The Idler, Friday, November 1, 2019

The moment

of truth

approaches

 

The increasing prospect tires our wandering eyes,

Hills peep o'er hills, and Alps on Alps arise !   DID England peak last week against New Zealand? Can the Boks achieve a peak tomorrow against England? Alexander Pope, quoted above, could well have been speculating on the Rugby World Cup final. It's a conundrum nobody can resolve in advance. England were just brilliant against the All Blacks in the semi. It was difficult to believe what was happening before our eyes. Can that crafty little critter Eddie Jones pull something out of the hat a second time? Likewise, can Rassie conjure a peak not yet achieved? Or will it be the same old same old … kick and chase, caution first? Where better to gain expert opinion than the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties? And who better to approach than the gorgeous Lucretia Lekkerboobs who always, in the case of victory, leads the damsels in providing knicker elastic for a fashioning of catapults for the traditional celebratory feu de joie in which the streetlights are shot out? To my great astonishment, she started spouting Shakespeare. BWhen the blast of war blows in our ears, TThen imitate the action of the tiger; SStiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, DDiguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage; TThen lend the eye a terrible aspect; LLet pry through the portage of the head LLike the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it As fearfully as doth a galled rock OO'erhang and jutty his confounded base, SSwill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean. Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide, Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit TTo his full height …. Ah yes. That's the Immortal Bard's famous pep talk before Agincourt. "Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide …" It so captures the spirit of rugby, it's the very image of a forward tearing his way into a loose maul. Who can set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide for the full 80 minutes? That'll decide it. 'Erewego, 'erewego, 'erewego!

 

Tommy Bedford

MEANWHILE, a retrospective on the Boks' semi against Wales last week, in a newsletter by none other than Tommy Bedford, who captained Natal at eighth man in days of yore and had 25 Bok caps, three as skipper.

He compares the 1964 Test against Wales, in Durban, where the Boks won 24-3, with last week's 19-16.

"To think outside the mindless box kick that Faf (and his predecessors) plied for 80 minutes against Wales, and Wales against us, is hardly the stuff of legend.

Tommy, who now lives in London, quotes the BBC: "It never was pretty. This was a horrible game, as ugly and enervating as the first semi-final had been thrilling. If the Springboks, so full of sweet passion at the anthem, were almost joyless for the remainder - kicking away their first eight pieces of possession, showing so little attacking ambition that it was like watching a different sport to the night before - then Wales were too often sucked into the same negative spiral…"

May tomorrow bring something better. We surely owe it to our Japanese hosts.

Tailpiece

I DREAM of a better world where beer is free, football doesn't exist and the Rugby World Cup is every day.

Last word

A boy can learn a lot from a dog: obedience, loyalty, and the importance of turning around three times before lying down. - Robert Benchley

 

The Idler, Thursday, October 31, 2019

A glittering

nautical

occasion

 

 

It is an ancient Mariner,

And he stoppeth one of three.

'By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,

Now wherefore stopp'st thou me?'

 

WELL, I'm not so sure about the long grey beard. My old shipmate Captain Allen Brink seemed to have shaved that morning, but the glittering eye was there as he introduced Captain Nick Sloane to a splendid lunch at Royal Natal Yacht Club.

Nick, you will probably recall, is the marine salvage maestro who some years ago achieved world renown (and an Italian knighthood) for successfully rescuing and refloating the cruise liner Costa Concordia in the Mediterranean. He's always doing that kind of thing. He was supposed to address the Nautical Institute at RNYC last August but at the last minute had to nip over to Patagonia to rescue another ship in distress. Or was it Panama? Something like that anyway.

And here he wass at last in Durban addressing the Nautical Institute on the problems of fire-fighting on super container ships. Massive vessels these are. Nick showed in an illustration how the QE2 plus a jumbo jet plus plus plus could fit into one of their hulls, let alone the stuff stacked on deck.

Yes, the Nautical Institute. The place is positively crawling with ancient mariners. I find myself sitting beside one with shortish grey beard and glittering eye, Captain Alan Pembroke, recently retired from the South African Navy. (Also known as the Grey Funnel Line). Alan and I have the navy in common. He is a captain which, for those unfamiliar with naval ranks, is the equivalent of an army colonel. As a national serviceman, I achieved the exalted rank of able bodied seaman. (What's an able bodied seaman? You'd better ask my girlfriend).

Which brings me back to Allen Brink, a former ship's master with Safmarine and now a marine consultant here in Durban. He's kind enough to describe me as a shipmate and fellow "Bothy Boy" because he was with the General Botha training ship in Cape Town, while I spent a few months there learning navigation. Them wuz the days.

The gap in our seafaring expertise has widened somewhat, I have to concede. Allen has just returned from London where, aboard HQS Wellington, moored at Temple pier in the River Thames, he was invested as a chartered master mariner by the Honorable Company of Master Mariners, a City of London livery company with Queen Elizabeth as patron and Prince Philip as admiral.

You have to know your bends and hitches, your sextant and quite a bit more to get that "chartered" tag. Allen is the only South African ever to have achieved such a thing. There have been only 30 world-wide. (Hey, it's not too late. Maybe I should go for killick – that is, leading seaman).

A great lunch, loads of bonhomie and a fascinating illustrated talk by Nick Sloane. Scary stuff - those shots of blazing super-container vessels are worse than Diwali and Guy Fawkes combined.

 

Tailpiece

AN OLD sea captain is sitting on a bench near the wharf when a youngster sits down beside him. He has spiked hair, each spike a different colour - green, red, orange, blue, and yellow.

The captain stares at him.

"What's the matter old-timer? Never done anything wild in your life?"

 "Got drunk once and married a parrot. Was just wondering if you're my son."

 

 

Last word

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. - Elvis Costello

 

Thye Idler, Wednesday, October 30, 2019

Brexit – it's

a generational

thing

BREXIT news. British prime minister Boris Johnson is alive and well and living at No 10 Downing Street. Reports that he was found dead in a ditch are greatly exaggerated – to use the phrase of Mark Twain – even though he would have preferred the ditch scenario to failing to secure a Halloween Brexit this Thursday.

Now he's agitating for a Christmas election, anticipating a landslide of voter support for the convoluted Brexit deal he's negotiated.

A Banx cartoon in London's Financial Times could well capture the public mood. Two middle-aged fellows are walking down a London street. One says: "My father was a Brexit negotiator, and his father before him …"

Careful what you wish for, Boris.

 

 

Breakthrough

RESEARCHERS at Richmond University, Virginia, in the US, have made a breakthrough. They've taught rats to drive tiny little cars, according to Sky News. This surely is what the world has been waiting for.

The study used a tiny car with three copper bars that allowed the rats to steer by gripping the bars with their paws, completing an electrical circuit.

These rats were responding to being rewarded with treats of sweet cereal, helping the scientists to understand how learning skills affects the mind – human minds also – and stress levels. These rats also have a privileged background, being placed in an "enriched environnent" containing ladders and toys. They are intellectually way ahead of your run-of-the-mill rats.

According to Professor Kelly Lambert, the study bears a lot of relevance for the way that the human mind works too.

It advances her theory regarding "the well-grounded brain, the brain which is engaged in authentic interactions with the real world and the social world."

This is fascinating stuff. It was the topic of discussion at an intellectual study group at the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties the other evening, sitting outside in pleasant summery weather. What the world needs is rats driving tiny cars, not scuttling up and down drainpipes and things. That was the consenus.

But then the calm was abruptly and rudely shattered by traffic noise as human rats behind the wheel of souped up cars dropped the clutch as the traffic lights changed nearby, making the evening hideous with a squealing of tyres and the smell of burning rubber. Then a cannonade of backfiring. It happened again and again.

Privileged rats from an enriched environment. That's them, just like in Richmond Virginia. Professor Lambert would do well to come out here to Durban and study the effect of human rats behind the wheel in creating deviations from the "well-grounded brain."

 

 

Marijuana call-out

WHAT are the cops for if not to solve crime? A dude in Dade City, Florida, in the US, found that somebody had pinched his stash of marijuana from his room. He called the emergency number 911 to report the theft and ask for assistance.

He got no satisfactory response, according to Huffington Post. He kept on calling. Eventually a deputy from the Pasco County Sheriff's Office had to contact him via Twitter to tell him to zip it.

Recreational marijuana use remains illegal in Florida. Perhaps that explains the lack of enthusiasm. But at least no charges were filed against the caller.

 

Tailpiece

THIS fellow has been diagnosed as psychoceramic - he's a real crackpot.

 

Last word

If you are a dog and your owner suggests that you wear a sweater, suggest that he wear a tail. - Fran Lebowitz

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The Idler, Tuesday, October 29, 2019

The Japanese

have arrived

in world rugby

A PLEASING feature of the Rugby World Cup in Japan is the enthusiasm – taiko drumming, the Japanese spectators wearing the painted face badges of the competing nations. The loud gong signalling half-time and full-time is a lovely touch.

But how long have the Japanese played rugby? How did the game get there? It got to most of the world's rugby-playing nations by way of the British army in the days of empire. (An exception was France. The game first got to France by way of English wine merchants at Calais. Then when Louis Napoleon took over as emperor, having been educated in England in exile, he brought with him the ethos of rugby and made it de rigeur for the French army.)

The connection with Japan? Actually it goes back more than a century. The gunboat diplomacy of the 19^th century brought rugby-playing Brits to Japan and the game caught on with local university students as well. The Yokohama Rugby Club was founded in 1866 by British army and naval officers. University teams were established in 1899 and Japan's first recorded international match was against a Canadian team in 1932.

They participate in Pacific region rugby and have been in the World Cup playoffs ever since the competition began. They gave the Boks a big skrik four years ago and they gave Wales a big skrik this time.

They made the semi-finals and gave us some heavy weather with their magical handling and directional switches before the Boks wore them out and prevailed.

It's been a great World Cup for Japan.

 

 

Kisses

AN ITEM comes this way headed "Iconic on-screen kisses". Three shots show Hollywood at its best as the couples smooch, violins sounding in the background.

Then a fourth shows little Faf de Klerk in his face-to-face with huge, bearded Welsh lock forward Jake Ball in Sunday's World Cup semi-final.

No smooches, no smacks – fortunately.

 

 

No crisis

INVESTMENT analyst Dr James Greener voices despair in his latest grumpy newsletter at the government's failure to grasp arithmetic.

"Is there anyone in government who can do even simple arithmetic, let alone interpret what the numbers mean? Their own National Treasury dutifully publishes the data, but no one seems to notice or care."

"Just the simplest of spreadsheets will reveal that the R1.3 trillion of tax collected in the past 12 months is a mere 3.8% more than the equivalent total a year ago. Revenue is growing slower than almost anything except the Eskom chairman's understanding of the business of generating electricity.

"Crucially though, the rate at which the cabinet is spending money is 6.8%p a. Which is the fact that should be ringing loud alarm bells in the corridors of power

"We have been warned to expect to be burdened with further tax increases that could be announced in the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement.

"However, the place to tackle the budget deficit in our already egregiously overtaxed nation is on the spending side. But that's utter anathema to politicians particularly those imbued with the mantra that 'it's our (and our buddies') time to eat".

"But most of them probably subscribe to the view, offered by the Minister of Transport in the midst of nationwide flight cancellations, that 'there is no crisis.'

 

 

Tailpiece

THEY'VE started a self-help group for compulsive talkers. It's called On and On Anon.

 

Last word

If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur. - Doug Larson

The Idler, Monday, October 28, 2019

Extra, extra,

read all

about it!

 

HEADLINE of the year: "China may be using sea to hide its submarines". Yikes! Was that in our paper? No, it's from a website that specialises in nutty headlines around the world. Apparently it appeared in an unnamed Middle East publication.

It joins a gallery of the classics:

·       "Monty flies back to front" – On Field Marshal Montgomery during World War II.

·       "Allies' push bottles up German rear" – Also from World War II.

·       "Out comes the Wilson chopper" – British prime minister Harold Wilson axes half his cabinet.

·       "Marijuana issue sent to a joint committee."

·       "One-armed man applauds the kindness of strangers."

There are also the headlines that tell it all:

·       "Woman in sumo wrestler suit assaulted by ex-girlfriend in gay pub after she waved at a man dressed as a Snickers bar".

·       "Nudist camp manager's model wife found naked in bed with Chinese hypnotist from co-op bacon factory."

Of course there are plenty more but the best do not belong in a respectable family newspaper.

 

 

Salivation

WE'VE heard of Pavlov's dog. Pavlov was the 19th century Russian scientist who would ring a bell as his dog was fed, the dog eventually salivating whenever the bell was rung, whether food was there or not.

Now reader Jill Adams describes herself as Pavlov's human. She has a "Kitty Baby" that sleeps on her bed – in fact takes over the whole show.

She also has a decorative wooden tassle hanging on the bedroom door. Kitty Baby has discovered that when he plays with it, she leaps from her bed in a fright.

So when he wakes up in the early morning feeling peckish, he jumps out of bed, heads for the wooden rattle on the door, kicks up a racket then goes to his food bowl to wait for Jill to fill it up. It never fails.

Kitty Baby is obviously a Russian cat.

 

 

Fame, celebrity

 

MORE from Rosemarie Jarski's Great British Wit. Topic: Fame and Celebrity.

·       You know you've made it in showbiz when you're known by one name. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kenny Lynch. -  Mark Lamarr.

·       My rise to fame was like climbing the north face of the Eiger in stiletto heels. – Russell Harty.

·       I do not allow the word "famous" on the BBC. If a man really is famous, the word is redundant. If he is not, it is a lie. – Lord Reith.

·       Twinkle, twinkle, little star,

Who the hell do you think you are? – Frank Taylor.

·       I'm very big in Botswana. – Patricia Routledge.

·       Being a personality is not the same as having a personality. – Alan Coren.

·       There's something so incredibly downmarket about being famous. – Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen.

·       The real drawback with television celebrity as far as my own humble share of it is concerned is that it prevents me from ever showing annoyance at terrible service in a restaurant or from tutting with impatience in a supermarket queue. One has to face life's irritations with a benign and foolish grin all over one's face. – Stephen Fry.

·       Literary fame is very limited; it's like being a famous taxidermist. – Ian McEwan.

·       These days celebrities are endorsing all sorts of products. On my packet of sausages I noticed a photo of Anthony Worral Thompson. Underneath it said, "Prick with a fork". – Humphrey Lyttelton.

 

Tailpiece

 

WHY is the sea so restless?

Well wouldn't you be restless with crabs all over your bottom?

 

Last word