Trick or treat
WITH the third and final Trump-Clinton slugfest coming up in Las Vegas tonight, we brace ourselves for new lows. When last did any US presidential candidate become part of Halloween?
Yes, Trumpkins have become part of the campaign. About a year ago, as a joke, master carver Hugh McMahon put Donald Trump's face on a Halloween pumpkin, little dreaming that he would make it past the primary stage of the Republican nomination contest, according to Huffington Post.
Yet now he's a couple of weeks away from an election the pundits say he will lose – as they said the Brexit folk would lose in the EU referendum in Britain.
Social media is suddenly alive with Trumpkins – grotesque likenesses of Trump carved from pumpkins, malevolently lit up by a candle. They're there to frighten.
Oh boy, trick or treat. What a Halloween season. As Churchill once remarked, democracy is the worst form of government – except for all the others.
The Trump-Clinton contest is putting that to the test. Put a Trumpkin on your gate – keep away the evil spirits!
Epochal match
MONDAY'S piece on the death of Brian Schabram, former Durban Collegians and Natal scrumhalf in the 1960s, prompts a fellow called Ian to direct me to a YouTube video he put together (it seems to have been in May this year) in which he features seven survivors of that epochal match in 1960 when Natal drew 6-6 with the All Blacks at Kings Park. It was a match that put Natal rugby well and truly on the map.
The video appears to be based mainly on stills from the copious scrapbook of Kobus van Noordwyk, who played fullback in that match and, Ian tells us, died three days after the video was completed and never saw it.
Of the seven survivors, one is left wing Trix Truter (who used to take that inside pass from Keith Oxlee), who is a member of a regular get-together in Durban of rugby folk of yesteryear, which included Schabie. He didn't play in the All Blacks match but features later in the video, which moves on to other Natal games.
One of these have right wing Ormie Taylor (Maritzburg Collegians) scoring the try in 1963 that saw Natal beat the Wallabies 14-13. Everyone remembers the All Blacks draw in 1960, yet who talks about our beating the Wallabies?
Ormie – still astonishingly fit and youthful – turns up for regular get-together lunches at Maritzburg Collegians for players of yesteryear.
The video also features rugby cartoons by the great Jock Leyden, including Manie Blom running on before a Natal game with a giant banana tree. Yep, them were the days.
The video is credited simply to "Ian" – no surname – but I gather from the soundtrack that he comes from Mtubatuba.
It's worth a gander. You google 1960 Natal vs All Blacks. But allow a bit of time. Although Ian's video is brief enough, Google somehow takes you to other rugby of yesteryear, including newsreels of the Springboks versus the All Blacks. It's difficult to tear yourself away.
Chilling recollections
IT'S chilling that a Russian carrier fleet should be about to sail through the English Channel, the Royal Navy and Royal Air Force keeping close watch.
It's not so much that it recalls the way the German warships Bismarck, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau slipped through the Channel during World War II. It's more that the Russian fleet will be on its way to bombard Syrian rebels – in total contempt of the West.
The House of Commons refused to allow the Brits to get involved in Syria. Obama has held back. The Russians have taken the gap.
What it does recall is the way the democracies refused to intervene in the Spanish civil war, which emboldened Hitler, leading to World War II.
One very small consolation. The Russians probably do understand history. Probably but not definitely. The West appears not to.
Tailpiece
"Care for a game of darts?"
"Okay."
"Closest to the bull starts."
"Ba-a-a!"
"Mo-o-o!"
"You're closest."
Last word
There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened.
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