A playful tiff
I WAS SITTING at a lunch table with a lady friend in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties. We were discussing this distressing business involving dishy TV food celebrity Nigella Lawson and her husband, Charles Saatchi.
We fell into disagreement so I grabbed her throat with both hands and shook her, just to get my point across.
At which she kicked me hard on the shins, grabbed me by the ears and violently banged my head on the table four times.
Then she leaped across the table and caught me in the Boston Crab, that wrestling hold that is illegal in the professional ring. The pain was excruciating.
Then she let me go and delivered a right cross that had me seeing stars and listening to the birdies sing as I went flying across another table in a tangle of tablecloths and cutlery.
None of this should be misinterpreted. It was nothing more than a playful tiff.
Old tech
A JELLYFISH-SHAPED helium balloon has been launched from Lake Tekapo, a remote spot on New Zealand's South Island. It is the first of hundreds to be launched in a ring on the 40th parallel south from New Zealand through Australia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.
The balloons will carry equipment to beam the internet down to billions of people who at present have no access. Solar panels will provide the electricity.
Operation Loon is a Google project designed to bring internet access to another 4.8 billion people in undeveloped countries.
Gas balloons drifting in the winds … the digital age embraces the technology of the early 19th century. Next we'll have horse-drawn bullet trains and supersonic jet biplanes.
Parking
THE AVERAGE price of a house in Boston, Massachusetts, in the US, is $315 000 (R3.1 million) but a permanent parking space costs not that much less.
A city resident recently paid $560 000 at an auction for two parking spots near her home in the Back Bay neighbourhood.
Perhaps the thing to do in Boston is buy a parking space then pitch a tent or park a caravan.
Television licences
TV VIEWERS in Britain have given some ingenious excuses for not paying their television licence.
One said he thought he was exempt because his pet corgi was distantly related to one of the Queen's corgis.
Another household claimed they merely used the glow from the set as a lamp to help them read.
One man said he'd stolen the set, nobody knew he had it so why should he pay a licence?
More than 400 000 people were caught in Britain last year watching TV without licences - which is more than 1 000 a day. They paid stiff fines.
What would be a reasonable excuse in this country for not paying one's TV licence?
I didn't steal my set – I found it on a junk heap. It doesn't give off enough of a glow to read by.
But I did spend school holidays at Nkandla, at the same time JZ was growing up there. If that's not grounds for exemption, as a parallel to the Queen's corgi case, what is?
I rest my case.
Anniversary
IS IT NOW the Holy-Davidson? Scores of Harley-Davidson riders arrived noisily in St Peter's Square, outside the Vatican, to be blessed by Pope Francis.
They were there to celebrate the Harley-Davidson manufacturer's 110th anniversary.
Vroom, vroom!
Sixtieth reunion
CALLING all Maris Stella matriculants of 1953 – they're holding a 60th anniversary reunion lunch on Saturday, July 6. Anyone from that cohort who left the school before matriculation is also welcome.
Contact Yvonne Lee (nee Williams) on 031-2060365 or 083-3308887
Tailpiece
THE ANTHROPOLOGIST and his guide are taking a canoe up the river on a remote South Pacific island. There's a constant and unnerving drumming from the jungle. He asks the guide what it means.
"Drums OK. Very bad when drums stop."
An hour or so later, the drumming stops. The guide cowers in the bottom of the canoe and covers his ears with his hands.
"What now?"
"Drums stop – very bad. Now bass solo."
Last word
Silly things do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent way.
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