The Idler, Friday, August 5, 2016

Armed British cops

ARMED police hurtling up the Thames in high-speed rubber boats. Armed police on high-speed, quick-response motorcycles. All of them dressed like American footballers. Most intimidating.

Have we seen the end of Britain's unarmed bobby on the beat?

'Ello, 'ello, 'ello!

It's a response, of course, to terrorist atrocities in Europe. Yet even the traditional bobby on the beat had an uncanny knack of being ubiquitously on hand.

It was Christmas night in London. It had been snowing. The fountains in Trafalgar Square were frozen. Icicles hung from the statues. Some Maritzburg folk were sitting round a dinner table. The wine was good. There was badinage, boastfulness. A wager was made.

And before too long we were down there in Trafalgar Square, two fellows in their Y-fronts and breaking the ice to get into the fountains and swim a lap.

They completed the lap. They were blue with cold, teeth chattering.

Then: "'Ello, 'ello, 'ello! And wot's going on 'ere?"

"S-s-s-sorry officer. It was a bet. We're just going."

To our astonishment policemen seemed to be converging on us out of the darkness, from every direction.

"Just goin' are you?" said the sergeant. "No you don't. Another lap, otherwise I nicks ya!"

They had to get in again and swim another lap. Yes, there's a lot to be said for the bobby on the beat.

Sanctuary

THEN there's the marvellous account in her autobiography by Clarissa Dickson Wright (of the Two Fat Ladies TV cookery show) of a brush with the law.

A well-lubricated boyfriend stole a copper's bicycle in London and was riding down Saville Row, pursued by an ever-augmenting posse of cops.

He baled from the bike and ran into a church and grabbed the altar rail, from which he was dragged screaming: "Sanctuary, for the love of Christ!"

The whole thing was relayed to a poker-faced magistrate in court next morning. The Beak then pronounced: "I sentence you to light a candle and walk the road to Dover, to take ship and never again return to England. Alternatively, you're fined £10."

Yes, there's a lot to be said for traditional law enforcement. Can it survive our current times?

Rugger

CURRIE Cup rugby in Nelspruit tonight. Will this be the start of a climb-back to erase the memory of the debacle of that Super Rugby quarter-final in Wellington?

The Sharks have everything to play for. We actually did pretty well until the blizzard in the Land of the Long White Underpants. The guys got psyched by the sight of the goalposts bending and dancing in the wind. We've plenty to build on. One game at a time.

And tomorrow the Lions in the Super Final. Can they do it? Anything's possible. But, whatever happens, surely it's time the Sanzar folk and the TV networks did a bit of a rethink about the way the competition is structured. It's intolerable that jetlag should become a decisive factor in victory or defeat.

Can the play-offs not be a bit better spaced? Otherwise the contest is not quite in the spirit of rugby.

Champ

 

A SOUTH African women's tennis star of yesteryear has died in Australia at the age of 106. Esther "Bobbie" Heine Miller was South Africa's top female tennis player in the 1920s and 30s.

 

Born at Winterton,  in the foothills of the Drakensberg, she spent most of her life in South Africa until she moved to Australia in 1957 to join her two adult children who had moved to Melbourne.

 

She won 16 South African Championships – five singles, six doubles and five mixed doubles titles. In1927 she first went to Europe to compete and won the French Ladies' Doubles, partnering Irene Peacock. She and Mrs Peacock went on to compete at Wimbledon where they reached the final. Bobbie also reached the Mixed Doubles semi-finals.

She also won the British Hardcourt championships as well as the singles and doubles championships of Ireland, in Dublin.

 

 

In 1931 she married farmer James "Harry" Miller, of Estcourt, Natal. She had a daughter, Valerie, and a son, Desmond.

 

She died last Sunday and her funeral is in Canberra tomorrow. Anyone wanting to contact Desmond can get him at dustym1@bigpond.com

Tailpiece

"JOCK, I hear ye're a greet believer in free speech."

"Aye. I am that, Angus."

"D'ye mind if I use yer phone?"

 

Last word

A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of. - Ogden Nash