The Idler, Monday, May 30, 2016

The bugle calls

THE traditional celebratory feue de joie at the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties was supposedly in recession last weekend. With the Sharks not playing for the next few weeks there was no call for a fashioning of catapults from the ladies' knicker elastic; no call for a shooting out of the streetlights.

But then emergency. Messerschmitts  streaked across the sky. The windowpanes rattled as Durban came under aerial attack. It was the London Blitz all over again.

But the Street Shelter home guard unit swung into action. Anti-aircraft stations! The gals volunteered their knickers. Very soon the fellows were in position with catapults, ready to fire upon these raiders from the air. The Street Shelter has its serious side.

It was a tense stand-off. But then the word came through: this was not an attack on Durban, it was some fun and games down at Greyville racecourse called the Sky Grand Prix. Panic over - stand down, the home guard unit!

It was heartening to see the alacrity with which this Street Shelter unit sprang into action; the willingness with which the gals surrendered their knicker elastic.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

Drama

Oi 'ad 'er, Oi 'ad 'er,

Oi 'ad 'er, oi oi …

AARRR … for a toime it looked loike zelebration in the Big Zmoke, toime to break out the zider …

What drama at Twickenham, Exeter versus Saracens, the West Country versus London for the English rugby championship. At halftime 23-6 to Saracens. A few minutes from time 23-20. Then eventually 28-20.

What a fight-back by Exeter. What close to flawless, committed rugby by both sides. Twickenham packed with 75 000 spectators. Devon had emptied. Imagine if Exeter had played both halves. Aarrrr …

Great double

SARACENS have now won the English championship on top of the European – what a double.

And it's nice that a South African club should be doing so well: Brits, De Kock, Barrett, Bosch, Burger, Du Plessis, Hargreaves, Joubert, Kruis, Mordt …

 

Please help

A PLAINTIVE e-mail is doing the rounds: "Hi chaps. If you can help a friend – please! He bought tickets for the rugby Test match in Port Elizabeth on June 25, SA vs Ireland, and has paid for accommodation and the hospitality suite.

"The problem is that it happens to be on the date set for his wedding which has been planned ages ago at a very exclusive venue.

"He wants to know if anyone is interested in getting married?"

Panache

LAST week we discussed a holiday resort with a difference in County Sligo, Ireland. Tourists are accommodated in converted buses, taxis and a train. Soon a Boeing aircraft will be added to the amenities.

It recalls a case some years ago in Johannesburg, Two sub-editors on the now-defunct Rand Daily Mail took up residence in an old Rolls Royce.

This Rolls had no engine so they had it towed and parked outside their watering hole, the New Rand Hotel.

After a few snifters they would totter out and doss in the Rolls, to be woken next morning by the hotel waiters with coffee. Then they would go inside, avail themselves of the corridor bathrooms then take breakfast in the hotel dining room. Then on to their sub-editing. It worked well. It had a certain cache.

Until, one morning, they wakened to the cops banging on their window. "You can't park here like this. Move on!"

"We can't. We haven't got an engine."

They opened the bonnet to prove their point. At which the cops called a tow truck to take the Rolls to the police pound.

End of quality digs. Those Rand Daily Mail sub-editors had style and panache.

Choir celebrates

THE Durban Symphonic Choir turns 50 this year and a lass named Liz, who is secretary, appeals to past members to give her any old photographs, programmes or newspaper articles so their archivist can get things up to date and prepare a display for a reunion lunch that is planned, as well as for their next concert in August.

They can get her at castled@iafrica.com

 

Tailpiece

HOW many cover blurb writers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

A vast and teeming horde, stretching from sea to shining sea.

Last word

I believe that all government is evil, and that trying to improve it is largely a waste of time.

H. L. Mencken

 

The Idler, Friday, May 27, 2016

Slur on social cricket

FIE! What is this? Is a mockery being made of social cricket? And in the House of Commons, no less?

A missive is passed on to me concerning a perfectly disgraceful incident in the British parliament the other day.

Two Tory backbenchers were on the Order Paper to speak in support of the Queen's Speech, which sets out the government's legislative programme. One of them was a certain Dr Phillip Lee, who used to play for a social cricket side known as the Old Grumblers.

Jeremy Corbyn, Leader of the Opposition, was to reply. But Corbyn did a bit of sneak research. He wrote to the current captain of the Old Grumblers, asking for information about Dr Lee's cricket career. The reply he read out to the House.

It seems Dr Lee's average, as a top order batsman, was 11.2 runs. The only wicket he ever took was a French farmer's wife, on a tour of Brittany. He is in arrears with his subs.

"As a doctor, Lee advised on numerous sporting injuries to club players. The misdiagnosis of many led to a string of unnecessary early retirements and an acute player availability crisis, from which the team has only recently recovered.

"As captain of the Old Grumblers Cricket Club, I rarely had to handle as obstinate and disruptive a character as the Doctor, who stubbornly refused to stand in any conventional field placement and very openly demonstrated a disdain for team sport, command structures. Presumably this led him to the logical career choice of Tory backbencher."

All this Corbyn read out in the House. It's there in Hansard. Future generations will pore in puzzlement over this inexplicable slur on social cricket.

In social cricket a batting average of 11.2 is perfectly acceptable. So what if it was a French farmer's wife? A wicket is a wicket.

Are people going to turn round now and suggest that when I took 4 for 32 against the RAF Red Arrows with my crafty leg-spinners, the victims were not fighter pilots but an erk, two mess waiters and a fellow from RAF Stores? It's irrelevant, wickets are wickets, whether RAF personnel or French farmers' wives.

The above refers, of course, to the days of the Durban Press XI when we were skippered by an eccentric fellow known as the Compton Boy (his son now plays for England). His brother, Compton the Elder (esteemed cricket scribe on this newspaper), also featured prominently in our many triumphs.

We used to play against sides like Otto's Bluff, Richmond, the Attorney-General's office, Kloof Crickets, Maritzburg Grasshoppers and SA Breweries (these were humdingers!). We once played Harrismith, in the Free State, and I got kidnapped by the Harrismith desperadoes and took three days to get home.

All kinds of drama happened. There was the sledging. That dreadful man Doonge Gold, for Otto's Bluff, with repeated flatulence at silly mid-off.

There was the time the Compton Boy got struck in the eye by a rising ball at Otto's Bluff and had to be given stitches by the local vet – the fellows all chorusing: "Put him down! Put him down!"

Yes, all kinds of drama in social cricket. But nobody read it into Hansard in parliament – not even in the provincial council. I say Corbyn was out of order.

What happened to the Durban Press XI? Well, after a glorious span of some dozen years or so, the half-witted Compton Boy had to deliver our sponsored bag of kit to the office of the Maclaine of Lochbuie, a Scottish clan chief who regularly turned out for us, generally known as Drambuie.

The Compton Boy mistakenly left the bag of kit not at Drambuie's office but at the office of a lady who raises funds for charity. Our kit got sold on a jumble sale.

Sic transit gloria mundi …

 

Tailpiece

A COUPLE are on a motoring tour in Canada. They get hopelessly lost. Then they come to a town. She winds down the window and asks a fellow on the pavement" "Excuse me, where are we?"

"Saskatoon, Saskatchewan."

She turns to her husband. "Now we're really off course. They don't even speak English here."

 

Last word

I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

Oscar Wilde

 

 

The Idler, Thursday, May 26, 2016

Irish aircraft carrier

WAS this the Irish Fleet Air Arm? Folk were wondering as a huge Boeing 767 floated down an estuary on a barge and headed for the open sea.

But it was a commercial venture. The Boeing has been decommissioned and was loaded on to the barge from Shannon airport, in County Clare. It was taken along the coast to Enniscrone, in County Sligo, where it is to be converted into a kind of B&B.

There it will be part of a resort that already offers tourist accomodation in old buses, taxis and a train.

Is this a unique project? Not quite. We already have a B&B establishment in an old airliner that has been placed at a spot on the coast in the Eastern Cape.

This is a relic of the glory days of the bantustans. The Ciskei government built a splendid new airport outside at its capital, Bisho -  which was more or less a suburb of King William's Town - at vast expense, courtesy of the South African taxpayer.

The new airport was ultra-modern, with walls of glass mirrors. It was 10 minutes' flying time from the airport at East London.

Only two airliners ever landed there – bought by the Ciskei government to set up its own airline – and they never took off again. Things began to run down at Bisho airport. They gave up pumping the aircraft tyres. The billygoats charged at their reflection in the glass mirror walls, smashing them and ruining the general appearance.

Eventually a businessman bought one of the aircraft – which had been the luxury private jet of the Rolling Stones rock group – and had it hauled through the streets of King William's Town (minus the wings which were temporarily detached) to its current spot on the coast where it is a B&B.

People often accuse the current government of being reckless with taxpayers' cash. The former regime were no slouches at it either.

Masks

A WOMAN in Texas has become an internet sensation after buying a Chewbacca mask (of the grotesque Star Wars character), filming herself wearing it - screeching with laughter - in a parking lot, then putting the video on Facebook.

Within 24 hours Candace Payne was viewed by 72 million people, according to Sky News.

We're not told whether she drove off, still wearing the mask. That could have been sensational.

I once knew a fellow who used to put on a very realistic baboon mask before getting behind the wheel of his car. The reaction of other road-users as he pulled in beside them at the traffic lights was interesting. Some abandoned their cars and ran. Others pulled off with wheelspin.

He once tried the mask while staying at a hotel, inducing hysterics in the lady who brought the early morning coffee. Next the hotel proprietor was in his bedroom with a shotgun.

This fellow was from Swaziland, a place that abounds in eccentricity.

 

Careful now

STUDENTS at the University of East Anglia, in England, have been told not to throw their mortarboards in the air after graduating. It had become a tradition to do this after the graduation ceremony, a photographer standing by to capture the moment.

The university authorities say a number of graduates have been injured in the past by falling mortarboards. Last year a girl had her face gashed.

But they've arranged with the photographer to digitally add mortarboards in the air to the photograph, the graduates miming the action of throwing.

Hoo boy, life can be dangerous. Have the authorities at the University of East Anglia taken the appropriate steps to protect students from the danger of dropping a tome of Das Kapital or War and Peace on the toes in the university library?

 

 

Local content

 

IAN Gibson, poet laureate of Hillcrest, reflects on the SABC ruling that in future, music broadcast will be 90% locally composed.

 

Music is such a universal thing,

Nice to have classics and/or some swing;

But now we have quotas,

Without reference to voters.

Quotas! Quotas! don't make us all sing.

 

Tailpiece

A POLITICIAN goes into a doctor's rooms with a frog on his head.

Doctor: "I say, what's this?"

Frog: "Dunno, Doc. It started as a wart on my backside."

 

Last word

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal. - Emma Goldman

The Idler, May 25, 2016

Pro-knowledge rant

ELECTION news from America. President Obama is said to have handed the Republicans a gift for the November election by making a series of offensive pro-knowledge remarks at Rutgers University.

According to the New Yorker, Reince Priebus, chairman of the Republican National Committee, says Obama's inflammatory comments of praise for such controversial fields of knowledge as maths and science are sure to come back to haunt the Democrats in November.

"If President Obama was trying to alienate millions of Americans in one speech, mission accomplished," Priebus told Fox News. "When I watched him speak, I said to myself: 'Well, Christmas came early this year.' "

He said the party was already creating negative ads that would make extensive use of the president's polarising pro-knowledge rant.

"This fall, we will ask the American people: 'Do you want four more years of knowledge, or do you want something else? Because the Republican Party has something else.'"

This is, of course, the work of satirist Andy Borowitz. And the entire world is apprehensive of that "something else".

The classics

IAN Gibson, poet laureate of Hillcrest, breaks with tradition to address us in prose. He shares with us a piece he read in the Spectator while in a dentist's waiting room recently. It is by that magazine's excellent regular contributor on the classics, Peter Jones, and Ian feels it has a relevance to South Africa today.

"Jones remarks that regulation of MPs by MPs is a futile exercise: 'Oligarchs .know how to look after themselves.'

"However committed to the Rule of Law the Romans were, 'it was a commonplace that to reach the top of the greasy pole, one needed to make three fortunes: one to get there, one to fight subsequent charges of corruption and one to support you in exile after you were found out.' "Classical Athens, Jones reflects, had the only culture where getting away with it was least likely: 'The citizen body, whether in Assembly or law-court ... was the final arbiter over such charges.' As all officials were subject to public scrutiny, 'at the end of their term of office their record was assessed. Punishment ranged from fines through exile to death.'

"Any chance of our parliament adopting some of these strictures?" he asks.

Ian, I'll hazard a guess: Zero chance!

 

 

Shark attach

A YOUNG woman reported to the outpatients department of a hospital in Boca Raton, Florida, the other day with a small shark hanging on to her arm.

The nurse shark, less than 1m in length, had bitten her while swimming, according to Sky News, and would not let go. Paramedics splinted her arm, shark attached, and took her to hospital, where her condition was stable.

Nurse sharks grow up to about 4m in length and are placid, often remaining motionless on the seabed. They are known to bite defensively when somebody steps on them.

Maybe this unnamed 23-year-old lass was doing handstands in the surf.

Mynah mug

HEY, here I find myself owner of a splendid mug with the Kingsmead Mynahs logo on it. I go to Country Club for a breakfast celebrating the 180^th birthday, er 70^th birthday, of Danny Flower, president of the Mynahs and former president of the Natal Cricket Society, and I come away with a mug dished out by Danny.

The Mynahs, a club with their own premises in the grandstand at Kingsmead, were in a way the creation of master cartoonist Jock Leyden. During a tour yonks ago, England fast bowler Peter Loader was repeatedly dive-bombed by mynahs nested in the casuarinas at the Umgeni end, as he fielded on the boundary. It seemed his height invaded their space because they didn't bomb anyone else.

This inspired Jock. Mynahs in full cricket kit became a feature of his cartoons. And thence the Kingsmead Mynahs club.

Jock's cartoons hang in Buckingham Palace, Blenheim Palace and the Pentagon. And now on my coffee mug also 'Tis, a pleasure to be reminded of the maestro, who was a dear friend.

Tailpiece

PADDY is taking the underground after an evening in the pub. A sign says: "Dogs must be carried on the escalator."

"Dat's ridiculous! Where am I expected to find a dog dis time of night?"

 

Last word

 

I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.

e e cummings

The Idler, Tuesday, May 24, 2016

Wandering hippo

A HIPPO was found wandering down a main road in Palos de la Frontera, in Spain, according to this item on Sky News. It had escaped from a circus and was grazing contentedly on the road's central reservation. The circus folk were called and they took him back.

This raises questions. Leaving aside for the moment the moral issue of wild animals being used for the entertainment of humans, just what circus tricks does a hippo perform?

Does he jump through hoops? Does he walk the tightrope? Does he play the mouth organ? One imagines not. Just what entertainment value does a hippo have?

Hippos are at their most entertaining at places such as St Lucia, where they wallow about semi-submerged, make occasional snorting and bellowing sounds and come out at night to graze, walk the streets of the village and occasionally get into people's pools, having to be hoisted out again by the wildlife officers.

For a nocturnal hippo chorus I can recommend camping on the banks of Lake Sibaya, in Maputaland. It's overwhelming and a little alarming. You place logs around your tent because hippos can't step over them – they haven't been circus trained to do fancy things like sit on seesaws or dance the samba. They're just hippos, more at home in water than on the land..

St Lucia, and places like it, are where hippos ought to be, not in circuses.

Colonial relic

DOES it really matter where our parliament is housed? Investment analyst Dr James Greener argues in his latest grumpy newsletter that it has become an irrelevant and costly colonial relic.

"Even on the rare occasions when speakers are allowed to deliver their opinions uninterrupted, the audience is either fast asleep or implacably decided in their own positions.

"The physical destruction of the Cape Town premises is already under way with several Honourable Members displaying their indignation at their expulsion for hooligan behaviour by breaking stuff. It won't be long before the building is torched as has recently happened to university buildings country-wide.

"In one rather interesting incident schoolchildren, not yet actually able to drive a car, burned a vehicle licencing office to the ground. Do our leaders even care?"

However, Greener voices concern over the apparent belief in Russia that they have a deal with South Africa to deliver uranium-fuelled power stations.

"Why else would they be offering 10 scholarships to study for a master's degree in nuclear physics and technology?

"Mind you, they have taken the precaution of getting the South African taxpayer to pick up much of the tab. We will pay for the airfares and a monthly living allowance for the expected two to three-year duration of the scholarship, plus a settling-in allowance. The Russians will spring for a 'basic' monthly allowance and the tuition (negligible as presumably the course is being given to others anyway).

"One small matter to note though is that successful applicants will first need to pass a one-year course in Russian."

Voting

BUMPER sticker: "If we stop voting will they all go away?"

Exhibition

 

The Durban Modular Railroad Society is hosting a model railway exhibition at the Westville Civic Centre this Saturday and Sunday.

On display will be live steam locos, train layouts, boat-building, diecast model cars, stationary engines and Thomas the Tank Engine.

Sunday is the down run of the Comrades Marathon so access to the Westville Civic Centre is best from the N3, taking the Pavilion off-ramp and turning east.

Entrance: Adults R50, seniors/children R30 and family of four R120.

Further information: 031 764 3044/076 756 7617.

The chase

OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "What makes a man chase a woman he has no intention of marrying? It's the same as what makes a dog chase a car he has no intention of driving."

Tailpiece

A PSYCHIATRIST is giving his patient the ink blot test - a series of patterns for him to interpret.

"What's this?"

"A woman nude in the bath."

"And this?"

"It's a girl taking off her bra."

"And this one?"

"It's a pair of massive boobs."

The psychiatrist sighs. "I'm afraid you're a sex maniac."

"Me a sex maniac? I like that! Who's showing the dirty pictures?"

Last word

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

Rick Cook

 

The Idler, May 24, 2016

Wandering hippo

A HIPPO was found wandering down a main road in Palos de la Frontera, in Spain, according to this item on Sky News. It had escaped from a circus and was grazing contentedly on the road's central reservation. The circus folk were called and they took him back.

This raises questions. Leaving aside for the moment the moral issue of wild animals being used for the entertainment of humans, just what circus tricks does a hippo perform?

Does he jump through hoops? Does he walk the tightrope? Does he play the mouth organ? One imagines not. Just what entertainment value does a hippo have?

Hippos are at their most entertaining at places such as St Lucia, where they wallow about semi-submerged, make occasional snorting and bellowing sounds and come out at night to graze, walk the streets of the village and occasionally get into people's pools, having to be hoisted out again by the wildlife officers.

For a nocturnal hippo chorus I can recommend camping on the banks of Lake Sibaya, in Maputaland. It's overwhelming and a little alarming. You place logs around your tent because hippos can't step over them – they haven't been circus trained to do fancy things like sit on seesaws or dance the samba. They're just hippos, more at home in water than on the land..

St Lucia, and places like it, are where hippos ought to be, not in circuses.

Colonial relic

DOES it really matter where our parliament is housed? Investment analyst Dr James Greener argues in his latest grumpy newsletter that it has become an irrelevant and costly colonial relic.

"Even on the rare occasions when speakers are allowed to deliver their opinions uninterrupted, the audience is either fast asleep or implacably decided in their own positions.

"The physical destruction of the Cape Town premises is already under way with several Honourable Members displaying their indignation at their expulsion for hooligan behaviour by breaking stuff. It won't be long before the building is torched as has recently happened to university buildings country-wide.

"In one rather interesting incident schoolchildren, not yet actually able to drive a car, burned a vehicle licencing office to the ground. Do our leaders even care?"

However, Greener voices concern over the apparent belief in Russia that they have a deal with South Africa to deliver uranium-fuelled power stations.

"Why else would they be offering 10 scholarships to study for a master's degree in nuclear physics and technology?

"Mind you, they have taken the precaution of getting the South African taxpayer to pick up much of the tab. We will pay for the airfares and a monthly living allowance for the expected two to three-year duration of the scholarship, plus a settling-in allowance. The Russians will spring for a 'basic' monthly allowance and the tuition (negligible as presumably the course is being given to others anyway).

"One small matter to note though is that successful applicants will first need to pass a one-year course in Russian."

Voting

BUMPER sticker: "If we stop voting will they all go away?"

Exhibition

 

The Durban Modular Railroad Society is hosting a model railway exhibition at the Westville Civic Centre this Saturday and Sunday.

On display will be live steam locos, train layouts, boat-building, diecast model cars, stationary engines and Thomas the Tank Engine.

Sunday is the down run of the Comrades Marathon so access to the Westville Civic Centre is best from the N3, taking the Pavilion off-ramp and turning east.

Entrance: Adults R50, seniors/children R30 and family of four R120.

Further information: 031 764 3044/076 756 7617.

The chase

OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "What makes a man chase a woman he has no intention of marrying? It's the same as what makes a dog chase a car he has no intention of driving."

Tailpiece

A PSYCHIATRIST is giving his patient the ink blot test - a series of patterns for him to interpret.

"What's this?"

"A woman nude in the bath."

"And this?"

"It's a girl taking off her bra."

"And this one?"

"It's a pair of massive boobs."

The psychiatrist sighs. "I'm afraid you're a sex maniac."

"Me a sex maniac? I like that! Who's showing the dirty pictures?"

Last word

Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning.

Rick Cook

 

The Idler, Monday May 23 ,2016

Serena's surges

AMERICAN tennis star Serena Williams gets her energy surges from dog food.

Er, perhaps that's a slight exaggeration. It was a different kind of surge. The time she tried the salmon and rice dish meant for her Yorkshire terrier, Chip, she found herself running for the loo two hours later. And this was not long before she had to play in the quarter-final of the Italian Open – where she nevertheless stormed through.

It happened at the hotel in Rome where she and Chip were staying, according to a video she posted on Snapchat.

She says she liked the look of the salmon and rice dished up for Chip.

"I thought: 'What the heck, I'm gonna try a piece. It looks good'. So I ate a spoonful. Don't judge me!

"Let's fast forward two hours. I just ran to the toilet like I thought I was gonna pass out.

"I mean it did taste weird. I force-swallowed it. It tasted kind of like house-cleaner thing. I don't know what they put in these dog foods, but Chip liked it."

A curious story, not least in that Serena has a pet Yorkshire terrier. The way she plays on court, one would expect a rottweiler.

 

All quiet

THEY ran out of fireworks at Kings Park on Saturday evening as the Sharks scored eight tries. The simulated mortar barrage went quiet. But then as the final whistle went at 53-0, back it came – the last few rounds, saved for the finale.

What does one say of a match as one-sided as this? We scored some spectacular tries from far out. Pat Lambie in particular pinned his ears back a couple of times. Also Paul Jordaan. The Kings never gave up tackling but they ran out of tacklers.

Do we have a side too many in the competition? The sponsors and the networks will no doubt have their own ideas.

Couldnae care

 

THE narrow vote by the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers against their club, Muirfield, accepting women as members has caused predictable affront. They have already been punished by being told they are no longer in the running to host the British Open.

But the old buffers who voted against – 34% but enough, in terms of the club constitution, to sink the idea – argue airily that they're a gentlemen's club where golf is played – not a golf club. They couldnae care a hoot, in other words.

Club officials, frustrated at the outcome of the vote, are at pains to point out that women – the wives of members plus outsiders – do play regularly at the club and use its facilities. Sky TV footage showed women out there on the links.

But nobody asks the obvious question: Where do they tee off? Do they play from the ladies' tees, as at other courses, or do they have to play from the men's.

If the former, the course has already been laid out for women's golf. The buffers are on the wrong side of history. It must be just a matter of time.

Wheesht mon! Trrreason!

 

 

 

Shakespeare

 

A CONTRIBUTION comes this way from the Fairest Cape. Foxie, of Constantia, sees our current national situation as a kind of Shakespearean prelude.

 

Macjake

 

Act 1,  Scene 1  -  Five Warlocks and a Witch

 

When shall we six meet again,

In thunder , lightning or in rain?

 

When the dirty deeds are done,

We shall gather and have some fun.

 

Fair is foul and foul is fair,

No worries with the filthy air,

No trouble in dark and fog 'n mist,

We'll glide on down the bloodied piste.

 

Double, double, no toil or trouble,

Schools may burn and cauldrons bubble,

But we six are ever charmed

To live, and love life, unharmed.

 

Sowaar? But at least a lioness hath not whelped in the streets, nor did the sheeted dead squeak and gibber in the streets.

 

Not so far, anyway.

 

Bleeping

 

 

OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "I was standing in a queue behind this huge fat lady with an enormous backside. Her cellphone started to bleep and a little boy said: 'Look out, she's reversing!'"

Tailpiece

TWO intellectuals are on the nudist beach at Mpenjati.

"I say, old boy, have you read Marx?"

"Yes, it's these darned wicker chairs."

Last word

If all the girls who attended the Yale prom were laid end to end, I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Dorothy Parker