Since we are South Africans, and therefore prone not only to patriotism but also to hysteria (when it comes to sport, anyway), we all sat down in front of our television sets yesterday morning, filled with fear and loathing.

Earlier, as dawn broke, we had asked ourselves moodily over our morning coffee and buns whether the fellows from the group of islands in the south Pacific, those doughty Samoans, might do to us what they almost did to those perfidious Englishmen and the insufferable Martin "Smiley" Johnson, their captain.

Complicating matters is that we all know we have a coach who seems to have about as much strategic planning ability as the Boeremag.

According to the person who is busy giving away the Boeremag game in Pretoria at present, the Boeremag planned to relocate the total black South African population in Zimbabwe by sending them northwards in a convoy.

Our Indians brothers and sisters they would dispatch southwards to Durban, where they would be loaded on ships and sent elsewhere, perhaps to Samoa.

Surely the Boeremag planners realised that the Beit Bridge border post could never deal with an exodus of such proportions - and, anyway, I don't think they cleared the plan with Robert "now you see him, now you don't'" Mugabe, the effete chief of our northern neighbour.

As for sending thousands of Indian people southwards to Durban, have these Boeremag types fallen our of their tree and bumped their heads?

The traffic police could never deal with both the speeding and congestion. Besides, I'm sure Mac Maharaj, the former transport minister and missing star of the Hefer commission - scenting an opportunity to redeem himself in the eyes of the people - would organise a counter revolutionary ploy and we would have to deal with the Siege of Ladysmith all over again.

These Boeremag fellows remind me - if I may return to the rugby - of the fan who ran on to the pitch at the end of yesterday's game and tried to tackle Louis "now he gets ‘em, now he doesn't" Koen, the Springbok replacement flyhalf, as he took a last-minute conversation.

I don't know whether this was an irate Samoan fan or an irate South African, still annoyed about Koen's performance against the souties.

Whatever the case, the intruder injured himself, not Koen, and lay prone as referee Chris White whistled at the end of the contest, won 60-10 by South Africa. It's known as shooting yourself in the foot or breaking your own neck in the tackle. But, who knows, perhaps the person had swallowed too much Samoan mampoer.

Then, just when the Springboks had been comporting themselves like grown-ups, some genius - I suspect Joos van der Westerhuizen, the Springbok vice-captain, but it might have been Corne' Krige, the captain - talked the Samoans into kneeling for a quick prayer.

There is no getting away from the bible punchers, is there?

Still, I mind them less than some of my learned friends from the fourth estate who have taken to tackling the adjectival phrase "apartheid-era" on to every word they type.

For example, I have just noticed that some of them prefer to Judge Josephus Hefer, the former acting chief justice, and chairperson of the Hefer commission, as an "apartheid-era judge".

Ja-nee. I don't know about you, but I have just spent another long, hot week, living in my apartheid-era house, sitting in th evening under my apartheid-era tree, donning in the morning my apartheid-era g-string, and driving to work in my apartheid-era motor car.

Actually, I'm not telling the truth. I bought my g-string soon after the country's second democratic election, celebrating the second coming to power of the tripartite alliance by pulling the g-string up hard between the fragrant cheeks of my capacious bottie.

As for my car, well, it's in fact a rinderpest-era vehicle.

But let's go back three sentences and one paragraph. And let me attract the attention of Jacob Zuma, the deputy president and Mac Maharaj, and Mo "Shake, rattle and roll" Shaik, advisor in diplomacy to our foreign minister.

Have I got your attention, guys? Good - now look at that sentence : "Actually, I'm not telling the truth."

Now try it yourselves - you may like it : A-C-T-U-A-L-L-Y I-M N-O-T T-E-L-L-I-N-G T-H-E T-R-U-T-H.

Not so bad, was it? Easy in fact, huh?

Nothing happened - no lightning aimed at my head or yours.

Talking of which, I note that it has not been well reported that of the main documents used this week by Ranjeni Munusamy, the former Sunday Times journalist, when she took on review the decision by Hefer that she must testify before his commission, was a column by Barney Mthombothi, editor of the Sunday Tribune.

Good heavens. Soon there'll be people quoting David Bullard, that apartheid-era burbler from the Business Times supplement, as an authority of some sort, though I can't imagine on what subject. Can you?

With acknowledgements to Karen Bliksem and the Sunday Independent.