The Idler, Thursday, June 9, 2016

Umtata boom times

PSSST! You wanna buy a World War I cannon? Going cheap?

The California police are hunting for a man who towed the artillery piece away from a veterans' hall in Richmond with a pickup truck, then sold it for $1 200 (R18 600) to an unsuspecting buyer.

The buyer himself came to the police when he read in the newspaper about the theft.

The gun had stood outside the hall since 1947.

It recalls an incident from the bantustan era. The president of the independent Republic of Boputhatswana was paying a state visit to the independent Republic of Transkei.

The dignitaries were being driven into Umtata when a 21-gun salute began to boom across the town. This rather surprised people because the Transkei army had no artillery.

But outside the town hall were two ancient German field guns, captured in the South-West Africa campaign in World War I.

A corporal was standing beside one of these guns, at regular intervals smartly throwing a thunderflash down the muzzle.

However, the percussion was too much for the gun's ancient, wooden frame and its wooden-spoked wheels. Suddenly it collapsed.

But the corporal was undeterred. He sat astride the gun's barrel, now lying on the ground, and continued to throw in thunderflashes, at the correct intervals. Embarrassment avoided.

The bantustan thing never caught on. People just didn't take it seriously. I mean long before 1994.

Long grass

 

SWISS voters in a referendum have overwhelmingly rejected a proposal that citizens be paid a basic income of 2 500 francs (R38 000) a month, before they even get out of bed and think of going to work.

 

The referendum was prompted by a petition that attracted enough signatures to compel the government to hold it.

 

But it's been kicked into the long grass. What will Sepp Blatter do now?

 

Karaoke

 

I belong tae Glasgie,

Dear old Glasgie toon …

 

A GLASGOW police sergeant was called to an establishment called the Waterloo Bar to sort out a brawl, according to this item on Sky News.

Sergeant Jon Harris stopped the fight, arrested the culprit then calmed things further by taking to the karaoke stage to sing I Will Survive.

He brought the house down. The place transformed from simmering tension to bonhomie and merriment.

I wonder what the favourite song of our metro police chief is? I Will Survive?

Bring on the bonhomie.

The question

OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "Alcohol is not the answer. But it does help you forget the question."

Fair exchange

 

BARTER is an ancient system of exchange. It went out of vogue thousands of years ago as coinage was introduced to greatly simplify commerce, yet every now and then it re-emerges. A senior citizen sends in this account.

"Yesterday morning I bought two sixpacks of beer on sale at the liquor store. I placed them on the front seat of the car and headed back home.

"I stopped at the service station where a drop-dead gorgeous blonde was filling up her car at the next pump.

"It was very warm and she was wearing tight shorts and a light top which was wide open. She glanced at the beer, bent over and knocked on my passenger window.

"With her bra-less breasts almost falling out of her skimpy top, she said: "I'm a big believer in barter, old fella. Would you be interested in trading sex for beer?"

"I thought about it for a second and said: "What kinda beer have you got?"

It's astonishing the way the barter system re-emerges, sometimes in the most unexpected circumstances.

 

Goebbels

 

IAN Gibson, poet laureate of Hillcrest, reflects on the extraordinary capture of the SABC and its conversion into an unabashed propaganda organ.

 

 

For most thinking people its apparent,

Goebbels has an heir-apparent.

For under Hlaudi

SABC's cloudy,

And quite clearly no longer transparent.

Tailpiece

THE salesman presses the doorbell. A small boy answers the door. He's smoking a cigar, he's got a glass of brandy in his hand and he has a copy of Playboy tucked under his arm.

"Say, sonny. Is your mother home?"

The small boy taps the ash off his cigar. "Now what the heck do you think?"

 

Last word

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true. - Robert Wilensky,