Connecting to councillors
IT'S AN INTRIGUING thought but it seems there's no connection between the issuing of iPads to Ethekwini councillors and plans to launch an "interspecies internet" so that the different species of the planet can freely interact.
It will not, after all, be possible for the ratepayer species to connect with the rate-spending species and provide a running commentary – by iPad - on how they are spending our money. Such giant conceptual leaps are still confined, it seems, to Long Beach, California, where singer Peter Gabriel has achieved a breakthrough by singing along with a bonobo (a pygmy chimpanzee) that plays the keyboard with one finger.
It's the start of great things, they say. All the species of the planet should eventually be able to interact. They're working on developing underwater touch screens so that dolphins can get on the internet.
It will pay off big time, the interspecies internet folk say, when we eventually encounter aliens from outer space. We'll be able to communicate with them right away.
Fascinating stuff. Bonobos, dolphins, aliens from outer space … let's look at it as a first step. In time we'll be able to communicate with our councillors on their iPads.
Hoodwinked!
MEANWHILE, Mary Ann Grafetsberger, doughty defender of the interests of vervet monkeys, asks why there's been a silence lately on the activities of the little blighters.
It's funny she should ask. Only yesterday I was involved in a fierce skirmish with them. I'd hung an apple on a line, for the benefit of the fruit birds – a big, juicy Granny Smith. Next thing the garden was swarming with monkeys – big ones, small ones, tiny ones. I'd not before seen so many together.
They were in the trees in the front garden and I sprayed them with the hosepipe to move them on. Then as I walked down the side of the house where I'd hung the apple – it was gone! I'd been hoodwinked! I'd been sold the dummy! While I was in front spraying, one of those big males was down the side, zapping the apple.
It's nice to know they're working on an interspecies internet for better communication and understanding. But until that happens, a luta continhua!
Close of play score: Monkeys 1, Idler 0.
Switched on
"HEY HANS, vhy not ve svitch off ze lights?"
"Ze design enchineers, zey not put in ze light svitch, Fritz."
At Berlin's new multi-billion international airport, still under construction at Schonefeld, they can't switch off the lights because, er, nobody knows how.
The terminal lights burn around the clock because the workers on site have no means to switch them off, officials have confessed.
"It has to do with the fact that we haven't progressed far enough with our lighting system that we can control it," says Horst Amann, airport technical director.
Wow! Wirtschaftswunder? We trust they'll have mastered a few things like air traffic control before the anticipated 27 million passengers a year start passing through.
Big frights
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "When I was a kid I was frightened of the dark. Now I'm grown up, I'm terrified by the electricity bill."
Anatomy lesson
RON COPPIN, of Hillcrest, shares with us an announcement as she was being driven to school by his four-year-old granddaughter, Leah: "If we didn't have bones we would blow down like a jumping castle."
Yes, quite.
Tailpiece
IT'S THE LAST day of term. There's nothing left to do, it's close to the break-up bell and the kids are restless.
Teacher: "Whoever answers the questions I ask first and correctly can leave early today. Who said: 'Four score and seven years ago'?"
Little Johnny's hand is in the air but Susie says: "Abraham Lincoln".
"That's right Susie. You may go. Now who said: 'I Have a Dream'?"
Johnny's hand is in the air. Mary says: "Martin Luther King."
"That's right Mary. You may go. Now who said: 'Ask not, what your country can do for you'?"
Before Johnny can open his mouth, Nancy says: "John F Kennedy".
"That's right, Nancy. You may go".
The teacher turns her back,
Johnny: "I wish these bitches would keep their mouth shut".
"Who said that?"
"Tiger Woods, Ma'am. Can I go now?"
Last word
Procrastination isn't the problem, it's the solution. So procrastinate now, don't put it off.
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