Tolstoy and the Super-15
OUR RUGBY takes the twists and turns of a Tolstoy novel. Who could have predicted just a few weeks ago that at Loftus we would rediscover the elan last shown at Twickenham? On this showing, anything can happen.
What strange chemistry is it that can so transform a team? Passes are held on to, tackles are made that would not have happened before. There is a zest that previously was lacking. Was Frederic Michalak the catalyst? Does the presence of two game-breakers in the backline – the other being, of course, Patrick Lambie at fullback – make the difference?
It certainly seemed to. But it doesn't fully explain a transformation of the entire side. Tolstoy understood the phenomenon – but it would be silly to compare the Super 15 with War and Peace. The Super-15 is much more important.
Anything can happen – and it probably will.
Zebra stripes
RECENTLY we discussed the way the black and white stripes of the zebra cool him down, the black stripe absorbing heat and the white stripe reflecting it, this setting up tiny air currents across his whole body.
Neil Abbott, of St Lucia (see photograph), says he has heard the same but believes the real colouring basis of all wild animals is camouflage and survival.
"Predators - lion, hyena and wild dog - when running into the herd, which is now scattering in all directions, get confused in trying to concentrate on one animal, with the blurring of the stripes and shapes.
"Zebra are also very difficult to pick up in the distance, as the stripes tend to merge, giving a fuzzy outline, and taking on the colouring of the back ground. Zebra standing under trees and behind bushes blend very well into the light and shadows through the branches."
Neil says zebra in Kenya and surrounding countries tend to be cleanly black and white. Further south, shadow stripes appear between the black stripes (as on the rump of the two zebra in the attached photograph. Also, some of the zebra in Zululand are losing their stripes on their hindquarters and back legs, many of them starting to resemble the extinct quagga.
Yet this coloration is reversed in the Eastern Cape, where the mountain zebra is totally black and white - no shadow stripes - like its cousins of the Kenyan plains.
I still feel it's got something to do with football jersies.
Tiny fellas
A TEENAGE boy the size of a one-year-old toddler has been declared the smallest man in the world. Filipino Junrey Balawing was recognised in the title by the Guinness Book of World Records when he turned 18 and became officially a man.
At 23 inches (58cm) tall, he is about three inches shorter than the previous record-holder, Khagendra Thapa Magar, of Nepal, who is 26.4 inches (67cm) tall.
What do people like Junrey Balawing and Khagendra Thapa Magar do next? Could they have a future in the ANC Youth League?
MARGARET Thatcher's handbag, Winston Churchill's half-smoked cigar ... all kinds of odd things are fetching huge prices at Christie's, the London auctioneers. Next it will be Al Capone's handgun, which is expected to realise £60 000 on Wednesday.
The Colt .38 was made in 1929, after the St Valentine's Day Massacre the same year.
Capone – also known as Scarface - who ran the bootleg liquor trade in Chicago during the Prohibition days, was America' most notorious and violent gangster. He became the model for Hollywood's pinstriped, fedora-hatted, cigar-smoking mobsters.
Yet in spite of his violent criminality, he got nailed by the authorities only on tax evasion charges. He died of natural causes on his release from prison. But before he died he did arrange the killing of the man who had ratted on him to the internal revenue people.
Those involved in the sale of the gun had better make sure the VAT and other tax requirements are complied with. You never know, history could repeat itself.
Berlin scientist
ANOTHER Kirk Miller limerick:
In Berlin, there's a scientist, Dan,
Who has studied bacteria. An
Appropriate nickname
In honour of his fame
Has been given to him; it's Germ-man.
Tailpiece
HOW DO YOU make anti-freeze? You steal the old bag's blanket.
Last word
To invent, you need a good imagination and a pile of junk.
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