Kilroy was here
VOYAGER 1 has entered deep space, no longer part of our solar system, after travelling more than 36 years. Its companion unmanned spacecraft Voyager 2 is believed to be close behind.
Will they encounter intelligent life anywhere out there? Just in case, each carries a gold-plated audio-visual disc carrying photographs of Earth and its life forms; a range of scientific information; spoken greetings from the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the United States; a medley of "sounds of Earth" –including whales singing and a baby crying; plus music - classical and pop.
That's quite a store. There must surely also be a "Kilroy was here". The ubiquitous graffiti of a fellow putting his nose over the fence went wherever the GIs did during World War II. It even got into the VIP gents' toilet at the Potsdam conference towards the end of the war because Stalin was heard to ask, in Russian, after a visit there: "Who is Kilroy?" The bit of graffiti is said also to be scrawled in the dust on the moon's surface.
It just has to be somewhere in Voyager 1 and 2, to puzzle the extra-terrestrials the way it did Stalin.
The original James Kilroy was a shipyard worker in Halifax, Massachusetts, who used to check the riveting then mark it with the sketch when he was satisfied. Ships were being produced in such a rush during the war that they put to sea without the Kilroy sketch being painted over. It caught on in a big way.
Got there first
IN LONDON I once encountered a Kilroy with a difference.
I clap my hands,
I jump for joy,
For I got here
Before Kilroy.
Stripy stuff
MORE stripy stuff. Recent bits on zebras being used in the early days to draw carts and carriages remind reader Aline Wright of India in the late 1930s, where the Maharaja of Faridkot used to travel about his estate and to functions in a carriage drawn by zebras.
Aline's father was in the Indian army – the 10th Gurkha Rifles – and the family got to know the Maharaja and his purdah ladies well because he had a holiday home beside theirs in the Himalayas.
"He had a carriage drawn by two to four zebras down at his estate in the plains. He used his carriage frequently to go to functions and on outings with his family. There were always photos in The Times of India."
Zebras in India – who would have thought it? But where would the maharaja have got them? They must have cost him quite a bit to ship from Africa. Obviously in those days zebras did indeed have the kind of cachet a Lamborghini or a Ferrari has today.
Meanwhile, it seems the use of zebras as draught animals was more widespread in those early days than we might have thought. Sheila Swanepoel says Sir Percy Fitzpatrick – writer of Jock of the Bushveld – used to train them at his farm, Buckland Downs, near Harrismith. Steve Burrows says the Holiday Inn in Pietersburg (now Polokwane) used to have a photograph in the foyer of 16 of them harnessed to a wagon.
All we have today is zebra crossings.
Rhubarb, rhubarb
THE CLICHÉ phrase book and the word processor – investment analyst Dr James Greener is not impressed, in his latest grumpy newsletter, by the efforts of the speechwriters of Public Enterprises Minister Malusi Gigaba in explaining the turnaround strategy for South African Airways – possibly the ninth such in as many years.
"Simply empty the cliché phrase book into the word processor and off you go with sweating assets, complex legal processes, optimised operational efficiencies, turnaround strategy custodians, growing revenues and, of course, all of this in the face of the headwinds which are out there.
"The minister should have tossed that back to the scribes in embarrassment. The sole thing he didn't say was how much the taxpayers are in for this year. It is truly time for the government to sell this asset whether sweaty or not. But would the new owner remember to reserve the front seats in business class for VIPs?"
Tailpiece
Optician: "Paddy, your eyesight's actually improving."
Paddy:"Sure, it must be the luck of the iris."
Last word
I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
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