The Idler, Thursday, March 16, 2017

These terrifying memes of the internet

A HIDEOUS affliction has struck Florida, in the US. Women have taken to standing on cars in Miami, twerking – shaking their bottoms.

One woman was seen twerking on top of a car driving westbound on the MacArthur Causeway one evening. It was captured on video and posted on Twitter.

This seems to have spread the craze. Next a woman jumped on a police car at South Beach (Miami, that is) and began twerking to the appreciation of a crowd of hundreds. But an officer hustled her off the car. That incident too was videoed.

Then next day yet another woman was twerking on a car roof in Miami. This too was captured for social media.

These things spread on the internet like an epidemic. I think they call it a meme. At the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties the other evening, the car park was a squirming mass of buxom damsels twerking on the car roofs, shaking their bottoms with great abandon.

These memes are getting out of hand. Seldom has a medicinal scotch been so necessary.

So encouraging

IT'S most encouraging to hear the responsible words of  sports minister Fikile Mbalula. We just couldn't afford the Commonwealth Games … we could risk bankrupting the country … yes, we were a bit rash with the Football World Cup, but then we had Fifa and Sepp Blatter hovering over us … but that was 2010, this is 2017 …. we've learned our lesson …

Presumably this newfound  sense of fiscal prudence and responsibility means the trillion rand nuclear energy deal with Russia is definitely off the table.

The posse

THE addiction to social media knows no limits. A man in Ohio, in the US, was wanted on a string of charges, according to the Huffington Post. But the sheriff's men had only his previous address.

So the Butler County sheriff posted some pictures of him on Facebook, asking if anyone knew his whereabouts.

Next the wanted man himself - one Andrew Dale Marcum - responded on Facebook with the words: ""I ain't tripping half of them don't even know me."

The sheriff's posse weren't exactly sure what that statement meant, but now they had a fix on him.

Sheriff Richard K Jones then tweeted Marcum a photo of a jail cell, telling him: "We've got your room ready."

Marcum then turned himself in.

All this is very much 21st century and digital. But one does hanker for the olden times, where the posse would have headed him off at the pass.

Book award

HEY, here's some good news. My former colleague the much-loved Pixie Emslie has won an award for Best Published Book of 2016.

His Precious Diamond, which I recall reviewing last year, is a romantic novel set in the Western Cape, in which Pixie turns from her rather gritty former settings of the world of mining to every gal's dream - a hunk of a man and the sobbbing of a thousand violins in the winelands.

Great stuff! The award is by the South African Writers' Circle and it was made in Hillcrest last weekend.

Drink pink

HOUSEHOLDERS in the Canadian town of Onoway, in Alberta, were astonished to find bright pink water coming out of their taps.

The authorities say it was caused by a faulty valve that allowed potassium permanganate to get into the water supply.

Potassium permanganate is part of the purifying process, used to remove from the water iron and the smell of rotten eggs.

Pink chemicals, rotten eggs – one imagines they drink a lot of whiskey in Onoway, Alberta. Canadian Club - neat.

Iron laws

SOME iron laws of commonsense:

If you dance with a grizzly bear, you' better let him lead.

Never accept a drink from a urologist.

When you starve with a tiger, the tiger starves last.

Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed.

In any organisation there is one person who knows what is going on. That person must be fired.

Them that has, gets.

You can't fall off the floor.

The first myth of management is that it exists.

Variables won't; constants aren't.

For every action there is an equal and opposite government program.

Tailpiece

WHEN they handed out chins, I thought they said "gins" I called: "Give me a double!"

Last word

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Lester B. Pearson