A bunch of chokers
YES, IT'S PROVED. Our cricketers are a bunch of chokers. When they've got the opposition by the gorrel, they just don't stop squeezing.
What an astonishing game that was. India's magnificent opening and third wicket stand. Our skittling of them thereafter. And then that heroic chase-down of what was still a monster score – 296 – on a wicket that was deteriorating fast. Cricket doesn't come better than this.
This was the first ODI I can recall that produced the seesaw effect you generally get in Test cricket. And they say one-day cricket will be replaced by Twenty20? Come off it!
We go into the rest of the competition with a sense of purpose and can-do. Our opponents regard us with a new wariness. What a game!
Shucks, it's hard to be humble!
Floatboat
HAS ANYONE spotted a futuristic skiboat constructed from a Sunderland flyingboat float? Jeff Gaisford, a honcho with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, is anxious for information about it.
The skiboat was built after a South African Air Force Sunderland flyingboat crashed into Lake Umsingazi, near Richards Bay, in 1956. An uncle of Jeff's, who was living at Richards Bay at the time, salvaged an undamaged wing float from the wreck and built the ski-boat out of it. The ski-boat was powered by a flathead Ford V8 engine mounted behind the cockpit which was covered by a clear canopy made from one of those hideous cake-covers seen in every tea-room at the time.
"My uncle is now 96 and lives in the United States," says Jeff. "Sadly, he has no idea what happened to his creation. Would any of your readers from the Richards Bay/Mandini area know what happened to it?"
Who knows, it might still be going strong. I recall some folk making a ski-boat from a Catalina float at St Lucia in the 1950s, salvaged from the wreck of a plane that crashed when the RAF had a base there during World War II. You can't imagine anything better designed to punch through the surf than a flyingboat float.
However, Jeff tells me he knows of a Catalina floatboat that came apart at the seams at Mapelane, just south of St Lucia, and sank. That must almost certainly have been the same one. But perhaps Sunderlands were made of sterner stuff and his uncle's floatboat has survived.
Catalina Bay
A PART of Lake St Lucia is known as Catalina Bay, after the flyingboat that crashed there. The wreck has long since been covered by sand.
But what not too many people know is that it crashed with a full payload of unexploded depth charges. They were never recovered.
How long does it take for depth charges to corrode into nothingness? Does it happen?
Tread carefully!
Do the math!
VARIOUS readers have expressed amusement at the recent statement by KwaZulu-Natal MEC for Education Senzo Mchunu that Verwoerd made science and maths difficult because he didn't want competition from blacks.
Yes, you can blame Verwoerd for all kinds of things but he didn't invent the binomial theorem. A reader who calls himself Johnny Jetlag puts it this way: "How can he blame Verwoerd? It was Einstein who made maths and science difficult."
Words, words
SOME intraverbal gymnastics: What do these seven words have in common? Banana, dresser; grammar; potato; revive; uneven; assess.
Yes, they all have at least two double letters but that's not it.
If you take the first letter of each word and place it at the end – and then spell backwards – you get the same word.
Clever, eh?
| Iron law What's the difference between Iron Man and Iron Woman?
Chauvinists of the world, unite! Hey, duck fellows! Eina! |
Tailpiece
A LUSTY, middle-aged Italian meets a spectacular blonde in a bar in Rome. He entices her back to his apartment where a furious bout of lovemaking ensues.
"You finish?" he asks as the ardour subsides.
"No."
Stung by this affront to his machismo, he returns to the action with redoubled vigour.
"You finish?"
"No."
In desperation he goes to it again.
"You finish?"
"No, I Norwegian ... and I think I love you."
Last word
I envy people who drink. At least they have something to blame everything on.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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