It has not been an exceptionally jovial process for anyone connected with it, and yet there have been a few light - or at least witty or bizarre - moments at the rape trial of Jacob Zuma, the former deputy president.

First prize must go to Charin de Beer, the lead prosecutor. De Beer has preferred to cross-examine from a list of prepared questions and she has lost her place or focus a few times.

"Mr Zuma," she said this week to the former deputy president, who was sitting slumped in the witness box, awaiting her next verbal assault, "Mr Kemp has put it to you that you are … bisexual?"

What De Beer meant to say was that Kemp J Kemp, SC, Zuma's counsel, had "put" bisexuality to the complainant.

Zuma's mouth dropped, as did that of the interpreter, Mr Maloi. Judge Willem van der Merwe, generally the most controlled of people, momentarily covered his face with his hands.

On the same morning, cross-examining Zuma about why he did not use a condom when he had sex with the complainant, De Beer asked: "How could you have possibly had sex without intercourse?"

De Beer had meant to say "sex without a condom".

Responded Van der Merwe: "Sex without intercourse would be a little difficult, Ms De Beer."

After turning down the application by three gender activist groups to be admitted as friends of the court, Van der Merwe bade farewell to Peter Hodes, their senior counsel.

"Goodbye, Mr Hodes. You have been, as you have been for the last 20 years, a worthy adversary. Have a safe journey back to Cape Town."

Then Van der Merwe, who lives in Pretoria, really put the boot in: "And I hope," he said to Hodes, "that the Stormers play better rugby."

Besides inadvertently suggesting that Zuma might be bisexual, De Beer also had both him and Maloi in a state of perplexity at other times.

Once was when De Beer asked Zuma if his version was that he had "tippy-toed" down to the guest bedroom. Another was when she wanted to know why Zuma had not "snuggled" with the complainant after sex.

Besides the possibility that it may be difficult to imagine Zuma tippy-toeing anywhere or even perhaps snuggling, there are apparently no available words in Zulu for those two actions.

This week, De Beer also asked Van der Merwe to ask the people in court to keep their discussions for outside "so that the media and everyone else can hear what counsel and the accused [Zuma] are saying".

Van der Merwe did so and then, as is his wont, checked with the defence counsel that they were in accord with what he had just said.

"I am happy, my lord," responded Kemp. "But I am concerned: if members of media are able to hear, what excuse will they now use for getting things wrong?"

Cross-examining psychologist Dr Merle Friedman, an expert witness for the state, about the behaviour of the complainant immediately following the alleged rape, Kemp said: "Aren't you getting things in the wrong order?

"You remind me of the famous graffiti about Descartes the philosopher. He said: 'Cogito, ergo sum, I think therefore I am'. Someone then wrote on a wall, 'Sum, ergo cogito, I am, therefore I think'. But then someone else wrote underneath that: 'You have put Descartes before the horse'."

Descartes' horse has not been the only creature to play a role during the trial.

Johannesburg's infamous "Parktown prawns", or giant crickets, made a cameo appearance during the evidence of Duduzile, Zuma's 23-year-old daughter, on Thursday. Explaining that the policemen guarding Zuma's home were on the ball, Duduzile said that one night she and her sister screamed loudly when they saw a Parktown prawn in their bedroom.

"The guard was at the front door in a minute," she said, "and he killed it."

But, just as first prize goes to De Beer, so does the final word.

At the end of Zuma's cross-examination, Kemp put only a few questions of re-examination to him. One of these was: "Mr Zuma, can you tell us whether you are circumcised or not?"

"I am circumcised," Zuma replied.

"Are you happy with that?" Van der Merwe asked De Beer.

"Well, my lord," she said, "I certainly don't want to make an in loco examination."

With acknowledgement to Jeremy Gordin and The Sunday Independent.