When people read my column - those who still read it are known to mutter as they sit down: "Let's hear what nonsense old Khumalo is spewing this week."

At least that's the picture I have of them as they sit back to gulp the column down. I don't picture them saying: "Let's pick some jewels of wisdom that have fallen from old Khumalo's pen."

That's now how visualise them. Because people are generally mean. Look at the nasty things they are saying about young Ntsiki Mazwai. That she took a vow a long time ago to run away from soap and water. That's plain malodorous.

Just because she wrote a strong-worded letter against our Cyril Ramaphosa whom we love does not give anyone the right to cast aspersions on Mazwai's person. Come to think of it, were it not for lockdown I probably wouldn't have noticed the controversies around Mazwai.

These things unravel on Twitter, which I don't normally have time for. But, thanks to lockdown, I am reading more tweets than I would under normal circumstances.

Look, I've known of Mazwai for a long time. She is, after all, a master's graduate creative writing and is said to be poet, and I'm a lover of literature.

She performs her poetry, which is probably why I am not familiar with her work because I don't go out a lot.

While I kick myself at not having watched Mazwai perform her poetry, I take solace in her tweets. I've been following her Twitter performance since the imposition of lockdown. If you can produce tweets that people can't ignore, then you're effective.

She is currently in the news - is she ever not in the news? - for one of her tweets. In this tweet she revealed the results of what seems to have been a very in-depth and exhaustive research study.

She reveals that SA men have, ahem, small weaponry. When I read her findings, I found myself instinctively reaching for my nether region. To protect it from scrutiny, you see.

Anyway, a number of questions cropped up: how big was her research sample?

Did she confine herself to men of a specific race? Maybe her Caucasian classmates at Rhodes?

What age groups did she look at? (When you hit 60, the weapon suddenly and inexplicably grows bigger, I'm told. 60, here I come!)

What provinces did the researcher consider in her study? Did she go as far as the Limpopo? As far as I can remember, some men from Limpopo are from a very young age groomed into developing their nether regions to sizes that would lead to them being denied entry into Europe and China.

When a boy is born in the north, a tree is planted in a private garden. As the tree grows, so does his member.

Mind you, the region is blessed with rains and the tree grows robustly. When the boy's father is satisfied that his son's member has grown to an acceptable size, he chops down the tree.

I doubt very much if Ms Mazwai encountered any one of these guys who had tree twins growing up.

However, her efforts are still worth celebrating.

Developing nations such as ours need creative minds and fearless researchers who venture into areas many would hesitate to.

The size of men's members, I've been told, is always in proportion to their intellect and self-esteem. The smaller the size, the lower the self-esteem, the shorter the temper.

Short tempers engender more violence in the home, on the streets, in society. Mazwai was on to something here. Heavy lifting was done. Big up. Ahem, these puns.