Birdsong in Durban
Spring is sprung,
Da grass is riz,
I wonder where da boidies is?
Da boids is on da wing, or so I hoid,
But dat's absoid – da wings is on da boid.
THE GARDENS of Durban are a-twitter with birdsong – Cape canaries, nesting weavers, redwing starlings, loeries (if you can call that hoarse hooting "song"), the whole ensemble. It seems spring on the Berea is much like Spring in the Bronx, title of the above-quoted lines.
And the advent of spring brings an extra measure of delight to my humble hovel. A pair of weavers have at last (and seemingly overnight) woven one of their intricate nests in a stately fever tree that has been growing on the front lawn for the past 15 years at least.
The lack of weavers over the years has been a source of puzzlement and disappointment. Normally they nest in colonies in fever trees. Maybe this tree has at last grown tall enough over the surrounding vegetation to attract them. Maybe its long fronds have developed to the stage where they will at last be monkey-proof.
Whatever, where this pair have settled the rest of the colony must surely be on their way. As the anonymous poet said: "Da boids is on da wing …".
If you want to read about Nkandla, dodgy police commissioners, politicians on the take and such things, turn elsewhere. If you want to know about weavers, watch this space!
Spring snow
MEANWHILE, Table Mountain is covered in snow. It's been five degrees below in Maritzburg. And this is spring?
People always seem to forget that our spring snaps are the coldest and the snowiest of the year. It happens almost every year.
Way back in the 18th century, Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa captured it in a haiku.
Seeming as though
this must be the last of it --
so much spring snow!
Yep, global warming was getting out of hand even then.
Al Gore effect
FORMER American Vice-President Al Gore must have been to the Atacama desert, in Chile, one of the world's hottest and driest.
A very rare snowfall – the heaviest in three decades - blocked roads to the regional capital, of San Pedro de Atacama and threatens to cause flooding as it melts. San Pedro is 1 200 km north of the national capital, Santiago.
The Gore connection? The former vice-president is possibly the highest profile exponent of the proposition of global warming The Al Gore effect is a slightly tongue-in-cheek term described by the Urban Dictionary as "the phenomenon that leads to unseasonably cold temperatures, driving rain, hail, or snow whenever Al Gore visits an area to discuss global warming."
Yes, this global warming really is getting out of hand.
Corn contest
A FARMER in New Jersey, in the United States, has constructed a maze in his cornfield, designed to promote interest in an electoral contest in November between Republican Governor Chris Christie and his Democrat challenger, Barabara Buono.
The corn has been planted and cut in strips to create not just a maze but a maze which sketches the facial features of the two candidates.
It seems a most laborious and possibly pointless exercise. You would need to look at the whole thing from a vantage point to make it out. A person walking through the maze would be unaware that he is entering Governor Christie's right nostril or circumnavigating Miz Buono's earlobe.
Was this perhaps just a crackling farm line? The farmer was actually ordering maize?
| Tailpiece A COUPLE order Chicken Surprise in a Chinese restaurant. The waiter brings it in a lidded cast iron pot. Just as she's about to serve herself, the lid of the pot rises slightly and she briefly sees two beady little eyes looking around. Then the lid slams back down. "Please sir, what you order?" Last word To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it. | ||
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