Another
breakthrough
for science?
SCIENTIFIC strides are being made in Durban. Last week we discussed the way Durban Poison, a cannabis lager brewed from dagga instead of hops, is now legally available in Florida Road.
Then the other evening I encountered a professor fellow who tells me there's a team of scientists in the city from Bristol, in the west of England, who are investigating the possibility of generating electricity from urine
This was in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties, where you don't necessarily believe everything you hear. But this prof fellow is the genuine article. He's devoted his entire career to the study and management of sewage. He has a card bearing the UKZN crest and describing his activities in terms that are vivid enough but not to be repeated in a respectable newspaper.
At the time I was with Gertrude the Tomato Queen, a raven-haired lass so named for her habit of diving into her handbag to bring out a tomato, into which she then sinks her fangs. She says they're good for you and they counteract the vodka. She eats a lot of tomatoes.
Gertrude was intrigued, especially when the prof told her tomatoes absolutely thrive in sewage. Her eyes lit up. But I digress. Back to urine and electricity.
It seems the research project is to create a new kind of battery driven by urine. Something to do with ions or electrons or something like that. I get a bit lost with this scientific stuff. But I gather that eventually we'll have electric cars. All you do when you leave for the office in the morning is widdle in the battery and off you go.
But why would these Bristol fellows be here in Durban? Urine is freely available in the west of England or anywhere in the world for that matter.
Ah! Bingo! Only here can it be processed from Durban Poison, itself brewed from the fragrant weed. What better source to produce a jolt of electricity? Voila!
WHAT fun the boys had in Kimberley. What fun they'll have here at Kings Park against the Lions.
Get it right again on Saturday and the Sharks could well be in the final against Western Province, where we have a score to settle.
Against a valiant Griquas side our lads showed composure, drive, wonderful handling and – so important – momentum. It's a winning combination. It's all coming together at exactly the right time. The formula, as ever, is ADP – agter die pale. A pulsating climax approaches to what has been a great, if brief, Currie Cup season. Roll on Saturday.
'Erewego,' erewego, 'erewego!
LAST week we recalled some of the characters who regularly inhabited Joel Mervis's long-running newspaper column, The Passing Show, in years gone by. Raconteur Spyker Koekemoer (aka Pat Smythe) recalls another one, Mrs Farfel.
"Mrs Farfel shouts from the kitchen: 'Another lemon tea … shouldn't smell from herring …'"
Yes, lovely evocative stuff.
Tailpiece
THE teacher asks a little girl if she's going to the school fete.
"No, I ain't going."
The teacher corrects her. "You must not say 'I ain't going'. You must say 'I am not going'". To press the point she adds: "I am not going. He is not going. You are not going. They are not going. Now, dear, can you say all that?"
"Sure. They ain't nobody going."
Last word
In a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day.
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