Debt-free Durban
HEY, how's this for a blast from the past? Reader Ray Gorven tells me his relative, Oswald "Ozzie" Gorven (Brother? Cousin? Uncle? Ray doesn't say), turns 96 on Friday.
Ozzie Gorven was, of course, City Treasurer of Durban for 31 years. While he held the purse strings, Durban was one of the world's two debt-free cities. The other was the London borough of Westminster.
Ozzie achieved this in large part by creating a municipal fund that invested in rent-yielding properties elsewhere. Durban apparently owned half of Johannesburg and Cape Town (Or do I exaggerate?)
Is Durban still debt-free? Does that municipal fund still exist? It would be interesting to know but given the current financial vortex, I hae ma doots.
Perhaps Ozzie could be persuaded to come out of retirement to help sort things out. But no – the fellow has done his stint.
Happy birthday for Friday, Ozzie! Good on yer!
Busy stork
THE stork is busy at Mesa, Arizona, in the US. At Banner Desert Medical Center, 16 nurses are pregnant, according to Sky News. The stork is expected to make deliveries between October and January next year.
The intensive care nurses are in good spirits and joke that it's a scheme to get the Christmas holidays off.
Sky makes no mention of any kind of flight by junior doctors, so it would appear that all is above board at Banner Desert Medical Center.
Be correct
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "Don't be a sexist. Broads hate that."
Blerrie gemors
IF YOU thought things had gone quiet in the Brexit thing – the British parliament is in recess, everyone is on holiday – stand by for the blast of war. The dung is about to hit the fan.
The government is to release in coming days, 64 "technical papers" that will advise people on what to do in the event of a "no deal" Brexit.
These are likely to be scary, given that companies like Airbus, the giant aircraft manufacturer, have already said they will leave and the import-export artery of Dover says it does not have the infrastructure to put into effect customs regulation. It would take some 15 years to set that up.
Also, the European seasonal workers who bring in the harvests will not be there, and the farmers say there will be no food on the shelves.
This could become the kind of crisis last seen at the time of Dunkirk.
Prime Minister Theresa May will be accused by the Brexiteers of trying to scare people into accepting her compromise "Chequers" deal – which the EU has not accepted yet anyway.
Those opposed to Brexit will use the 64 technical papers to support their call for another referendum, this time people knowing what the hell it's all about and what is at stake. Opinion polls seem to support them in this.
It's what the political scientists call a blerrie gemors. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.
Mid-East crocs
AS IF the Middle East didn't have enough problems, crocodiles seem now to have entered the equation, according to Sky News.
An entrepreneur years ago set up a crocodile farm in the Jordan Valley – on the edge of Palestinian territory - as a tourism venture.
That never took off and somebody else bought it to supply skins to the handbag industry. But then the Israeli government declared crocs to be a protected species.
They're being fed every day and are breeding like billy-ho. Some have temporarily escaped, causing a big panic that they would get into the Jordan River.
Is this a case for the UN? Maybe they should call in Zimbabwe's new president, Emmerson" Croc" Mnanagwa.
Poor scansion
Limerick time:
There once was a poet named Dan
Whose poetry never would scan.
When told this was so
He said ' Yes I know
It's because I try to put every possible syllable into the very last line that I can.
Tailpiece
"THIS morning she gave me soap flakes for breakfast instead of corn flakes."
"I bet you were mad."
"Mad? I was foaming at the mouth."
Last word
He was one of those men who think that the world can be saved by writing a pamphlet.
No comments:
Post a Comment