Another Ulster atrocity
HERE'S another atrocity in the saga of sickening violence that is Northern Ireland. Jim Rodgers, mayor of Belfast, agreed to leapfrog a council female employee, who was in fancy dress as a tomato. It was to promote a gourmet food fair.
But Mr Rodgers slipped on the wet grass and knocked Lorraine Mallon flying. She ended up with a slipped disc and brought a negligence case against the council.
Now she has been awarded 64 000 pounds in damages.
Mr Rodgers says he would have made the jump if he hadn't slipped. "It was just one of those unfortunate things. I'm very fit and take care of myself."
I fear we will never understand Northern Ireland with its weird sectarian practices..
Blunt pencil
A MARKET analyst named James Greener puts out a regular and somewhat testy newsletter on world and local affairs. In his latest he calls for some austerity measures in South Africa to match those elsewhere.
"One of the austerity measures being taken by the UK government has been to shut down dozens of tax-eating organisations that provide little value. This is a great idea. Sadly the same cuts are not yet evident here despite being woefully overdue.
"The National Youth Development Agency has an annual budget of R370 million. It pays R11m a year in salaries to a 12-member Operating Executive Committee who rely on input from a 63-member Advisory Board. Just the tea and biscuit bill for a meeting this large will leave precious little money out of the budget for any other youth development – whatever that is.
"Over at the misnamed Road Accident Fund which is actually a R43 billion deficit, not a fund, the CEO was awarded a bonus amounting to almost half his already outrageous salary of R4.3m. Reports failed to indicate the reason for the award but clearly it can't have been performance.
"The Competition Commission has delivered an opinion on the staffing complement for the proposed forthcoming merger of two life assurance companies. This change of focus from consumer protection to employment policies is alarming and typical of unchecked bureaucracies.
"And Stats SA sent a charming young lady armed with a blunt pencil and well-used eraser to my house to ask questions and complete a huge census form. She treated my refusal to identify my race group, on the grounds that we had stopped all that nonsense 16 years ago, with polite amusement and then went on to record that I wear glasses and own a variety of consumer durable items that will undoubtedly catch the attention of any potential burglar who sees the document as it travels through the system. She forgot to ask about the Rottweiler though."
Grrrr! Woof!
Dummy text
FOLLOWERS of Jonathan Cainer, who writes the astrology column in the London Daily Mail, suffered disappointment last week. His horoscope was not quite up to his usual standard.
"Aries: This is a swathe of dummy text that can be used to indicate how many words fit a particular space.
"Cancer: The paragraphs have been made deliberately different lengths in order to avoid repetition.
"Libra: There is no pretend Latin because, annoyingly, it wreaks havoc with spell check.
"Pisces: It's extremely boring if you should actually bother to read it."
It seems Cainer didn't see it coming. But proofreading would help.
Fairy tale
ONCE upon a time, a prince asked a beautiful princess: "Will you marry me?"
The princess said:"No!"
And the prince lived happily ever after and rode motorcycles and went fishing and hunting and played golf and dated women half his age and drank beer and scotch
and had tons of money in the bank and left the toilet seat up.
Sound grasp
THE PEOPLE who read the weather forecast on TV generally manage to avoid controversy and acrimony. But not Polish-born Tomasz Schafernaker who was caught "giving the finger" to his BBC colleagues, live on air, and who referred to the Outer Hebrides and the Western Isles, off Scotland, as "Nowheresville".
He has now been discreetly removed from the screen by the BBC, who have given him an off-camera job behind the scenes.
It seems a pity. Schafernaker displays a sound grasp of idiom and geography.
Tailpiece
WHAT do you call a woman who sells herself for lasagne?
A pastatute.
Last word
Either this man is dead or my watch has stopped.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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