Dinner for One
THE CLASSIC TV sketch, Dinner for One – very popular in Germany especially – has had a slight retouching. Dinner for One has the upper class Miss Sophie (May Warden) celebrating her 90th birthday with her four best friends, who have unfortunately all predeceased her. But her butler James (Freddie Frinton) has set the places for them all the same and serves them, to humour Miss Sophie, polishing off their share of the wine and getting steadily more and more drunk. There are some wonderfully comic moments such as when he keeps tripping over a tiger skin with mounted head, stretched out on the floor.
There's rather a suggestive finale as the two of them ascend the stairs after dinner, James by now staggering, and Miss Sophie saying: "The same procedure as last year?" to which he responds that he'll do his very best."
It's hilariously funny and it's been going 34 years. In Germany it's become a cult over the New Year holiday period.
The retouching? The faces of Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy have been superimposed on Miss Sophie and James. Sarkozy gets thoroughly plastered and imitates the absent guests, George Papandreous, former prime minister of Greece, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, former prime minister of Spain and David Cameron, prime minister of Britain. It's been put on YouTube and has already attracted 200 000 viewers.
Why not? They might as well get a laugh out of the Euro crisis.
Anti-social croc
A CROCODILE named Elvis leaped out of the water in an Australian reptile park north of Sydney, clamped his jaws on a motor mower then dragged it into its pond. It was so quick it almost dragged in keeper Billy Collett who had been mowing the grass.
The massive Elvis – he weighs 500 kg – then mounted jealous guard over the mower at the bottom of the pond. It was retrieved only by attracting him away with fresh kangaroo meat.
Elvis is a bit of a problem croc. He was transferred to the park from another one after he'd taken to killing his female companions.
Why the anti-social behaviour? How would you like to be called Elvis?
Tackies riot
POLICE had to be called in to control crowds in America over the holiday period as they stampeded and fought to get their hands on Air Jordan 11 Retro Concords – trainers (or tackies, as we call them) re-issued by Nike
It's not clear whether the frenzy was caused by nostalgia for the distinctive black and white footwear or by the special price of $180.
It happened at various centres across the country. In Seattle a would-be buyer punched a police officer in the melee.
"He did not get his shoes," said police spokesman Mike Murphy, "Instead he went to jail."
It's extraordinary, this fixation with tackies. Who would pay the equivalent of R1 200 or so for a pair? Yet in the American inner cities they apparently kill for them.
Rare bird
TWITCHERS in Britain are frantic with excitement at the sighting of a western sandpiper - a rare North American wading bird - at Cley Marshes, in Norfolk.
It's the first time the species has been seen in Norfolk and only around eight have been recorded ever in Britain. The juvenile bird measures 15cm from tail to bill.
More than 2 000 people have visited Cley Marshes in the hope of seeing the migrant visitor, among them birdwatchers from France, Belgium and Germany.
This is progress. Not all that long ago, somebody would have shot the rare bird with an airgun, stuffed it and put it in a museum.
Tailpiece
A VISITOR to an unspoiled island in the Pacific is unnerved by the constant drumming that comes from the jungle. Nobody will tell him what it's about. When he asks if the drumming ever stops, they shudder and scuttle away. Eventually he corners an old man and says: "Look, what is it with this constant drumming? How does one get them to shut up?"
The old man looks at him pityingly. "You are a very foolish young man. Nobody should ever want the drumming to stop."
"Why not?"
"When the drums stop, the harmonica solo starts."
Last word
Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.
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