The Idler, Monday, March 21, 2011

Shower with a friend

 

INTERNATIONAL Water Week starts today. To coincide with it, the Department of Water Affairs has been pushing a pamphlet on water saving into letterboxes all over the country.

 

It contains some gems of information, spelling, grammar and style:

 

·        "Look at the toilet pipes and klepps. The rinsehead should only rinse for 2-4 seconds and the uranal for 6-8 seconds)'

·        "Make sure you close the taps and fix taps that is leaking – one drop every second waste up to 30 litres per day. (10000) litres per year).

·        "If you have to bath, only put in enough water or share your bath water."

·        "Do not rinse your glasses and cutlery under running water."

·        "If your garden needs less watering but deeper (for a long time period) watering, you are encouraging a deeper root canal, which stronger plants will be a consequence. The usage can make some of the deeper plants more dependable."

 

If this glossy brochure went to every household in the country (say fifteen million?) it must have been quite a production and printing contract. Next time they should splash out and hire a copywriter and a proofreader.

 

Float-boats

 

THERE'S no definitive word yet on the fate of the Richards Bay float-boat – made out of the float of a Sunderland flying boat – about which Jeff Gaisford, of Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, seeks information (It was built by his uncle who is now 96 and lives in America).

 

Jeff says people remember it lying in the bush for years behind the Richards Bay Yacht Club. It might have come to grief when bulldozers went through the area in a development phase, but he's still looking.

 

Meanwhile, Zoltan de Rosner, of Pennington, recalls another float-boat at Kosi Bay in the late 1940s.

 

"As a preteen in '49 I used to holiday with a school friend's family on the beach at Kosi Bay. On the shores of the large lake – I think it was the fifth - there was a small trading store at which we'd stop to buy final provisions before going on to the beach.

 

"A float-boat was there, owned by two brothers, on which we youngsters were once taken out fishing on the lake. We were told it came off a Sunderland and they'd cut the top half off and braced it inside with a wooden frame and bench seats. It was powered by one outboard engine.

 

"Those two guys were wild. After a few grogs they'd slip moorings and head out to hunt crocodiles for their skins. They would gaff the croc, head and tail, hoist it into the boat and somehow subdue it."

 

Yep, them were the days. Kosi Bay, float-boats and grogged up croc hunters. It doesn't get better than that.

 

 

 

Smoked haddock

 

PEOPLE can become exercised over the most unexpected things such as the Arbroath Smokie – a smoked haddock from Arbroath, Scotland, also known as a finnan haddie - which somebody had the effrontery to describe as a smoked herring. A reader sends in a limerick on the dispute.

It seems everyone's up in a paddy

Over something they call finnan haddie.

Well, the haddock has got

A distinguishing spot

That sets it apart – got it, laddie?

 

Tailpiece AFTER having their 11th child, an Irish couple decide that is enough. The husband goes to his doctor who tells him there is a procedure known as a vasectomy that will fix the problem - but it's expensive. A less costly alternative is to go home, get a large firecracker, light it, put it in an empty beer can then hold the can up to his ear and count to 10. "M'goodness, I may not be de smartest man in de world, but I don't see how putting a firework in a beer can next to my ear is goin' to help." "Trust me, it will do the job", says the doctor. So the Irishman goes home, lights a cracker and puts it in a beer can. He holds the can up to his ear and begins to count: "One, two, tree, four foive ..." at which point he pauses and places the beer can between his legs so he can continue counting on his other hand. The procedure also works in New Zealand and Tasmania . Last word Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting. Alan Dean Foster   GRAHAM LINSCOTT