The Idler, Friday, August 30, 2019

The drunk

horse in a

willow tree

 

Spring is sprung, da grass is riz,

I wonder where da boidies is.

Da boids is on da wing – or so I hoid.

But dat's absoid – da wings is on da boid!

 

 

YEP, on Sunday it will be officially spring. But why this unseasonal chill in the air? Except it's not unseasonal in this part of the world, it's our time of cold snaps.

The first time I was in falling snow it was September in East Griqualand. And boy, was it falling? For three days the town of Matatiele was cut off from the outside world, road and rail. The only people mobile were the farmers on their tractors..

The pubs didn't close – an emergency, you understand – and a well-known local farmer slid his vehicle into the railings of the river bridge on his way home. He made a statement to the cops "for insurance purposes".

The statement: "A drunk horse fell out of a willow tree onto me."

Yes, them wuz the days. EG, the last outpost of the Wild West.

Meanwhile, Dave Holland, the Bard of Bazely Beach sends in his annual Ode to Spring.

 

Spring is sprung once again and our country's a mess.
Just quite where we're headed is anyone's guess.
O that we could just forget the issues of the past
And all get on with the job of fixing things fast.
We used to drive on the left when the roads were well kept,
Now we dodge potholes and drive on the bits that are left.
Maybe it's time for KZN to have its own University of Roads
And  to pass a law that the railways carry all heavy loads.
Every day we seem to be getting another new warning
About the dire consequences of global warming.
With the imminent arrival of climate change
What kind of a spring are we going to get in exchange?
Perhaps it's time for us to all join in an impassioned prayer
That mankind can find a way to replace the ozone layer,
And if we had  politicians who would  practise what they preach
Just Imagine what heights our  country would be able to reach.

 

 

Women's Month

 

AS WOMEN'S Month draws to a close, some succinct lines from Dr Deena Padayachee.

 

Men may rant and rave,
Torture and slaughter,
Burn and pillage,
But in the end it is the wise ladies who give birth to the future.

HEY, I'm invited as an Old Collegian to a game of touch rugby tomorrow against the Horseflies (DHS Old Boys) at DHS.

You have to be over 35. I guess I qualify, but why touch rugby? I'm in crashtackling mode, getting in the mood for watching the Sharks' semi-final.

DHS is just across the road from the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties. Can I bring a few of the damsels as cheerleaders?

 

Tailpiece

 

What do you call a girl with a frog on her head?
Lily.

 

Last word

 

Skiing consists of wearing $3 000 worth of clothes and equipment and driving 200 miles in the snow in order to stand around at a bar and drink. – P J O'Rourke

The Idler, Thursday, August 29, 2019

Better

stories than

grandpa's

 

A DELIGHTFUL little book comes this way, lent to me by a friend who bought it in Dar-es-Salaam, where he was on business.

It's called Memoirs of a Whenwe – Colonial experiences in Tanganyika and is written by "Babu", which is Swahili for "Grandfather".

Babu has self-published this book, immaculately in hardback, and he starts off by telling us how, as a five-year-old, he sat on his grandfather's knee and lapped up the stories Grandpa told him, believing every word.

One was about how he and "Uncle Bill" used to hunt bears. Uncle Bill would sneak up on the bear and tickle it under its armpits. Then, as the bear opened its mouth to laugh, Grandpa would plunge his arm down its throat, reach down to its tail, then turn it inside out.

It was with some shock and distress that Babu eventually discovered that Grandpa was a bit of a fibber. Babu assures us that his book contains no such fibs.

Which is perhaps just as well because the reader might otherwise be sceptical about Babu breaking his arm in a game of darts.

The book is a memoir of Babu's posting – along with his wife and their small baby boy  -as a metallurgist in the colonial service to the small town of Dodoma, in Tanganyika, in the aftermath of World War II.

How do you break your arm playing darts? Well it was mixed darts at the Dodoma Club and the club rules were that at a certain point of the game the male player had to seize his female partner, lift her off her feet and run round the dining room with her in his arms.

Entering into the spirit of things, her husband rugby tackled them and Babu crashed into a doorpost, fracturing his arm.

I understand such behaviour is frowned upon in the Durban Club and the Country Club, but in Dodoma it was the rule.

Then there was the lion and the looking glass. This couple lived in a very rough hut, the door consisting of thorn tree branches. Their business partner, a bachelor, lived in a similar hut next door.

She hated the thorn branch door. He bought her a magnificent plate glass replacement. Then one night they were in bed under double layers of mosquito netting when they heard a scratching. at the door. They lit the paraffin lamp. The illumination caused the lion to see his reflection in the door. Enraged at the sudden appearance of a rival lion, he struck out – and the door was shattered.

Next the lion was inside, ripping away the mosquito netting, getting entangled in it then running outside in a panic – where he knocked down the bachelor neighbour who was investigating the disturbance.

The lion skeddaddled and the three took brandy for medicinal purposes until dawn. Marvellous stuff.

Babu eventually retired to the offshore island of Zamzibar which, after independence, became incorporated with Tanganyika – today's Tanzania. He tells us he and his wife first fell in love on the Isle of Man, in the Irish Sea. They fell in love again in Zanzibar. What comes across is a great affection for the country and all its people.

 

Tailpiece

 

A ROMAN walks into a bar and asks for a martinus.

"You mean a martini?"

"If I wanted a double I'd ask for it."

 

Last word

 

A painting in a museum hears more ridiculous opinions than anything else in the world. - Edmond de Goncourt

The Idler, Wednesday, August 28, 2019

Bouncer

from a pace

bowler

LAST week we recorded the discussions of a panel of expertise in the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties on the question of batsmen being hit on the head lately by fast bowlers.

The consensus was that the introduction of safety helmets seems to have induced complacency. Batsmen seem to have lost the instinct to duck. None of us could recall batsmen being hit on the head in the days before safety helmets.

But we wuz wrong. Reader Robin Thorpe referred our findings to Peter Pollock, former opening bowler for South Africa. He replies with a bouncer.

"Bill Lawry, John Edrich, Berry Versveld and Kevin Commins are just four of the top batsmen that I hit on the head and put in hospital.

"It used to be far more dangerous. Fear was a major factor and fast bowlers ruled the Test cricket world. Then came the helmets and the padding."

Er, on second thoughts I withdraw my invitation for Peter Pollock to bowl at me in the nets.

 

 

 

Tweetalig

A POEM comes this way that can be read in either English or Afrikaans.

My pen is in my wonderland,

Word water in my hand.

In my pen is wonder ink.

Stories sing. Stories sink.

 

My stories loop. My stories stop.

My pen is my wonder mop.

Drink letters. Drink my ink.

My pen is blind. My stories blink.

 

Hey, that's clever. It comes from a senior Durban advocate. You should hear him addressing the bench on the intricacies of Roman-Dutch law. You can read the transcript in Latin, Afrikaans or English.

 

 

Tarzan cops

 

THE Police in Devon, England, don't often get called out to deal with a crocodile in a swamp.

But a Kingsbridge couple reported spotting the crocodile while out walking their dogs, according to Sky News..

The cops went into Tarzan mode and searched a marsh at Loddiswell. They found the croc – a child's toy made of plastic.

 

 

Warm greetings

 

A MESSAGE from the Cold War days … Tyler Ivanoff was gathering driftwood on the shores of western Alaska when he found a sealed bottle washed up. Opening it with a screwdriver, he found a scrawled note inside in a foreign language that turned out to be Russian which – in spite of his surname – he was unable to read.

Russian-speakers on Facebook translated for him, according to Huffington Post.

"Sincere greetings! From the Russian Far East Fleet mother ship VRXF Sulak I greet you who finds the bottle and request that you respond to the address Vladivostok -43 BRXF Sulak to the whole crew. We wish you good health and long years of life and happy sailing. 20 June 1969."

That was 50 years ago. Russian TV journalists tracked down the writer, Captain Anatolii Botsanenko, now aged 86 who was most upset to be told his ship, the Sulak, had been broken up for scrap.

A friendly message in 1969 – Wow, the Cold War was frigid in those days. Interesting that Tyler Ivanoff should have a Russian surname. Would he be a descendant of the handful of Russians who were in Alaska when it was sold to America in 1887?

 

Tailpiece

IT'S the depths of the Cold War. Two soldiers are standing near the Berlin Wall.

"Comrade, are you thinking what I am thinking?"

"Yes, I am."

"Then I'm afraid I have to arrest you."

 

Last word

Success usually comes to those who are too busy to be looking for it. - Henry David Thoreau

 

The Idler, Tuesdau, August 27, 2019

War crisis –

but where's

the enemy?

 

IF THE Ashes series in England is looking a little desultory with intermittent washouts by rain, the Brexit drama is ramping up to take centre stage.

While Prime Minister Boris Johnson goes to Europe to present a no-deal Brexit ultimatum, bolstered by a majority of one in a House of Commons that has already voted firmly against such a thing, MPs are clamouring for an early end to the summer recess so they can return and take control.

There are swirlings for a vote of no confidence, a repeal of the measure that would see Brexit on October 31, deal or no deal; for a caretaker government of national unity.

Meanwhile a leaked government document – codenamed Yellowhammer – sketches a no-deal scenario that could include paralysis at the ports, congested motorways, food and medicine shortages, fuel shortages, job losses, recession and possible civil insurrection that would have to be curbed.

Wartime stuff? Except this time there's no enemy. It's entirely self-inflicted. You couldn't make it up.

But not to worry, Donald Trump will come to the Brits' assistance with a trade deal to replace their current deal with the EU. Er, except that such a deal is not in his power. It would have to be approved by Congress. And the House of Representatives will not approve anything that threatens the Good Friday agreement on Northern Ireland. The Irish-American lobby is a strong one.

Do we have here the Achilles Heel of Brexit? The Good Friday Agreement made the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic in the south all but irrelevant, just about ending a conflict that has lasted nearly 330 years.

Yet is it possible to have a trading bloc – the EU – with an open border with another country, the UK?

Is this not a question that should have been addressed before the Brexit referendum was even called?

Sturm und drang. What a Punch and Judy show. But maybe England will win the toss in the Third Test and start whacking the Aussies about. It might take their minds off Brexit for a few days.

 

FEELINGS are running high in Blighty. Reader Nick Gray sends in a collection of insults from another age that the Brits might find useful today:

·       Lord Sandwich: "'Pon my soul Wilkes, you will either die of the pox or upon the gallows." Wilkes (a radical MP): "That depends Milord on whether I embrace your mistress or your principles."

·       "He had delusions of adequacy." - Walter Kerr.

·       "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." - Oscar Wilde.

·       "He loves nature in spite of what it did to him." - Forrest Tucker.

·       "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?" - Mark Twain.

·       "His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork." - Mae West.

·       "He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts ... for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang.

·       He has Van Gogh's ear for music." - Billy Wilder.

·       "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire." - Winston Churchill.

 

 

Tailpiece

"WHAT'S that you've got there, Paddy?"

"A thermos flask. It keeps hot tings hot and cold tings cold."

"What've you got in it?"

"Two choc ices and a coffee."

Last word

A bookstore is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking. - Jerry Seinfeld

The Idler, Monday, August 26, 2019

Bonhomie,

raillery and

recollection

'TWAS the great annual lunch get-together last weekend up at Salt Rock of old boys of the traditional schools of this province, an occasion of great bonhomie and good-natured raillery.

And you always learn something new. The fellow I gave a lift from Durban told me of the occasion during his years at Maritzburg College when two of his fellow-boarders decided to pull a fast one on Gunstons, the cigarette manufacturers.

These fellows smoked Gunston – smoking was absolutely prohibited of course – and they figured that if they wrote to the compauy complaining about the quality of cigarettes they had bought, Gunstons would send them a carton each, buckshee. They gave their address as Clarke House, Maritzburg College

Next thing they were ordered to report to the headmaster's office. Guntons had posted two cartons of cigarettes to the headmaster, with a note asking him to pass them on to the two boys.

A wicked sense of humour they have at Gunstons. (They possibly had some Hilton old boys in their employ). The Boss (as the headmaster is known at Maritzburg College) was not amused. Each boy was given six of the best and – worst of all – the two cartons of ciggies were confiscated.

I wonder if the Gunstons people ever found out how well their fiendish trick had worked?

On to the lunch, where the Salt Rock Hotel lays on the best mutton curry to be found anywhere. It's always a great bash, lots of fun and camaraderie. A few beers as well (but who's counting?).

And this time we had two high calibre guest speakers – Wynand Claassen, former Natal and Springbok rugby skipper, and Pat Trimborn, former Natal and South African cricketer, an off-spin bowler and more than useful batsman. A double whammy.

Pat spoke first, taking us on an entertaining trip through South Africa's re-admission to world cricket. There was the occasion at Lord's where they were introduced to Queen Elizabeth before a Test against England. The players had been coached to address the Queen as "Your Majesty"; also, not to speak to her unless she spoke to them.

To everyone's alarm, she chose to speak to fast bowler Fanie de Villiers. She asked why they no longer had the Springbok displayed on their shirts.

"It escaped, Your Highworshipness," he replied.

The Queen smiled sweetly.

Wynand – originally from Pretoria and Northern Transvaal - is the man who led Natal rugby to a position where we were to win the Currie Cup for the first time in 1990. He spoke with great feeling of that build-up and the thrill of watching that Currie Cup final.

Nobody was rude enough to shout "Onions!" as they often did in the days before he retired. It came from an incident in a Natal match when Wynand, as skipper, had to shout a word beginning with the letter "U" – code for where a line-out throw-in should go. Unaccustomed to English spelling, he shouted "Onions!" causing great confusion.

Wynand was kind enough to attribute the success of rugby in this province to its grounding in the traditional schools. Both he and Pat Trimborn got standing ovations.

 

Tailpiece

 

GIVE a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach him how to fish and he'll sit in a boat and drink beer all day.

 

Last word

I was going to have cosmetic surgery until I noticed that the doctor's office was full of portraits by Picasso. -Rita Rudner

The Idler, Friday, August 16, 2019

Focus on the

Land of the Long

White Underpants

CAN the Sharks confound the statisticians and make it two in a row against the Lions this weekend? After last weekend's performance against top-of-the-log Free State, anything can happen.

Yet, just as it was during the southern hemisphere Rugby Championship, and is again now in the Currie Cup, attention is focused ahead on the looming World Cup tournament in Japan.

Yes, the Boks are playing Argentina tomorrow in a friendly at Loftus but it's the second-string Boks and there's nothing at stake. The focus is on Eden Park, down in the Land of the Long White Underpants, where the Aussies are playing the All Blacks s in the Bledisloe Cup.

But it's not the Bledisloe Cup we're concerned about, we want to know if the All Blacks have a reply to their drubbing at the hands of Australia. Can their forwards regroup and dominate?

Because, of course, it's the All Blacks the Boks meet in their opening match of the World Cup in just a matter of weeks now.

Yet, in all this flux, there's a constant. The damsels of the Street Shelter for the Over Forties will be out in force, eager to volunteer their knicker elastic for a fashioning of catapults for the traditional celebratory feu de joie in which the streetlights are shot out.

'Erewego, 'erewego, 'erewego!

 

Seagulls

HOW to stop a seagull pinching your sandwich if you're having a picnic on the beach – you stare fixedly at him. He'll back down and walk away.

Gulls can't handlle eye contact, researchers at the University of Exeter, in the West Country of England, have discovered.

They've been putting in some intensive research on the local beaches. Gulls are voracious and aggressive eaters but when a human fixes the gimlet eye on them, they get hesitant and walk away. But as soon as the human looks away again, they dart back for the grub. Then back off when they get another hard stare. Some amusing footage of this research has been aired on BBC and Sky TV.

It's good to know that such useful research is being conducted. We await follow-up research into how, while you're staring at seagulls, you can avoid the fox terrier stealing your boerewors.

 

Music, music, music …

THE world of music. A fellow in Portland, Oregon, in the US, was learning to play the saxophone. But whenever he practised in front of his dog it went beserk and started chewing his mouthpiece reeds, according to Huffington Post.

So Rick Hermann tried driving out into the country and playing to the cows. He was a sensational hit.

He started playing a handful of tunes - including George Michael's Careless Whisper ― and a large group of cows scattered throughout a field walked over and gathered round him.

"I thought they might be curious," he says. "I guess I didn't expect them to crowd the fence so much."

Videos of the performances have won Hermann numerous fans on Twitter, including legendary saxophonist Kenny G.

Opportunity beckons for Rick Herman. Could he become a Pied Piper of the milking shed?

 

Tailpiece

A GIRL who marries a man for his money spends the rest of her life looking for a little change.

Last word

I no longer prepare food or drink with more than one ingredient. - Cyra McFadden
 

The Idler, Thursday, August 15, 2019

Isipingo,

the only place

to be

 

A SPIRIT of disaffection seems to be abroad, a discontent with things as they are.

In London there's a temporary respite from the pro and anti demos outside parliament until the MPs return from their summer recess, but expect it to be stepped up as the Brexit question continues to drive a wedge through society that ignores party political demarcations.

And in America the convention of closing ranks after a presidential election and supporting the office has altogether disappeared

Anger and hyperbole are the order of the day, whether emanating from the White House itself by Twitter or from a spread of opposing quarters.

Nutcase massacres with lethal automatic weapons could well be a further tragic symptom of a divide that begins to look like the Grand Canyon.

Now the New Yorker reports that a government-subsidised housing structure has fallen into a dangerous state "and has become thoroughly infested with criminals and rats".

"The building has become 'the territory of vicious gangsters who roam freely and consider themselves above the law,'" a congressman is quoted saying.

"The congressman added that notorious gang members took over the housing facility in early 2017 and have 'spread terror and despair' there ever since. 'People are scared to be there,' he said. 'Hundreds have fled.'"

The piece is illustrated with a picture of the White House.

Look, this is pungent satire by Andy Borowitz. It uses the images Donald Trump himself tweeted to to describe the part of Baltimore represented by Democrat Congressman Elijah Cummings. It's funny if you're not a supporter of Trump.

But "criminals", "rats" and "vicious gangsters"? What does it not say about the polarisation of America?

Peaceful Isipingo looks increasingly the only place to be.

 

 

A nipple a day

AMERICAN comedian Whitney Cummings put on Instagram a selfie of her eating a lychee in the bath. She noticed afterwards that a nipple was showing so she deleted the shot, according to the BBC.

But somebody had taken a screenshot before she deleted. Next she got a message asking how much she would pay for it not to be shared.

At which Whitney reposted the shot of her nipple and replied: "If anyone is gonna make money or likes off my nipple, it's gonna be me. So here it all is, you foolish dorks."

Attagirl!

I'm not sure if she's related to the Congressman Cummings mentioned above.

 

Lingering kiss

YOU don't kiss an octopus. A woman in Washington state, in the US, was in a salmon fishing derby in Tacoma Narrows when one of her friends caught a small octopus.

Here was her chance to at least win the photo section of the contest, Jamie Bisceglia thought. She grabbed the octopus off her friend's hook, put it against her face and called for a photograph, according to Huffington Post.

The tentacles covered her ears and nose. It made a hilarious shot.

But then Jamie battled to get the octopus off her face. An octopus doesn't take kindly to being made a figure of fun in a photo contest. It had bitten Jamie's chin and wouldn't let go.

Eventually she managed to pull it free but was bleeding profusely. A fun photo became not such fun.

It's all happening in the Tacoma Narrows.

 

 

Tailpiece

 

WHAT has eight guns and terrorises the ocean? Billy the Squid.

 

Last word

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. - Thomas Szasz