volume of posters vying for the top - or rather bottom - spot.

"After the election process started, that building started looking like the Taj Mahal, and I honestly mistook that tattoo for the Mona Lisa," said Mai-Eyes, shaking his head in wonder.
"We realised that this new level of bad was so utterly and atrociously horrible that not even MTV would fill its screens with that kind of face-palmingly horrendous, "WTF is wrong with the world" general eye-hurting visual material. When we saw that there were posters out there that made Jersey Shore look more classy and dignified than a Toastmasters Society meeting, we knew we had a tough decision on our hands."

This sudden development was spurred on even further by a failure for the election process to reach quorum.
"Before, some of the campaign posters weren't actually that bad, and at least some of the students would pretend that they gave a shit about office by randomly throwing words like 'accountability', 'transparency', 'responsibility' and 'transformation' into their posters. However, new evidence shows that less than 10% of the new posters on display have even one of those Key Words in view, and that candidates now give as much as 84% less of a shit", said IADWE research assistant Ian Notpaidenuf, whose job it was to study each and every poster in-depth for the final appraisal.

He went on to show us some of the nominated posters. "One reads like the most obscure personal advertisement ever, showing nothing but the candidate in the usual  vote-winning, voter-reassuring combination of tie-suit-jacket and a bunch of twitter and  facebook links. And one of those BBM barcode thingies. You can't forget that."

Vote for me: I can does interwebz

"Some," he said, gesturing at the pile on his desk, "just show their dedication  to winning this award in their utter disregard for any coherent structure, design flow, grammar or punctuation, whilst others just leave you completely agog," he said, before taking out a gun and blowing his brains out.

The content in competition, as you can see, has been jaw-dropping.

This, apparently, is NOT a joke.

Eventually, Mai-Eyes said, they decided not to hand out an award to one defining poster, but to just generally class them all as the overall winner.
"They all generally inspire a feeling of desolation and emptiness when you look at them, and so we decided we can't single just one out," he said. "I mean, here, we have a guy running for SRC Academic Counciller and he misspelt the office for which he was running. Another one claimed that the candidate was 'APPAOCHABLE' - in capital letters too, just in case you didn't quite understand how approachable she was."

He should run for SRC Irony Counciler (sic).
Positive attributes: advanced flame-war skills

APPRAOCHABLE! YOU HEAR ME? APPRAOCABLE!
At least she spelt "councillor" corre...
Oh wait. She didn't.

The President of the IAWDE, Verra Bleind has added her voice to the proceeding, saying that these have been the most remarkable examples of bad campaign advertising since Mike Gravel's genius video in his 2008 campaign for the 2008 American Presidency. "Seriously," she said. "Not even the part where he throws that rock could compete with these posters. I mean, these posters really do go out of their way to show you as little as possible about who the candidates really are deep inside, and why it wouldn't be a mistake to vote for them."

Some candidates didn't even change their pictures.
"They were obviously perfect the first time," said Bleine, "and these perfect originals played an integral part in getting students to vote. We figured that there must be some other, unknowable reason that people didn't vote."

Meanwhile, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dontkare Bout-Lomnin, has promised to ship in several hundred teams of highly-trained mental trauma psychologists and counselors to deal with the devastating leaflets.
"As soon as I saw that one with Ryan Gosling, I knew we had to react quickly. We immediately removed all our specialists from Bosnia, Iraq, Syria, Burma, Saudi Arabia and North Korea to deal with this new, iniquitous South African threat," he said.



*- what follows are a collection of other campaign posters. Browse at your peril.

Cudos on the voter Key Words and the Highlander reference.

Because fashion.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but doesn't that translate to "I don't want to win"?

Because, as with many other candidates, reasons are irrelevant.

Because Suits. THAT'S WHY.

Because verbs are irrelevant.