Kilroy, Chad, Foo
TWO READERS supply ripostes to the off-beat "Kilroy was here" graffiti mentioned last week. For those who missed this play on the ubiquitous sketch of the fellow poking his nose over the wall, placed in unlikely places all over the world by American GIs during World War II, it's repeated:
I clap my hands,
I jump for joy,
For I got here
Before Kilroy.
"JB" responds:
Alas my friend,
Too soon you spoke.
Kilroy was here
But his pencil broke
Richard Robinson, of Hillcrest, supplies a slightly different version:
Sorry to spoil
Your little joke,
I was here
But my pencil broke.
However, Richard says the sketch of a man with his nose over the wall related not to Kilroy but to a character called "Chad", who always appeared – it was during the war – with the comment: "Wot no bread?" (or whatever else happened to be in short supply).
This is puzzling. Every bit of Kilroy graffiti I've ever seen has had the fellow with his nose over the wall.
A bit of research suggests that Chad was a British version of Kilroy. On the eve of the D-Day landings in Normandy, a giant troop-carrying glider was daubed: "Wot no engines?" – and accompanied by the sketch. Perhaps James Kilroy - who used to inspect the riveting on ships that were being built in a hurry in America during the war, then OK them with the sketch and the words "Kilroy was here" – got the idea from Chad.
But who the original Chad might have been remains a mystery.
There was also an Australian version, the character being named "Foo". This graffiti seems to date back to World War I.
Can anyone out there shed further light?
Kilroy was here
And so was Chad.
Also Foo,
But don't feel bad.
Whizz of words
MICHEL Pearce, of Morningside, notes that according to Business Report last week, Maritzburg-born physics whizzkid Sandile Ngcobo – who in his PhD research made a stunning breakthrough in laser technology – has developed a "two-micron, high-power, diode-pumped thulium yttrium lithium fluoride slab laser."
"I wonder," she asks. "Wouldn't Sandile fit right in at Llanafairpwllgwyngyllgogerchwyrndrobwyll-llantysilliogogogoch?" (a place in Wales mentioned in this column the same day).
Poaching scourge
A PICTURE has emerged of the typical driver of the rhino-poaching scourge: a high-flying, nouveau riche, middle-aged Vietnamese businessman who is willing to pay almost any price for rhino horn as a flashy symbol of success and status.
Oddly enough, the study by the World Wide Fund for Nature makes no mention of rhino horn's supposed properties in the promotion of sexual potency. Nor does author Julian Rademeyer (who wrote Killing for Profit) in his preface to Ian Player's The White Rhino Saga (Jonathan Ball), which has just been republished, 40 years after it first appeared.
Rademeyer says rhino horn has become the "Ferrari factor" in Vietnamese society. It is a party drug that costs more than cocaine; it is used as a hangover cure; and it is ground into rice wine to be "the drink of millionaires". This is curious because rhino horn actually has much the same chemical/medicinal properties as human toenails.
Is it not depressing that the threatened extinction of rhino as a species should be driven by such a monumental delusion?
But the threat is there and it is real. The White Rhino Saga celebrated the success of a small band of conservationists, led by Ian Player, in the face of enormous hostility by the Nationalist central government of the day and the ranching and farming lobbies that sought to have the Zululand reserves deproclaimed. Player and his group were otherwise bogged down by widespread public apathy.
Player and the Natal Parks Board turned that around. Conservancies and game ranches flourish all over the province. The ethos of conservation flourishes. It was success with the white rhino that put things on track.
But the poaching threat has since emerged. This new edition is timely, following soon after publication (also by Jonathan Ball) of Ian Player's biography, Into the River of Life (in which I have to declare an interest – I wrote it).
The game is on – a luta continhua!
Tailpiece
"It's my 85th birthday. The wife gave me an SUV."
"An SUV? Wow, amazing! What a great gift!"
"Yup … socks, underwear, Viagra …"
Last word
A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject.
Winston Churchill
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