There they sat, almost 20 years ago to the day — President P W Botha and the first ever official delegation of Russians to visit South Africa.

To loosen things up, Botha cracked a joke: “Cape Town is just like a baby ...” he said, his shoulders shuddering in anticipation of the punch line, which was: “It’s either wet or its windy!”

The Russians did not laugh, they did not smile. They sat motionless as the Groot Krokodil’s mirth subsided into an expression of bemusement.

This week, President Thabo Mbeki welcomed President Vladimir Putin with some light-hearted banter about an ornate carved chess set he had received from Putin as a gift. The punch line? His game had got worse because he couldn’t bring himself to use it.

Putin did not react. Nothing. Nada. Not even a little lizard lick of a smile.

Ha. Ha. Aha. Ha. Not that surprising. Here’s a Wikipedia entry on a common Russian joke: “Stirlitz opened a door. The lights went on. Stirlitz closed the door. The lights went out. Stirlitz opened the door again. The light went back on. Stirlitz closed the door. The light went out again. ‘It’s a fridge,’ concluded Stirlitz.”

Ha ha. Ha.

Maybe he has a point Hogarth is in receipt of DA leader Tony Leon’s somewhat overly protective defence of Douglas Gibson, who made some wildly exaggerated claims about President Thabo Mbeki building a house for R22-million in Houghton with taxpayers’ money. (The truth: Zanele Mbeki building an R8-million house with her own money and the state providing security).

But maybe Leon does have a point when it comes to ANC MP Fezile Bhengu, who said of Gibson that he resembled “scavengers which, after gnawing every piece of rot on their way, turn to the living, mercilessly killing them and feast [sic] to satiate the genetic abnormality of being destructive” (Hansard, September 5 2006).

A little over the top, no?

Chickens roosting After all, it was Mbeki himself who said the following in the Nelson Mandela lecture just over a month ago:

“In these circumstances, the meaning of freedom has come to be defined not by the seemingly ethereal and therefore intangible gift of liberty, but by the designer labels on the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, the spaciousness of our houses and our yards, their geographic location, the company we keep and what we do as part of that company.”

Maybe he had in mind his wife’s R8-million house in Houghton?

Meanwhile, in court ... Presiding over the trial of the conspicuously consuming Jacob Zuma, Judge Qed’usizi Msimang showed that a little wit goes a long way.

When counsel for arms company Thint, Nirmal Singh, spoke of the matter becoming increasingly complex, Judge Msimang quipped: “But that’s what you lawyers love.”

A sharp tongue And when Kemp J Kemp, Zuma’s lead counsel, was asked by Judge Msimang when he would deliver argument on extending an investigation, he replied: “I’ll deal with that when I deal with that.”

Judge Msimang’s retort: “Maybe I’m stealing your thunder, sir. I apologise.”

Closer and closer Zuma and co-accused Pierre Moynot of Thint were seated next to each other in the dock.

On Tuesday, they kept their distance.

On Wednesday they nodded heads and exchanged pleasantries.

By Thursday they were like brothers.

Gone fishing The head of the KwaZulu-Natal ministries of Public Safety and of Transport, Bheki Cele, has proved once and for all that provincial government is superfluous.

He spent a full three days praise singing in court and nobody noticed his absence.

With acknowledgements to The Times.