The world goes mental

The first time I heard the words “cray cray”, I was in Paternoster, the West Coast centre of operations for petty pilferers, tik monsters and venal property owners.

- BEN TROVATO

The person shouting “cray cray” at me was a kid of about nine. He had a plastic bag full of undersized crayfish. I bartered him down to almost nothing, then went to the beach and threw them back into the sea.

The next time I heard the term “cray-cray”, it had a hyphen in it and was clearly meant to indicate that a couple of buttons in my brain were missing. Not because of what I did with the crayfish, if that’s what you're thinking.

In Paternoster, the bar for insanity is so low that sausage dogs can step over it.

Watching the political phantasmagoria of the past few months, I have been wondering if most of our politicians have not gone completely bonkers. It’s not beyond the realms of possibility.

According to statistics, one in three South Africans will admit to suffering from one or other mental disorder if you get them drunk enough or put the frighteners on them.

This means that 700 staff at Addington Hospital alone are not altogether well in the head department. Going by what I can remember from my stay there a few years ago, they all work in the kitchen. With the possible exception of two, who might still be in the orthopaedic ward.