Tricky
terrain
ahead
I VENTURE on to treacherous terrain. Readers might recall my recounting, a week or two ago - on receiving the sad news of the death of former Idler Jack Shepherd-Smith - some of the highlights of his career.
One was when he wrote of a beauty contest in Ladysmith that nobody won. The town rose in its wrath.
The town council called a special meeting to pass a motion of censure on The Mercury. A gang of Ladysmith toughs tried to kidnap Jack. It was touch and go. The rest of the province were helpless with laughter. Anything could happen.
Gradually the fuss subsided. Then Jack wrote another piece about a "Miss Lucky Legs" contest they held in Ladysmith. It was won by the billiard table in the Royal Hotel. The town erupted in anger once again. Civil war in the province once again loomed. There was also a faction of Ladysmith folk who were enraged that the grand piano in the town hall had been overlooked.
These were tense times indeed. It took a long time to simmer down. You drove at your peril through Ladysmith in a signwritten Mercury vehicle.
And now we have the Groot Pampoenfees - Giant Pumpkin Festival – at Heidelberg, Gauteng. It draws entrants from all over the country.
It was won last weekend by Jacob du Plessis, who farms at Villiersdorp in the Western Cape. He won with a monster pumpkin weighing an astonishing 601.8kg.
Second and third places went to a husband and wife duo, Piet and Elizna Lotz, of Riversdale, also in the Western Cape.
The Heidelberg Groot Pampoenfees is quite an event. It draws entrants from all over. The winners get nice cash prizes. It's also a fun thing. There's even a contest for the ugliest and the prettiest pumpkin.
Who won that? Er, gals named Josie and Jemima. They're twins.
But which won which? Which was ugliest pumpkin, which was prettiest pumpkin?
It doesn't matter. They're identical twins.
Where are they from?
Er, here we get to that treacherous terrain mentioned earlier. With an election looming, can we afford the risk of civil commotion? Yet a precedent has been set by my illustrious predecessor. Who am I to conceal the facts? The unvarnished truth must out. Publish and be damned!
The gals Josie and Jemima, identical twins, adjudged in Heidelberg as ugliest pumpkin and prettiest pumpkin, are from Ladysmith.
This is an emergency. Call out the marines!
STILL with giant pumpkins, the South African record has been broken at the Walkerville Agricultura Show, also in Gauteng, where a fellow named Peet Joubert produced a whopper weighing 613kg.
Peet says he spends several hours a day giving his prize pumpkin pure love and attention.
Oh, to be in a vegetable patch at Walkerville, caressing a giant pumpkin.
OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "The best way to get a bloke to do something is suggest he's too old to do it."
Tailpiece
A LITTLE Cockney girl and her mother are walking down the road in Greenwich when they see a naval wedding, 12 midshipmen holding up sculling oars at the church entrance to form a bridal arch.
"Coo, mum, look at them oars."
"Them ain't 'ores, luv, them's bridesmaids."
Last word
It is a good rule in life never to apologise. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them.
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