Safe pair of hands
IT WAS THE moment of truth as Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, emerged from the hospital, jauntily carrying the royal baby as if she'd already borne a dozen such. She was overjoyed but quite at ease. She managed to wave, holding the baby on one arm.
Then she handed the baby to William, and the poor guy just froze. He looked not only awkward but stricken. Millions of TV viewers felt uneasy. Surely he wasn't going to drop the kid?
Yet when, later, it came to swinging the child's babychair into place in the car, he did it with nonchalance.
Yes, it was a moment of truth. Women do have their natural roles, men have theirs. Carrying babies in the arms ain't one of the men's.
Much ado …
HAS TELEVISION been hoist by its own petard? The TV crews camped outside St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, had a whole day in which to film and interview … nothing. Not much happens outside a hospital on a quiet day.
But the burblers and warblers did not let up for a moment as they chuntered interminably on about nothing – speculating as to what might be happening inside the hospital, who might or might not come to visit, what name might or might not be chosen for the baby.
The camera cut away to places like an art gallery for still more burbling, warbling and chuntering about the royal birth and what it means.
Outside the hospital, they would seize on any slightest happening, like a bemused hospital clerk walking out through the door under scrutiny with a clipboard, then ducking inside again when he saw the cameras. On and on it went – burble. burble, warble warble. They even ended up interviewing one another.
One individual after the next would be rounded up to add to the drivel. Then blessed relief as the magic moment arrived and William and Kate appeared with the baby on the hospital steps. Burbling gave way to torrents of gushing.
Great TV - saturation day-long coverage of a quiet London street.
Even worse
THEN next morning the London Independent came out with a front page that ignored the royal birth altogether – possibly the only newspaper in the world to do so.
Somehow it made them look even more ridiculous than the burblers – somewhat anal retentive.
Sigh! Sometimes it's difficult being a Roundhead.
Archie
THE BIG issue now, of course, is the new baby's name. I still like Archie.
Besmirchment
OH, DEAR. It seems I've been tried in absentia in Tanzania on charges of character besmirchment. Readers will recall that on Monday I brought you an account of the doings here in KZN of the Poison Dwarf, a former Midlands farmer who now grows coffee in Tanzania.
It seems this account has fallen into the hands of the Poison Dwarf – who is now back in Tanzania – and I have been sentenced by the Masai elders to being smeared with cowdung and blood and left to the wiles of the elderly women of the tribe for seven nights.
"The cowdung will improve your looks and aroma," the Poison Dwarf says (nasty little blighter, isn't he?).
But seven nights with the Masai women? I'm on my way to the airline office.
Still ahead
THE PLOT thickens. It seems Durban Girls' College is ahead of Michaelhouse after all in producing Springbok rugby players.
We'd thought they had drawn level, with Girls' College having Wally Clarkson and Pat Lyster, who were in the school's kindergarten in the 1920s, and Michaelhouse having Pat Lambie and Pat Cilliers, much more recently.
But reader Mike Rockey now tells me he's certain that Harry Newton-Walker, who played for the Boks in the 50s, was also at Girls' College before heading for Kearsney. This makes it 3-2 to Girls' College.
The tension escalates. I'd hate all this to end in fisticuffs between the two schools.
Tailpiece
YOU ASK a housewife, an accountant and a lawyer the answer to two plus two.
Housewife: Four."
Accountant: "Either three or four, let me run it through my spreadsheet again."
Lawyer: "What do you want it to be?"
Last word
An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.
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