Confusion of identity
AN AWKWARD moment on BBC television. The Beeb was doing one of those transatlantic interviews and on screen appeared a fellow who was introduced as Ben Walker, a leading authority on baseball.
Looking totally nonplussed, he did not respond to a couple of questions fired at him, at which they asked if the sound wasn't working?
The sound was fine, he said, but his name was Michael Wolf, writer of Rupert Murdoch's biography.
Much embarrassment. It recalls the occasion when Churchill had lunch during World War II with a fellow called Berlin.
Churchill was under the impression his guest was Isaiah Berlin, the high-powered academic who supplied the war cabinet with weekly analyses of the situation in Europe. In fact he was Irving Berlin, the American songwriter – Alexander's Ragtime Band, White Christmas, There's No Business Like Show Business ...
The mistake was never discovered during the lunch, which ended with both parties totally bewildered. Churchill growled afterwards: "That Berlin fellow plays his cards very close to his chest!"
Another victim
THE DEPUTY commissioner of Scotland Yard has now joined his commissioner in resigning over the phone hacking scandal. There's a vacuum at the top as the Olympics draw closer.
It's a pity Bheki Cele is preoccupied with the police HQ leases in Pretoria and Durban, otherwise a secondment could be in order.
Loose laws
THE ORIGINAL handwritten draft rules of football, from 1858, and the only known surviving copy of the printed "Rules, Regulations & Laws of the Sheffield Foot-Ball Club", from the following year, have been sold on auction in London for almost £900 000.
Sheffield FC is the world's oldest football club, established in 1857, a year before the rules officially came into play.
Before that date, organised football was played exclusively at Britain's public schools and universities, to widely varying sets of rules.
But after 1858 football clubs joined together to agree on a structure over the following 20 years that was to become what the game is today.
Oddly enough, those 1858 laws seem to have a bit of rugby union terminology. They speak of play commencing with a "place kick". That today is a rugby term.
And, mystifyingly: "Fair Catch is a catch from any player, provided the Ball has not touched the ground, or has not been thrown direct from touch, and entitles to a free kick."
What's a soccer player doing catching the ball in the air? "Touch" is most definitely a rugby term for the ball going out of play.
And what we today in rugby call a "mark" – the clean taking of a kick while in one's 22, which entitles the catcher to a free kick – was also known, not all that long ago, as a "fair catch".
Maybe William Webb Ellis wasn't being that radical after all when he picked up the ball and ran away.
Good point
INTERNET comment on the £900 000 fetched by the Sheffield FC documents: "900 grand cheaper than most 3rd rate players in today's market and yet worth more to football than they are."
Methinks he has a point.
Relax, man!
WISE advice from man's best friend: Handle every stressful situation the way a dog does. If you can't eat it or play with it, just widdle on it and walk away. Relax!
Gold and silver
DOES anyone remember Margaret Harriman, formerly of Pennington, who won plenty of gold and silver in paraplegic bowls championships then went to visit her daughter in America some years ago, where she is believed to have died?
Zoltan de Rosner, of the Alexandra Memorial Bowling Club (Pennington) says the club has a suitcase containing her scrapbook (she was also a champion wheelchair archer in Rhodesia - as it was then still called), various certificates and medals.
They have tried to trace relatives to take possession of this memorabilia, but without success. Anyone who can assist is asked to phone 039-9759554.
If no relatives can be found, the club will box-frame as much as they can and put it on display. But they would rather hand on these items to her family.
Tailpiece
I LOST so badly at the casino I had to sell the car in the car park. The people at Hertz are going to be really angry.
Last word
It was no wonder that people were so horrible when they started life as children.
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