BEING in this Commonwealth Games bid is a bit like being
on the high diving board and about to perform the triple
somersault pike when the thought occurs: "Why is nobody
else doing this?"
Oh well, at least we'll be able to walk safely in town at
night for a while.
When the Commonwealth Conference was on in Durban a
few years ago, I was walking through the city centre one
evening with one of our young female journalists.
Mounted police were at every corner. Police cars were
cruising. A helicopter hovered overhead, its searchlight
beam probing the streets. Several warships were out at
sea. The air force were on full alert.
Queen Elizabeth was in town.
"I wish the Queen would live here permanently," she said.
"Why?"
"Because then we can walk around the city centre again at
night."
It's a thought. Roll on the Games. Roll on the window-
shopping for a couple of weeks.
Speaks bubble
AN E-MAIL comes this way. It has the old R10 note with
the likeness of Van Riebeeck.
A speaks bubble from Van Riebeeck says: "Shut up with
all this tripe! And PAY BACK THE MONEY!"
Paradigm shift?
AN UNGAINLY aircraft took off from Abu Dhabi, in
the Middle East, the other day. It looked like a flying
meccano set. It had propellors – no jet propulsion.
But Solar Impulse 2 just might be the start of a paradigm
shift that could rescue the world from the pollution that is
choking it.
Solar Impulse 2 has set out to fly around the world
without using a drop of fuel. Piloted by two Swiss aviators,
it is powered entirely by solar energy.
It might look crazy and freakish. But no crazier and
freakish than the automobiles of the turn of the 19th
century or the aircraft the Wright brothers were
monkeying about with a few years later.
Give it just a bit of time. Humanity might be about to
climb another rung.
Vocabulary
READER Dave Gregory does not have a high regard for President Vladimir Putin.
To mark this disregard and at the same time simplify his own vocabulary, he has
expunged every swear word he knows and replaced it with the word "Putin".
"Yes that's it. It's universal. As in 'That's a right Putin', 'He's a complete Putin' or
'Well, you made a right Putin of that!' Even 'Mind you don't step in the Putin'
or 'What the Putin are you doing?'
"It fits every situation. And you can say it in any language and the local people
understand exactly what you mean."
Er, yes. Perhaps Dave had best not attend the next Brics conference.
Poster
COLIN Plen reports on a poster he spotted on a tree in Cowie
Road, which disappeared before he could get there with his
camera:
Dressmakers and repairs
We alter and fit
Dresses
Aprons
Overhauls
Kickers
MORE on unconventional place kicking, which seems to have
been especially popular at Maritzburg College. Toffee Sharp was
an early exponent of the round-the-corner kick with the instep
which is now standard world-wide.
Gregor Woods says when he was there in the sixties, there was a
fellow – "a red-haired bloke as I recall" - who used to take off his
boot and sock and kick barefoot.
It caused derision among some of the spectators, he says, but the
kicks were spot-on.
As a matter of fact I knew that red-haired bloke. His name was
Geoff Allen and he came from Lusikisiki, deep in the Transkei,
where his parents ran the Royal Hotel.
Everyone in Lusikisiki kicks barefoot.
Pudgy
NORTH Korean dictator Kim Jong-un (the "Young 'Un") handed
out lipsticks and other cosmetics to the wives of air force officers
last weekend to mark International Women's Day.
But he had to hand them to the husbands. The gals were not on
hand. That's hardly surprising – they probably ran a mile when
they heard the pudgy Dear Leader was visiting the base. He might
have demanded a smooch.
Tailpiece
A DOG goes into a telegraph office and dictates a message: " Woof,
woof, woof, woof, woof, woof, woof woof, woof."
The operator reads it back and says: "Y'know we charge per 10 words.
You can have another 'woof' for free."
"No thanks," says the dog. "That would sound silly."
Last word
My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular.
Adlai E Stevenson Jr
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