1. The Cape Times (Cape Town)

"I have promised to keep his identity confidential,'
said Jack Maxim, a spokeswoman for the Sandton Sun
Hotel, Johannesburg, "but I can confirm that he is no
longer in our employment".
"We asked him to clean the lifts and he spent four
days on the job. When I asked him why, he replied:
'Well, there are forty of them, two on each floor, and
sometimes some of them aren't there'. Eventually, we
realised that he thought each floor had a different
lift, and he'd cleaned the same two twelve times. "We
had to let him go. It seemed best all round. I
understand he is now working for GE Lighting."

2. The Star (Johannesburg):

"The situation is absolutely under control," Transport
Minister Ephraem Magagula told the Swaziland
Parliament in Mbabane. "Our nation's merchant navy is
perfectly safe. We just don't know where it is, that's
all."
Replying to an MP's question, Minister Magagula
admitted that the landlocked country had completely
lost track of its only ship, the Swazimar: "We believe
it is in a sea somewhere. At one time, we sent a team
of men to look for it, but there was a problem with
drink and they failed to find it, and so, technically,
yes, we've lost it a bit. But I categorically reject
all suggestions of incompetence on the part of this
government. The Swazimar is a big ship painted in the
sort of nice bright colours you can see at night. Mark
my words, it will turn up. The right honourable
gentleman opposite is a very naughty man, and he will
laugh on the other side of his face when my ship comes
in."

3. The Standard (Kenya):

"What is all the fuss about?" Weseka Sambu asked a
hastily convened news conference at Jomo Kenyatta
International Airport. "A technical hitch like this
could have happened anywhere in the world. You people
are not patriots. You just want to cause trouble."
Sambu, a spokesman for Kenya Airways, was speaking
after the cancellation of a through flight from
Kisumu, via Jomo Kenyatta, to Berlin:
"The forty-two passengers had boarded the plane ready
for take-off, when the pilot noticed one of the tyres
was flat. Kenya Airways did not possess a spare tyre,
and unfortunately the airport nitrogen canister was
empty. A passenger suggested taking the tyre to a
petrol station for inflation, but unluckily the jack
had gone missing so we couldn't get the wheel off. Our
engineers tried heroically to reinflate the tyre with
a bicycle pump, but had no luck, and the pilot even
blew into the valve with his mouth, but he passed out.
"When I announced that the flight had to be abandoned,
one of the passengers, Mr Mutu, suddenly struck me
about the face with a life-jacket whistle and said we
were a national disgrace. I told him he was being
ridiculous, and that there was to be another flight in
a fortnight. And, in the meantime, he would be able to
enjoy the scenery around Kisumu, albeit at his own
expense."

4. From a Zimbabwean newspaper:

While transporting mental patients from Harare to
Bulawayo, the bus Driver stopped at a roadside shebeen
(beerhall) for a few beers. When he got back to his
vehicle, he found it empty, with the 20 patients
nowhere to be seen. Realizing the trouble he was in if
the truth were uncovered, he halted his bus at the
next bus stop and offered lifts to those in the queue.
Letting 20 people board, he then shut the doors and
drove straight to the Bulawayo mental hospital, where
he hastily handed over his 'charges', warning the
nurses that they were particularly excitable. Staff
removed the furious passengers; it was three days
later that suspicions were roused by the consistency
of stories from the 20. As for the real patients:
nothing more has been heard of them and they have
apparently blended comfortably back into Zimbabwean
society.