The Glorious Twelfth
CAN HUNTIN', shootin' and fishin' ever be the same again? Scientists in America have developed a "salmon cannon" which sucks fish out of the water and fires them over barriers such as dams.
Salmon are born in freshwater before migrating to the ocean - then return to their place of birth to lay their own spawn.
But obstacles such as dams mean the fish can become disorientated, prompting a company called Whooshh Innovations to step in with a device to help ease their journey.
It's similar to a pneumatic tube and works when the fish swim into one end. The tube's soft fabric forms a seal around the salmon, creating a vacuum which propels it through the pipe at speeds of up to 35km/h.
The fish are out of water for just a few seconds before they land in the water at the other side.
Up to 40 fish every minute can be transported - and the tube can span gaps of more than 60m.
But where does this end? One envisages the Glorious Twelfth in Scotland (when the grouse season opens); a line of guns, the gentry in their tweeds with their hip flasks.
Then "who-o-o-o-shh!" – and the line of guns opens up thunderously as a salmon passes overhead..
Huntin', shootin' and fishin' can never be the same again
Lockdown
IT WAS red alert and lockdown at the White House the other day. An intruder had got in. Armed officers sprinted across the lawns in Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, to confront the threat after the alarm was triggered.
The intruder was a toddler (not named) who managed to squeeze through the bars of the north gate and get away from his parents.
After being apprehended, the young trespasser was reunited with his parents. He will escape any charges.
"We were going to wait until he learned to talk so we could question him, but instead he got a
time-out and was sent on his way with the parents," said Edwin Donovan, spokesman for the US Secret Service.
A secret service with a sense of humour? This is most worrying.
Science
A RECENT study (conducted in the old imperial measures) found that the average golfer walks about 900 miles a year.
Another study found golfers drink, on average, 22 gallons of alcohol a Year.
That means, on average, golfers get about 41 miles to the gallon.
Not so dumb
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "You're not as dumb as you look – but then that would be impossible."
Maestro bowler
RECENTLY we discussed the entertaining autobiography of retired headmaster and cricketing/bowling character Tom Lambert, formerly of Pietermaritzburg and Amanzimtoti.
It seems Tom is so burning up the greens at Durban Bowling Club and elsewhere these days that Ian Gibson, poet laureate of Hillcrest, has penned a limerick in his honour.
A veteran lawn bowler called Tom,
Still delivers his bowls with aplomb;
Wherever the jack
He's sure to attack,
Or send a drawn beauty along.
Tailpiece
Murphy drops some buttered toast on the kitchen floor. It lands butter-side-up. He looks at what he has done in astonishment, for he knows it's a law of nature that buttered toast always falls butter-down.
He rushes round to the presbytery to fetch the priest. He tells him he thinks a miracle has happened round at his place.
He shows Father Flanagan what happened. Says Flanagan: "It's certainly a natural law of the universe that dropped toast never falls butter side up. But it's not for me to say it's a miracle. I'll report the matter to the bishop."
An investigation of great rigour is conducted, not only by priests of the archdiocese, but by scientists sent from the Curia in Rome.
The final ruling is a negative, however. It reads: "It was certainly an extraordinary event that occurred in Murphy's kitchen, quite outside the normal run of phenomena. Yet we have to be very cautious before ruling any happening miraculous, ruling out all possible natural explanations. In this case we have declared no miracle. For it possibly resulted from Murphy's having buttered the toast on the wrong side."
Last word
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When a man opens a car door for his wife, it's either a new car or a new wife.
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