The Idler, Tuesday, June 21

Night bus politics

TWO days to go in the British referendum on whether they should remain in or leave the EU.

The latest salvo is from Tory former cabinet minister Baroness Warsi, who says she would not like to be on a night bus with the "leave" campaigners. Previously she had supported their cause.

There's not much time now for the "leave" people to get across whether they would like to be on a night bus with Baroness Warsi. The opinion surveys show the two sides neck and neck.

The bookies show the "remain" camp winning, though not with the comfortable margin they had a couple of weeks ago. As far as can be ascertained, that other gambling emporium, the London Stock Exchange, takes a similar view.

What a catfight David Cameron set off by calling this referendum for no clear reason. And what a tragedy that it appears to have claimed the life of a young Labour MP – campaigning for "remain" - at the hands of a madman, no doubt activated by all the excitement.

Lots of people you would rather not be with on a night bus.

Kid snitch

AN AMERICAN kid turned in his dad for jumping a red traffic light. Police in the Massachusetts city of Quincy were astonished to get a 911 call from a six-year-old telling them: "Daddy went through a red light".

The audio has been released by the police, according to Sky News.

The dispatcher asks to speak to the father, who then comes on the line laughing in embarrassment and apologising.

They left it at that. One hopes the kid is not growing up into an inveterate snitch.

 

 

 

Missing lid

THE lid of one of Britain's oldest football cups – the Saturday County Cup, played for in the North Riding of Yorkshire - has gone missing.

The cup has been played for since 1880, according to the BBC, but the lid went missing sometime between the 1960s and the 1980s.

The local football association are now appealing for information as to what might have happened to it, presuming it is now a trophy on somebody's mantelpiece or some such place.

The plan is to put the cup on display in the National Football Museum in Manchester, but it is very much lacking without its lid.

Dave Roberts of the North Riding FA says: "We believe it's the second oldest cup in the world that's been continuously played for. There is one problem, we've lost the lid.

"We need to find a hero. There is a hero out there who knows something about the lid, either about its demise, or it's hanging on a wall or is on a mantelpiece."

They could get another lid made, but there's no need to rush – otherwise they could end up with a cup with two lids.

That's what happened with the York and Lancaster Cup (rugby) in Maritzburg. It was presented by the York and Lancaster regiment - who had been garrisoned in the capital and played rugby in the local league - when they left after Union in 1910.

Then the lid went missing. It was remade using photographs of the trophy. Then the missing lid turned up again. So the York and Lancaster Cup now has two lids.

I suppose it would be asking too much of coincidence for that spare lid to fit the Saturday County Cup.

.

 

Tailpiece

 

MURPHY is a gifted portrait artist. People from all over Ireland come to his home at Miltown Malbay, in County Clare, to get him to paint their likeness.

Then one day a beautiful English actress arrives in a Rolls Royce and asks him to paint her in the nude. Money is no object, she says. Would £10 000 do?

 

Murphy says he must consult with his good wife. They discuss the rights and wrongs of it in the kitchen, and then he returns to the actress.

 

"T'would be me pleasure to paint yer portrait, missus. De wife says it's okay. I'll paint you in de nude all right; but one condition. I have to at least leave me socks on, so I have a place to wipe me brushes."
 

 

Last word

 

Excess on occasion is exhilarating. It prevents moderation from acquiring the deadening effect of a habit.

W Somerset Maugham

 

 

The Idler, Monday, June 20, 2016

Commentator confusion

 

'TWAS a game of two halves, to be sure. It's the first half we'd like to forget. And let's not rest too much on our laurels about the second half either.

 

It was astute replacements from the bench by coach Allister Coetzee that did it – a batch of Lions players, brought on fresh, from our most successful side in Super rugby (though I hate to say it) and thoroughly acclimatised to the highveld altitude.

 

Even the commentators became a little confused as the Boks suddenly picked up zip. They were not sure if they were commentating on the Lions or the Springboks.

 

The Irish were out of puff, dead on their feet in that closing 15 minutes (as so often happens at Ellis Park). But next week we're back at sea level in Port Elizabeth, both sides with everything to play for.

 

Here comes a humdinger!

 

Space travel

 

BRITISH army captain astronaut Tim Peake landed safely in Kazakhstan with an American and a Russian colleague, the Soyuz space shuttle coming down under a huge parachute after hurtling at searing speed through Earth's atmosphere, following their stint in the international space station.

 

The amiable Peake seemed to bring a new immediacy to space exploration with regular TV interviews from the space station, horsing about in weightlessness with his colleagues and running the equivalent of a marathon on a treadmill.

 

But as he and his colleagues were carried bodily out of the capsule, sweating profusely and too weak to walk, and one observed the all but incinerated capsule, one could not help but reflect that if the future is regular space travel, it must still be a long way off.

 

Do we really have the technology? Is there really any way to conquer the immensity of space, the distances involved when measured against a human lifespan? Would it not require a paradigm shift that has so far eluded us?

 

This is not to dismiss the ingenuity of the space programme scientists and technicians or the courage of those who allow themselves to be blasted into space.

 

But before we think of colonising distant galaxies, surely we need to address the damage to our own planet – environmental and otherwise – that is being wrought by that aggressively destructive species, homo sapiens.

 

Church notes

 

SOME excerpts from church bulletins:

 

·       The Fasting and Prayer Conference includes meals.

 

·       Ladies don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Bring your husbands.

 

·       Remember in prayer the many who are sick in our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.

 

·       Don't let worry kill you off – let the Church help.

 

·       Miss Carlene Mason sang "I will not pass this way again", giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

 

·       For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

 

·       Next Thursday there will be tryout for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

 

·       Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24 in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their schooldays.

 

·       This evening at 7pm there will be a hymn singing in the park across from the church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

 

·       Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7pm. Please use the back door.

 

·       Weight Watchers will meet at 7pm at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

 

 

 

Skinny-dippers

 

NEWS from Australia. An elderly Queensland farmer had a pond round the back, ideal for swimming. He'd set up picnic tables and a barbecue and planted apple and peach trees. Very nice.

 

One morning he took a bucket and walked round to the pond to pick some fruit. As he approached he heard splashing, female voices and laughter. A whole lot of girls were skinny-dipping.

 

They crowded into the deepest part of the pond as he approached.

 

"Go away, you old pervert!" one shouted.

 

"I'm no pervert," he said, holding up the bucket. "I'm just here to feed the crocodile."

 

You've got to get up early to outwit an old Queensland farmer.

 

 

Tailpiece

 

THE contortionist went bankrupt. He couldn't make ends meet.

 

 

Last word

 

Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.

Napoleon Bonaparte

The Idler, Friday, June 17, 2016

Their finest hour

 

ABSOLUTE high jinks in the UK as the EU referendum draws into its final full week. There's a run on sterling. Stock exchanges around the world have got the jitters at the possibility of the Brits leaving.

 

The Tories are clawing at each other like wildcats. The Archbishop of Canterbury has pronounced against leaving. So has the Governor of the Bank of England. So have all kinds of financial institutions.

 

Boris Johnson, former Mayor of London and figurehead of the "leave" campaign, has featured in TV footage, seriously and deftly filleting a salmon somewhere in Suffolk. This apparently has deep symbolic significance.

 

Can things ever be the same again? The Tories have been bad-mouthing each other so much it's difficult to see how they can sit again around the same cabinet table.

 

The opinion polls put the leavers ahead. The bookies give the stayers 62% of the vote. A London Stock Exchange fundi gives them 60%. But it's on a knife-edge.

 

Can our municipal elections ever hope to measure up to this in terms of entertainment and drama?

 

This is the finest hour of The Fellows At The End Of The Bar. They are the great pontificators. Everything they pontificate upon is now happening. Gulp!

 

Tall order

 

IT'S the moment of truth tomorrow at Ellis Park. Can a silk purse be fashioned from a sow's ear in a matter of a week?

 

One feels for Allister Coetzee. The Boks last Saturday looked as if they'd rather be at the beach or somewhere. Can they develop in a week an instinct for straight running and driving in the loose with low body posture? To avoid being burgled of the ball when in possession? It's a tall order, but more is nog 'n dag.

 

Meanwhile, the performance of England in Australia and Wales in New Zealand, along with the Irish here, suggests an invigoration in northern hemisphere rugby. No wonder, with so many of our best playing there at club level.

 

Seagull

 

JOHN Burger, of Eshowe, reflects on this week's piece on the orange seagull that has made an appearance in Gloucestershire, England.

 

"Is there any truth in the rumour that the seagull that fell into the vat of chicken tikka masala and now gives off a delicious aroma has been named a Spice-Gull?"

 

No, no – the Spice Gulls were a group of female vocalists in England. One of them married the footballer, David Beckham.

 

Hard sell

 

MARKETING has changed over the years. Some advertising lines from the 1940s come this way:

 

·       To keep a slender figure no-one can deny … reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet (Lucky Strike cigarettes).

·       Men wouldn't look at me when I was skinny but since I gained ten pounds this new, easy way, I have all the dates I want.

·       Christmas morning she'll be happier with a Hoover.

·       Cocaine Tooth Drops.

·       You mean a woman can open it? (Illustrated with a lass holding a bottle of tomato sauce).

·       The Ideal Brain Tonic – Coca Cola.

·       Guard Against Throat Scratch. Smoke Pall Mall cigarettes.

·       How to measure your wife for an ironing table!

·       Don't worry, darling, you didn't burn the beer (Schlitz beers).

 

Today the lynch mobs would be out for some of those copy-writers.

 

Caledonians

 

AN EXCERPT from the Durban Caledonian Society newsletter – "Today's Riddle for Seniors: Here's the situation –

 

"You are on a horse, galloping at a constant speed. On your right side is a sharp drop-off. On your left side is an elephant travelling at the same speed as you. Directly in front of you is a galloping kangaroo and your horse is unable to overtake it. Behind you is a lion running at the same speed as you and the kangaroo. What must you do to get out of this dangerous situation?

 

"Get off the merry-go- round and go home. You've had enough excitement for one day!"

 

Hoot mon! They sure whoop it up in the Durban Caledonian society.

 

Tailpiece

 

"HEY Reub, what's these things buzzin' 'bout my face?"

 

"Them's hossflies, Jake?"

 

"Hossflies? What's hossflies, Reub?"

 

"It's them things you git buzzin' 'bout the rear end of a hoss.

"Is youse sayin', Reub, that I got a face like the rear end of a hoss?"

 

"I ain't sayin' nothin', Jake. But you cain't fool them hossflies."

 

Last word

 

A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

George Bernard Shaw

 

 

The Idler, Thursday, June 16, 2016

The Great Game

THERE was something very familiar about the tactics of the Russians in France the other night as they outflanked the English spectators then gave them a dishing. Yes of course, it was just like when they took over the Crimea.

Crack troops wearing no insignia or badge of rank, appearing out of nowhere, highly organised, and just socking it to 'em.

Who thought Vladimir would take it lying down, his athletes accused of government-sponsored drug abuse and possibly barred from the Olympics? And now Maria Sharapova too.

He's a crafty one is Putin. He knows he can't take on Nato. But he can duff up football spectators, turn Euro 2016 into a battlefield. It's happening.

The next move, according to strategic analysts, is likely to be a fomenting of outrage throughout Western society at the removal of Sharapova's lovely legs from women's tennis.

They don't play chess for nothing, those Ruskies. They know all the moves. Expect another cultural shock attack involving the Bolshoi Ballet.

The Cold War hasn't ended, it's merely being played on a different chessboard. At the moment it's a rerun of Kipling's Great Game – Russia versus the Brits -  but maybe the Yanks will start paying attention when the Russians take up gridiron and baseball.

It's an insidious thing. Sharapova's legs – their removal from circulation can indeed cause widespread discontent.

Jonathan Livingstone …

A SEAGULL in Gloucestershire, England, has turned bright orange. He's being cared for at a wildlife hospital near Tewkesbury, partly in an attempt to restore his natural colour but mainly to protect him from being eaten alive by a football fan.

This complicated story needs a little unravelling. The gull was trying to scavenge a piece of meat at a food processing plant, according to Sky News, when it fell into a vat of chicken tikka masala.

Staff rescued him from the vat, but his feathers were instantly dyed bright orange. Not only that – he's the only seagull in the world who gives off a delicious aroma of chicken tikka masala, a favourite of football fans after the game and a few pints.

Staff at the wildlife hospital say they are making slow progress getting rid of the orange colouring with washing-up liquid but they're making no progress at all in getting rid of the curry aroma.

Tewkesbury special – seagull tikka masala - except the feller is very much alive, flapping about vigorously and has a large, vicious beak.

At least it's being sorted out in a quiet county like Gloucestershire. In a place like Northern Ireland an orange seagull could cause civil unrest.

 

Humility

SPORTSWEAR giant Adidas has produced promotional material for the Copa America football tournament in its centenary year. Unfortunately, however, Adidas missspelled the name of one of the participants, Colombia, as "Columbia".

Adidas has apologised, withdrawn the material and set about reworking it.

This indicates a gratifying if unexpected humility on the part of a sports sponsor. Most of them would have insisted that the country change the spelling of its name.

Tailpiece

A BLONDE motorist is about two hours from San Diego, in the US, when she's flagged down by a man whose truck had broken down. He asks: "Are you  going to San Diego?"
 
"Sure, do you need a lift?"
 
"Not for me. I'll be  spending the next few hours fixing my truck. My problem is I've got two  chimpanzees in the back that have to be taken to the San Diego Zoo. They're  a bit stressed already so I don't want to keep them on the road all day.  Could you possibly take them to the zoo for me? I'll give you $100 for your  trouble."

"I'd be happy to."

So the two chimpanzees  are ushered into the back seat of the blonde's car and carefully strapped  into their seat belts. Off they go.

A few hours later the  truck driver is going through the heart of San Diego when suddenly he's  horrified. There's the blonde  walking down the street, holding hands with the two chimps, much to the  amusement of a following crowd.
 
He pulls off the road and runs over to the blonde. "What are you doing? I gave you $100 to take these chimpanzees to the zoo!" 
 
"Yes, I know. But we had money left over so now we're going to Sea World aquarium."
 

Last word

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. - Mark Twain

The Idler, Wednesday, June 15, 2016

The Great Game

THERE was something very familiar about the tactics of the Russians in France the other night as they outflanked the English spectators then gave them a dishing. Yes of course, it was just like when they took over the Crimea.

Crack troops wearing no insignia or badge of rank, appearing out of nowhere, highly organised, and just socking it to 'em.

Who thought Vladimir would take it lying down, his athletes accused of government-sponsored drug abuse and possibly barred from the Olympics? And now Maria Sharapova too.

He's a crafty one is Putin. He knows he can't take on Nato. But he can duff up football spectators, turn Euro 2016 into a battlefield. It's happening.

The next move, according to strategic analysts, is likely to be a fomenting of outrage throughout Western society at the removal of Sharapova's lovely legs from women's tennis.

They don't play chess for nothing, those Ruskies. They know all the moves. Expect another cultural shock attack involving the Bolshoi Ballet.

The Cold War hasn't ended, it's merely being played on a different chessboard. At the moment it's a rerun of Kipling's Great Game – Russia versus the Brits -  but maybe the Yanks will start paying attention when the Russians take up gridiron and baseball.

It's an insidious thing. Sharapova's legs – their removal from circulation can indeed cause widespread discontent.

Jonathan Livingstone …

A SEAGULL in Gloucestershire, England, has turned bright orange. He's being cared for at a wildlife hospital near Tewkesbury, partly in an attempt to restore his natural colour but mainly to protect him from being eaten alive by a football fan.

This complicated story needs a little unravelling. The gull was trying to scavenge a piece of meat at a food processing plant, according to Sky News, when it fell into a vat of chicken tikka masala.

Staff rescued him from the vat, but his feathers were instantly dyed bright orange. Not only that – he's the only seagull in the world who gives off a delicious aroma of chicken tikka masala, a favourite of football fans after the game and a few pints.

Staff at the wildlife hospital say they are making slow progress getting rid of the orange colouring with washing-up liquid but they're making no progress at all in getting rid of the curry aroma.

Tewkesbury special – seagull tikka masala - except the feller is very much alive, flapping about vigorously and has a large, vicious beak.

At least it's being sorted out in a quiet county like Gloucestershire. In a place like Northern Ireland an orange seagull could cause civil unrest.

 

Humility

SPORTSWEAR giant Adidas has produced promotional material for the Copa America football tournament in its centenary year. Unfortunately, however, Adidas missspelled the name of one of the participants, Colombia, as "Columbia".

Adidas has apologised, withdrawn the material and set about reworking it.

This indicates a gratifying if unexpected humility on the part of a sports sponsor. Most of them would have insisted that the country change the spelling of its name.

Tailpiece

A BLONDE motorist is about two hours from San Diego, in the US, when she's flagged down by a man whose truck had broken down. He asks: "Are you  going to San Diego?"
 
"Sure, do you need a lift?"
 
"Not for me. I'll be  spending the next few hours fixing my truck. My problem is I've got two  chimpanzees in the back that have to be taken to the San Diego Zoo. They're  a bit stressed already so I don't want to keep them on the road all day.  Could you possibly take them to the zoo for me? I'll give you $100 for your  trouble."

"I'd be happy to."

So the two chimpanzees  are ushered into the back seat of the blonde's car and carefully strapped  into their seat belts. Off they go.

A few hours later the  truck driver is going through the heart of San Diego when suddenly he's  horrified. There's the blonde  walking down the street, holding hands with the two chimps, much to the  amusement of a following crowd.
 
He pulls off the road and runs over to the blonde. "What are you doing? I gave you $100 to take these chimpanzees to the zoo!" 
 
"Yes, I know. But we had money left over so now we're going to Sea World aquarium."
 

Last word

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. - Mark Twain

The Idler, Tuesday, June 14, 2016

Crazy gun laws

IF EVER there was a moment that highlights the absurdity of America's lack of effective gun control, it must surely be the tragic slaughter in Orlando, Florida. Any nutcase or terrorist is able to walk into a gun store and buy over the counter the means to inflict mayhem.

This is what appears to have happened in Orlando. The culprit apparently bought his weapons just days before putting them to deadly use.

The National Rifle Association and other gun lobbyists point to the section of the constitution that guarantees the right of citizens to bear arms. But that was drafted at a time when "arms" meant single-shot muzzle-loading muskets or powder and ball pistols, not automatic rifles with their lethal capacity to spray bullets about.

This must surely bring a new dimension to the presidential election in November. How will somebody like Donald Trump, with a right-wing support base that includes the NRA, square what has happened with the right to bear arms? Does that right extend to a citizen who, before the attack, phoned the police to declare his allegiance to a terrorist organisation?

This will be a bitter one, not least because the outcome of the election also has a bearing on appointments to the Supreme Court bench. And that bench is likely to be the final decider, whatever might happen – or not happen – in Congress about gun control

It's a crazy world.

Riddle solved

A WEEK or so back we considered a very old riddle about three guests who book into a hotel at R10 a night (yes, a very old riddle) and pay as they check in.

The hotel proprietor decides to give them an overall discount of R5. He tells a maid to take the R5 upstairs to refund them. But she can't divide R5 by three so she gives each guest R1 and takes R2 for herself.

So the three guests each pay R9 – R27. The maid takes R2 – total R29. What happened to the R1?

I receive a stern admonition from Clifford Joshua, of Morningside. The riddle is incomplete in its incorrectness, he says.

He provides a series of mathematical formulae to demonstrate this, somewhat baffling to an innumerate like myself, but showing convincingly nevertheless that the R1 did not disappear, nor did the maid tuck it into her bra.

The closing argument is 30 - 3-2 = 25 – what the proprietor got paid.

I hope this settles things. If not, it's something that needs to be taken to Nkandla for adjudication.

 

Passing phase

A HOTEL room for R3? In days of yore I used to check in at the Rosetta Hotel, in the Midlands. The rate for bed and breakfast was R1.25.

When I paid the first time I was there I was given a receipt for twelve shillings and sixpence. (It was a few years after the change-over to decimal coinage).When I questioned this, the owner explained: "This decimal thing is just a passing phase. I'm not going to get a new cash register for those bloody fools in Pretoria."

 

Churchill

ANOTHER time at the Rosetta Hotel, the parking area was already full of vehicles when I arrived in the evening. I'd heard it on the radio: Churchill had died.

Every farmer in the district was there. So were the local police force. Everyone had descended on the pub to talk about Churchill. There was no TV in those days but everyone was glued to the BBC radio stuff that was coming over. Wartime stories suddenly burst forth from fellows who had submerged it all over the years.

Hey, what a party. And this was happening all over the world in hundreds, thousands of localities. It was quite an evening in Rosetta.

My bill next day was a little more than twelve shillings and sixpence.

 

SABC

 

A FELLOW who calls himself "Dan from the Bluff" sends in this limerick, inspired by goings-on at the SABC.

 

There was a man named Hlaudi,

Whose mind turned a bit cloudy;

As he sat and twiddled his thumb,

Thinking of ways not to look dumb,

His actions instead turned people rowdy.

 

Attaboy, Dan!

 

Tailpiece

"I just bought my mother-in-law a Jaguar."

"I thought you didn't like her."

"I know what I'm doing. It's bitten her twice already."

Last word

 

I don't have a girlfriend. But I do know a woman who'd be mad at me for saying that. Mitch Hedberg