My favourite stories of the week sound like the start of a joke: Heard the one about the donkey, the bee and the monkey?

Top of the pops is this Daily Dispatch story about a man who pulled up on his horse in Mthatha’s main road this week, parked it outside the magistrate’s court and set off about his business after telling the untethered steed to stay put. And, guess what?, the horse “parked off” for two hours, quiet as a mouse and waited for him to return. I love it and the good people of Mthatha were also fascinated with the well behaved horse, many of them probably ruminating that it would be easier to get around the potholed town on four legs than four wheels.

Then there’s this story form the picturesquely named Ghana Pundit about a troop of monkeys evicted from the state house after peeing on the country’s president. I kid you not – animal stories don’t get better than this. Nor does politics.

And, across the Atlantic, the Huffington Post put a laugh of a video up on its site of a TV reporter who got fired after launching into a tirade of expletives when he stung on air by a bee. The video got so many hits that the Post searched YouTube for more “animal attacks reporter” vids and, boy, did they unearth some priceless clips.

Back in SA, cartoonist Jeremy Nell (I’m becoming a fan of his offbeam Biggish Five strip) has a brilliant take on that weird honkey who got refugee status in Canada for pleading racist attacks back home in SA. Scroll down to the second cartoon.

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Five things you need to know about SA today

1. Uh-oh. That dreaded “deflation” word. Business Day reports that house prices have fallen back to levels last seen in December 2006, according to First National Bank’s house price index. Prices reached double-digit deflation last month, a drop of 10.2%. Read the full story here.

2. IOL reports that the police have promised suspended top cop Jackie Selebi copies of the spy recordings that got ANC president Jacob Zuma off the hook but the prosecution team has cried foul over this decision, saying that they have not heard the recordings. Read the full story here.

3. Cope has told Mosiuoa Lekota that he can’t go to Parliament, says The Times, so it looks like there’s a battle for power between the former defence minister and party head Mvume Dandala and its deputy, Mbhazima Shilowa. Click here to read the story.

4. You’ve got to hand it to Nando’s for genius marketing. A Julius Malema puppet, the star of a withdrawn Nando’s TV advert, is up for auction that the fast food franchise believes  will fetch “at least R5-million”. Says the company’s marketing head:

We do expect him to fetch a good price — he has become a celebrity overnight. And his whole wardrobe comes out of the Woolworths children’s section. He’s completely on trend.

Read the full story here at The Times.

5. And it’s off to the Dispatch for tales from the Far Side. A gang of hapless burglars were found skunk drunk in an Mthatha bottlestore after breaking into it and then parking off and laying into the beer. One beer was found wearing a balaclava.  Read the full story here.

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