Beware the meddlers
LAST week's report from Washington on the clock synthesisers is most sinister and disturbing. Are the meddlers at it again?
It seems these fellows from the US National Institute of Standards and Technology have set up two optical clocks (whatever those might be) 12km apart, in such a way that they are synchronised to within one quadrillionth of a second. This is a big deal.
But why are they doing this? It seems this is a significant step toward altering the length of a second. I'm sure most of us thought a second was a second, no matter where you are in time or space. But apparently that's not so. These fellows are set on creating a "new second" that would be very useful for GPS systems, financial networks and electric power grids.
Yeah, it beats me too. But this looks very much like more bureaucratic meddling.
Remember how we once had pounds, shillings and pence, as nature intended? The pound that was directly divisible by two, three, four, five, six, eight, 10 and 12? (As against the rand that is directly divisible by two, four and five?)
But the meddlers changed it. We went decimal. You can no longer take a girl to dinner for £1 (equivalent of R2), as we did in those halcyon pre-decimal days. You can no longer buy a pint of beer for one shilling and sixpence (15 cents). You won't get a mixed grill on the beachfront for three shillings and sixpence (35 cents). The meddlers have meddled.
We used to have pounds avoirdupois and ounces; yards, feet and inches, measures that everyone understood.
But the meddlers intervened with their incomprehensible metric claptrap. It's only on the sports pages where you'll still read of a 14-foot putt, because to express it in centimetres is simply absurd.
America escaped this nonsense. There they still use pints and gallons, pounds and ounces, yards feet and inches.
But now the meddlers show themselves in America, of all places. Sixty seconds in a minute; 60 minutes in an hour; 24 hours in a day. Heavens, nothing metric! We've got to change it!
Sinister, disturbing.
Schabie
THE most ebullient, irrepressible, mischievous rascal who ever put on rugby togs has died aged 84.
Brian Schabram played scrumhalf to the great Keith Oxlee for Durban Collegians and Natal in the 1960s. He specialised in a blind-side break, with a bullet-like backhand reverse pass that had flythalf Oxlee running across to score untouched, the opposition all looking the other way.
Schabie played in the era of the club tour when Collegians would take the Union-Castle liners to East London, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. Those voyages were not sedate.
People often wondered why, with their great partnership at club and provincial level, Schabie never played for the Boks with Oxlee.
Well, he did have his chance. He was at the Springbok trials in Cape Town. They were quartered in a hotel and it was like being at school again. Into bed and lights out by 8pm.
But Schabie and two capped Springboks slipped out one night and went seriously on the razzle in Sea Point.
The other two were cops and it was the easiest thing to arrange a lift back with the local fuzz. But there wasn't room in the front of the van for Schabie. They put him in the back with a police dog, which was barking with huge excitement.
When they pulled up outside the hotel, a cop came round to open up and Schabie tumbled out, the dog still barking. The other two also go out, not so steady on the pins. It had been a great razzle.
And there, standing on the pavement in front of the hotel, were Danie Craven, Boy Louw and Maurice Zimmerman, the Springbok selectors.
Schabie and his pals were sent home next day. The two Boks were deselected. None of them played provincial rugby for the rest of the season.
I saw Schabie a couple of months ago at a regular get-together of rugby folk of yesteryear. He was in cracking good scatological form. He had us in fits, telling us about the retirement village he'd moved to on the North Coast.
And now he's gone to link up again with Keith Oxlee.
Tailpiece
WHAT do you call a Frenchman in sandals? Philippe Philoppe.
Last word
Lesser artists borrow, great artists steal. - Igor Stravinsky
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