Tuesday, September 24, 2019

The Idler, Friday September 20, 2019

Celebrate

with extreme

craziness

THE damsels of the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties are strumming at their knickers in anticipation as the Rugby World Cup kicks off today.

The opening match – Russia versus hosts Japan – will be a festival of colour and excitement. Japan ought to take it, which would cause great joy among the local population, but the real focus is on tomorrow when the Boks meet New Zealand.

Seldom have the two giants of the southern hemisphere been so evenly matched. Their last encounter was a draw. The previous two encounters – a win and a loss for each – had only a couple of deciding points in them.

Will this match be a forerunner of the final? Anything could happen.

The Japanese hosts have put out on the internet comprehensive analyses of every team taking part, weighing up the possibilities. The analyses have a certain quaintness.

"As and when the dates of the Rugby World Cup 2019 is inching closer, the South African team is looking to get into fierce form. Yes, each player of the South African rugby team is trying their hardest to win the contest whereas every player in their team is looking in sublime form.

"Meanwhile, for watching and cheering for your favourite South African rugby team, you can watch RWC matches on an online or offline basis. The choice remains yours whereas you got to choose any option and cheer for the South African Team with whole heart, joy, and extreme craziness."

Well said! Fierce form. Extreme craziness. Whoever wrote that would fit in well at the Street Shelter, where the gals are simply itching to volunteer their knicker elastic for a fashioning of catapults for the traditional celebratory feu de joie in which the streetlights are shot out.

But anything can happen in the end. Never has a rugby world cup been so wide open. Brian O'Driscoll, former Irish centre, predicts – against all his tribal instincts – that England will take it, a well-drilled squad marshalled by the crafty Eddie Jones.

But then why not Ireland? Or Wales? Both are right up there. Why are France so quiet? Are they about to spring a surprise?

Enjoy tomorrow's game. It might turn not to be a forerunner to the final. Rugby is a game played with an unpredictably bouncing oval ball. Anything can happen and it usually does.

Ole, ole, ole!

 

Wig alert

THIEVES broke into a wig warehouse in Miami Gardens, South Florida, in the US, and stole wigs worth $80 000 (R1 176 000) They appeared to know what they were after and were in the premises only five minutes, according to Huffington Post.

Insiders say the wigs were all of them male and all of them blond. Security services world-wide are now on the alert for impersonations of President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

 

 

Tailpiece

 

A FELLOW on a business visit to Boston, Massachusetts, decides that evening to find a seafood restaurant that serves scrod, a local speciality. He hails a cab

"Do you know any place round here that I can get scrod?" he asks the cabbie.

"Sure, I know a few places … but I can tell you, it's not often I hear someone use the third person pluperfect indicative any more."

 

 

Last word

 

The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy. - Steven Weinberg

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