Times of nail-biting tension
SLEEPLESS nights are my lot. I toss and turn in an agony of suspense. The fruit bats outside with their ping! ping! ping! seem to share my anxiety.
Who has been chosen to design and make Kate Middleton's wedding gown?
Is it really Sophie Cranston – who operates between Chelsea and Spain – as tipped by the usually very accurate Huffington Post, in the United States?
Is it Sarah Burton, who is the favourite of the bookies in England?
Or – a portentous burst of orchestral music here – has Kate designed and made the thing herself? Is it, as the London Daily Mail speculates, an ivory satin and lace number with a pearl button detail and a 3m train, drawn from the fashions of the Renaissance period?
Does it indeed – here a quaver from a solitary violin – already hang in a closet in Clarence House?
The suspense is unbearable. The entire world is surely on edge.
When is the Big Day again? I hope it doesn't clash with rugby. I need to know about that wedding gown.
Big Nanny knows
TRADITIONAL school games such as conkers and leapfrog are dying out in Britain because over-protective teachers have irrational fears about health and safety, a survey suggests.
Researchers found that conkers – a game in which kids try to shatter the opponent's chestnut, held on a string - have been banned from nearly one sixth of playgrounds for fear that they could cause injury or trigger a nut allergy - even though chestnuts are not actually nuts.
British Bulldog – what we used to call Red Rover or Open Gates - has been banned from more than a quarter of playgrounds and even innocuous games such as leapfrog and marbles are going the same way. Chasing games, such as tag, have been stopped in many schools.
The trend has been attributed to a rise in bureaucracy and red tape in schools and an increase in the number of parents who sue. Education experts have accused over-zealous teachers of ruining childhoods.
It's a paradox of the nanny state. Healthy horseplay is prohibited; so is appropriate physical chastisement. But the nannies can do nothing about the drugs, knives – even guns – that are infiltrating playgrounds.
The nuts contradiction four paragraphs back is an appropriate metaphor.
Obama's lean year
PRESIDENT Barack Obama's income has slumped. He and Michelle made $1.8 million last year, tax returns show, mostly through sale of his books. This is a drop from $2.6 m the year before and $5.5m the year before that.
His salary as president is $395 000.
Obama should come out here. The remuneration and deals on the side as manager of one of our smaller municipalities would be much more lucrative.
Vrystaat!
A FARMER in Devon, England, has dyed his flock of sheep bright orange to counter stock theft. John Heard runs his 250 black-faced ewes on a remote part of Dartmoor, where rustling has become a serious problem.
Since dying his ewes, there have been no more thefts.
Heard should now take things further by setting up a deal with the Free State Rugby Union. The wool could be processed directly into Free State rugby jersies and socks, eliminating all kinds of expensive middlemen.
A COUPLET describes the evolutionary process that has us where we are today, in the thrall of beauty, passion and all the rest.
Amoebas at the start were not complex,
But then they tore themselves apart and started sex.
One wish
VAN DER MERWE meets a fairy who grants him one wish.
Van: "I want to live forever."
Fairy: "Sorry. That's one wish I can't grant."
Van: "Fine. I want to die after the Proteas win the Cricket World Cup."
Fairy: "Oh, you crafty bastard!"
Boer means food
PIETER Aarsen, of Westville, pens some lines relating to a contemporary song.
Kill the "boer" and be aware,
You then see the shelves be bare.
Resulting in a desperate need
For all the mouths you want to feed.
Stop this cry for all that hate,
So as to avoid that dreadful fate.
Tailpiece
MY NEIGHBOURS came hammering on my front door at 2am. Can you believe it? How inconsiderate can you get?
But luckily they didn't wake me. I was still up, practising my bagpipes.
Last word
The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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