| On your marks … TELEVISION viewers were treated this week to footage of the way vervet monkeys have completely taken over in parts of Durban. A Yellowwood Park reader named Mandy wrote in a month or so ago about the way the monkeys are holding swimming galas in her pool (quite apart from the way they steal sweets from her living room). She videoed them in action and this week the SABC ran a clip on the Veld Focus part of the 50/50 environment programme. It was an eye-opener. I was quite impressed by the gravitas of the baboon handling the starter's gun (though I found the vervet, floating on an inflatable pool lounger wearing sunglasses and sipping at orange juice through a straw, so over-the-top it was insolent). But the actual swimming was amazing. Freestyle, butterfly, breaststroke, backstroke – these monkeys are quite something. What should Mandy do about it? Maybe enrol them all at Clifton and engage Chad Le Clos as a coach. Giant tusker TEMBE Elephant Park has received more than 1 000 messages of condolence from around the world following the news that giant tusker Makadebona has died in the bush, apparently after a fight with a rival. Makadebona ("He's seen it all") was believed to be the second biggest tusker in southern Africa, after his slightly older cousin, Isilo, who is also at Tembe. The two were favourites among visitors from around the world to the park, which is just beneath the Mozambique border with KwaZulu-Natal. They were also known to millions who regularly viewed the park's webcam site showing the elephants at their favourite watering hole. The messages are still pouring in on Facebook. The Tembe elephants are KZN's last indigenous herd. They used to migrate between Maputaland (KZN) and the Maputo Elephant Reserve in Mozambique until a border fence was erected to protect them from the civil war in that country. There are concerns that the gene pool of the Tembe elephants should be protected because their tusks are significantly larger than those of other elephant populations in South Africa. There are plans to drop the border fence with Mozambique; also proposals to make more land available to them this side of the border. Big and small TEMBE is not just home to South Africa's largest elephants. It is also home to the suni, a tiny antelope – Africa's smallest – that lives in the tropical undergrowth. It also has the rest of the Big Five – lion, leopard, buffalo and rhino. Visitors to Tembe Lodge also discover that it stocks Mozambican beer – the famous Laurentina and Deux-M. Lifestyle Mozambicano – Tchim-Tchim! Safety tip READER Lydia Weight sends in a cycling safety tip following the recent tragic death of Burry Stander. "When I commuted by bicycle in London on a daily basis, I devised a safety strategy that is cheap, simple and highly effective. "Over my right handlebar I tied a small white plastic bag. This fluttered out to my right and proved a highly visible warning to motorists not to come too close to me. Drivers were afraid that whatever was fluttering would damage their cars. They were not to know that the bag contained only air. "Maybe someone could devise something more professional looking, but for me that bag had an immediate 1.5m effect. Once when I boarded a bus the driver said he'd often seen me on the road; he wanted to know what the white thing was. "A small plastic bag - lose it or tear it, no problem to replace. It could well have saved my life." It sounds a great idea. Any others? Decrepit drunks OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-40s: "Look at those two decrepit old drunks across the bar from us. That's us in 10 years if we're not careful." "That's a mirror, you dumbo!" | 
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