Legal eagles in queue
NO NAMES, no packdrill, but I'm told that a certain retired judge only just made it to a Law Society black tie dinner in Umhlanga the other evening, where he was guest speaker.
With him in the car were two other judges and the driver was his son, a practising advocate.
At the hotel entrance they joined what seemed to be a queue of cars to the parking area. But the queue moved painfully slowly. The retired judge began to fret a bit. Would he be late? Most embarrassing.
At last they inched their way to the front of the queue. They were in the drive-through facility of a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet adjoining the hotel.
They made it to the dinner in time. Just as well, they'd have had to rejoin the queue for a KFC if they'd lost out.
Chicken Little
"THE SKY IS falling". Investment analyst Dr James Greener uses the well-known line from the story of Chicken Little as a headline, in his latest grumpy newsletter, to a most useful and informative piece on fiscal policy in the United States.
"Once again that strange architectural structure called the debt ceiling has appeared in the corridors of power in the US. Supposedly it sets an upper limit to how much money the government can borrow in order to cover the shortfall between its prodigious spending activity and the less than expected tax receipts.
"Inevitably of course there is scant political will to cut spending or raise taxes and so the debt increases and the ceiling gets closer and requires remodelling.
"This performance of 'raising of the debt ceiling' has taken on a near ritualistic nature. Opposing politicians debate and haggle and blame and skirmish right down to the last moments before they take the inevitable decision to borrow 'just a wee bit more to tide us over 'til pay day'.
"The nation heaves a sigh of relief and nothing changes. The ceiling is way up there out of sight. Until it isn't."
Yes, nursery stories and rhymes have a lot in common with fiscal management.
Do your bit
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "I got e-mailed an invoice for R250. They said they were doing this to save paper and do their bit to protect the environment. So I scanned two R100 notes and one R50 note in colour to my computer and e-mailed them back. We must all do our bit for the environment. I'm expecting an e-mail of congratulations."
Mutt and Jeff
READER Granny Joan, who likes to keep in touch, has - sad to relate – had to part with her friendly mynahs, Mutt and Jeff, who used to hop regularly into her ground floor flat and feed from the dog bowl of Harley the Maltese poodle.
Joan, aged 80 but still working, has moved to a third-floor flat near Mitchell Park. But she's still in touch with the wildlife.
Hardly had she moved in when the biggest vervet monkey she's ever seen was in her flat, along with a group of smaller friends. He scarpered with a loaf of wholewheat bread she'd just bought, and scattered the crusts all over the garden.
On the whole, she preferred Mutt and Jeff.
Stowaway snakes
SNAKES keep stowing away on Aussie aircraft. A few months ago a three-metre python was spotted curled around the wing of a Qantas flight from Cairns to Papua New Guinea. It was still there after landing but had died.
Now passengers have had to spend all night in a Sydney hotel while aircrew searched for a 20cm, mildly venomous Mandarin rat snake that had been spotted on board another Qantas flight due to leave for Tokyo.
Hmmm. Mandarin rat snake. Would this have anything to do with the recently conducted election in Australia? A bit of constituency work perhaps?
Tailpiece
| SHE GOT A bit sarky when I kept putting off getting the lawnmower fixed. I came home to find her snipping the front lawn with nail scissors. I went inside and came out with a toothbrush: "When you're through with the lawn, you can brush the path." The doctors say I will walk again, but never without a pronounced limp. |
Last word
Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
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