Proudly made in SA?

We South Africans are brilliant at coming up with things nobody has ever thought of. Like the Kreepy Krauly. And, well, apartheid.

To give them credit, though, America and Australia beat us to it.

Later, in 1948, Israel and South Africa reached similar conclusions. In the early ’90s, we realised our idea had a serious factory fault and we abandoned it. Israel, not so much.

Anyway. Let’s not go down that perilous rabbit hole and instead, on this hungover post-Heritage Day, take a look at some of the better things we have invented.

The CAT scan

Personally, I think this is a misprint. Either that or something got lost in translation. What physicist Allan Cormack did in the ’60s was invent the cat scam. I am not going into detail because this has the potential to make buckets of money and I want it all for myself.

Besides, there are only two people in this country capable of training cats to perform this scam and I am not about to give you their names.

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The oil-from-coal refinery

Given the hoo-ha about global warming, putting this on your boasting list is a bit like a German property developer from Camps Bay listing acceptance to the Hitler Youth as one of his achievements.

Eventually we will all be by-products of Sasol, anyway.

Heart transplant

Not strictly an invention, but we’ll take what we can get. Dr Chris Barnard was a philandering playboy who, like Elon Musk, barely recognised his own kids.

But he was handy with a knife and he knew his way around the chest cavity. Much like most middle-ranking members of the 28s today.

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Speed gun

Invented in 1992 by Henri Johnson, this could have been the final solution to crime. Just imagine. A gun that fired at the speed of light.

A gun that shot bolts of pure energy into the black hearts of the yellow-eyed varmints. A gun that fired by itself whenever it sensed the presence of evil.

But, no. Henri’s invention measures the speed and angle of rubbish like cricket balls. You can see the results at the bottom of the screen when Kagiso Rabada bowls. 138km/h, says the speed gun. And nobody dies. I can’t see the point.

Kreepy Krauly

Easily the most dangerous thing ever invented. I doubt I am the only person to have come close to cardiac arrest while running between the pump and the inlet, backwashing, circulating, pushing, shoving and shouting, “suck, motherfuc*er, suck!”

Only someone who stumbled out of the Belgian Congo in 1951 could have come up with such a monstrosity.

Colonel Kurtz was an aid worker compared to Ferdinand Chauvier.

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APS therapy

The Action Potential Stimulation device was invented by Gervan Lubbe, whose name alone should have seen him incarcerated in a home for the criminally insane.

At first glance the gizmo sounds like something really useful. Something that might enable women to take care of their own orgasms while giving men time to focus on their golf game.

But it’s not.

The only thing it does is relieve arthritic pain, which counts for nothing if you don’t have arthritis.

Anyway, all you have to do these days is wince in a doctor’s direction and he happily hands over a bag of addictive painkillers.

Pratley Putty

This ridiculous-sounding substance held Apollo XI mission’s Eagle landing craft together, making it the first South African invention to go to the moon.

Or, more likely, to a secret film studio in the Nevada desert.

Hundreds of tons of the stuff are exported around the world each year. I have never used it because I have other ways of keeping my shit together.

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Dolosse

Not only one of the most lyrical words in the English language, but also the best way to keep the ocean from crashing into the street and drowning you and your loved ones.

Designed by Eric Merrifield, a man built like a large, oddly shaped concrete block, dolosse weigh up to 20 tons. Eric, slightly less.

The Coega Project near Port Elizabeth made history with the casting of the biggest, ugliest dolosse the world has ever seen.

Foreigners visiting PE often have trouble telling the dolosse from the locals.

Appletiser

Undrinkable unless mixed with whisky, brandy, vodka or anything else.

Fire

First used at Swartkrans cave 1.5 million years ago. Used mainly as a reason to file insurance claims and activate deadly carcinogens in boerewors.

A viable alternative to Eskom.

Hippo drum water roller

This device makes it possible for rural girls as young as three to transport drinking water over vast distances.

Many of them will go on to become world-class athletes in the hippo drum water roller event, only for their dreams to be shattered when it turns out that the water they drank as kids caused bunches of testicles to grow in their armpits.

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Tellurometer

Invented by “Clever” Trevor Wadley of the CSIR in 1957.

Now and then you’ll see a man in a yellow vest looking through a thing mounted on a tripod in the middle of nowhere. I don’t know what it does.

The invention was hijacked in the ’60s by a British company called Plessey. I hope they gave Trevor some money but, knowing the British, probably not.

Q20

Nobody can remember his first name, but Mr Robinson from Pinetown outside Durban invented this magnificent lubricant that has, ever since 1950, resolved every problem from squeaky hinges to vaginal dryness.