Cultural cross-pollination
STONE the crows! Starve the flamin' lizards! Thousands of Aussies are expected to descend on Durban during the Football World Cup and camp out at Kingsmead. All those Sheilas, all those Bruces with their barbies and their six-packs of stubbies and their didgeridoos, waiting while their billy boils. Whacko the diddle-oh, mate, this'll be better'n Earls Court in the good old days! Wotchunder!
That's one of the by-products of the World Cup – cultural cross-pollination. As happened originally in Britain.
There I strode down the Earl's Court Road,
The set-up I had mastered,
When this nosey Pom said: "Where're you from?
I can't tell what you're classed as."
So I told him straight: "Australia, mate!
And I feel like getting plastered,
The beer's all crook and the sheilas look
Like you, you Pommie bastard!"
How will things go at Kingsmead? What new lyrics are likely to enrich the poetic genre?
There I strode down the Old Fort Road,
Completely flabbergasted;
Nobody told us at Kingsmead
The tide comes in just when you need
A dry spot for the barbie;
Your tents are mush, the mullet leap,
The fiddler crabs upon you creep
With pincers poised to disturb your sleep
In manner that's plain ghastly.
I tell you straight, in Australia mate
This would be cause for barney
On civil rights and oversights and short-change on our money;
But when we speak to the groundsman bloke
He acts as if it's all a flamin' joke
And says: "Hee hee! Tomorrow spring tide, Larney!"
Telling 'em!
PEOPLE who hit potholes in the road should not sue the government, they should rather be grateful they have roads at all – or so says Chris Hlabisa, head of the KZN transport department. It is a standpoint that has not met with universal support.
Ron Coppin, of Hillcrest, sends in a response. It's in the design for a licence disc holder that carries - around the glued edge and clearly visible to any official who looks at the vehicle's windscreen – the message:
"Yes, I've paid my licence – Now you blankety-blank off and fix some potholes!"
That 's telling 'em!
Evil regime
SADDAM Hussein's cousin and henchman, "Chemical Ali", is hanged in Iraq for gassing to death thousands of Kurds. In Britain, Tony Blair's former spindoctor, Alastair Campbell, gives evidence before the Chilcot inquiry into the circumstances of the Iraq war.
Satirical magazine Private Eye takes it up under a newspaper masthead, Baghdad Times. "COMICAL ALI – NOT TO HANG" declares the headline.
"The evil genius behind the most hated regime the world has ever seen will not be hanged, it was revealed today.
"Alastair Campbell, known as 'Comical Ali', was for years the right-hand man of the hated dictator Tony Blair. During his time in office he was responsible for a number of atrocities, including the notorious 'Dodgy Dossier'.
"When he went on trial this week before the specially constituted Chilcot Tribunal, Comical Ali defiantly refused to admit to any wrongdoing.
"Instead, in a typically maniacal outburst, he ranted for several hours incomprehensibly.
"'I am proud of what I have done,' he told his baffled inquisitors. 'I haven't done anything.
"'I would do it all again,' he went on, ' if I was given the chance. I didn't tell any lies. Everything I said was 100 percent true, even when it wasn't.'
"Asked if he would stand by the statement that 'without doubt' Saddam Hussein possessed WMD, Ali said: 'Yes. And by that I mean no'…"
And so it goes on. Wonderful stuff!
Toxic pancakes
A KLOOF housewife sends in the warning that we should beware of pancake and other bakery mixes that have passed their use-by date. Apparently they develop toxic moulds that can set off potentially fatal allergies. A boy in America very nearly died after eating pancakes his mother had baked from a mix that was way past use-by date.
A check on the Internet suggests this incident did in fact happen. So - throw out all outdated pancake, muffin, brownie and other mixes.
Tailpiece
WHAT does a maths graduate say to a sociology graduate?
"I'll have the burger and fries please."
Last word
Critics search for ages for the wrong word, which, to give them credit, they eventually find.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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