"THE UNSPEAKABLE IN full pursuit of the uneatable" – that was Oscar
Wilde on foxhunting. It was BBC personality Frank Muir who described
bargain sales as "the unbearable in full pursuit of the unwearable."
The unbearable were in full spate in America last week. A woman used a
pepper spray in Walmart to get a better position in the crowd
thronging to get bargains in the start of the Christmas shopping
season. Twenty people were injured in the melee that ensued.
This was in Los Angeles. Similar violence broke out also at various
shopping centres and high end retailers across the country. In Oregon,
Ohio, women were fighting over dish towels priced at $1.88.
They call it "Black Friday", so named because it's when business is
supposed to start going "into the black".
American satirist Andy Borowitz has his own line in the Borowitz Report.
"In what economists are hailing as a clear sign of economic recovery,
Walmart customers across the USA jammed into stores on Black Friday,
sometimes killing each other to buy useless junk.
"'We have been looking for evidence that the economy is on the mend,'
said Davis Logsdon, chairman of the economics department at the
University of Minnesota. 'When people resort to homicide to buy a
Blu-ray player, that is very, very good news indeed.'
" Dr Logsdon said the increased violence and mayhem at retail outlets
across the country was 'a testament to the greatness of the American
consumer.'
"'Egyptians risk their lives for new government,' he said. 'Americans
bravely do the same for new flatscreens.'"
Tally ho!
Beep, beep, beep!
WHO ELSE has the embarrassing problem of receiving e-mails inviting us
to "be my friend on Facebook" - but can't respond because we don't
know how and are not quite sure what Facebook is anyway?
I plead guilty, which is why I warm to the sentiments of this piece:
"When I bought my Blackberry, I thought about the 30-year business I
ran with 1800 employees, all of it without a cellphone that plays
music, takes videos and pictures and communicates with Facebook and
Twitter.
"I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids,
their spouses, 13 grandkids and two great-grandkids could communicate
with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as
simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.
"That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter,
Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie, Twittererific, Tweetdeck,
Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and
every other programme within the texting world.
"My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of
everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I
am not ready to live like this. Now I keep my cellphone in my golf
bag in the garage."
Stan's Bar
YES, OUR LIVES have changed in the digital age. No more do electric
storms provide cover for Happy Hour at Stan's Bar in Babanango.
Stan's Bar was a Zululand institution. It was crammed every evening
with farmers, commercial travellers, artisans and wildlife officers.
The place was festooned with memorabilia of the Zulu War, as well as
with women's bras and panties.
Presiding spirit was Stan himself, a retired Royal Marine whose ruddy,
bewhiskered visage simply beamed bonhomie, and who wore lederhosen,
winter or summer.
One evening I got into conversation with a fellow who told me he was
the Babanango exchange operator. "Babanango's having another electric
storm," he remarked.
"Electric storm?" The weather outside looked pretty clear.
"Yes, every evening Babanango has an electric storm. Five-thirty to
6.30, same as Happy Hour. You can't get through to the exchange."
Yes, change. For the better mainly, but we have left something behind.
Tailpiece
A COUPLE in their sixties were in a restaurant quietly celebrating
their 40th wedding anniversary when – Poof! - a fairy appeared and
offered them one wish each.
"I'd like us to be celebrating on a beautiful tropical beach fringed
with coconuts and the moon rising," says the wife.
Poof! They're there.
The husband avoids his wife's eye and says: "I'd like to be here with
a woman 30 years younger than me,"
Poof! He's 92.
Moral: Never be selfish. And remember – fairies are also girls.
Last word
History is indeed little more than the register of the crimes, follies
and misfortunes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon
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