This dolphin's
playful
nudges
DOLPHINS are friendly, playful creatures. They have a bond with humans which reaches back to antiquity. It's welcome to see them in the surf because their presence means an almost certain absence of sharks. To watch them surfing the big offshore swells, then back-flipping out of it, is exhilarating.
But the playfulness can go a bit far. At Landevennec, on the Brittany coast of France, a dolphin playfully intercepted a bather who was trying to wade ashore and just as playfully kept nudging her back out to sea. She had to be rescued by the coastguards.
This followed an incident in which the 3m bottlenose dolphin playfully leaped over the head of a kayaker.
Now the local mayor has decreed that people should avoid the dolphin, who is well known in the region for his interaction with bathers and boatsailers and is affectionately known as Zafar. His playfulness is becoming too boisterous and could be dangerous, the mayor says.
Zafar used to allow children to hold on to his dorsal so he could pull them through the water. He was popular. But now people have to get out of the water if he is spotted.
Poor old Zafar. Nobody to play with any more.
MORE from Rosemarie Jarski's Great British Wit. Topic: Critics.
· I can take any amount of criticism, so long as it is unqualified praise. – Noel Coward.
· Why is it that even a single slam from even the most patent imbecile can undo the praise of a hundred critics? – PG Wodehoiuse.
· When the critic caused me a somewhat messy breakfast, I contented myself with the knowledge that I had given him a perfectly ghastly evening, - Jeremy Sinden.
· WHAT do you make of a woman who plays a prank on her husband, saying she's won £250 000 (R4.9 million) in a lottery when she hasn't – then a few weeks later goes on to win a million pounds for real?
When Charlotte Peart, of Cambridgeshire, England, phoned her husband at work a second time to tell him of the windfall, he didn't believe her, said he was too busy to talk and handed the phone to his brother.
It was only when she sent him a screenshot of her winning message that it sank home.
"I didn't believe her at all because we like to wind each other up," he told Sky News.
An interesting marriage. Winding each other up over hundreds of thousands of quid. Nowt so queer as folk.
· POET Sarita Mathur pens some lines to capture the essence of her adopted city.
Durban Calling
Come here and stay ,
Ocean calling,
It's waves soothing ,
Both night and day.
Touristy, warm and bright ,
Friendly people ,
The weather just right.
A busy harbour,
Markets thriving,
Art and culture,
To top it all
A city of architecture.
Foodies love Durban,
It's varied tastes
It's beautiful melodious sounds
I love Durban
Every day and all year
Around.
· READER Diederik van der Werff bringus us a new buzzword.
What with all the "talk shops" going on – and the latest buzz phrase "Expropriation without compensation" being bandied about, I think it appropriate to add another buzz phrase – "No taxation without incarceration" (of the looters who steal our taxes paid)!
Tailpiece
THEY'VE been squabbling as they drive down a country road. The squabble has lapsed into silence. They pass a barnyard of mules and pigs.
She breaks the silence. "Relatives of yours?"
"Yep. In-laws."
Last word
Sure there are dishonest men in local government. But there are dishonest men in national government too.
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