The beautiful game
NOW THAT'S what I call a football match! An Argentinian referee has set a new world record by red-carding 36 players for fighting on the pitch.
Thirty-six? But there are only 22 players on the field. Yes, but referee Damian Rubino also red-carded the substitutes, coaches and technical staff, so furious was the melee that broke out in a match between Victoriano Arenas and Claypole. He had no jurisdiction over spectators who also joined the fight.
It made the TV newscasts and was pretty spectacular, better than professional wrestling.
Great value
STILL with football, a club in England is offering fans the chance to buy season tickets at £15 000 apiece. Peterborough United supporters who are willing to part with the cash get in return a padded seat in the directors' box, a three-course carvery before each game and the title of Honorary Director.
Peterborough United is by no means in the top league – it plays in the third tier of English football. In the Premiership League, Arsenal's season tickets are £1 825, Chelsea's are £1 210 and Manchester United's only £931.
How does one get value for £15 000? The club's director of football – who says the scheme is a non-starter, insisted on by the chairman – facetiously suggests that the holder should be given five minutes on the pitch as a substitute each match.
Yeah, great. After a slap-up three-course carvery lunch. King's Park, do not take note!
Still better value
IT RECALLS the fellow who is negotiating with a ticket tout to get into the FA Cup Final.
"How much?"
"Two hundred quid."
"Two hundred quid? That's outrageous! For two hundred quid I can get the best tart in Piccadilly."
"You can, guvnor. But not 45 minutes each way and a brass band in between."
Moot point
READER Dave Knight questions last week's item on Tristan da Cunha being the most remote inhabited island in the world. Gough Island, 460 km south of Tristan da Cunha, is a British protectorate and world heritage site, he says, and it has eight people living on it, including his daughter.
"These are employees of the South African Department of Environmental Affairs and three, including my daughter, are meteorologists gathering weather data sent back to Pretoria every three hours. They live for 12 months on the island, which is 16km x 6.5km with no roads, no airport and access only by ship via Tristan. There is one main building. Maybe this could be classed as the most remote inhabited island."
A moot point. The Tristan islanders, who claim to be the most remote, probably don't recognise temporary meteorologists as inhabitants.
I think Gough Island is part of the same British protectorate as Tristan da Cunha, St Helena and Ascension Island. At any rate, they share the same governor.
Do they have TV reception on Gough Island? I hope Dave's daughter didn't have to endure the cricket match against England.
Meanwhile, it's time the party hacks got cracking. Those eight people on Gough Island need to be registered on the voters roll for Umhlanga without delay.
Cash flow
NOTES on the Budget. Investment analyst Dr James Greener points out in his latest grumpy newsletter that much of the R790 billion allocated to goods and services flows to civil servants and to private sector businesses which have to deliver.
"The critical job-creating portion of state expenditure lies in paying private citizens to deliver goods which in turn should trigger a cascading demand for durable and consumable items out into every corner of the economy. Even a small party to celebrate a new presidential spouse should ultimately involve a wine farmer, a jeweller and a band. A large piece of yellow machinery that is used to build a dam or a road will need drivers, fuel, parts, mechanics and someone with a red flag behind it.
"But a growing number of tax eaters are discovering that they can pocket the cash and deliver nothing, thus cutting off the cascade. This results in the lack of service delivery that voters and taxpayers (by no means identical groups) are increasingly unhappy about."
Tailpiece
MOTTO of the Eskimo lottery: You've got to be Inuit to win it!
Last word
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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