California, here they come
WE COMPLAIN about the depredations of vervet monkeys in our gardens. In Los Angeles they had a huge black bear rummaging through bins, climbing over garden fences and taking frozen meatballs from garage refrigerators. He appeared frequently in TV footage.
Meatball – for this is the name he was given on Twitter – was darted and tranquilised a number of times by officials of the California Department of Fish and Game and returned to his home in the Angeles National Forest but every time he came back, sometimes travelling 300km to reach the neighbourhoods where he had been so happily foraging.
Now he's been placed in a lions, tigers and bears sanctuary near faraway San Diego, in the mountains of southern California, and put on a diet of grapes and peanut butter sandwiches – no doubt to break his craving for the meatballs of Los Angeles. He seems to be settling down happily enough.
Is there anything we in Durban can learn from this? It seems relocation is the answer.
If the Californians can accept exotics like lions and tigers at that sanctuary, why not vervet monkeys as well? The Parks Department need to get something organised – a trapping/bounty programme to get vervet monkeys shipped in quantity to that sanctuary near San Diego.
They absolutely love grapes and peanut butter sandwiches. They were stealing them from my kitchen just the other day.
Foragers
MEANWHILE, Clive Phelps notes a recent piece on Mary Ann Grafetsberger – staunch defender of the rights of vervet monkeys – who doubles as the Cat Lady.
"The Cat Lady says she feeds 40 cats a day? How does she keep her 40 monkeys away from foraging for the cats' food?"
Maybe the same way the folk at San Diego keep the bears from foraging for the lions' and tigers' food.
See ya Jimmy
READER Jock Litterick, of Waterfall, takes me to task for suggesting on New Year's Eve that while in Edinburgh they would be first footin,' in his home town of Glasgow they would be fightin'.
"Being a first foot in Scotland is no mean task. The Scots, not being a superstitious folk, place the success of their entire year on their first foot. My father, not wanting to apportion blame for a bad year to anyone else, would leave our tenement flat about two minutes before midnight, then knock on the door when the church bells rang ushering in the new year, and first foot us with a lump of coal and black bun – symbols that we would always have coal for the fire and food on the table.
"In my late teenage years, the fightin' didn't start until at least half way through the first bottle of The Antiquary whisky. The fight itself would be a wondrous display of Glaswegian martial arts – the jaggy bunnet, otherwise known as the Glasgow kiss, followed by a moothful o' wee headies.
"First footin' in Glasgow is no different to what it is in that other city with the castle – you know, the one where they talk with a moothful o' marbles."
Er, quite. I think the Glasgow kiss is a broken glass. I guess I'll avoid Waterfall for a bit – certainly get the marbles oot me mooth.
Beefing up
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-40s: "I've beefed up my home security. I've cancelled armed response, taken out the alarm system and deregistered from neighbourhood watch. I've hoisted the Vierkleur in the front garden, draped a Blue Bulls flag in the window and put an AWB sticker on my car. My sound system belts out De la Rey. The police, the Hawks and the Department of Home Affairs watch my house 24/7. I've never felt safer."
Tailpiece
A STUNNER of a girl is lying naked under a sheet on a hospital trolley, waiting to be wheeled in for a minor op. A fellow in a white coat whips off the sheet and examines her closely. Another comes in and does the same. He goes out and comes back with yet another.
Patient (in some irritation): "Look, are all these last-minute examinations really necessary?"
First fellow in white coat: "Dunno. We're here to paint the ceiling."
Last word
Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.
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