Manie's party trick
THE stories keep rolling in about Manie Blom, the famous banana
man who used to run on at King's Park before an inter- provincial
rugby match.
Manie was barman at the Stamford Hill Hotel, just across the road
from the ground. A reader, who calls himself "Errol", recalls a party
trick he used to perform in the bar in return for a cash collection.
Manie would place a beer glass on the bar counter and fill it with a
pint of beer.
Then he would bend over and put his entire mouth over the glass.
Then he would straighten, tilt his head, open his throat and let the
entire pint go down his gullet – glugl glug, glug!
Then he'd bend over again and place the empty glass back on the
counter, not a drop spilled.
"It was the most amazing trick I ever saw," says Errol. "I never
knew anyone else who could get his mouth over a beer glass like
that. I saw him do it time after time."
He says Manie always drank Lion Ale. Natch – "The beer Natal
made famous!"
Nostalgia
MEANWHILE, Barabara Lane, of Winklespruit, also expresses
nostalgia for those days.
"I remember the 'Push-up Boys' who used to do just that: do the
total points in push-ups every time we scored. I felt so sorry for
them when the score rose to 30 or 40.
"Then there was the gentleman who would emerge from the
tunnel with his dog just before the match, and they would run
round the entire field to great applause from the spectators.
"And who will forget our 'Banana Boys'?"
Good news, Barbara. The Push-up Boys are back and they were
working overtime last Saturday.
I'm afraid I don't remember the gentleman running about with his
dog (Unless it was myself and my Airedale terrier, who was always
on offer to the selectors because of her uncanny ability to bury the
ball in a tight spot).
Maybe the Push-up Boys can be persuaded to emulate Manie
Blom's party trick. That would be quite something in a 30-pointer.
Place kicks
MEANWHILE, more on round-the-corner place kicking, with the
instep instead of the toe. Peter Harris, of Ballito, says it couldn't
have been copied by our own Toffee Sharp from French fly-half
Guy Camberabero, who toured South Africa in 1967.
"Toffee was kicking like that at school in 1963. I think he's the one
who started it."
This is an interesting question. Did the rugby place-kicking style
that is now used around the world at every level really start
at Maritzburg College? Or was it some sort of spontaneous
evolutionary thing that developed simultaneously in every rugby-
playing country?
If the former, Toffee Sharp was not as radical as William Webb-
Ellis but he's still had a profound impact on the game.
Dialogue
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties:
"You feel like a bit of slap and tickle?"
"Your place or mine?"
"Well if you're going to argue, forget it!"
Going to pot
ALASKA has become the third American state to legalise smoking, growing and
owning small amounts of marijuana. The others are Washington (not the same thing
as Washington DC) and Colorado.
Marijuana is, of course, what we call dagga.
Anyone aged 21 or older can now possess up to an ounce of marijuana in Alaska and
can grow up to six marijuana plants, three of which can be flowering.
I'd have thought Alaska, with its permafrost, would be rather inhospitable to
marijuana. Maybe they've developed hothouse igloos.
Mush! Mush! A zol, ek se. Dog-sledding can never be the same again.
Tailpiece
FIVE Germans are in an Audi Quattro at the Italian border. The
Italian Iimmigration officer says: "It'sa illegala to putta da five
people in a Quattro."
"Vot you mean illegal?".
"Quattro meana four."
"Quattro is ze name of ze automobile, you fool! Look at ze damn
papers: Ze car is designed to carry five."
"You canta pulla dat-a one on me! Quattro meana four. You gotta
da five. You breaka da law!"
"Dumkopf! You call your supervisor over. I vant to speak to
somevun viz more intelligence!"
"Sorry. He can'ta come. He a-busy with two guys in a Fiat Uno."
Last word
Save a little money each month and at the end of the year you'll be surprised
at how little you have.
Ernest Haskins
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