Those creepy clowns
THE creepy clowns scare has spread to Germany and to Sweden, having started a few months ago in the US and since spread to the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
A clown attacked a youth with a baseball bat in the German city of Rostock, and a 15-year-old boy was threatened by a clown with a knife at a bus stop in the same city.
In nearby Greifswald, two children were frightened in separate incidents by three clowns, one with a chainsaw; a woman was also frightened by a clown with a chainsaw.
About a dozen other cases have been reported around Germany over the last week, according to the newspaper, Bild.
In Sweden, a man was stabbed by an attacker dressed as a clown.
What's behind this phenomenon of creepy clowns? Instinctively one connected it initially with the SABC, but it's become too widespread, too far-flung.
The likelihood now is that these scary clowns are members of the Russian special forces, softening things up the way they did in the Crimea, Eastern Ukraine and at the European Cup football tournament, masquerading as football hooligans.
Vladimir Putin is pushing the envelope wherever he can. The West needs to respond.
If Hillary Clinton should win the presidential election, she should, as a gesture of contrition and magnanimity, send Donald Trump to Moscow as ambassador. That'll give Putin creepy clowns - in spades!
If Trump wins – well, much the same.
Mrs SA
LAST week we had a group photograph of the finalists in the "Mrs South Africa" contest – a line-up of lovely ladies in swimming costumes and sunglasses. How long has such a contest been running?
Mrs South Africa – and not a featherduster among the lot of them.
Unbelievable
INVESTMENT analyst Dr James Greener laments in his latest grumpy newsletter the growing number of things that are impossible to believe.
"Much of the difficulty in trying to grasp it all lies in the illogicality of everything.
"How can the act of setting fire to a library be seen as a) non-violent; and b) furthering the cause of education? How can making universities ungovernable be in the interest of poor or indeed any students?
"Is there just one cabinet minister with a real and properly earned, recognisable and appropriate qualification - even a matric?
"How can the president express complete faith in the man upon whom the same president has set his goons to destroy?
"Why is our power utility lending money to the president's friends?
"Is JZ ever in the country?
"Is that reason for leaving the International Criminal Court really true?
"Is it possible that astonishing actions and provocative statements are sometimes planned and made largely to elicit responses of irritation and dismay from the indignant and immaterial minority?"
Dunno, James. But I've a feeling that we ain't seen nothin'.
Spider love
If music be the food of love, play on …
SPIDERS tune their web like a violin to attract mates with the vibrations, according to researchers at Oxford. They also adjust the strands so that the vibrations set off tell them what prey they have captured.
"A lot of males will actually generate a very specific kind of musical pattern which the females can use to determine not only that they're a male but they're the right species and whether she might want to mate with them as well," researcher Beth Mortimer told Sky News.
Generating a musical pattern is all very well. Lots of fun, good vibes going, the lady spider arrives all eager. It happens.
But then she bites your head off and proceeds to chow you. Love is tough in the spider world.
Then those web vibrations that tell the spider what he's caught. I once rescued a Cape white-eye from a huge web in the garden. The spider was very agitated.
I realise now he must have thought he'd caught Tchaikovsky. Those vibrations set up by the flapping white-eye must have been like the cannonade in the 1812 Overture.
Tailpiece
"HI. I'VE just found your card from the science and technology conference. What are you up to these days?"
"I'm doing aquathermal treatment of ceramics, aluminium and steel under constrained environment."
"Wow! That sounds impressive. What does it mean exactly?"
"I'm doing the washing up with my wife supervising."
Last word
Most people would rather be certain they're miserable than risk being happy.
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