MINISTERS CAN BE MORE DANGEROUS THAN GERMS

I RECENTLY bought a pack of batteries for my flashlights, knowing that our lights are likely to be switched off as soon as Mr Ramaphosa no longer needs our votes.

I was interested to see the battery pack was printed with the slogan, ”100% More Power”.

The price had also increased by about 100% since I last bought batteries but that no longer surprised me. I was interested in the claim that my new batteries had 100% more power. More than what?

Did the manufacturers mean the batteries would last twice as long as their old batteries did? Or did they mean my torch would be twice as bright as it was when I had the old batteries?

Or did they simply mean the batteries were twice as powerful as the cheap Chinese ones?

I sometimes think percentages were invented by advertisers to confuse customers. They are the kind of slippery numbers almost-honest traders love. “Our new, clinically tested toothpaste guarantees 23% whiter teeth.”

Whiter than what? How do you measure a percentage of the whiteness of a tooth?

Numbers are always impressive. ”Kills 99% of household germs”, they say. What does it do to that tough 1%? And is it the same 1% every time? In which case those tough 1 percenters must be a wellseasoned gang of ruffians by now.

They probably mix themselves gin-and-germicide cocktails by now, just for kicks.

Or maybe the 1% that escape are not really of the household germ variety. They could be feral, freerange germs that don’t sign up for germicide tests. How do we know the 99% of germs that perished in the clinical test were standard, healthy germs.

They could have been sad, undernourished germs that would have died anyway, even if you’d sprayed them with distilled water. You need to be careful of that sort of trickery.

Many years ago I wrote a story about the SA Bureau of Standards and was fascinated to discover there was an official handbook on how to breed standard, healthy fleas. Well, it stands to reason, doesn’t it? If you want to test flea powder, it’s pointless testing on terminally ill fleas.

You want to make sure it will kill healthy fleas, SABS certified healthy, grade A fleas. In fact, is there a handbook on breeding standard, healthy household germs. There should be.

Even ministers have a handbook and they’re a lot more dangerous than germs.

Last Laugh

The head of a large laboratory went to a metal-working company and ordered

100 steel cages, each to be 1m x 2m x 2m high.

‘What do you want them for?” asked the steel man.

“We’ve decided to use politicians instead of lab rats in our trials,” said the scientist.

“Why on earth will you do that?”

“Well, the problem is you get rather fond of rats, you know. It’s hard to give them dangerous substances. Besides, there are some things a rat will refuse to do.”