Tuned in to Yorkshire
"THA'LL 'ave to speak oop, lad!" the Yorkshireman sitting opposite boomed at me across the dinner table in this hostelry. "Yon lass" – he jabbed with a fork to indicate another lady at the table – "She doon ate ma 'earing aid!"
It turned out to be true. The Yorkshireman had removed his hearing aid, a tiny, state-of-the-art, cunningly curlequed thing with a minuscule battery, and placed it on the table.
The lady in question had mistaken it for a snack, put it in her mouth, chewed and swallowed. It wasn't too bad at all. (Yes, there had been a bit of red wine).
Was he now able to listen to her internal digestive rumblings, I asked.
"No, sithee, it 'as to be in me ear'ole!" He shook with mirth.
Ee ba goom! Eyoop! There's nothing to beat the dinner table conversation at the Street Shelter for the Over-40s.
Dingos
NEWS from Australia. Peter Garrett (formerly a pop singer, now Minister for the Environment in the Labour government) was addressing sheep farmers in New South Wales on a new, humane method of controlling the dingo population.
They would no longer be shot and trapped, he said, the males would be castrated and turned loose again.
At which one of the old boys in the back of the room stood up, tipped back his hat and said: "Mr Garrett, mate, I don't think you understand. The dingos are eatin' our sheep, not what you seem to think they're doin' to them."
Camels
REFLECTIONS on the camel … reader Michel Pearce, of Morningside, tells us camels seem to pop up all the time in her life. It goes back to the days of John Vigor (an Idler predecessor, now living and writing in America) who declared (in the context of a then-fashionable colour shade): "Camel is not a colour, it's a smell".
Michel returned from the Spanish island of Mallorca recently with a magnificent handbag of camel leather. Visiting a friend, the friend's cat immediately latched onto the handbag with amorous intent and refused to let it go.
"I thought immediately of what John Vigor had said about the camel smell."
Also, Michel visited her daughter in Abu Dhabi, in the Middle East, where they had a Camel Festival. This included camel racing and a camel beauty contest.
Now she has read a news item. The Malian government is to present President Francois Hollande with another camel. The one that had been given to him in gratitude for rescuing the country from rebels had been slaughtered and eaten by the family it had been left with in Timbuktu. The replacement will be sent to France. It is a "bigger and better-looking camel", according to a Malian spokesman.
Camels everywhere. Light up and relax.
More camels
CAMEL beauty contests, good-looking camels … It recalls when Van der Merwe joined the French Foreign Legion. After some weeks in a very remote outpost he asked a fellow-legionnaire what they did about, er, female company.
"Ah, mon ami, we wait for ze camels."
One evening a dust cloud arose on the horizon. It was the camels on their way. Van der Merwe rushed out of his tent: "Come on, kerels! You don't want to end up with an ugly one!"
"Non, non, mon ami, you do not understand. We ride ze camels to ze red light district in ze town!"
Diet by chocolate
CHOCOLATE – sweet on the nerves but hell on the curves. But scientists at Warwick University, in England, have found a way to halve the fat content of chocolate without compromising its silky texture.
New technology allows manufacturers to replace up to 50 percent of the fat with fruit juice, vitamin C, water or diet cola.
Dr Stefan Bon, of Warwick University, says the juice is in the form of micro-bubbles, helping the chocolate to retain its velvety mouth-feel.
The technology works with dark, milk and white chocolate.
Diet by chocolate. Sounds good.
Tailpiece
THREE language professors are discussing the collective noun for ladies of the night.
"Jam," says one. "A jam of tarts."
"Flourish," says another. "A flourish of strumpets."
"Anthology," says the third. "An anthology of prose."
Last word
Events in the past may be roughly divided into those which probably never happened and those which do not matter.
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