Ugly fish sculpture
THE PUFFER fish – known locally as a Toby and in the Cape as a blaasop – is not the prettiest creature, quite apart from being deadly poisonous to eat.
Why local government officials in Yangzhong county, in the Chinese province of Jiansu, should have chosen to build a giant viewing tower in the shape of a puffer fish is a mystery..
Encased in 8 920 copper plates and built at a cost of around 70 million yuan (R120 million), the building – on an island - hovers 15 storeys above ground. It's supposed to be the world's biggest metal construction in terms of volume.
But the project has caused an uproar, partly because of cost and partly because of its meaninglessness. Who wants an ugly puffer fish on the skyline? There's been voluble protest on the Chinese version of Twitter at what is described as a costly vanity project.
Yes, it's as if Ethekwini Municipality were to commission an artist to sculpt something like a giant cockroach, in copper, on one of the approaches to Durban. A world first, very expensive but rather pointless.
Bungee record
AUSTRALIAN Jay Phoenix has broken the world record for bungee jumping. With a thick elastic cord tied to his ankles, he jumped 150 times in 21 hours from a platform 40m up on a crane near Brisbane, Queensland.
He then went home to relax playing with a yo-yo.
Tidal pools
SO FAR, NOT too much firm information has emerged about the origins of the tidal pool at Brighton Beach to assist Jon Eiselin, of Amsterdam, who is researching it.
Ron Coppin, of Hillcrest, says he thinks it must have been completed between 1946 and 1949 because his father, Fred, was a ward councillor on the Bluff in those years and he recalls the official opening being a big, floodlit affair in which his dad was involved.
Godfrey Biggs says his uncle, Jimmy Price – a municipal employee – supervised the building of the pool and he recalls encountering him at work there, probably during the war years. He recalls the workmen being Africans, not Italian POWs as Jon seems to think, but it was a long time ago and he wouldn't like to vouch for it.
Meanwhile, Robin Brown, of Warner Beach, just a bit further south, can tell Jon anything he wants to know about the Warner Beach tidal pool. It was built by Gus Brown (uncle of her husband, Brian) who blasted the rocks to set it up. Gus owned two hotels in the village – the Strelitzia Park and the Strand – and the tidal pool was a wonderful amenity.
Robin (her name takes the male form – her dad's doing) says the town board later spoiled the pool by blocking one of the gaps with a wall, stopping the scouring effect and causing a problem of sand building up. But the pool is still there.
Can't anyone out there tell us more about the Brighton Beach pool?
Green men
POLICE in the London borough of Brent are looking for little green men – not from Mars but from "trap cars" and "trap houses" that have been set up to spray intruders with a colourless, odourless liquid that stays on the skin for weeks and shows up green under ultraviolet light.
They recently caught and convicted a thief who had broken into one of the trap cars and have installed the device – known as SmartWater – on a trial basis in various homes.
Word gets around fast. The burglary rate has already dropped by 80 percent in Brent and the car break-in rate by 40 percent.
There just might be a market for SmartWater out here.
Tailpiece
A DOCTOR asks his patient about his physical activity level.
"Well, yesterday I took a five hour walk about seven kays through some pretty rough terrain. I waded along the edge of a lake. I pushed my way through brambles. I got sand in my shoes and my eyes.At one stage I jumped really high to avoid standing on a snake. I climbed several rocky hills. I took a few leaks behind some big trees. The mental stress left me shattered. At the end of it all I drank eight beers."
"Wow! You're one heck of an outdoors man."
"No, just an average golfer."
Last word
Cockroaches and socialites are the only things that can stay up all night and eat anything.
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