Toons

Back in 2003 I had a particularly productive hour or two in which I took a pile of identical yellow paper offcuts and started to draw cartoon-like images of people I found in the newspaper. This was the result.

With Nelson Mandela's health precarious today, back then the sprightly elder statesman was depicted with large shoes, which his successor, Thabo Mbeki, was failing to fill.

This was taken from a photo of Madiba as a young Joburg lawyer in the 1950s.

A man who spent key years in South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi.

One of the Mbeki-era ANC MPs, Cheryl Carolus.

The man himself. Here Mbeki fails to atone for sins of omission regarding Zimbabwe and Aids.

Mbeki's Aids-denial accomplice, Dr Manto-Tshabalala Msimang.

I got into a spat in the press with Kader Asmal, a former Mbeki cabinet minister and chief hatchet-man of the regime. I had dared to suggest in an article in the Herald that the 600 000-odd white males who had to do military conscription were also disadvantaged and deserved some TRC recognition. He also ridiculed my claims to have opposed apartheid by my activism within the Progressive Federal Party.

Remember 2003 and the Rugby World Cup when the Springboks exited ignominiously in the quarterfinals? Well Rian Oberholzer, shown here, was the SA Rugby Union boss at the time.

But what really got out goat was when coach Rudolf Straueli said, before the event, that his team were not ready and would probably only come of age at the 2007 World Cup. Ironically, he was right on that score.

My kids in primary school enjoyed (still do) Sponge Bob Square Pants, and also met someone called Sasco Sam, who resembled a slice of bread. Anyway, this picture of Robert Mugabe seems to borrow from both sources.

Princess Diana was still very much on our minds in 2003, several years after her death. Is that the Taj Mahal behind her?

My sons and I would snigger when the Speaker of Parliament, Frene Ginwala, in her plummy British accent, use to call for "order" during sessions. This was our response.

A collosus.

This is a throwback to my almost 20 years at the beck and call of apartheid-era military conscription.

A friend from my youth, Mark Caldwell, had the nickname Kakkie. An avid surfer, he also had the gift of the gab.

Finally, as a footnote, there is an Afrikaans expression for when you have to share a bed (not in that sense) with someone: you sleep "kop en tone". It can't be pleasant.