The Idler, Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Orang-utan fighter ace

 

LAST week's item on the gorillas in the animal park in Kent, England, who are beginning to walk like hominids, recalls a story from World War II.

 

An RAF fighter squadron was based in Burma and every evening the pilots would have to stand to in case they were scrambled to fight off a Japanese air attack. This meant the pilots having to sit in their aircraft in full flying kit, waiting. It was hot, sticky and tedious.

 

One of the pilots had adopted and reared an orphaned orang-utan that had been found in the jungle. He hit on the idea of dressing it up in his flying kit – helmet, goggles and all – and getting it to walk out the the plane, climb into the cockpit and stand to, along with the others. The pilot would relax in the shade and have a snooze.

 

Then one evening the squadron was indeed scrambled. The orang-utan took off with the rest of the flight and shot down three Japanese Zeros before crashing into the treetops and being killed.

 

When the pilot was discovered to be still at the airstrip, he was court martialled and cashiered.

 

Does this story have the ring of truth? I have to warn that it comes from a former chief petty officer in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. While you can normally rely on 100 percent veracity from RN seamen, the Fleet Air Arm are notorious fibbers.

 

It's a good story but I've ma doots.

Hologram staff

PASSENGERS are being greeted at Manchester airport, in England, this week by holograms of airport staff – digital illusions that tell them all about liquid restrictions, the procedure to get boarding passes and so on.

It's apparently intended to speed up the security check-in process. The system will be on trial at one terminal, where the holograms will be of real-life customer service employees. The holograms are so realistic and convincing that passengers apparently have tried to present their passports to them.

It's not clear how the holograms speed things up better than real human service staff. But I suppose holograms are better than blow-up dolls.

King's Park restored

 

THE ST PETERSBURG Forum – St Petersburg, Leningrad, St Petersburg again – notes with approval the restoration of the name of King's Park rugby stadium. Indeed, the eddies of time expunge all foolishness.

 

The new sponsor, Mr Price, is no doubt the toast of the Duikers' Club and elsewhere. For he's a jolly good fellow ...

 

Limerick at last

 

READER Lydia Weight has at last found the words to the limerick she had been searching for, concerning the man on the flying trapeze. Other readers – including the redoubtable Ian Gibson, poet laureate of Hillcrest – had attempted to assist, but in vain.

 

But now Lydia's found the lines and she shares them with us:

A limrick's writtn to plas,

Lik a man on a flying trapz.

I rgrt that this sampl

Sts no good xampl,

But you may rdm it with as.

 

"I don't expct any of th jack-asss to gt it!" she says.

 

Wll it dos tak a bit of gtting usd to.

 

Another tricky one

 

HERE'S another trick limerick:

 

There was a young curate of Salisbury

Whose conduct was halisbury-scalisbury;

He wandered round Hampshire

Without any pampshire

'Til the vicar compelled him to walisbury.

 

Roman name for Salisbury: Sarum

Postal abbreviation for Hampshire: Hants

 

 

And the real thing

 

AND NOW A limerick from the Hillcrest maestro himself. Ian Gibson detects in the sushi-eating habits of restaurateur Kenneth Kunene shades of the last days of the Roman Empire?

 

Our nouveau riche comrades eat sushi

Off the limbs of nude ladies juicy;

Kunene asks: 'What's wrong?

Why the dance, why the song?

After all, sushi goes well with Gucci.'

 

 

Tailpiece

 

TWO AMERICAN tourists are driving through Wales. At Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogoch they stop for lunch.

One of the tourists asked the waitress: "Before we order, I wonder if you could settle an argument for us. Can you pronounce where we are, very, very, very slowly?"

The girl leans over and says: "Burrr … gurrr … King".

 

Last word

 

Some national parks have long waiting lists for camping reservations. When you have to wait a year to sleep next to a tree, something is wrong.

George Carlin

GRAHAM LINSCOTT