Commonwealth under strain
Here we have the wattle,
The emblem of our land.
You can stick it in a bottle,
You can hold it in your hand …
THE LINES come from Monty Python's Flying Circus during a faculty meeting at the University of Wallamaloo. What better authority for the proposition that the wattle is Australia's national tree? Why are they now trying to pinch the name "acacia" from Africa and pin it to their own thornless wattle trees?
It's a confounded cheek. At the International Botanical Congress in Melbourne the Aussies staged a virtual coup by engineering a vote that Africa's thorn trees – dozens of varieties - should in future be known as Vachelias or Senegalias instead of as acacias.
It's pleasing to note that Africa's botanists are not taking this lying down. They're even talking about taking the issue to the International Court of Justice at The Hague.
This is a serious and divisive issue, worse even than the bodyline bowling controversy between Australia and England in the thirties. It could split the Commonwealth.
This thing has to be settled. Take it to the International Court of Justice, by all means. Anything but an Aussie umpire or referee.
Neck and neck
IT'S STILL a neck and neck race between President Barack Obama and likely presidential candidate Mitt Romney, according to the surveys. For those of us who thought the Republican candidature process was an elaborate hoax designed to give everyone a laugh, it's somewhat disturbing.
Now American satirist Andy Borowitz explains that Obama's languishing in the opinion polls is due to his controversial use of complete sentences.
"New polls indicate that millions of Americans are put off by the President's unorthodox verbal tic, which has Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opens his mouth.
"Mr Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements, as well as his insistence on the correct pronunciation of the word 'nuclear,' has harmed his re-election hopes among millions of voters who find his unusual speaking style unfamiliar and bizarre."
Borowitz quotes historian Davis Logsdon, of the University of Minnesota, saying that after eight years of George W Bush, many Americans find it "alienating" to have a president who speaks English as if it were his first language.
That explains it then. There's no substitute for on-the-spot political analysis.
Genteel riot
DEMONSTRATORS with a difference … they turned out wearing suits, waistcoats and striped ties. Some had magnificent handlebar moustaches. One or two were smoking pipes. They looked every bit the denizens of a gentlemen's club.
They were in Savile Row, London, protesting again the opening in this street dedicated to the bespoke tailoring trade of a children's clothing store – part of a national chain – which they said would lower the tone.
It was all very genteel. The authorities didn't have to call out the riot police. In fact the whole thing seems to have been a spoof organised by a gentlemen's magazine called Chap.
What ho!
Mamba strike
CAN A MAMBA strike at a .22 bullet? Reader Vic van Wyk, of Sunningdale, thinks not.
Responding to the poser raised in yesterday's column, he says a snake can strike at a speed of a few metres per second (noticeably slower than a paw-smack from a cat), while a .22 bullet travels at a few hundred metres per second.
So the fellow who told me this yarn is mistaken. It was his marksmanship that killed the green mamba, not its striking at the bullet as it approached.
It shows you can't believe everything you hear in pubs. But you can listen.
Names
READER Gray Braatvedt says he can identify totally with Princes William and Harry using the surname "Wales" rather than the more complicated Windsor, "as in Castle". He should know.
"With a surname like mine, which is an Anglicised form of a Norwegian hamlet, I am forever having to spell it phonetically. It is much easier to book a restaurant under 'Gray', but even then some people still spell it with an 'e'. Oh well, you Windso'm, you lose some."
Tailpiece
This girl said she recognised me from the vegetarian club, but I'd never met herbivore.
Last word
Youth would be an ideal state if it came a little later in life.
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