Space probe feedback
A NASA spacecraft has detected oxygen around one of Saturn's icy moons, known as Dione. It supports a theory that the moons near Saturn and Jupiter have oxygen around them and could also have the ingredients for life.
Dione apparently has no liquid water and therefore does not quite have the conditions to support life. But it is possible that other moons of Jupiter and Saturn do as they have liquid oceans.
Dione's sister moon, Enceladus is thought to harbour a liquid ocean below its icy surface. The same is thought to be true of Europa, Callisto and Ganymede, which orbit Jupiter.
Liquid water or not, these sound ideal conditions for Johnny Walker Blue Label, on the rocks. We're getting closer to discovering the ideal locality for Comrade Julius to establish his government in exile.
Tugela Basin
READER Geoff Fowler laments that he and I appear to be the only people who know about the hydro-electric potential of the Tugela Basin, as mentioned in this column last Thursday.
"It pains me to think of all that work by all those competent people that is being totally ignored. Surely there is someone in high places who knows about it?
"I am a retired farmer who spent holidays in Colenso with family when the town was being punted as 'the centre of the Tugela Basin industrial development.'
"We lost out then because our politics were wrong but surely now this can be brought back to life?
"I am sure that something can be done to forestall 'crayfish that glow in the dark' and the other horrors you mention, apart from the appalling waste of money.
"I pray that before we shuffle off this mortal coil our government will have seen some sense and done something that will benefit the country as a whole and KwaZulu-Natal in particular."
I hope so too. But Geoff and I are not the only two who know about the Tugela Basin. A Tugela Basin support group holds regular mass rallies in telephone booths across the province.
Blast from past
WHERE do they go, those smoke-rings I blow … Readers seem to appreciate a blast from the past, such as the bits and pieces about cigarettes issued to the troops in World War II and the cigarette cards which schoolchildren used to collect.
Tony Tanner says his dad read the column and recalls two more brands that were issued: Rhodesian Tom-Tom and English Vs – no doubt inspired by Churchill's V for Victory.
Merle Scully, of Waterfall, says her dad collected the cards and had all three albums: Wildlife, Art and South African Flora.
"As a child I loved looking through them at all the pictures."
Chris Christensen, of Assagay, says in the early 1950s he was apprenticed to a firm who had the contract with United Tobacco Company to signwrite the double decker buses.The brand being pushed at the time was Commando Round (there was also a Commando Oval).
"A corny joke at the time was about a chap walking in the desert. He hears a voice saying: 'One two three four five.' He stops and looks, but there's no one in sight. Eventually he realises the voice is coming from his backpack. Opening it, he finds a box of Commando Round with its printed slogan: 'It's the tobacco that counts'.
"The other brands I remember were Westminster 75, Max ('Men of the world smoke Max'), Wings, De Reszki Ivory Tipped, Tricolor, Du Maurier, Gold Leaf, Gold Flake, Gold Dollar, Viceroy, Courtleigh, Venus, Albany (each cigarette a different colour) and Needle Point. Mills Special came in a tin.
"There was also a cigarette tin (I can't remember the brand) that had General and Ouma Smuts's heads embossed on it.
"I've really enjoyed this series and it's brought back quite a few memories."
Yep, a different era. Soldiers actually issued with cigarettes. Smoking was cool. (Many of us you couldn't pay to do it today). But Smuts and Ouma on the cigarette tins … there's a certain vibe about it.
Tailpiece
WHEN a woman wears a leather dress, a man's heart beats quicker, his throat gets dry, he gets weak at the knees and he begins to think irrationally.
It's because she smells like a new golf bag.
Last word
I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
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