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.
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