The Idler, Wednesday, March 11

Frogs culprit identified

THE frogs' chorus has started again at the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties. 

Somewhat sporadically and with nothing like the volume of a few months ago, but 

they're back.

Heads swivel accusingly toward a well-known advocate who is widely believed to 

have the gift of frog ventriloquy, but he denies responsibility and threatens punitive 

damages.

The guv'nor is puzzled. The pond is a small one in the beer garden. Wild duck don't 

land on it, carrying frog spawn on their feathers. There's no other pond, river or 

swamp anywhere near. The last lot were captured and released down in Umbilo, a 

long way away.

"Where do they come from?" he asks. "We don't see them hopping along the 

pavement. We don't see them hopping out of a taxi. It's a mystery."

Maybe I have the answer. Maybe it's being set up by Professor Pieter Scholtz, former 

head of drama up at the varsity, who comperes the weekly arts soiree at St Clement's. 

A frog chorus would be right up his alley.

I quote from a recent publication of his: Brekekekex koax koax. 

Also:

Ribbit ... Ribbit ... Kiss my bum!

I'm having such Ribbity Flibberty fun ...

It begins to look suspicious indeed. Especially when the publication is titled Ching 

Wa Sheng, which is Chinese for Spirit of the Frog.

Yes, Pieter has written a book on frogs (published by Horus), in collaboration with a 

friend, John Poynton, who is an authority on them, at the Natural History Museum in 

London.

Frogs got a bad name in mediaeval Europe, Pieter says, because they were associated 

with witches' spells and that kind of thing. Yet other civilisations venerated them. 

Pieter is out to reinstate frogs, not just as handsome princes waiting to be transformed, 

but symbols of wealth and good fortune as they have been elsewhere.

A still frog watches

Tongue tingles, anticipates

A meal or maiden.

Yes it's a humorous treatment, some of it Pieter's own haikus (the Japanese 

verse form of three lines and 17 syllables), other verse of his own, plus outside 

contributions such as the old ballad, A Frog He Would A-wooing Go and an extract 

from AA Milne's Toad of Toad Hall.

The Brekekekex koax koax mentioned above comes from The Frogs an Ancient Greek 

comedy by Aristophanes.

This is a book that should be launched at the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties, the 

frogs' chorus belting it out in the background. One the other hand ... Ribbit ... Ribbit 

... Kiss my Bum! ... it might be a bit strong for the habitués of the Street Shelter.

Squelcher

A LOT of famous put-downs are circulating these days. How about 

this one?

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring

a friend, if you have one." - George Bernard Shaw to Winston 

Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second ... if there

is one." - Winston Churchill, in response.

Stowaway

AN ALARM sounded as the baggage went through a security screening before 

being put into the aircraft hold at La Guardia airport, New York.

The suspicious suitcase was gingerly opened. Inside, nestling among clothing 

and other items, was a little chihuahua dog.

The passenger who owned the suitcase just about freaked when they called her 

in. She was as surprised as the officials. The dog had apparently crept in and 

stowed away while she was packing. She'd no idea it was there.

She phoned her husband, who drove out to the airport to collect their pet and 

take him home.

Three thoughts occur. Hubby had a great story to tell his mates at the club that 

night; just as well the chihuahua was found because he would not have survived 

in the unpressurised hold; and it couldn't have happened with an Irish wolfhound.

 Tailpiece

THE manager of a brokerage firm notes a new employee counting put and call slips 

faster than he's seen anyone do it before.

"This is amazing," he says. "Where did you learn to count like that?"

"Yale."

"Yale? I also went to Yale. What's your name?"

"Yimmy Yohnson."

Last word

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in 

the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function. 

F Scott Fitzgerald