Rugby
puzzlements
lie ahead
A LONG weekend lies ahead. It will contain 80 minutes of rugby for the Boks at altitude in Salta, Argentina. It will also contain 80 minutes of rugby for the Sharks, right here at Kings Park.
Predictions? Argentina is easier. Rassie has built a formidable scrumming machine that ought to give the backs enough front foot to pull it off, preferably with the bonus point to make sure of the southern hemisphere Championship. But then this match is not really about the Championship, it's about the looming World Cup and our opening match against the All Blacks.
Has the World Cup ever been more open? There are the All Blacks, current holders. There are ourselves, newly resurgent. There are England, Ireland and Wales – all at the top of their game.
And never underestimate France. They've been quiet. But they're quite capable of bursting forth in a Gallic flourish.
Kings Park on Saturday? The form book tells us Free State will be hard to beat. But the form book does not take into account the yo-yo effect by which the Sharks seem to operate these days. Anything could happen.
The gals of the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties are prepared for any eventuality, standing by to supply knicker elastic for the traditional celebratory few de joie in which the streetlights are shot out.
'Erewego, 'erewego, 'erewego!
Ashes rout
WOW, humiliation for the Poms in the First Ashes Test. And this just after winning the Cricket World Cup?
Ah, but the Cricket World Cup is one-day. You don't win at chess with the mindset of draughts.
Fracking
IT'S surely with relief that we learn an application for fracking in this province has been withdrawn. Fracking – extraction of natural underground gas by pumping in high-pressure liquid to split the rock structures – comes with all kinds of potential hazards.
It can poison water resources. It can cause earthquakes. And it can have another consequence seldom mentioned. It can destroy the tourism industry.
Tourism, based on an appreciation of the aesthetics of wilderness – does not sit well with fracking headgear.
It's more than 25 years now since conservationists and local activists rescued Lake St Lucia from attempts to have its forested dunes on the Eastern Shores mined for titanium.
The result has been proclamation of the lake and surrounds as a World Heritage Site, promotion of the interlinked Isimangaliso ("Place of Wonders") Wetland Park as a "Big Five" conservation showpiece, adjoining a huge marine reserve.
Even better, Isimangaliso adjoins a similar terrestial/marine conservation area in neighbouring Mozambique, making this an astonishing win for the environment. Had dune mining on the St Lucia shores been allowed to go ahead, all would have come to nought.
Every day we read of the economic hardships ahead – mining in dire straits, industrial production moribund, investment holding back, the ratings agencies poised for the coup de grace … but we do have places like Isimangaliso and Kruger National Park. Surely they need to be promoted and marketed internationally, ridiculous visa difficulties need to be ironed out. Tourism can be a bonanza.
Fracking in some of the most scenically beautiful parts of this province would have been a huge step backwards.
Tailpiece
HIS wife's leaving him because of his obsession with cricket. He's taken it badly. He says it's knocked him for six.
Last word
There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the labour of thinking. - Thomas A Edison
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