Thursday, September 4, 2014

The Idler, Tuesday, October 8, 2013

History repeats itself?

THE BOKS were brave and at times brilliant at Ellis Park but one had the uncomfortable feeling they were playing an old-style stereotyped game while the All Blacks had something new and different.

In fact their lightning offloads and bewildering running lines in broken play counter-attack took some of us back to the 1960s when Izak van Heerden bamboozled the rest of South African rugby with the "Natal game" – very fast, close interpassing, both forwards and backs involved – based largely on the French style.

It was totally different and highly successful (apart from being marvellous to watch) and one has the impression the All Blacks have achieved something of the same order - a quantum leap that puts them in a higher category.

Rugby evolves continually. Van Heerden's ideas became part of the national pattern especially when Ian McIntosh moved on from coaching Natal to the Boks, adding his gain-line approach.

And now? How do we play catch-up?

Here's something interesting. Rugby evolves. Jake White took on the Boks with spectacular success. Then he took on the Brumbies in Australia, also with spectacular success. Jake the coach has evolved along with the rugby he inspires.

And now he's coming back to the Sharks, presumably with all kinds of new ideas. Is history repeating itself? Is he going to do an Izak van Heerden? Another quantum leap, again emanating from King's Park?

This could be very interesting. Hang on to those season tickets!

Furlough

THE WORD "furlough" has the Brits and other English-speakers reaching for their dictionaries as thousands of federal government employees in America are told to stay away from work until the budgetary shutdown is resolved.

It actually means "leave of absence" and is routinely used in America to describe members of the armed services taking leave.

It shouldn't be all that unfamiliar to South Africans though. "Furlough" must have the same Saxon origins as the Dutch/Afrikaans "verlof". It sounds the same and means exactly the same.

Goldilocks revisited

 

WHO'S been eating my borscht? In a reversal of the Goldilocks story, Russian police in the Siberian region of Irkutsk had to rescue a couple trapped in their dacha (holiday home) by a bear that had been attracted by the smell of the borscht (traditional beetroot soup) they had prepared.

 

They were sleeping in the bathhouse outside, because of redecorating in the main house, when they were wakened by breaking glass.

 

The bear had broken into the dacha and was slurping down the borscht, that had been left out to cool. The police arrived, fired a single shot into the air and the bear bounded off into the forest.

 

© Walt Disney Productions.

Glowing jellies

A HUGE cluster of jellyfish has forced one of the world's largest nuclear reactors to shut down. Operators of the Oskarshamn nuclear plant in Sweden had to scramble reactor No 3 after tons of jellyfish clogged the pipes that bring in cool water to the plant's turbines.

Two days later the pipes had been cleaned of the jellyfish and engineers were preparing to restart the reactor, which at 1 400 megawatts of output is the largest boiling-water reactor in the world.

These are jellyfish that glow in the dark.

Big fright

OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "The lifeguard told me I'm not allowed to urinate in the pool. I got such a fright I almost fell in."

 

Safe landing

A LIGHT aircraft landed safely on a city street in California's Silicon Valley during rush-hour traffic.

It happened in San Jose when there was a malfunction shortly after take-off and rthe pilot was forced to make an emergency landing. The aircraft – which had one passenger on board - managed to avoid traffic on the roadway and pulled off into a right-turn lane.

Nobody was hurt. We're not told if the pilot was issued with a traffic ticket for illegal parking.

 

 

Tailpiece

THE COFFIN is being lowered into the ground at a traffic warden's funeral. Suddenly  a voice from inside screams: "I'm not dead, I'm not dead! Let me out!"

The vicar smiles, leans forward, sucks air through his teeth and mutters: "Too late pal, I've done the paperwork."

 

 

 

Last word

 

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

Bertrand Russell

 




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