Skittled on a snakepit wicket
WHAT a year it's been so far for sport – the Proteas' three-Test whitewash of Sri Lanka, plus the Springboks haven't lost a match yet.
Yes, we skittled Sri Lanka in fine style though they did in spells put in some good batting and some excellent bowling and fielding. It just wasn't enough for our fired-up lads.
And at the Wanderers we did have the good fortune of batting first on a wicket that turned into a snakepit in the humid conditions next day – remember, we lost five wickets for only 60 runs – and the hapless Sri Lankans then had to bat on it twice.
But that's Test cricket – the purest and most absorbing form of the game. Let's get back to the top of the rankings. We've got the players, we've got the right mindset and gees.
Faf du Plessis for president – except he hasn't got time, he's too busy with cricket.
Ceylon
SRI Lanka was, of course, once known as Ceylon, a name that today survives only in the tea brand
And also, of course, in a classic BBC sketch. An old dame and an old gent are drinking sherry in a retirement home.
She says: "My thithter liveth in Theylon."
He says: "Have another therry."
They lisp their way through a repetitive conversation about "Theylon" and the "thithter", getting pie-eyed on sherry, until eventually he declares in exasperation: "There'th no thuch plathe ath Theylon!"
"And I haven't got a thithter!"
Lovely stuff.
Military send-off
An' as their firin' dies away the 'usky whisper runs
From lips that 'aven't drunk all day: 'The Guns! Thank Gawd, the Guns!'
KIPLING'S lines from Ubique featured the other evening at a ceremony at Natal Field Artillery headquarters to honour Ken Gillings, former regimental sergeant-major, who died recently while snorkeling at Cape Vidal.
The place bristled with military brass; also with history buffs; also with tourism people. Ken was deeply involved with all three. He'd served with the NFA for 47 years. He'd been a sought-after battlefields tour guide for 40 years. And this made him very much part of the KwaZulu-Natal tourism industry. Also, he was a leading light light in the Historical Society.
On top of that, he was a man with a lively sense of fun – a bit of an oxymoron for an RSM.
Over a couple of scotches afterwards I was accosted by a magnificently mustachioed colonel who informed me that the small wheel at the front of a tank is known as the Idler. He also told me that when he was involved with tanks, they had 28 grease nipples that had to be serviced.
Twenty-eight nipples and the Idler – sounds OK to me.
Ken would have enjoyed that one too.
Brewery crawl
FANCY a melodious brewery crawl? Local musician and music critic Richard Haslop tells me a superb acoustic trio from Cape Town will be in KZN from this week presenting an astonishing medley of Scottish and Irish folk, bluegrass, country, folk rock and "roots".
Jenny and the Jameses will be at the Station Road home brewery on Thursday, Robson's Real Beer in Mahatma Ghandi (Point) Road, on Friday, and Thornley's Guest House, Eshowe, on Saturday.
They'd go down a treat at the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties. Maybe it can be arranged.
Hillcrest pong
IAN Gibson, poet laureate of Hillcrest, pens some lines on a mysterious pong that wafts over the town every day.
Hillcrest is tainted by an odour from hell,
It creeps over the town - what a smell!
No-one knows its source,
No-one is to blame, of course.
Illicit toxic waste? That may ring a bell.
Tailpiece
THIS fellow is in the supermarket. A very attractive woman starts waving at him. She approaches.
"Hello."
He's taken aback. He can't place her.
"Where do I know you from?"
"I think you're the father of one of my kids."
His mind flashes to the only time he's been unfaithful to his wife."
"Are you the stripper from my pal's bachelor party that I made love to on the pool table with all my buddies watching, while your partner whipped my butt with wet celery?"
She looks him in the eye and says coolly: "No, I'm your son's teacher."
Last word
Laws are like sausages. It's better not to see them being made. - Otto von Bismarck
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