| Getting there by degrees IT SEEMS a couple of the top jobs at the SABC are soon going to be up for grabs. Some sort of bother over faked qualifications, I gather. Hmmm. The money's good and it's not exactly a hard act to follow. Worth a try. They say Pallo's not going for it. But you don't want to swamp them with certificates, just send in enough to show you've got what it takes, that you're a rounded, balanced individual. That PhD from Harvard on "Rawls and the Original Position" – that's a cracker in terms of justification of liberal democracy, but it does lend itself to lewd misinterpretation; it also would need to be balanced out by the doctorate from Moscow (1979) on "Capitalist-imperialism and the bloody assassination of the working classes". The SABC is strictly impartial, you see, plays it down the middle. The chiropractic diploma? Yes, that shows one is an all-rounder. And the gals in the office at Auckland Park might need a bit of massaging about the shoulders after being hunched in front of a computer screen all day. What about the certificate in Latin-American dancing, specialising in the Salsa and the Samba? Yes, the SABC is heavily into culture. The degree in veterinary science from Onderstepoort? Yes, a man has to show he's into the sciences. Okay, just one more, a real heavyweight intellectual clincher. How about this PhD from London – "The Icelandic Sagas as echoed in modern advertising jingles." Yes, that'll do nicely. Don't swamp 'em. Dammit! What's this? They want my matric certificate? Last time I saw that it was lining the breadbin …er, I think. Or was that my teacher's diploma? Now they've got me foxed. I can quite see how these difficulties with qualifications arise. Fight it OH BOY, the All Blacks tomorrow. The only glimmer really is that Argentina put up a pretty decent showing against them, not reflected by the scoreline. Can we cure ourselves of this kicking disease? The aimless punts that hand possession to the world's best counter-attackers? Will Andre Pollard and Willie le Roux be turned loose? We have to fight the temptation to sleep late and catch the replay only if it warrants. Bu-z-z-z! MORE on our angrily buzzing friends. Earlier this week we discussed a giant wasps' nest that was found in a bedroom in England; also a hornets' nest that once established itself in my golf bag. Now more from England. A South African girl and her flatmate had to be rescued by the fire brigade from an upstairs room in Maidenhead, Berkshire, after a massive hornets' nest came crashing through the ceiling into the hallway. Caroline Muller, formerly of Vanderbylpark, Gauteng, and her flatmate rushed to the bedroom and slammed the door shut, while the hornets buzzed angrily through the rest of the house. They telephoned the emergency services and eventually escaped down a fire engine ladder. They're staying with friends while pest exterminators deal with the hornets. It seems England is being plagued by large, yellow-hooped hornets that have arrived from the Far East and are thriving in the current hot summer. Wonks win READER Brian von Sorgenfrei sympathises with the way my mind is being boggled by my new computer (as described earlier this week) and says he presumes my use of the word "program" instead of "programme" was caused by the computer itself, overriding my "normally impeccable" English spelling. Alas, Brian, not so. This is one area where the Yanks and the digital wonks have won. When a programme enters a computer it becomes a program. That is so even in the normally impeccable style guide of this newspaper. I have now discovered four people who have had inflicted on them the very same program, which they find close to impossible to use. The wonks really have over-reached themselves this time. | 
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