The Idler, Tuesday, January 6

Brakpan in the running

THERE'S been a stampede of applications from all over the world for a job taking 

hits from a paintball gun.

The advert by UKPaintball, posted on the internet, reads: "Immediate vacancy – 

bullet tester. Are you bored with your current part-time job? Are you looking for 

a new challenge with great financial benefits? Do you have a relatively high pain 

threshold?

"Here at UKPaintball we are currently looking for someone to join the team and 

become our official 'bullet tester'.

"The job will essentially involve being shot at with every new batch of paint bullets 

to ensure that all health and safety checks are in place before we can use them 

on the general public and paying customers."

There have been more than 10 000 applications so far. One is from a Koos van 

der Merwe, of Brakpan.

Contacted, he said: "I've got a similar application in with Smith & Wesson. I hope 

one of them comes up."

Drive-in

IT'S a fair cop. A fellow in Cheshire, England, got a bit full of ink over the festive 

season and crashed his car.

Where did he crash it? Right into the police station in Frodsham. An alert copper 

made the arrest.

We've heard of drive-in hamburger joints and things, but drive-in copshops? This 

is something new.

Violence

THE fellow mentioned above has, of course, been charged with what they 

irritatingly call "drink-driving" (in this country too).

I know "drunken driving" is not the same thing. It means being virtually 

incapacitated and is a much more serious offence than simply being one or two 

over the limit.

But would it be too much to refrain from violence to English grammar and speak 

of "drinking and driving"?

Dream on.

Sunrise/sunset

A FEATURE on Sky News looked at the drought that is beginning to cripple 

California, a state that is vital to American agricultural production. A speeded up 

closing shot showed the sun climbing hopefully from the horizon.

Er, except that California is on the west coast. The sun drops into the sea, it 

doesn't climb out of it. They must have been running the video backwards.

Bum rap

MORE 999 mischief. Police in England have reported ridiculous calls to the 

emergency number over the festive season, including one from a man who said 

he was scared of a hedgehog in his garden; another from a hospital patient who 

said he had been robbed by a vending machine.

Now an Ulsterman has made two 999 calls. First he phoned saying two men 

were threatening him, but he was too smashed to complete the call.

Then he phoned again to cancel the previous call and tell them he was the rapper 

Nicki Minaj and there was a poltergeist in his home.

The fuzz busted him and took him to court, where he was ordered to sober up, 

not drink again and refrain from dialling 999 unless there was a real emergency.

The mischief is always a little livelier in Northern Ireland.

Jolly swagman

A COBBER tried to blow up an ATM in Darwin, Australia. He attached explosives 

to the cashpoint machine, lit them with matches then got blown off his feet. Then 

he ran for it.

The whole thing was captured on CCTV. Police are hunting for a man with singed 

eyebrows.

Face value

OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "Men are all 

the same. They just have different faces so you can tell them apart."

Rainfall

READER Brian Kennedy is puzzled by Durban's average annual 

rainfall which, since 2013, has been given in our Weather Report as 

1 009mm.

"That year (2013) only 985mm were recorded but for the whole of 

2014 the average was still shown as 1 009mm.

"During the whole of 2014 only 546.4mm were recorded but the 

annual average has not changed. How can this be?"

Tailpiece

A HUNTER hires a cabin in the American woods and a gun dog. He 

has a great couple of weeks. Next year he's back and he asks for the 

same cabin and the same dog.

"Was that the dog called Salesman?" asks the cabin owner.

"Sure was. Best dog I ever worked with."

"Not any more. Some jerk started calling him Sales Manager. Now he 

just sits on his ass and barks all day.""

Last word

Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to 

change the locks. 

Doug Larson