Saturday, September 17, 2016

The Idler, Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Intellectual duel

NOW and then you are privileged to view on the TV screen a no-holds-barred intellectual duel. It was on Sky News the other night and Dermot Murnaghan was interviewing Labour's shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry.

She told him she was going to meet the French foreign minister to discuss Brexit and other matters.

Murnaghan asked the name of the French foreign minister. At which our Emily snapped.

"Don't start pub quizzing me, Dermot! Do you know what really upsets me about your attitude to me is that you do this with me. I don't remember you doing it with anybody else you know. Have you done it to David Davis? Have you asked these questions? Do Sky journalists have a go at Boris Johnson on this basis? How about Liam Fox? Do you do pub quizzes with them?"

But it turned out Emily didn't know the name of the French foreign minister.

They moved on to the tensions on the Korean peninsula. Murnaghan asked if she knew the name of the president of South Korea.

At which Emily erupted.

"If you want me to go with you to a pub tonight and we can do a pub quiz tonight, let's do it. I'm not getting drawn by you into this nonsense. I certainly think sometimes when it comes to sexism, some Sky presenters need to look at themselves. I really do. It really upsets me that every time I come on here, you do another pub quiz with me because you do not do it with anybody else and I do think that it's patronising."

Murnaghan was struggling to keep a straight face. A horrible tease that Dermot Murnaghan.

Harley-Davidson Jen

VROOM, vroom! Eighty-one-year-old Hell's Angel Jenny Kaplan, of the Beth Shalom Retirement Home, on the Berea, has been busted for R2.92 that she owes an e-toll in Gauteng which she rode through on her motorbike on October 24 last year.

Jenny says she doesn't ride a motorbike and she hasn't been to Gauteng in three years. Yet here's this account with her correct name and address and a photograph of her – or somebody, it's not a very clear picture – riding through the toll on a motorbike with the registration VBD460GP.

Who do we believe? The Beth Shalom gals are known for beating up the Berea on their bikes late at night, the din can be horrendous. But Gauteng is rather a long way. And that registration number does appear to be a Gauteng one. It seems improbable that it could be Jenny.

Maybe the thing can be sorted out by the head of Sanral coming down to Durban and having a dice with the Beth Shalom gals along Vause Road on Harley-Davidsons?

Upun my word

 

MEANWHILE, 90-year-old Ray Gorven sends in some puns.

·        Those who  jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.

·        A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.

·        Shotgun wedding - A case of wife or death.

·        A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.

·         Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.

You have to get up early to stay ahead of these nonagenarians. Dancing cheek to cheek? Does Ray know the Beth Shalom gals? I wonder if he rides a Harley-Davidson.

Smart kids

SOME children's exam answers comes this way.

 

·        Explain why phosphorus trichloride (PCl3) is polar. – "God made it that way."

·        A 3-kg object is released from rest at a height of 5m on a curved, frictionless ramp. At the foot of the ramp is a spring of force constant k=100N/m. The object slides down the ramp and into the spring, compressing it a distance x before coming to rest. (a) Find x. (b) Does the object continue to move after it comes to rest? If yes, how high will it go up the slope before it comes to rest? – "No. There is an elephant in the way."

 

·        What was Sir Walter Raleigh famous for? – "He is a noted figure in history because he invented cigarettes and started a craze for bicycles."

 

Yes, teaching is a most rewarding profession.

 

Tailpiece

A FLEA jumps over the swing doors of a saloon, downs three whiskies, then jumps out again.

He picks himself up from the dirt, dusts himself down and says: "Okay, who moved my dawg?"

 

Last word

Anything not worth doing is worth not doing well. Think about it.

Elias Schwartz
 

 

 

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