Currie Cup material?
A FARMER in Bosnia survived a bear attack, fighting it off with his bare hands and eventually killing it with an axe. It happened at a place called Vrba.
Blazo Grkovic, sustained serious injuries in the tussle and had to be stitched up in hospital. However, a photograph of him under treatment shows a chunky individual with the build of a prop forward, a steely look in his eye.
A bear-wrestler built like a prop forward? It's too late for the Super competition but the Sharks might cast a bit wider afield to the Balkans in recruiting for the Currie Cup.
Daredevil
SIXTY years ago yesterday, Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay became the first two men to climb Mount Everest. Almost to the day, Russian extreme sport star Valery Rozov became the first person to base jump from it.
He leaped off the north face of Everest from a point 7 220m above sea level, in a temperatire of -18 degrees centigrade, glided in free fall for just over a minute then parachuted safely onto the Rongbuk glacier, as planned.
Barely mentioned is that he got to the jump-off point after a four-day climb up Everest from the Chinese side – something in itself to compare with the feat of Hillary and Tenzing.
He's a bit of a lad, is Rozov. A few years ago he parachuted into an active volcano on the Kamchatna Peninsula, in Russia. Here's another enterprising fellow the Sharks could be looking at.
Cheese chase
AT A PLACE called Cooper's Hill in Gloucestershire, England, every year a whole lot of fellows chase a large, round cheese as it bounces its way down a steep, bramble and nettle-strewn slope.
The cheese rolling competition has begun to attract an international entry. It's quite a spectacle as the contestants stumble and stumble and go sprawling on the 1:2 gradient as they chase the cheese, a 4kg Double Gloucester.
But this year Health and Safety stepped in. The organisers were warned that if anyone were hurt by the cheese – presumably by having it roll over the person – the 86-year-old woman who donated it could be held liable.
So instead of chasing a cheese this week, they chased a lightweight foam rubber facsimile.
No, it's not easy to follow the logic. The Sharks can forget about Cooper's Hill, Gloucestershire, as a recruiting ground. They use a foam rubber ball.
Seafarers
READER Anke Breet, of Umhlanga, was taken with last week's "Brotherhood of the sea" piece, she being from a Dutch seafaring family.
Her father was in the Dutch Royal Navy for a long time, she says. His cousin was a torpedo-maker at the Den Helder naval base. Her two brothers were at sea, one a navigation officer, the other a radio officer. Two nephews were navigation officers. Her husband went to the naval college in Amsterdam and was at sea for 10 years. Her son trained at Simonstown and was a navigation officer with Safmarine for 10 years. Her brother-in-law sailed for 15 years for a line based in Singapore and a cousin of her husband was a navigation officer with a Rotterdam line.
"Methinks quite an impressive list of seafarers in one family. Does any other family have as much seawater in its veins?"
Impressive indeed. Zout in den aren.
Sea diver
MEANWHILE, at St Clement's this week Spyker Koekemoer (aka Pat Smythe) brought the punters a sense of the chill of the Atlantic as he told of an encounter at Port Nolloth, in the Northern Cape, with an amazing fellow named Georgie One-Time, who has made a living for some 30-odd years diving for diamonds in those freezing waters.
Spyker showed a film of Georgie One-Time's exhausting and hazardous operation and so impressed was he that he's recorded a ballad about him: ""He's on the old dream maker, the boat - Blues Breaker, just south of Alex Bay …"
Hey, great stuff! The raconteur goes melodious.
Take care
IRISH drought warning: "Take care. It hasn't rained for 10 minutes."
Tailpiece
THERE was this dyslexic lawyer. He studied hard for the bra exam.
Last word
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
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