Sudden social agitation
DURBAN is seized suddenly by a social agitation such as to make the university campuses look like a Sunday school picnic. For years we have been going about our business with calmness and decorum. But suddenly the tentacles of an international campaign have reached these parts, certain to create panic in every man.
The "Free the Nipple" campaign has hit Durban, as proclaimed this week in our sister newspaper, the Daily News.
It seems a local lass appeared in a nightclub wearing a diaphanous outfit that that left nothing to the imagination in the upper rigging department. She was photographed, the photos went on social media and have caused a huge sensation, circulating in the thousands.
And this has ignited a Free the Nipple campaign, something which originated in the US in a film of the same name – a campaign which calls for female nipples to be treated exactly the same as male in terms of exposure to the elements and to the public gaze.
The mind whirls. The very idea is intimidating. Will the human eye be able to cope with following this constantly bobbing motion?
One wishes to be broadminded, but you have to ask whether there are not sound reasons for current conservative arrangements in the upper rigging department. But of course there can be brief interludes. I think of the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties, where a nice balance has been achieved.
The gals dress with great decorum. But on Dress-Down Fridays they come along topless. The ornate tattoo work is artistic, educational and inspiring. But Saturdays it's back to twinset and pearls, regulation Women's Institute gear. Yes, you've got to have balance.
Diplomacy
NYEH, nyeh, nyeh! Has this become the parlance of international diplomacy?
British foreign secretary Boris Johnson told Italian economics minister Carlo Calenda the UK wanted a single market in Europe but not free movement of people, according to the BBC.
Calenda: "No way!"
Johnson": "You'll sell less Prosecco to the UK." (Prosecco is a sparkling wine).
Calenda: "OK, you'll sell less fish and chips, but I'll sell less Prosecco to one country, you'll sell less to 27 countries."
Yah! Boo! Sucks!
What an odd choice Theresa May made for foreign secretary. Or was this something Machiavellian? The tousle-headed Johnson no doubt still has designs on No 10.
UFO (1)
A CANADIAN passenger aircraft took sudden evasive action to avoid a UFO over Lake Ontario this week. The Porter Airlines Dash 8 aircraft, with 54 passengers, was at 3 000m, descending to Toronto City airport, when the object suddenly appeared in their flight path.
Two flight attendants suffered minor injuries as the aircraft swerved then landed safely.
Debriefing, the pilots said they at first thought the object was a balloon. On reflection, it was probably a drone, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation reports. The UFO is not thought to have been of the sort piloted by little green men from Mars with three heads.
In England recently, a British Airways flight landing at Heathrow actually struck a drone. Nobody was injured.
These incidents are becoming alarming. But are drones being unfairly blamed? The Frisbee action we see on our beaches surely needs looking at.
UFO (2)
ANOTHER UFO. Villagers in a mountain region of Myanmar (what most of us know as Burma) were shaken by a deafening early morning explosion the other day. It turned out that a 4m cylindrical object with a diameter of 2.5m – it looked like some sort of engine - had landed in a jade mining works, having apparently dropped from outer space.
A piece of debris smashed into the roof of a house and had "Chinese writing" on it, according to the BBC. The incident is believed to be connected with the recent launch of a Chinese orbiting satellite. Nobody was injured .
How much space junk is whirling around out there? How much still has to come down?
Dismay
IAN Gibson, poet laureate of Hillcrest, shares the national dismay over Twickenham last weekend.
The Springboks are possessed by a fatal obsession,
Of continually giving away precious possession;
The forwards outplayed,
The backs mostly dismayed;
Two late tries won't remove our depression!
Tailpiece
"DO THESE jeans make my bottom look like the side of a house?"
"Not our house – it's not painted blue."
Last word
Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune.
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