Scrutator

Just kiss the baby judge

B E careful what you wish for, so goes the English saying. After too many deaths in a village a celebrated village blabbermouth calls on the chief to hire a ngaka to catch the witch. The ngaka comes, throws his bones and names the blabbermouth’s mother as the village witch. Be careful what you wish [...]

22 May 2013 | 46 comments

The Palace of Tosh

T HERE is meaning in names. Take for instance the name Mathaelira, a Sesotho word meaning spit of enemies or something like that. Then there is the name Mahapela, a Sesotho word which means he who captures other people’s things or he who captures and distributes to others (more like Robin Hood). How befitting then [...]

24 Jan 2013 | 12 comments

Mediocrity award nominees 2012

A man gets home early from work and hears strange noises coming from the bedroom. He rushes upstairs to find his wife nude on the bed, sweating and panting. “What’s up?” he says. “I’m having a heart attack sweetie,” cries the wife. He rushes downstairs to call an ambulance but just as he’s dialling his [...]

6 Dec 2012 | 25 comments

Spit it out

T HERE is a hilarious but serious joke doing the rounds in Maseru. If you haven’t heard it then you have been missing out on a good laugh. It goes like so. A team of international crime experts decide to find the best police force in the world. They gather America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation [...]

29 Nov 2012 | 36 comments

Just cut the scrap

S crutator would like to start by sincerely apologising to teachers who might have been offended when she said a degree in education is easy last week. She did not mean to offend those devoted to the business of “panel beating” minds in our schools. Scrutator respects their immense contribution to society. But, and this [...]

22 Nov 2012 | 58 comments

The stink of NUL

S CRUTATOR has always known that a Bachelor of Education degree is one of the easiest courses at the National University of Lesotho (NUL). It’s a degree that is more difficult to fail than pass. In fact, you have to work extra hard to fail it. You have to sweat not to pass that course. [...]

15 Nov 2012 | 136 comments

My blood is boiling

S ome court sentences are lame and others are misdirected. Others are unfair and some are harsh. Still others are so lenient as to make a mockery of the weight of the crime committed. But once in a while there comes a sentence that is maddening. One such infuriating sentence was passed in a High [...]

7 Nov 2012 | 9 comments

Marching to nowhere

W E are a marching and protesting country. We march for anything and picket for everything. We spit fire when we are angry. That we, Basotho, are naturally good dancers and average singers makes our marches and protests spectacular. The women gyrate (Oh they can move those hips) while the men stomp their feet (they [...]

1 Nov 2012 | 16 comments

Dream on!

B it by bit, we are beginning to see the euphoria that came with the inauguration of the threesome government being replaced by frustration and dejection. The shindigs have stopped and the eulogies have been muffled. Praise singers are saving their voices for more useful projects. Bootlickers have decided to conserve their tongues, perhaps for [...]

25 Oct 2012 | 20 comments

How Scott got scot-free

S CRUTATOR did not know whether to cry or laugh when she heard the authorities explaining how murder suspect, Lehlohonolo Joseph Scott, escaped from Maseru Central Prison. We are told Scott smeared himself with Vaseline and then squeezed through a small hole to escape from the country’s biggest jail. He is said to have scaled [...]

17 Oct 2012 | 52 comments
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