Armistice Day
In Flanders fields the poppies blow …
THE eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month … 98 years ago today, the guns fell silent in the War to end all Wars. The poppy was chosen as the symbol of remembrance and of regeneration.
Today at Wembley England will play football against Scotland, both sides wearing poppies on their armbands, in defiance of Fifa, which has threatened sanctions against teams wearing "political" insignia.
Political? Are there still some Nazis around who might take offence?
At Twickenham tomorrow, England will wear poppies in their Test against the Springboks. Will our fellows also wear poppies? They're certainly entitled to.
And in America we now have a president-in-waiting, Donald Trump, the mountebank who arrived from nowhere and knows little about the international system. Yet he will soon have his finger on the firing button of the world's greatest nuclear and conventional arsenal, in the one area of the presidency where he is not subject to the checks and balances of congress.
This at a time when the Middle East is close to flashpoint; when Russia is deeply and directly involved; when Nato is involved in war games on Russia's border, to discourage any notion of invasion of Estonia or anywhere else in the Baltic region.
Also at a time Trump the isolationist has hinted at disengaging from Nato, which has successfully kept the peace for 70 years. Oh boy!
Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing?
Being there
MEANWHILE, reader James Browne says he and his wife visited The Somme last September to be at the grave of his great-uncle Evelyn Denniston on the centenary of his death, aged 22, on September 21, 1916.
On that trip they also found the grave of a Durban lad, Private Helga Alexander Wettergreen, of the 2nd Regiment, South African Infantry, who died on October 8, 1918, aged 22. He was born in Durban and was the son of Edmund and Emma (nee Olsen) Struckman of Amanzimtoti.
So sad. Just about a month before the Armistice. As James says: "We will remember them".
Big ask
IT'S a big 'un tomorrow for the Boks. Will they manage to do to England what the Irish did to the All Blacks last weekend? It's a big ask. The Poms have developed a mean and close to flawless machine with high morale, which is an essential part of rugby. Until last weekend they were considered the only realistic challengers to the All Blacks.
But Ireland did show what a gloriously unpredictable game rugby can be.
The Boks showed a new ball-in-hand verve and pizzaz against the Barbarians last Saturday. They need to keep it up. But Baa-baas rugby is played in a different, carefree spirit. It can be difficult to replicate at a place like Twickers – and with different players anyway, most of them.
But vasbyt! We must give it all we've got and eliminate the silly buggers stuff like aimless kicking away of possession. Ladies watching at the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties are reminded to wear knickers in case they are required for a fashioning of catapults for the traditional celebratory feu de joie in which the street lights are shot out.
Fundraiser
DURBAN'S musos are planning a big bash on the Bluff next month to raise funds for the Isiaiah 54 Children's Sanctuary.
My old mate Smelly Fellows tells me it's at the Wagon Wheel Pub, in Lighthouse Road (once known as Boktown), starting at 3pm on December 17. (Yes, that sounds like a Bluff do – get an early start and get up a head of steam).
The bands (playing for free) will be Salty Dog, DV8, Glen Winter, Calamity Jam, AM and others still to be arranged.
Entrance is R20, kids under 14 free. Wors rolls will be on sale.
There will be lucky draws throughout the day, and here the musos appeal to businesses and individuals for donation of items that can be offered as prizes. This can be arranged by phoning Kerry Geyser on 071-8604177.
It's a great cause and it's not every day you get the chance to see Smelly Fellows play the bass guitar on a pogo stick.
Tailpiece
THERE was this dyslexic lawyer. He studied all year for the bra exam.
Last word
Voters don't decide issues, they decide who will decide issues. George Will
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