Much at stake
HOPE springs eternal … The Lions tonight up at Ellis Park, the Van Diemenslanders tomorrow at Loftus. What a weekend it could be. How dismal it could also be.
One has a good feeling about the Sharks. They've a good combination there. Run onto the passes, eliminate the silly buggers kicking factor and they've got what it takes. Their defence is rock-ribbed.
Okay, Lambie's been called up for the Boks but that little Radebe critter has all the right instincts to get the line moving. Bosch is playing like a maestro. We're at full strength. Statistically it's time we beat them. This could be a good 'un.
I wish I could feel as upbeat about the Boks, but there's a lot of unknown factor there, not least in the kop. They've got to get the chemistry right. Ons sal sien.
Meanwhile, there are social issues at stake – decency and decorum. The damsels of the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties are threatening to go on a knickers strike – not wear 'em at all in future - if the Sharks and the Boks don't come up with the goods.
As readers will be aware, rugby victories are greeted with the celebratory feu de joie, a shooting out of the streetlights with catapults fashioned from the ladies' knickers. Two in one weekend would be sensational.
But double defeat could activate the gals into their threatened strike. The consequences of that are unpredictable. Social turbulence could lie ahead, la decline in decorum. The Sharks and the Boks have to rescue us from it.
Pricey stuff
HOW pricey can whisky get? Seven bottles were stolen in a break-in from the shop at a Perth and Kinross distillery, in Scotland, along with two glasses. Value of the haul? £14 000 (R250 000).
It seems one bottle was a very rare and very old single malt, itself worth £12 000.
I think this beats my own record. One evening in the bar at the Taj Mahal hotel in Bombay (an absolutely magnificent place – somebody else was paying), I ordered a scotch.
"Johnny Walker Black Label, sir?" asked the barman.
""That's fine."
"A large one, sir?"
"Yes." What the heck!
"Do you have any small single cigars?" (I still had the filthy habit in those days).
"Henry Winterman, sir?"
"That's just the ticket."
I signed for both. Next day when I checked out, the double scotch was $44 (R605) and the Henry Winterman cheroot was $40 - $84 altogether. I was on a daily allowance of $100. What a party!
Of course, in India anything locally produced is ridiculously cheap. Anything imported is ridiculously expensive.
But £12 000 for a bottle of single malt in Scotland? I hope the burglar didn't mix it with ginger ale or coke.
Panic over
POLICE cars were scrambled on the road between Manchester and Liverpool, in England, according to Sky News, when somebody phoned 999 to say a man was biting and assaulting a woman in a car.
The vehicle was tracked down and stopped. Inside were a couple wearing weird make-up and splashed with fake blood, looking like zombies.
They were extras on their way to an acting job, they explained.
"It takes all sorts," the police tweeted.
When you smooch a girl in a car, make sure you're not togged out as a zombie.
Good and bad
A FAMILIAR nursery rhyme:
There was a little girl who had a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good, she was very, very good.
But when she was bad …
She got a fur coat, jewels, a waterfront condo, and a sportscar.
Sugar tax
THE government plans to slap a sugar tax on fizzy drinks. The Sugar Association aren't too impressed. Meanwhile, health guru Professor Tim Noakes wants a "sugar barometer" on fast foods. Ian Gibson, poet laureate of Hillcrest, pens a few lines.
A sugar barometer is favoured by Noakes,
But not well-received by cane-growing okes
Who fear a reduction
In sugar production;
But will it stop those who are stoked on Cokes?
Tailpiece
"YOU'VE been married 70 years, yet after all this time you still call your wife Darling, Honey, Sweetheart and so on. That's very impressive. What's the secret?"
"I forgot her name and I'm too scared to ask her."
Last word
The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.
Mark Twain
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