Women's Institute stage a coup
HOW'S this for a wheeze? The Women's Institute want to take over writing the Idler's column.
Let me explain. A lady named Bobbie Stallard has set up a competition for the Victoria group of Women's Institutes, who begin on the Berea and run all the way up the North Coast to Darnall.
She has put to her members the following proposition: "You have been asked to take over the Idler's column in The Mercury for one day." The gals are asked to then put pen to paper or finger to keyboard and dash off a column – the winner to be adjudged by none other than myself, the incumbent Idler.
I see this as a magnificent idea. The gals get the keyboards clattering while I take my fishing rod to the better shad spots or go out on the paddleski. Why should it not last in perpetuity?
But unfortunately it's not that simple. While I have absolutely no doubts about the propriety of the ladies of the Victoria group of Women's Institutes, chances cannot be taken. A filtering process is still required. If you could see some of the jokes that come in from female readers – not to mention some of the limericks – you would see what I mean. We have to retain some discretion as to what is published.
But it sounds a lot of fun.
Head of steam
AS I SAY, the Victoria group of Women's Institutes has impeccable standards of decorum. They have been known to fling a circuit court judge out of one of their cocktail parties for bad behaviour.
It happened years ago at Mtunzini. The Women's Institute were holding a cocktail party at the local hotel. Staying in the hotel was a circuit court judge. They invited him as guest of honour.
What the good ladies didn't realise was that this judge enjoyed whooping it up after hours. He arrived at the party having got up a good head of steam in the bar beforehand. Then he proceeded to regale them with a torrent of off-colour jokes.
It reached a point where the manager had to muscle him out of the party. But the Mtunzini hotel was one of those old-fashioned single-storey establishments. Next thing His Lordship was climbing in through the window again, shouting: "You can't throw me out! I'm a ****ing judge!"
This took place plumb in the centre of Victoria County where, as I say, Women's Institute decorum is beyond reproach. Yet I'm nervous. I hope there aren't any retired lady judges up there.
Sitting duck
RORY Lynsky, of Durban North, notes that the "White House" which is to be saved from demolition at the old Natal Command was known in his parents' time as "Pirow's Folly". This was because it was a grandiose project signed off by Minister of Defence Oswald Pirow at a time the Union Defence Force was increasingly ill-equipped to meet the military threat of the late 1930s.
The beachfront complex of the White House and the artillery emplacements before it (now under the pavements beside Pirates Lifesaving Club) was a sitting duck of a target for warships at sea.
Yes, Pirow also had plans to equip the army with mule carts armed with Vickers machineguns. That would have frightened the pants off Rommel.
But it couldn't have happened. Pirow was an extreme right-winger who had met Hitler during the 30s, afterwards describing him as "a saint". Fortunately he disappeared from the scene, along with the mule carts.
Oops!
IS MY FACE red? Earlier this week I picked up on an excellent letter to the newspaper on teenage binge drinking by Lynn Ambler and inadvertently mixed him up with his former wife, Margaret. I described Lynn (who is very much a hairy male) as a female former member of the provincial legislature.
Fortunately Lynn and Margaret (who are on the most amicable terms) think it's a hoot and say it happens all the time. But I'm embarrassed, I've known them both for years. I fear my shameful secret is out. I'm a teenage binge drinker.
Tailpiece
A MAN IS sitting at home on the verandah with his wife.
He: "I love you."
She: "Is that you talking or is it the beer talking?"
He: "It's me talking. I'm talking to the beer."
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Last word
I've stopped drinking, but only while I'm asleep.
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