Cops had it right
KUDOS for the cops ... a sharp-eyed reader points out that the police shown in a front page photograph yesterday of the aftermath of the stampede at Makulong Stadium were using their heads. Two officers with their backs to the camera were carrying side-arms from which the magazines could be seen to have been removed.
"Credit where credit is due," he says. "One of the first principles of crowd control is to unload your side-arm in case some nutcase grabs it from you. Then anything can happen. This picture shows these blokes have been properly trained."
I reckon you have to know a bit about it to notice a thing like that.
Vultures under threat
OVERSEAS TV newscasts have been carrying reports about a threat posed to endangered wildlife by the World Cup. Apparently, there's the possibility that the competition will boost demand for the dried brains of vultures, which are smoked and inhaled in the belief, in certain quarters, that this gives the smoker an insight to the future – who will win which matches. This allows him to make a killing with the bookies.
I know the tiny palm nut vulture, which is found in Maputaland, has long been under pressure from the muti men. But I haven't noticed our own conservationists getting unduly alarmed as the World Cup approaches.
Maybe it's been a slow week for news over there. Maybe the overseas channels are just building up mystique about the Dark Continent.
Call me Wayne
MEANWHILE, all 15 staff at a pub in West Yorkshire – girls as well as boys – have changed their names to "Wayne Rooney" in solidarity with England's World Cup striker. Lee and Lorraine Kennedy, managers at the Bay Horse in East Ardsley, have each changed their name to "Fabio Capello" after the England coach.
It's all been properly done by deed poll. When the competition is over, they'll change back to their original names, again by deed poll.
I sincerely hope something more sensible than this emerges from the World Cup.
The Beast
IT'S A PITY the rugby administrators backed down in their dispute with the "Ministry of Sport" (a truly Orwellian name that) over whether Zimbabwe-born Tendai "The Beast" Mtawarira should continue to play rugby for the Springboks.
An important principle is at stake. Does a government (anywhere in the world) have the right to intervene in the selection of a sports team?
Does South Africa have a law which grants the government that right? If so, is such a law not in conflict with that section of the Bill of Rights that entrenches the right to free association, and therefore ultra vires?
The International Rugby Board was perfectly happy with Mtawarira's eligibility to play for South Africa. What business is it of any government?
It would have been nice to test this. The Soviet-style undertones of the case are disturbing.
Current affairs
READER Andrew Dale comments in verse on contemporary news items:
The ritual for cleansing an unfaithful wife,
Appears to be complex and tough.
The unfaithful husband's more easily cleansed:
We know that a shower is enough!
Sweet revenge
TWO TALES of sweet revenge from Bill Bryson's Bizarre World (Warner Books):
· A bank clerk who won a sudden promotion made his former boss the office boy. Enrique Marco told a Spanish labour court that his upstart ex-assistant made him copy out the local phone book by hand and sent him out to buy cigarettes. The bank was ordered to pay Marco $56 000 compensation.
· Unhappy over an $11 parking fine, Thomas B Bryant, of Corning, California, was in the enviable position of being able to exact revenge. He ordered the police department to vacate its headquarters within 60 days. Mr Bryant owned the building.
Tailpiece
A DIZZY blonde is accompanying her boyfriend on a round of golf. His first shot goes into the rough, and she shakes her head in sympathy. His second goes into a bunker. She shakes her head and sighs. His third shot with an eight-iron lifts the ball out of the bunker onto the green. It rolls into the hole.
"Oh boy ," she says. "Now you're in real trouble."
Last word
You can only be young once. But you can always be immature.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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