Chimes for Mandela
IF YOU LIVE in the vicinity, you will have heard the tenor bell at St Mary's Church, Greyville, chime 95 times this morning from 7 o'clock. It was in honour of Nelson Mandela's birthday and the bell is, very appropriately, called "Peace" (All church bells have a name).
Last Sunday, the Greyville bellringers struck St Mary's Number 7 bell – "Delville Wood" – 97 times to commemorate the Battle of Delville Wood 97 years ago during World War I, where about 2 500 South Africans of the First Infantry Brigade died.
Present was Valri Simpson, granddaughter of Percy Bentley who was one of the few survivors of Dellville Wood.
Dellville Wood … Peace. It's a nice thought on Madiba's birthday.
Tornado season
AMERICA has had a summer of dreadful tornados. People have died and homes and buildings have been wrecked in places like Oklahoma. Nature's wrath can indeed be fearsome.
Yet danger can be a kind of magnet. People are now paying for storm-chasing holidays in the region dubbed Tornado Alley. They set out in convoys of vans – battered and dented by hail – that stalk the deadly twisters, taking the tourists right into the storm. They call it weather stalking.
Astonishing. And with all kinds of other hazards also. You can find yourself getting mixed up with wizards, cowardly lions, scarecrows and tin men. Not to mention girls named Dorothy. (I've known some highly hazardous Dorothys in my time).
Howzat!
WHOOPS! My sportswriter colleague Simon Osler points out that the Ashes urn is reputed to contained the ashes of a cremated cricket bail, not a cricket ball as stated yesterday.
He's quite right. Bails, balls … I blame it on the distraction of T20 which, as stated yesterday, is the cricketing equivalent of pocket billiards.
Restless comics
POLITICS is a greasy pole. Barack Obama started out in the US with such optimism and enthusiasm behind him that he seemed unstoppable. But the mood has changed as he approaches the end of his second and final term as president.
Who says so? The stand-up comedians say so. When they start wisecracking against you, your time is up.
Reader Brian Kennedy sends in some collated examples. Some of the gags seem rather cruel.
Jay Leno:
· "The liberals are asking us to give Obama time. We agree ... and think 25 to life would be appropriate."
· "America needs Obama-care like Nancy Pelosi needs a Halloween mask." (Nancy Pelosi leads the Democrats in the House of Representatives).
· "What does Barack Obama call lunch with a convicted felon? A fund raiser."
David Letterman:
· "What's the difference between Obama's cabinet and a penitentiary? One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers and threats to society. The other is for housing prisoners."
· "What was the most positive result of the 'Cash for Clunkers' programme? It took 95 percent of the Obama bumper stickers off the road."
Conan O'Brien:
· "Have you heard about McDonalds' new Obama Value Meal? Order anything you like and the guy behind you has to pay for it."
Jimmy Fallon:
· If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were on a boat in the middle of the ocean and it started to sink, who would be saved? America!"
Yes, a greasy pole. They knew what they were doing, those American legislators, when they limited a president to two terms. The comedians start getting restless halfway through the second.
Beavers
HERE'S a classic of bureaucratic red tape. More than a decade ago, floods washed away the dam that supplies the remote Russian village of Bobrovka, in the Ural mountains of Siberia.
The villagers have been petitioning the authorities ever since for a new dam to be built, without success. But now wild beavers have come to their assistance. They've built a new dam themselves. It's absolutely solid and large enough to supply the village's needs.
But the beavers had no planning permission. The authorities are now threatening to demolish the dam.
Rules is rules. The mind, senor, she boggles!
Tailpiece
A SMALL boy is listening to a Bible story. His dad reads: "The man named Lot was warned to take his wife and flee out of the city but his wife looked back and was turned to salt."
Small boy (concerned): "What happened to the flea?"
Last word
I like to play blackjack. I'm not addicted to gambling, I'm addicted to sitting in a semi-circle.
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