The ivories tinkle again
THE SEASON becomes suddenly more festive. Dick Cocks, former Natal rugby player and selector, is back from his native Australia for Christmas, making merry at places such as his old club, DHS Old Boys.
The last time I saw Cocksy before he returned to Australia on a permanent basis was at Maritzburg Collegians. It was three o'clock in the morning and he was thumping and roaring at the piano after a rugby dinner. Here is a man who understands the true ethos of rugby.
This time Dick has with him his wife, Glynis, kids Lesley and Michael and kids' friend, Debbie. They've been on a tour of southern Africa, including Victoria Falls.
Here, Cocksy tells me, the kids forced him to jump into a gorge from a dizzy height in some kind of foefie-slide harness that swings you across and back – a terrifying experience.
Next day they went white-water rafting below the falls and Cocksy fell off and traversed the rapids mainly under the raft - not to be recommended either, rather like being keelhauled..
He was most disappointed when, on their drive up from the Cape, it was pouring with rain at the Storms River bridge and the bungee jumping facility was closed.
I forebore to tell Cocksy (or his kids) about the bungee jump at Moses Mabhida stadium or the crocodile-wrestling that is laid on these days at Blue Lagoon. A man must be allowed to relax.
It's great to have the old blighter back in Durban. Great to have the piano keyboards disturbed again.
Kallis castled
THAT noted cricket analyst, Spyker Koekemoer, remarks of the Kallis affair: "Even the great Jacques Kallis can be castled through the gate when he tries to drive."
That about sums it up. Who cares if he'd had a tot or two? I say that when a fellow scores a double ton he's entitled to any number of little indiscretions.
Who is this Spyker Koekemoer? He's not to be confused with Vernon Koekemoer, the Benoni bodybuilder and heart-throb who also manages a Nandos. Spyker is a serious fellow who writes regularly to a gentleman in the Marico called Oom Schalk about all kinds of matters of the day.
He's also known as Pat Smythe, a stalwart of Duikers Rugby Club, who specialises these days in rediscovering the world of Herman Charles Bosman, still alive and well on the platteland.
Entrapment
TWO London journalists posed as ordinary Liberal Democrat supporters to coax Vince Cable, Lib-Dem Secretary for Business in Britain's coalition government, into saying some indiscreet and embarrassing – though wholly unsurprising – things to them in his constituency office.
Has entrapment now become the norm on Fleet Street? This was not some red-top tabloid, it was the supposedly respectable Daily Telegraph.
Hillaire Belloc had it spot-on:
You cannot hope to bribe or twist
Thank God the British journalist.
But considering what the man will do
Unbribed there's no occasion to.
Ayoop!
THE PITFALLS of dialect. A Yorkshireman takes his cat to the vet.
"Ayoop, lad, I need to talk to thee about me cat."
"Is it a tom?"
"Nay, lad - I've browt 'im wi' us."
Finnegan's wake
MORE from Bill Bryson's Bizarre World (Warner Books):
A 22-year-old Irishman, Bob Finnegan, was crossing the busy Falls Road in Belfast when he was struck by a taxi and flung over its roof. The taxi drove away and, as Finnegan lay stunned in the road, another car ran into him, rolling him into the gutter. It too drove on. As a knot of gawkers gathered to examine the magnetic Irishman, a delivery van ploughed through the crowd, leaving in its wake three injured bystanders and an even more battered Bob Finnegan. When a fourth vehicle came along, the crowd wisely scattered and only one person was hit – Bob Finnegan. In the space of two minutes Finnegan suffered a fractured skull, broken pelvis, broken leg and other assorted injuries. Hospital officials said he would recover.
Tailpiece
A FLEA jumps over the batwing doors of a saloon, sinks three whiskies then jumps out again. Then he picks himself up from the dirt, dusts himself down and says: "OK. Who moved my dog?"
Last word
Some are born great, some achieve greatness and some hire public relations officers.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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