The Idler, Friday, June 28, 2019

It's the

great seals

singalong

 

SCIENTISTS in Scotland have taught seals to sing songs like Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and to copy human voice patterns. It's happening at St Andrew's University, where three grey seals have been coached as songsters since birth.

And the three little fellers have done pretty well, according to the journal, Current Biology. Researcher Vincent Janik says they wanted to find out whether seals could be taught to copy melodies and the sounds made in human speech. They took to it with enthusiasm.

"It takes hundreds of trials to teach the seal what we want it to do, but once they get the idea they can copy a new sound pretty well at the first attempt," Janik says.

One seal, named Zola, has learned to bark out both Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and the theme music to Star Wars.

Science progresses by leaps and bounds. How long before we have the Seals Singalong on TV? An entirely new genre is waiting to burst upon us.

But caution is advised. It's all very well teaching Scottish seals to sing, but care must be taken to immerse them in wholesome music, not the kind of stuff you can encounter in Scotland, such as Robbie Burns's The Ball of Kirriemuir. It would not do to have innocent young seals like Zola describing Mrs MacGinty diving off the mantlepiece and bouncing on her, er, protuberances.

Yes, it's progress. Let nobody suggest that teaching seals to sing is a pointless exercise. Why, my scouts tell me our own Ushaka Marine World are very much on to it and are planning to launch a duet of a seal and a porpoise singing Girls Were Made To Hug And Kiss. That would be a hit world-wide. Watch this space!

 

 

Scary bird

 

A BIRD in hair curlers can be pretty scary, to be sure. But does it call for an arrest?

 

Er, perhaps I'm misreading this item from Sky News. It's 34 birds. Guyanese finches to be exact. Each one was hidden inside a plastic hair curler in the hand luggage of a fellow named Francis Gurahoo who had flown into JFK Airport, New York, from Guyana.

 

He planned to sell them for $3 000 each (R42 600) to be used in bird-singing contests in Brooklyn and Queens.

 

Hey, that's big money. Apparently these bird-singing contests are the Big Thing in Brooklyn and Queens and Guyanese finches are far superior as songsters to their American counterparts. The Brooklyn and Queens bird-fanciers are prepared to pay. And if a finch wins a competition, the price tag immediately goes up to $5 000.

 

But unfortunately for Gurahoo he got busted at Customs. Drat! Did the 34 finches start singing in unison to celebrate getting to America?

 

 

Oxymorons

 

THE oxymoron – a concise paradox of seemingly opposing meaning – is one of English literature's clever tricks. Shakespeare used it often, as here in Romeo and Juliet:

Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.
Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.
Why then, O brawling love, O loving hate…

 

Reader Nick Gray sends in a collection of amusing oxymorons: found missing; open secret; small crowd; act naturally; clearly misunderstood; fully empty; pretty ugly; seriously funny; only choice; original copies; exact estimate; tragic comedy; foolish wisdom; liquid gas; happily married.

 

Tailpiece

 

WHAT'S the difference between a lawnmower and the bagpipes?

You can tune a lawnmower.

 

Last word

 

Of those who say nothing, few are silent. - Thomas Neill

The Idler Thursday, June 27, 2019

Adventure

in Namibia –

Ee ba goom!

 

TODAY we have a real-life adventure story, a thrilling yarn set in the wilds of Africa. Starring are Aussie Dick Cocks, who came out here years ago to play rugger for DHS Old Boys and Natal (between time spent pounding the piano); went on to become a Natal selector; then eventually went back to the billabong after we won the Currie Cup for the first time in 1990.

Co-starring are a team of his Aussie cobbers, all of them with their better halves. Plus a Kiwi accompanied by his better threequarters.

Plus a Yorkshireman, who Cocksy played with for DHSOB, and his missus, who they picked up here in Durban to join their safari to Namibia, Zululand, Swaziland (which they now call Eswatini), Kruger National Park and Mozambique. As you read this, they are at Tembe Elephant Park, just beneath the Mozambique border, sipping Laurentina and Deux M.

The Yorkshireman actually overshadows the other stars in this story, for an adventure that befell him on the Namibia leg of the safari. It would be invidious and unfair to identify him. To save possible embarrassment we shall use the code name Dave 'Oodson (though he might be recognised by other habitues of the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties).

One night in Namibia, our Dave drank a quantity of lemonade then fell into the Okavango River, which flows past their camp chalets. The Okavango teems with crocodiles, hippo, pythons and other creatures generally termed undesirable for swimming with. .

The Aussies and the Kiwi went in after him to pull him out. They succeeded. But not before there was panic and pandemonium among the crocodile and hippo population of the river when they realised a Yorkshireman was in their midst. The crocodiles scuttled away downstream, followed by the hippos bellowing in terror.

It's caused a temporary ecological crisis on that stretch of river. There are no crocs and hippos for the tourists to watch.

"You've got to remember that a Yorkshireman is an alien and noxious species," said a spokesman for the Namibian parks department. "Those crocs and hippos would get a fright having Aussies and a Kiwi in the water with them, that's true. But they would recover soon enough. However, a Yorkshireman – that's different.

"We have to be very careful not to upset the natural environment. This is a wake-up call. We have a lot of wild parrots along that stretch of river. We don't want them saying things like 'Ee ba goom!', 'Eyoop, lad!' and 'On Ilkley Moor baht'at'. It would upset the balance of nature.

"Also, we're disturbed by reports that this Yorkshireman actually kissed one of the female crocodiles. If that's true, we'll have to find her and offer her counselling. No crocodile can cope with being kissed by a Yorkshireman. It's a very tricky situation that's arisen …"

Tricky indeed. And the really odd thing is that our Dave 'Oodson remembers nothing at all about it. Post-traumatic stress, I guess. We wait with bated breath to learn what transpired at Tembe. Fraternising with the baboons? Watch this space.

Nowt so queer as folk.

 

 

Tailpiece

 

THIS fellow walks into a bar with a crocodile.

He asks the bartender: "Do you serve lawyers here?"

"Yes, of course."

"Great, I'll have a beer for myself and a lawyer for my crocodile."

 

Last word

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. - Noel Coward

 

he Idler, Wednesday, June 26, 2019

What can lift

this national

gloom?

IT'S the end of the road in the Super 12 competition for both the Sharks and the Bulls … it's very close to the end of the road in the Cricket World Cup for the Proteas.

Is there anything to lift the country's spirits? Will Bafana Bafana pull something off? Unlikely so far. Are we totally reliant on the gals in the Netball World Cup in Liverpool next month?

Have things ever been more dismal?

One senses shock and regret even among our opponents that the Proteas just didn't come to the party in England, didn't do themselves justice.

Here's what Andy Zaltzman, humorist and BBC cricket columnist has to say about it.

"In a tournament that has largely proceeded according to form, rankings and expectations, South Africa are the one team who have significantly diverged from predictions.

"They have bowled adequately, but not in the manner of a team that, coming into the tournament, possessed two of the top five in the ODI rankings (Kagiso Rabada and Imran Tahir).

"As a team, they have batted with the fluency of a rhinoceros trying to play a Beethoven piano sonata during a rough ocean crossing on a slightly leaky 17th-century warship.

"Their batsmen collectively have the third lowest strike-rate (81 per 100 balls), ahead only of Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. No team has scored a lower percentage of its runs off the bat in boundaries (42%)."

(This was written soon after the New Zealand match).

"Only Sri Lanka have scored boundaries less frequently - South Africa have reached or cleared the rope once every 12.6 balls; England's figure is 7.8; six other teams are between nine and 10.

"Over the course of a 50-over innings, South Africa are averaging more than 70 boundary runs fewer than England, 35-45 fewer than most other teams in the tournament, and around 30 fewer than they themselves were averaging in ODIs played in between the last World Cup and this one.

"It has been a strange decline that even the absence of the wizardry of AB de Villiers cannot fully explain."

Zaltzman is so right. It's alarming. Will this decline seep into our Test cricket where we're still fourth in the world rankings? How realistic is that ranking?

A snotklap for the Aussies in the final ODI would work wonders for morale. But will it happen? I'm afraid we're absolutely dependent on Bafana and the netball gals.

Out of nowhere

OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties: "Sometimes someone unexpected comes into your life outta nowhere, makes your heart race and changes you forever. We call these people cops".

Tailpiece

A POLICEMAN in England pulls over a driver who has been weaving on the road.

"Sir, I need you to blow into this breathalyser."

But the driver reaches into his pocket and pulls out a doctor's note. "This man suffers from chronic asthma. Do not make him perform any action that may leave him short of breath."

"Okay, then I need you to come down and give a blood sample."

The driver produces another doctor's note. "This man is a haemophilliac. Please do not cause him to bleed in any way."

"Right, I need a urine sample then."

He produces another letter from his pocket. "This man plays cricket for South Africa. Please don't take the piss out of him."

 

Last word

There is no reciprocity. Men love women, women love children, children love hamsters. - Alice Thomas Ellis

 

The Idler, Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Mystery

story from

Camberwell

IT'S an extraordinary story this about the cops visiting the flat of Tory leadership candidate Boris Johnson and his girlfriend Carrie Symonds in Camberwell, south London, in the early hours to investigate screams, shouts, banging and what sounded like smashing crockery.

They had been called by a neighbour who was "concerned for a woman's safety". Another neighbour also heard the ruckus.

A police spokesperson said officers "attended and spoke to all occupants of the address, who were all safe and well. There were no offences or concerns apparent to the officers and there was no cause for police action."

These poltergeists are becoming a great nuisance in Camberwell.

 

Wrong tense

INVESTMENT analyst Dr James Greener appears to have been not quite bowled over by President Ramaphosa's State of the Nation address last week. It's a grammatical question of using the correct tense.

"State of the Nation is really a highly misleading title for the sort of speeches that our presidents make from time to time. Aside from giving people an excuse to get togged up in the most amazing garb, by its very name its content should be delivered entirely without using the future tense.

"We want to hear what our government has managed to do for us and as a result exactly where we are now. Instead we are treated to a celebration of what it is going to do – which experience suggests is never going to happen anyway.

"We were offered a selection of President Cyril's dreams. These included "…a South Africa where the first entirely new city built in the democratic era rises, with skyscrapers, schools, universities, hospitals and factories."

"Hmmm well, yes that sounds like fun. But first can we please hear from the erstwhile chairman of the Eskom War Room what has been done to provide enough electricity for the existing cities. "The sole interesting but unsurprising item he told us of the future was that Eskom was going to gets its wodge of taxpayers' money earlier than budgeted."

 

 

More Monty Python

Yesterday we discussed Monty Python's Flying Circus, the hilarious British TV satire – I suppose you could call it that – which took the world by storm in the 1970s. Many of today's readers might never have heard of it, so for their benefit here's another excerpt.

It's the Philosophers Song from the Australian University of Wallamooloo, where every member of faculty is called Bruce.

 

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant

Who was very rarely stable,

Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar

Who could think you under the table.

David Hume could out-consume

Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

And Wittgenstein was a beery swine

Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya

'Bout the raising of the wrist,

Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will

With half a pint of shandy got particularly ill,

Plato, they say, could stick it away

Half a crate of whisky every day,

Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,

Hobbes was fond of his dram

And Rene Descartes was a drunken fart,

'I drink therefore I am'.

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed,

A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.

 

Oh, lovely stuff. What happened to that humour mill?

 

 

Tailpiece

 

What did the bartender say when Charles Dickens ordered a martini?
"Olive or twist?"

 

Last word

 

I'm worried that the universe will soon need replacing. It's not holding a charge. - Edward Chilton

The Idler, Monday, June 24, 2019

Robbery

at banana-

point

A MAN who robbed a bank while using a banana as an imitation firearm has been jailed for 14 months. He threatened a cashier at a Barclays branch in Bournemouth, England, with a banana wrapped in a plastic bag, shouting: "This is a stick-up, give me the cash!"

He took £1 100 in cash (R20 108) before handing himself in at a nearby police station, according to Sky News.

How odd. Whatever could have possessed him? Was he perhaps a follower of Monty Python's Flying Circus, that wonderful TV show in days of yore?

Who remembers the sketch of the regimental sergeant-major teaching a squad how to defend themselves against a man armed with a banana?

RSM : "Right! Bananas! 'Ow to defend yourself against a man armed wiv a banana. 'Ere, you, take this." (Throws  a banana) "Now, it's quite simple to defend yourself against the banana fiend. First of all, you force him to drop the banana, next you eat the banana, thus disarming 'im. You 'ave now rendered 'im 'elpless."
	"Suppose he's got a bunch."
	"Shut up! "
	"Suppose he's got a pointed stick."
	"Shut up! Right now you, Mr Apricot."
	"Harrison."
	"Harrison, Mr Harrison. Come at me with that banana then. Come on, attack me wiv it. As 'ard as you like. Come on! No no no! Put something into it! Hold it, like that. Scream! Now come on, come on...attack me, come on, come on!" Harrison runs towards him shouting; RSM draws a revolver and fires it right in Harrison's face. "Now...I eat the banana …"
	All (in chorus): "You shot him. He's dead...dead. He's completely dead. You've shot him."
	RSM (finishing the banana): "I have now eaten the banana. The deceased Mr Apricot is now disarmed."
	"You shot him. You shot him dead."
	"Well 'e was attacking me wiv a banana."
	"Well, you told him to."
	"Look, I'm only doing me job. I 'ave to show you 'ow to defend yourselves against fresh fruit."
	"And pointed sticks."
	"Shut up!"
	"Supposing someone came at you with a banana and you haven't got a gun?"
	"Run for it."
	"You could stand and scream for help?"
	"You try that with a pineapple down your windpipe."
	"A pineapple?"
	RSM (jumping with fear): "Where? Where?"
	"Nowhere. I was just saying 'pineapple'."
	"Oh blimey, I thought my number was on that one …"   Wonderful stuff, though they say Monty Python is an acquired taste. I acquired it in London many years ago at a time the pubs didn't have TV and they emptied at Monty Python broadcast time as everyone went home to watch. .

 

Taking the rap

AMERICAN female rapper Cardi B – a former stripper - has been formally charged with assault, relating to a fight at a New York City strip club in the Queens precinct.

She was arrested, according to the BBC, for allegedly ordering an attack by her fans on two bartenders at Angels NYC, named as Jade and Baddie G.

On the bench, no doubt, will be Judgee D, the opposing lawyers being Prossie Q and Attorn E.

What's a gal with a name like "Jade" doing mixed up in all this?

Tailpiece

NEWSFLASH – Irish special forces were parachuted into Russia last week with orders to "take out" Vladimir Putin.

So far he's been to the cinema twice … and last night they went ten-pin bowling.

Last word

Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with. - Bob Wells

The Idlere, Friday, June 21, 2019

Now or

never Down

Under

ONCE more unto the breach, dear friends …for us it's the Brumbies tomorrow down in Canberra, in Van Diemensland. The Bulls play the Wellington Hurricanes in the Land of the Long White Underpants.

And if the gods of rugby should so decree, it could be the Sharks against the Bulls in the semis. It's beyond analysis and conjecture. It's time to complete the Shakespearian rugby pep talk with which we began.

When the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger;

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,

Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;

Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;

Let pry through the portage of the head

Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it

As fearfully as doth a galled rock

O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,

Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.

Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,

Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit

To his full height …

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,

Straining upon the start. The game's afoot …

 

Yes, Shakespeare sure knew how to motivate a rugby side for a play-off. He's speaking to every one of the lads.

'Erewego, 'erewego, 'erewego!

 

 

A man's game

HERE'S something odd that arrives. It's a photocopy of an old Idler's column I don't remember putting together.

It consists largely of a lengthy poem extolling the manliness of rugby in days of yore, by comparison with today's game.

The rugby balls in my day, lad, were made of bloody leather,

A bladder stitched with laces was to hold the bastard together.

The outside today has adverts on in supersonic plastic,

They'll reach the sticks from miles away, toe-poked by any spastic …

It carries on in this vein, to end:

We made a try, we saved a try, we played on through the pain,

And crippled, cursing, bleeding – we loved the bloody game …

No, I don't remember assembling this. And when I look at the Tailpiece, it definitely could not have been me.

"Are you a boobs man or a butt man?"

"That's really sexist!"

"Sorry, let me rephrase it: Are you a boobs person or a butt person?"

Ha ha … er, that's disgraceful. I would never have chosen it. A blonde lady of my acquaintance boxes my ears at the slightest hint of sexism.

The photocopy comes from a fellow named Dave Goudie, who says he's been reading the Idler's column for 40 years and is dismayed by my support for the Sharks. He quotes the dictum of his pal, "Red": "Men support the Blue Bulls and Liverpool. The rest support the Sharks and Man United."

I gather that Dave, Red and rest of the Blue Bulls supporters meet regularly in a telephone booth on the beachfront.

But here's an odd thing. As outlined above, the Bulls and the Sharks are in the quarter-finals. They could meet in the semis – maybe even the final.

Duim vashou! And in that case we'll moider da bums! Sorry Dave, Red and the rest of the guys in the telephone booth.

 

Tailpiece

 

THIS fellow and his wife are on the verge of splitting up because of his obsession with rugby. They've decided to give it one last try.

Last word

 

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity. - George Bernard Shaw