A-hunting we will go
TALLY-HO the rat! They know how to enjoy themselves on Tristan da Cunha. Every year the islanders get together on Ratting Day, a public holiday, to kill as many of the rodents as they can. Last year's kill was 426, slightly down on previous years.
After that they repair to the Albatross Bar in the Prince Philip Hall or to the Cafe, just below the Prince Philip Hall, to whoop it up. The Cafe sells snacks, wine and beer, as well as sweets. Adult islanders drink, on average, about a bottle of whisky a week.
I'm obliged for this information to Graham Hammond, of Durban, who has just returned from Tristan da Cunha after a trip to the islands way down in the South Atlantic in the RMS St Helena – the last mailship in the world.
He was there to see the Governor, Andrew Gurr – who is based on St Helena - lay a plaque commemorating the evacuation of the islanders to Britain in 1961 when they were threatened by an erupting volcano.
One might have thought the transportation of these few hundred souls from the harsh conditions of a volcanic outcrop in the Roaring Forties meant a new life of opportunity for them in modern-day civilisation. But no. They hankered for their fishing trawlers, their potato patches, the Alabatross Bar and Ratting Day.
Most of them went back, when the volcano subsided, to the peace and quiet and green fields of Tristan da Cunha. The island has 361 inhabitants today, about 80 households. There are only eight surnames: Glass, Swain, Rogers, Green, Hagan, Repetto, Lavarello and Patterson. Employment is 100 percent, much of it in a crayfish processing factory. The elderly receive pensions. There is a small hospital. There is a Catholic and an Anglican church. There is a nine-hole golf course.
The islanders have television. They are in telephone contact with Britain. They have never heard of Julius Malema or Jimmy Manyi.
And now the bad news. Tristan da Cunha is not looking for immigrants.
World Cup
A LINE comes in from a Scot of my acquaintance, with reference to the England-Ireland match in the Cricket World Cup.
"What's the Gaelic for 'Schadenfreude'? Ho, ho, ho!"
People power
WILL people power leap across the Mediterranean from the Maghreb to Italy? Will prime minister Silvio Berlusconi be the next to fall? It's a question that has been asked before as thousands upon thousands of Italian women take to the streets in protest at the prime minister's lurid sex life.
Private Eye, the British satirical magazine, takes the story further under the masthead Daily Cairograph, drawing an uncanny parallel with events in Egypt.
"As thousands of furious women flooded into St Pizza's Square in Rome, demanding the resignation of long-ruling dictator Hasno Pantzon (surely 'Silvio Berlusconi'? Ed), it looks increasingly as if the long reign of the hated tyrant who has ruled Italy with a rod of, well, let's face it, a rod – could be at an end.
"Berlusconi is still defiant, insisting that if he steps down Italy could be plunged into stability for decades to come.
"During his long and infamous premiership, literally hundreds of innocent models and weather girls have been locked up in his bedroom at the Palazzo Fornicazione, and forced to undergo the torture of listening to him sing old ballads.
"But now it seems as if Berlusconi's power is finally on the wane. The 89-year-old despot has at last offered to step down and hand over power to his deputy, Ms Tutti Frutti, the shapely 19-year-old lap dancer and Minister for the Interior.
"The crowds, however, are in no mood for compromise and greeted his offer with chants of 'Arrivederci, Berlo' …"
We watch with fascination.
Proofreading required
VAL VOLKER, formerly a honcho in provincial government, sends in some newspaper headlines and asks what happened to proofreading?
· Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft
---------------- ---------------------------------
* Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half
* Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors
* Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead
Yes, it's those seven-foot doctors that are especially alarming.
Tailpiece
ALTERNATIVE definitions of the word "vulnerable":
Female: Fully opening up oneself emotionally to another.
Male: Playing cricket without a box.
Last word
A psychiatrist is a fellow who asks you a lot of expensive questions your wife asks for nothing.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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