Long distance
IN THE FINNISH town of Savonlinna they've been holding the annual Mobile Phone Throwing World Championships. People stand and fling their mobiles just as far as they can on a pitch of sand a few hundred metres long.
It's a good way to let off steam, I suppose. And who hasn't had the urge now and again to throw his cellphone at the horizon.
I myself have absolutely the simplest version. It doesn't take photographs or get on the internet or anything like that. It's just a phone and it has a little handle you can crank and say : "Hello, Sentraal?" But I think that's just a therapeutic device for we of mature years. How these kids cope with their Blueberries and Blackberries I just don't know.
The World Championship was won by a blond young Finn who came out of the bar, flung his phone 120m or so then went back into the bar without giving his name.
I guess Nokia owe us this kind of diversion.
Bait balls
IV'E BEEN into quite a few dives with my old colleague Al Venter, veteran war correspondent and military writer. But one dive I haven't joined him in is the annual sardine run.
Al, who is also an enthusiastic scuba diver, is of that fraternity who see the sardine run as the opportunity to join a "bait ball" – the huge, swirling mass of sardines that is being attacked from underwater by thousands of sharks and dolphins and from the air by thousands of gannets and other seabirds.
It's apparently a unique and brilliant spectacle and hair-raisingly confusing. It lends itself to fantastic underwater filming and photography.
Al's latest book, Shark Stories (Protea), has just landed on my desk. It's a sort of follow-up to his Dive South Africa which explored the scuba spots off our coast.
It looks at diving with sharks as an increasingly popular leisure activity and tourist attraction. It also recounts the brushes he and various of his diving pals have had with sharks. There's some beautiful photography.
But these are dives I will continue to stay out of. I've nothing against sharks – I just don't like the way they look at you. (And that's in the aquarium).
Magic Roma
POLICE in Rome have sniffed out a cannabis factory in an abandoned metro tunnel built during the rule of Fascist leader Benito Mussolini in the 1930s.
Officers smelled the pungent crop near an entrance, not far from the Italian central bank.
The tunnel, just over 1km long, was also being used to cultivate mushrooms.
But behind a makeshift wall police discovered rows of marijuana plants in an underground greenhouse it by halogen lights and irrigated by underground cisterns. There were also special chambers for drying and processing the crop.
The farm's owner, a man in his fifties, has been arrested.
Have they checked the mushrooms? They might be of the magic variety.
Scrabble cheat
SCANDAL! One of America's top young Scrabble players has been caught cheating at the national championships and kicked out of the tournament.
He was concealing blank tiles from a previous game and attempting to use them in the next round. Confronted by game officials, he admitted cheating. The incident has rocked the world of Scrabble.
John D Williams Jr, executive director of the National Scrabble Association says: "The Scrabble world and the internet are abuzz." He also says the incident draws attention to players taking minerals which act as "brain boosters".
"It gets pretty deep. We're one step away from drug testing. But no steroids so far".
Xenolithic, xylophonic obloquy – discordantly disgraceful! (All high-scoring Scrabble words).
Enhanced love
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-40s: "Do you know? The pleasure of making love in the dark is 10 times stronger than when the lights are on."
"No kidding."
"And taking a bath at same time as your girl increases your love by 20 times."
"Wow! Who told you that?"
"I read it in these 'Cut down consumption' ads by Eskom and the Department of Water Affairs."
Tailpiece
She: "You won't tell anyone?"
He: "Darling, your secret is safe with me."
She: "You're sure about that?"
He: "Darling, I stopped listening an hour ago."
Last word
Howard Hughes was able to afford the luxury of madness, like a man who not only thinks he is Napoleon but hires an army to prove it. – Ted Morgan
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