Turning point and close call
TODAY'S dramatic picture of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, Hawaii, was taken with a Box Brownie. This, for the benefit of younger readers, was the kind of camera used for posed shots of your aunts and uncles at picnics, where nobody was allowed to move because the shutter speed was so slow the photograph would otherwise be blurred. The quality is astonishing.
Pearl Harbour was a turning point. It brought the US into World War II, tipping the scales decisively against the Nazis. It possibly also saved Durban from calamity. Some historians believe a Japanese aircraft carrier fleet was on its way here to destroy our dry dock, which was a vital repair facility for Commonwealth shipping headed for the Middle East.
Pearl Harbour ended that mission. The American entry to the war built up to the Battle of Midway, in the Pacific, and the carrier force was diverted to join that titanic air-sea battle where much of the Japanese fleet was sunk.
Phew! It was a close call for us.
Bright young thing
A FEW years ago it was some kind of anniversary of the Japanese attack. A sub-editor phoned the newspaper library and asked for pictures of Pearl Harbour.
"Sure," said the bright young thing. "What movies was she in?"
.
Skye boats
FLEET bonny boat like a bird on the wing ... Archeaologists believe they have discovered a Viking ship-building site at Loch Airde, on the Isle of Skye. Boat timbers, a stone-built quay and a canal have already been uncovered and aerial surveys have been launched. And this news snippet recalls the old liquor licensing laws in Scotland.
The connection? Well, a few of us were at a kind of tourist lodge up in the highlands and a professor of archaeology from Edinburgh University was explaining very much the same thing - that Scotland had in fact been a Viking territory. The Vikings had founded Edinburgh and it was much older than London. Fascinating stuff.
It was a Sunday evening and in those days most of the Scottish counties prohibited pubs opening on the Sabbath. We heard the crunch of tyres on the gravel outside and the landlord rushed about telling everyone on no account to lift a glass while the police were there.
Sure enough, in walked two officers. They surveyed the scene. The tables were covered with bottles and glasses but not a soul was drinking.
Satisfied, they nodded and disappeared. They play fair, those descendants of the Vikings.
Donder, bliksem!
STILL with Vikings, today being Thursday (Thor's Day), Naomi Wakefield-Stapersma (who is of Norwegian extraction) shares a ditty her Dad enjoyed.
The God of Thunder went out riding
On his favourite filly.
'I'm Thor!' he cried,
The horse replied,
'You've forgotten your thaddle, thilly'!
Entrepreneurs
WHEN you see a gap … an American company calling itself Eternal Earth-Bound Pet is cashing in on the sect who believe the end of the world is nigh and they – the select few – will be "raptured" to Heaven just as things turn ugly.
For just $135 per pet the company commits itself to caring for the enraptured one's pets should the rapture happen within 10 years of the down payment.
So it doesn't really matter that Pastor Harold Camping's Doomsday didn't happen last Saturday, as he'd predicted. Just pay your 135 bucks and you know Fido will be well cared for during those awful final moments as the world implodes, whenever it happens.
This thing gets more bizarre by the day.
Postscript
MIKE Dunleavy, deputy poet laureate of Hillcrest, sends in a few lines on the municipal elections.
They handshake and smile
For a mandatory while
Then retreat to their ivory towers,
All smugly aware that their financial share
Is assured in the government bowers.
Tailpiece
Teacher: Are you going to the school fete?"
Little girl: "No, I ain't going."
Teacher: "You mustn't say: 'I ain't going'. You must say: 'I am not going.'" She drives home her point. "I am not going. He is not going. We are not going. You are not going. They are not going. Now, dear, can you say all that?"
Little girl: "Sure. They ain't nobody going."
Last word
I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.
GRAHAM LINSCOTT
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