Rugby anticipation
A WEEKEND of rugby. This afternoon Boland, down in Welllington, which the Sharks will no doubt find more welcoming than Wellington New Zealand a few weeks ago, where the goalposts were dancing in the shrieking gale and the freezing rain was slashing down.
That was the Land of the Long White Underpants. This is the Kaap van die Kortbroek. Our kickers will stand a chance this time.
Boland. When did we last play them? We look forward to a lively game as a wind-up to the Big 'Un next week against the Bulls. Robert du Preez seems to have given the lads a talking-to about that nasty habit of picking their nose, er pointless downfield kicking.
Then Nelspruit. It's a remote part of the country to choose for retribution for last season's Bok humiliation at Kings Park. The Jaguares didn't do famously in Super Rugby but los Pumas could be rather different. May the Boks put down some meaningful markers for what lies ahead.
The gals of the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties are already snapping at their knicker elastic in anticipation of the traditional feu de joie, in which the street lights are shot out in celebration, using catapults fashioned from their underwear.
That's for both matches. What a season!
Crazy world
DO WE LIVE in a crazy world? Not too long ago, the Brits voted on whether or not to remain in the EU. The clownish Boris Johnson toured Britain in a red bus with a huge lie signwritten on its side, in support of Brexit.
Brexit won. But now it turns out the Brits don't have the foggiest idea – least of all Boris and the Brexiteers – how to actually disengage with Europe. It could take years to work out.
Now something weirder, the other side of the Atlantic. Michael Moore, maker of anti-establishment documentary films, maintains that Donald Trump entered the presidential race only as a publicity gimmick; that he wasn't meant to win any primaries, let alone become a presidential candidate.
This is interesting because not too long ago Moore was warning on his website of the real danger of Trump winning the presidency. But now he has different information.
It seems Trump was trying to get more money out of NBC for his popular reality TV show, The Apprentice. He was speaking in private to a rival network. To ramp up his celebrity status for the deal, he announced his candidacy. He was supposed to drop out soon after.
Then he made his speech about building a wall around Mexico, calling Mexicans drug dealers and rapists. NBC cancelled his reality show. Also Miss USA and Miss Universe, which Trump owned.
But he had to keep it up, impress the other networks with his celebrity status. And Trump, to his own surprise, ignited the country.
Now he has a twin nightmare: either winning (who wants to live in the Washington ghetto?) or – more likely – losing to Hillary Clinton and having the scarlet "L for loser" branded on his forehead on November 8. This for a man like Trump, is unthinkable.
Hence the increasingly bizarre and insulting utterances. Trump wants to drop out of the race, Moore maintains. He wants his party to force him out.
Truly weird. If there's any truth in this, Moore has another great movie to shoot.
And statecraft has certainly changed both sides of the Atlantic.
Camera
A LITTLE over a month ago, underwater photographer Kevin McIlwee lost his camera in the sea at St Brelade, Jersey, in the Channel Islands, when a clip securing it came undone. The camera sank to the seabed and he was unable to find it.
Now scallop diver Josh Dearing has found it and returned it to McIlwee. The £8 000 (R140 000) camera was covered in cuttlefish eggs, according to the BBC, but is working fine now it's been cleaned up.
Haven't they missed a trick here? Cuttlefish eggs? They should have left it in a saltwater fish tank for a while to let the eggs hatch.
Don't they like calamari?
Tailpiece
HE doesn't drink anything stronger than pop. Mind you, Pop will drink anything.
Last word
At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies.
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