The case of Dr Dre versus Dr Drai
A GYNAECOLOGIST in Pennsylvania has won a legal battle with a rap artist over use of their similar names, according to the BBC.
The gynaecologist, Draion M Burch - known as Dr Drai – applied to the US Patent and Trademark Office for "Dr Drai" to be his registered title in medical books he has written.
It's difficult to see where this could have clashed with the interests of rap singer, Dr Dre, but the rapper opposed the application saying there could be confusion.
Dr Drai said he was appalled that it could be thought he was trying to trade on the reputation of Dr Dre, who had not been to medical school and whose lyrics suggested misogyny and homophobia.
The Trial and Appeal Board of the Patents and Trademarks Office agreed with him and Dr Dre's case was dismissed.
The good doctors will now presumably go their separate ways in the worlds of gynaecology and popular music.
Crocodile swamp
INVESTMENT analyst Dr James Greener notes in his latest grumpy newsletter that Stats SA has entered a swamp in its latest annual report.
This declares that there are 56 521 900 souls living in South Africa.
"Naturally, this being South Africa, the government in probable defiance of the Constitution, still confidently slots each of us into one of four coyly named 'population' groups.
"And it is even bold enough to split the nation into merely two genders – a task that these days is a crocodile-infested swamp where common sense goes to die."
Greener says the numbers are almost certainly hopelessly incorrect anyway.
"The most recent evidence for this is the education funding crisis where far more kids have pitched up for school than Stats SA told us were out there."
Thunderbolts
TWO men in homemade space suits approached an Indian businesman and persuaded him to part with the equivalent of R2.5 million for a deal with Nasa.
The space suits were of a crinkly silver material and were topped by floppy space helmets, according to Sky News. The spacemen told the businessman they had a deal with Nasa to generate electricity from thunderbolts.
It seems they told much the same story to 30 or so other people in Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The spacemen have been arrested by the Indian police.
Veterans
THE years flit by. I've reached a vintage where I'm invited to the Maritzburg College veterans lunch. I attend, along with two schoolmates of my era. What a wonderful collection of codgers. Much reminiscence.
Lunch is in the Victoria Hall, still a focus of that era. But the school's campus has sprawled astonishingly. The original Victorian buildings are still there, but almost lost among the new ones that have crowded in. Yet those new buildings are also in red brick - no jarring.
What's on the lunch menu? Traditionalists speak of the meatballs rolled under the cook's armpit in days of yore; of "Jacob's Toenails", a dessert named for an incident in which a gardener had a motor mower run over his feet.
But instead we get something three-course and five-star, served by second-formers.
Then rugby – College versus Kearsney. As we stroll down to the hallowed Goldstones field, we see junior rugby sides playing, hockey matches also. The schools are decidedly multi-ethnic these days, the more so at the junior levels.
"We're looking at the future South Africa," one of my companions remarks, and I hope he's right – the ethos of schools such as these spread wide.
Then Goldstones. College bashers soaring skyward at every score. A lot of new College chants we'd never heard before.
But then the afternoon grew dark and gloomy as cloud built up. By half-time you could hardly make out what was happening on the field. Then the heavens opened. Jagged lightning ripped the sky. The match was abandoned, College 6-3 ahead.
Such a pity. But at least we got 35 minutes' great play from both sides. And we had a good lunch, with or without Jacob's Toenails.
Tailpiece
TWO cowboys stagger out of a zoo, their clothes in shreds. One says: "That lion dancin' ain't as relaxin' as they make out."
Last word
Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
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