Now it's the
World Cup
Warm-Ups
SUDDENLY the Rugby World Cup Warm-Ups are upon us. Tomorrow it's the Aussies at Ellis Park. Next week it's the All Blacks at Wellington, down in the Land of the Long White Underpants.
Is this fair? What about travel fatigue, jetlag? No problem, we've got two Springbok sides, one of them already down there in New Zealand, the other warming up on the highveld for tomorrow.
This certainly is a novel approach by coach Rassie. I'm sure it's never been tried before. It seems to aim at giving double the number of our players international exposure in the run-up to the World Cup, while limiting the number of games they have to play as individuals, limiting exhaustion, burn-out and jetlag.
Crafty, eh? Rassie is an old fox.
We'll also watch with interest what happens between the All Blacks and the Pumas in Argentina, And possibly with greater interest whether the All Blacks side that plays in Argentina tomorrow is the same one that will play us in Wellington. International rugby is becoming a game of chess.
The Rugby World Cup Warm-Ups? Er, they're also known as the southern hemisphere Rugby Championship. But who cares who wins? It's the World Cup that matters.
Some things don't change though. The damsels of the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties are already strumming at their knickers in anticipation of supplying the elastic for a fashioning of catapults for the traditional celebratory feu de joie, in which the streetlights are shot out.
Stonehenge
THEY keep coming up with new theories about Stonehenge, that mysterious neolithic circle of large stones and slabs that was set up many thousands of years ago in what is now the English county of Wiltshire.
The Druids and others invest it with great religious significance. Some say it has a mathematical significance from before the days of the Greek mathematicians. But nobody can say who built Stonehenge and for what reason.
According to the London Daily Mail, scholars of antiquity have now discovered traces of animal fats stored in surprising quantity in ancient pottery discovered in the vicinity of Stonehenge. This leads them to theorise that the fats were used, not for human consumption but as a lubricant for the sleds on which the stones were dragged to Stonehenge from where they had been quarried.
Well yes, maybe. But it gets us no closer to the core of the mystery of Stonehenge.
So far nobody has bettered the explanation of Punch, the British humour magazine. Stonhenge was a funfair-style miniature railway, according to Punch. The Ancient Britons dismantled it when the Romans arrived, so their technology could not be stolen. Punch illustrated it with a magnificent cartoon of a kiddies' toy train chugging along the raised circle of stones.
Punch, alas, is no more. After publishing succcessfully for 151 years, featuring some superb writing and artwork, it went down the drain in 1992 after the owners tried to update it with an appeal to "yoof", dropping its distinctive style and tone and going ultra-mod. That was funny as a lead balloon.
You could say Stonehenge and Punch are now as one.
Tailpiece
A RUGBY player tells the doctor: "I've just been playing a tough game. Now when I touch my legs, my arms, my head, my tummy and anywhere else, it really hurts."
Doctor: "You've broken your finger."
Last word
Computer dating is fine, if you're a computer.
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