Whisky and haggis
THE SNOWMEN got there before the Scots this year. The fields around Fort Nottingham have hundreds of snowmen in them, some melting into shapelessness in the bright winter's sunshine, some still being built by car-loads of day trippers, many of them up from the coast. It's quite an odd spectacle.
Saturday's Highland Games could hardly have been more authentic. Snow on the hills aboot, whisky and haggis in the tent and kilted strongmen doing things like throw empty metal beer barrels high over a crossbar. (Who had emptied them in advance we were not told). The activities all in bright sunshine. And, throughout, the skirl of the pipes. It was a great day.
In the VIP tent – courtesy of the Maclaine of Lochbuie, patron of the Games, and Colonel Pat Acutt, head honcho of the local regiments – there was much bonhomie. Two kilted barmen were explaining to an incredulous army type in camouflage the intricacies of a haggis hunt. But they over-egged it a bit and he just burst out laughing. Army folk are very gullible but you can lead them by the nose only so far.
What is the point of a Highland Games? Originally in Bonnie Scotland they were the clans' alternative to killing each other, carrying off each others' womenfolk and stealing each others' cattle. And, of course, they were an occasion for whisky and haggis.
At Fort Nottingham on Saturday all kinds of people were participating. Soldiers from the local regiments who don't have a Scots heritage – the "Makhathini from Maritzburgh" line comes to mind; also tough outjies from the Vrystaat and Gauteng. All of them in kilts, all getting into the spirit of things, tossing the caber and so forth.
Maybe it's not that far from the origins in Bonnie Scotland after all.
Weird stuff
WHICH is most weird? Girls whacking the daylights out of each other at the London Olympics in the women's boxing, or the commentators and others making as if this is absolutely unremarkable and long overdue?
At least they didn't call it the ladies' boxing.
Knock-out blonde
THE ACCEPTANCE of women's boxing as an Olympic sport appears to have generated all kinds of enthusiasm for female pugilism. British TV has had shots of girls sparring in Hyde Park. It also had footage in which women were interviewed sparring in a gym in Lancaster.
One was a good-looking blonde, though there was a certain harshness about her facial features. Yes, she was a policewoman. Terrifying!
Consequences
WHAT are the social consequences likely to be of an upsurge in popularity of women's pugilism. One thinks of domestic violence. One thinks of bar brawls.
There was the classic Punch cartoon:
"Why did you beat your wife?"
"Superior footwork, Your Worship."
That one can now be turned around as the girls develop footwork, shorts jabs, right crosses and the rest of the boxer's repertoire. Okay, the domestic playing field has been levelled.
But bar brawls? Any boxer – amateur or professional – is in big trouble if he gets involved in punch-ups outside the ring. The law takes a dim view of it; so do the controlling bodies of boxing.
This surely needs to be emphasised if ladies take up boxing in significant numbers, otherwise our watering holes could come to resemble the Wild West.
Runaway Bolt
STILL with the Olympics, Jamaica's Usain Bolt is like a runaway steam locomotive. The sports science fundis are baffled. They say a man that size just shouldn't be able to run that fast. Yet Bolt streaks in for the 100m and the 200m (for the second time – he also did it in Beijing) and does a few press-ups for the crowd after he's crossed the finishing line.
I wonder if he can catch a rugby ball? The Sharks should make him an offer, he'd be dynamite in the Currie Cup.
Tailpiece
Woman patient: "That pill you gave me to boost my husband's libido worked a treat."
Doctor: "I'm glad to hear that."
Woman patient: "As you suggested, I slipped it into his mashed potatoes. A minute later he swept all the food and dishes onto the floor and ravished me right there on the table."
Doctor: "Any side effects?"
Woman patient: "Well, we can't go back to McDonalds any more."
Last word
Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
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