News that sends quivers through the reeds

Where are the shoes, George?

An angry Gauteng woman, Lene Si Chang, found a payment slip in her husband's car for Gucci women's shoes costing R18 300. But there were no shoes in sight. She turned to TikTok for advice.

The sisterhood wasted no time and hauled George over the coals

Before memes were memes ...

Three cartoons from The New Yorker

The New Yorker remains the gold standard for subtle political comment in unsubtle political times.

Three USA memes from the horse’s mouth

Donald Trump is in top gear ahead of the election. He even does interviews with comedians, like Andrew Schulz, who make fun of him. It's actually unfair to say Schulz is blatantly laughing in Trump's face – go watch the whole interview. It's not every day that comedians hang out with a presidential candidate for this long, and it worked for Trump.

Today, long, long ago

Bargain of the millennium

On October 18, 1867, one of the biggest real estate deals of the modern world was consummated, with Russia selling Alaska to the US for a mere $7.2 million, equal to $0.02 per acre for almost 600 000 square miles of wax. The Russian minister in America, Edward of Stoeckle, negotiated the deal.

Russia's Peter the Great established a colonial presence in the area early in the 18th century with Vitus Bering's voyages of discovery, but for the next century there were never more than 400 to 700 Russians (sources vary) in Alaska at any given time, and these were mostly missionaries from the Russian Orthodox church.

After Tsar Alexander II's catastrophic losses in the Crimean War he looked for a buyer for Alaska, especially since it would be very difficult to defend the area against his great enemy, the UK. With the wisdom of history on our side, we now know it was the bargain of the millennium for America, which removed a future nuclear-armed enemy from its backyard and also gained access to the so-called Pacific North Rim. This is a key moment in the establishment of America as a strong power in the region, and the world.

In the 30 years since the deal, little has happened, except for the Russians giving way. Indeed, there were quite a few American politicians who described the deal as a huge blunder - they referred to it as “Seward's Folly" or “Seward's Icebox". But then came the Klondike gold rush in 1896, and from then on Alaska began to develop.

Not only Yanks are silly and stupid

The full Romeo and Juliet summed up in GenZ-tese.

“... a good, safe security rope is absolutely essential ..."

We quite agree.

To communicate with animals is now within reach of anyone ...

Lekker Old Advert

We remembered the Grandma and Grandpa glug-glug commercial a few issues back. Here is the first glug-glug advert.

Old yet Gold

When “loadshedding" was still a new concept for South Africans. Remember it?

♦ VWB ♦

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