Enraged super-patriot
IT'S ASTONISHING this story – captured on video and flashed about the world – about 17-year-old Evan van der Spuy being charged by a red hartebeest while racing on a mountain bike at Albert Falls.
That hartebeest was going for him for real. It could have ended up really ugly, especially if Evan hadn't been wearing a crash helmet.
What was behind it? The hartebeest is not known as an especially aggressive animal, not especially territorial. Was the cyclist mistaken for a rival as the rutting season approaches?
The most convincing theory to come up is that the hartebeest is a super-patriot who mistook Evan for Bryce Lawrence, referee of the South Africa-Australia quarter-final.
Census bounce-back
A READER says the authorities have returned the census form he completed.
"In response to the question: 'How many dependants do you have?' I replied: "Seven million illegal immigrants; three million crackheads; 14 million unemployable people; two million people in 243 prisons; Swaziland; Zimbabwe; and 535 idiots in the South African Goverment.'
"Apparently this was not an acceptable answer."
Yes, it's so difficult to understand what it is they're getting at in these official forms.
Slight tilt
BIG BEN, THE landmark clock tower at the Houses of Parliament in London, has started to tilt north-west. The top of the tower has now shifted one foot five inches (435 mm) from the vertical, leaning at an angle of 0.26 degrees.
The tilting was first noticed in 2003 and is thought to be due to subsidence caused in part by underground excavations – the Jubilee line underground station and a parking garage.
However, it seems there's not much to worry about immediately. At the current rate it would take 4 000 years for Big Ben to reach the four degree tilt of the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Big Ben is now unique. It has the time and the inclination.
Leaning Tower
WHICH recalls a well-known character in Maritzburg in days of yore, a lanky fellow – very tall, way over six feet - who used to stand at the bar in the golf club laughing uproariously at every witticism and leaning backward at an ever-increasing angle as the evening wore on.
He was known as the Leaning Tower of Puza.
Whale rescue
LAST week's story about the hump-back whale calf that died in the shark nets at Umhlanga reminds reader Ian Gielink of a happier outcome at Vetch's.
"A good fishing partner and I were fishing in the Durban Paddleski Club competition off Vetch's pier and we came across a baby southern right whale caught in the shark nets. Fortunately it was able to breath between swells.
"We managed to cut it free and it swam out to sea. The next day, while fishing again, the mother, father and baby whale gave us a huge display, broaching and tail slapping. We were convinced that they came back to say thanks."
I'm sure you're right.
Pet squirrel
IT SEEMS I was wrong about Colonel Gaddafi being a Sandhurst graduate. Neville Laing, of Waterfall, and Jim Spencer, of Margate, both say he did have some military training in Britain but he was not at Sandhurst.
Also, he was only a lieutenant (perhaps a captain, says Jim) when he seized power in Libya. So I was wrong again - he did promote himself to colonel, though I was right that he has stayed static in that rank.
Says Neville: "There are many similarities between Gaddafi and the late Idi Amin, the former dictator of Uganda. One just has to look at pictures of the various outfits and costumes that Gaddafi has worn to see this. Uganda is fortunately free of Idi Amin. Gaddafi still has to be finally removed from the Libyan scene before that blighted country has full freedom."
Says Jim: "My pet squirrel confirms that the Colonel is a nut."
Tailpiece
Doctor: Tell me about your lifestyle. What did you do yesterday."
Patient: "Well, yesterday afternoon I waded across the edge of a lake, escaped from a leopard in the heavy brush, marched up and down a mountain, got caught up in a haak-en-steek bush, crawled out of quicksand and jumped away from an aggressive black mamba."
Doctor: "Wow! You're an awesome outdoorsman!"
Patient: "No, just a rotten golfer."
Last word
Last year I went fishing with Salvador Dali. He was using a dotted line. He caught every other fish.
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