Tense
times for the
diplomats
WHO would be a diplomat, British or American? It's likely to be a long three days for them as President Donald Trump pays a state visit to the UK.
There'll be plenty of pomp and circumstance – a state banquet, 21-gun salutes, interaction with royalty – but a whole lot of other things as well.
There will be street protests, numbering in the hundreds of thousands if Trump's last brief "working visit" is anything to go by.
The "Trump Baby" will almost certainly be there, a huge blimp of Trump depicted as an orange-haired baby in a nappy. Also a talking robot in the form of Donald Trump sitting on the loo, built in America especially for the occasion and shipped to the UK.
Will Trump react to all this? What might he say anyway about just about anything? What might he tweet?
Will he at any stage link up with arch-Brexiteer Nigel Farage, who he counts as a friend and suggests ought to be conducting the Brexit negotiations?
Never a dull moment. There, there Carruthers. No need to apply for a posting to Outer Mongolia. It'll be over in a matter of days. Have another whisky and soda, old boy.
Feathered friend
A DRIVER in Germany was saved from a speeding fine by a pigeon that flew between his vehicle and a traffic enforcement camera at just the right moment.
Just as the radar clocked the driver at 54 km/h in a 30km/h zone and the camera flashed, the pigeon flew in front of the car, obscuring the face of the driver with its spread wings and concealing the necessary evidence of who was at the wheel, according to Huffington Post.
The Viersen police said that "thanks to the feathered guardian angel," the driver was spared a €105 (R1 733) fine but should take it as "a sign from above" to slow down.
Luxury effect
A STUDY in South Africa by scientists from three universities – Turin (Italy), Cape Town and Wits – has come to the somewhat unstartling conclusion that birdlife is richer and biodiversity probably higher in the affluent leafy suburbs than in poor neighbourhoods.
Duh! Did anyone expect anything different? Boids need trees.
But it's apparently significant and is known as the "luxury effect".
How about a follow-up study of birdlife and biodiversity in places such as Hluhluwe/Mfolozi, in spite of the complete absence of human wealth and luxury.
The poverty paradox. This is pioneering stuff.
Carbon tax
INVESTMENT analyst Dr James Greener addresses in his latest grumpy newsletter the issue of the carbon tax – on greenhouse gases, believed to have a dangerous impact on the planet.
He notes that governments are receptive to any idea that can be taxable and South Africans are to be taxed at R120 per ton of "carbon dioxide emission, or equivalent."
"Doubtless the legislation clearly defines what is meant by the terms emitted and equivalent. And it presumably explains how to measure the weight of a gas, since virtually every member of the animal kingdom exhales this apparently noxious fume and needs to be able to calculate its liability."
He says he has no intention of entering the debate about carbon dioxide and the effects on the world's climate - "beyond opining that not one penny of the collected levy in this country will be spent on confirming that it's true."
Tailpiece
Never trust a wife's judgement. Look who she married.
Last word
Hard work never killed anybody, but why take a chance?
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