Dim and Dimmer

When days are dark, friends are few. Eskom is quickly figuring this one out. The former electricity generator this week suffered more than just a power failure, it seems to have shed its sense of humour as well.

You will be happy to know that, in the face of increasingly serious blackouts and a looming economic crisis, Eskom is taking action... against employees circulating bad Eskom jokes.

This week, Eskom sent an e-mail to employees, via its information security manager Krish Naidoo, warning them against distributing "defamatory, degrading, obscene and abusive" jokes. (Good on you matey, I'd hate to think nothing is being done about this dire situation.)

In an interview with ITWeb, Naidoo went on to whine: "This is a reputational thing. We are a professional organisation and some of these mails were obscene."

Reputational? Professional organisation? Obscene? Me thinks Mr Naidoo has just told the best Eskom joke of all.

In all seriousness though, we should respect that circulating such jokes within the organisation is a contravention of Eskom's information security policy. Good thing I don't work for Eskom.

Satan visits Cape Town and meets Gatiep.
Satan asks: "Do you know who I am?"
"Nay," says Gatiep, "gie my a hint."
Satan says: "I am the prince of darkness."
"F*#'k it," says Gatiep, "djy's mos die CEO van Eskom."

Or how about...

What's the difference between SA and the Titanic? The lights were still on when the Titanic went down.

Of course, should you be unlucky enough to phone Eskom (and be placed on hold), you may be pleasantly surprised to hear tunes from the newly-released Eskom Unplugged album. These include hits such as "Candle in the Wind", "Dancing in the Dark", "Moonlight Serenade" and "I've got the Power".

A colleague of mine has just returned from Ghana, where she attended the opening of the African Cup of Nations. She said it was refreshing to go to a country that has electricity.

You will be happy to know that, in the face of increasingly serious blackouts and a looming economic crisis, Eskom is taking action... against employees circulating bad Eskom jokes.

Martin Czernowalow, news editor, ITWeb

Gatiep and Karools are sitting on death row. Gatiep asks the prison warder if the execution takes long, and if it is painful.

The warder says: "No, they just strap you in and flick the switch and it's over."

Then Karools is called in. Moments later, Gatiep hears the most awful blood-curdling screaming and shouting, and this carries on for quite a while.

Gatiep says to the warder: "I thought you said it was quick and painless?"

The warder replies: "It usually is, but because of load-shedding, we have to use candles."

Now perhaps it's not right to make light of such a serious crisis - especially that the king of the comb-over, Alec Erwin, has just declared a national emergency. This comes after Eskom's load-shedding plan yesterday reached Brown Stage 3 - something akin to Defcon 1.