The Idler, Friday, August 19, 2011

Crunch that Roller WHO HASN'T had the urge to drive a tank over a Mercedes or a Rolls Royce? That's what happened in the Lithuanian city of Vilnius. And the driver of the tank was none other than the Mayor, one Arturas Zuokas. "That's what will happen if you park your car illegally," he declared after inspecting the crushed Merc. When the shocked driver returned to his vehicle, the Mayor shook his hand and said: "Next time, park your car legally." Wow! Not even our Metro police take illegal parking that seriously. Zuokas says he's had enough of the owners of Rolls Royces and Ferraris who think they are above the law. "I wanted to draw attention to the fact that if you have a car and lots of money, it still doesn't mean that you can park your car wherever you want. However, it turns out the thing was staged and filmed as part of a campaign against illegal parking in Vilnius. All the same, it sets an ugly precedent. I hope our own James Nxumalo doesn't get ideas. We need to be watchful for interplay between City Hall and the Natal Mounted Rifles, who are our local tank regiment. In fact, I'm prepared to take up station in the Sergeants' Mess of the NMR over coming weeks just to make sure. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. Sacked in braille THE PAN SOUTH African Language Board spent R5.4m in legal fees to dismiss its CEO, investment analyst Dr James Greener notes in his grumpy newsletter. "That seems like a lot of money to say: 'You're fired!'. But presumably the process had to be conducted in all 11 official languages (and braille).

 

Go-getter

ENTREPRENEURIALISM is alive and flourishing in the West Country of England.

Outside Bristol Zoo is a parking lot for 150 cars and eight buses. For 25 years it was managed by a pleasant attendant. The fees for cars were £1.40; for buses £7.

Then one day the parking attendant didn't show up. The zoo management phoned the city council and asked for a replacement.

The council replied that the parking lot was the zoo's own responsibility. The zoo insisted that the attendant was a council employee. The council said he'd never been on its payroll.

 

It turns out he'd had a ticket machine installed completely on his own initiative and then shown up every day, collecting parking fees estimated at about £560 a day, for 25 years. That comes to about £7 million.

And nobody even knows this hero's name. I hope he enjoys the South of France, to which he's no doubt retired.

Did I read right?

 

SOME zany signs:

 

·         In a London department store: Bargain Basement Upstairs.

 

·         In a safari park: Elephants Please Stay in Your Car.

·         In a farmer's field: The Farmer Allows Walkers To Cross But The Bull Charges.

Meerkats

THE ST CLEMENTS group wound up the season's activities in fine style last week with a book launch. I can confirm that Pieter Scholtz's latest offering, Children of the Sands, is indeed about meerkats. Set in the Kalahari desert, it also features a bateleur eagle, a vulture and a Cape cobra. There's something unusual about all these creatures, but I'm not going to give the game away. Some humans are also involved.

Pieter, former head of Drama at UKZN and driving force behind the St Clements group – where people get together of a Monday evening for poetry, music, song, book readings, art displays and a bit of nosh and red wine – has published quite a bit in recent years, much of it aimed at youngsters.

This latest effort follows a theme of "use your eyes ... and your imaginations", and imagination gets free rein as the inhabitants of the apparently lifeless red dunes of the Kalahari are brought to life with a great deal of quirky humour.

Meerkats are delightful little creatures, almost human in their upright posture and pert attentiveness to what is going on around them. Scholtz makes the most of it.

Tailpiece

A GOLFER has had quite a few too many at the 19^th Hole and is driving home when he's flagged down by a police officer.

Officer: "You're too drunk to drive."

Golfer: "Too drunk to drive? Officer, I'm so drunk I can barely putt."

 

Last word

 

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

Hunter S Thompson