Sunday, October 7, 2018

The Idler, Thuirsday, October 4, 2018

A comet

to scare

us all

GHOULIES and ghosties and long-leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night … A "dead" comet that scarily resembles a human skull is set to travel past the Earth soon after Halloween on October 31, according to Sky News. Brrr!

The space rock, officially named Asteroid 2015 TB145, was discovered in October 2015 by a team at the University of Hawaii.

Nasa nicknamed the asteroid 'The "Great Pumpkin" before it passed the Earth at a distance of roughly 486 000km bang on Halloween that year. This year it is expected to fly past again on November 11 at a distance of more than 402 000km.

Scientists believe it to be an extinct comet which has lost its ice due to repeated orbits of the sun.

However, the involvement of Nasa is suspicious. For years they've been hoaxing us with photographs of an arid, flinty surface, devoid of so much as a blade of grass, claiming it to be the surface of Mars – when quite obviously it's the Griquas rugby field at Kimberley, where the Sharks will have to acclimatise themselves this weekend in the final pool game of the Currie Cup.

 

MEANWHILE, a view contrary to modern science. American basketball star Kyrie Irving has been taking flak ever since he stated last year that the Earth is flat. The Boston Celtics player says he's been plagued by angry science teachers ever since.

He wishes he'd never said it publicly and apologises for bringing up the subject, according to Huffington Post.

Quite. What does the curvature or otherwise of the Earth have to do with a basketball court anyway? Leave the man alone!

Besides, didn't Paul Kruger himself declare that the Earth is flat? Kyrie Irving rests his case.

 

NEWS from India. Villagers at Kannur, in the state of Kerala, were slightly agitated to find what seemed a dead snake lying outside a home, according to the agency Newsflare.

The householder poked at it tentatively with a stick to make sure it was dead  – at which the snake stirred into life again and began regurgitating the meal it had been digesting.

That meal? It was another snake.

Unfortunately, the villagers of Kannur lack the scientific impulse. Instead of investigating further, they killed the regurgitator. They did not prod the regurgitated snake to see if it perhaps contained yet another snake. A possible breakthrough has been missed – the Russian Dolls phenomenon in herpetology.

MORE from Rosemarie Jarski's Great British Humour. Topic: Many a true word …

·       Comedy script-writing is one of the few trades that doesn't have to fear competition from the Japanese. – Denis Norden

·       The essence of any blue material is timing. If you sit on it, it becomes vulgar. – Danny la Rue

·       It is only the dull who like practical jokes. – Oscar Wilde

·       When a society has to resort to the lavatory for its humour, the writing is on the wall. – Alan Bennett

Tailpiece

HUSBAND'S message: "Honey I got hit by a car outside the office. Tina brought me to hospital. They have been doing tests and taking X-rays. The blow to my head is heavy but will not cause any serious long-lasting injury. But I have three broken ribs, a broken arm, a compound fracture in the left leg and they might have to amputate the right foot."

Wife's reply: "Who's Tina?"

Last word

 

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.

Carl Jung

 

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