More than a beakful
A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His beak holds more than his belly can …
THE KING'S Park crowd broke into cheers on Saturday evening as a stately pelican flew over the main stand early in the match against The Force. What he was doing out and about at that time of day is a mystery, but he certainly turned out to be a portent of what was to come. The Sharks produced rather more than a beakful of tries.
What a game! And what a performance by Lwazi Mvovo! The little speedster has been heavily marked in recent times, not given much room to move, but on Saturday he made the space – one interception, one chip-kick gloriously gathered on the full and two 70-metre dashes.
Wonderful stuff. I hope the pelican enjoyed it as much as we did.
Figure of note
IT'S BEEN bothering me. There's something very familiar about Rebekah Brookes, the Fleet Street figure who was editor of the News of the World and of the Sun, before she became chief executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International group, before she walked the plank over the phone-hacking business. Where do I know her from?
Heavy, spaniel-like auburn tresses hanging about her shoulders. A sombre facial expression as she fields questions at the Leveson inquiry into the ethics and methods of the British media.
Then bingo! That's it! She used to be on all our old banknotes. Rebekah Brookes is the spitting image of Van Riebeeck.
Togged out
WHICH in turn recalls Adam Small's wonderful lines describing Cape Town's statues: "Jan van Riebeeck, bakgat aangetrek met sy plus-fours …"
Royal blue light?
LAST Thursday's column headed "Singin' the Blues" was accompanied by a photograph of Queen Elizabeth in a carriage on her way to the opening of Parliament in London.
Reader George Hutchison suggests that a flashing blue light on her carriage would have been in keeping with the Blues theme and would have got the Queen to Parliament much quicker.
A real man
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-40s: "Women wear false hair, nails and lashes. They buy falsies. They use botox on their lips. And they say they want a real man?"
Giant whelks
BEWARE the giant whelks of Maritzburg. They can inflict serious injury. I was attacked by one last week and have been limping about the place ever since.
Perhaps I should explain. I was at the offices of the KZN Heritage Council when this huge whelk attacked me in a dimly-lit hallway. Well, in the interests of total accuracy, it was lying there on the floor and I tripped over it, pulling a muscle in the thigh.
What was a giant whelk doing at the Heritage Council offices in Maritzburg? Well, these heritage folk employ archaeologists and they collect such things. This particular giant whelk was from Maputaland. It was a fossil, possibly millions of years old. Maputaland is an ancient seabed, full of marine fossils.
So I was attacked by a fossilised giant whelk, possibly millions of years old. As I say – beware!
US Marine
IT'S A LONG shot but does anyone know anything about Jimmy Knight, who was born in South Africa and served in the US Marine Corps in the 1960s?
Garry Rabie and a friend, Trevor Culverwell, climbed Mount Snowdon, in Wales, in 1960. On the mountain they were approached by Knight, who had spotted South African insignia on their anoraks.
He told them he had been born in South Africa and was serving with the Marines in Britain. He gave Garry his dogtag, which reads: "KNIGHT, JIMMY D, 1849293 A, USMC, BAPTIST."
The other day Garry found the tag amongst his memorabilia. "Is there any way of finding out if he is still in the land of the living?"
Wow! A lot has happened involving the US Marines since 1960, not least Vietnam. But you never know.
Tailpiece
Attorney: "How can I help you?"
Van der Merwe: "Man, I want to get in on this thing – you know, people suing the tobacco companies for wrecking their lungs, suing McDonald's for making them fat."
Attorney: "Who do you want to sue?"
Van der Merwe: "Klipdrift – for all the ugly women I've slept with."
Last word
The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science.
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