Rugby World
Cup fever
unabated
I WAS watching the Rugby World Cup final for the third time the other evening in the Pub With No Name, in Florida Road, when the news broke that the Boks are to do a bus tour of Durban this Friday, brandishing the Webb-Ellis trophy.
Judging from the immediate excitement of the punters, they'll need to call out the marines to keep order. - in Florida Road, certainly.
Meanwhile, reader Jill Adams sends in some lines of praise, not forgetting the original World Cup heroes who have gone on to the Great Rugby Stadium In The Sky.
Our team has won
We're on a high
Our Bokke
Were spectacular.
United as a nation
United as a team
Such hope –
Our boys our dream.
They played it big
They played for Small
For our rainbow nation
One and all
They played for Chester
Ruben, Jooste
They truly rule
The rugby roost!
So come on home
To great applause
To celebrate
The worthy cause -
Your country filled
With joy and pride
Our hearts and smiles
A metre wide
Rugby definition
MEANWHILE, a definition of rugby comes this way: "A collision sport of elegant violence where the ball is moved forward by throwing it backwards. Some say it is the best time a person can have with 14 other people including a hooker."
Chitter-chatter
READER Nick Gray sends in some snippets of arcane information suitable for dinner table chitter-chatter.
· A rat can last longer without water than a camel.
· Your stomach has to produce a new layer of mucus every two weeks or it will digest itself.
· The dot over the letter "i" is called a tittle.
· A raisin dropped in a glass of fresh champagne will bounce up and down continuously from the bottom of the glass to the top.
· A female ferret will die if it goes into heat and cannot find a mate.
· A duck's quack doesn't echo. No one knows why.
· During the chariot scene in Ben Hur, a small red car can be seen in the distance (and Charlton Heston is wearing a watch).
· On average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily. (That explains a few mysteries...)
· Donald Duck comics were banned from Finland because he doesn't wear pants.
· Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood
· The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318 979 564 000.
· There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple and silver.
· The name Wendy was apparently made up by the author of the book, Peter Pan. There is not a written record of anyone named Wendy before the book was published.
· The very first bomb dropped by the Allies on Berlin in World War II killed the only elephant in the Berlin Zoo.
· If one places a tiny amount of liquor on a scorpion, it will instantly go mad and sting itself to death.
(That's enough snippets of arcane information suitable for dinner table chitter-chatter – Ed)
Tailpiece
SHE phones: "Do you ever get a shooting pain across your body, like someone's got a voodoo doll of you and they're stabbing it?"
"No."
"How about now?"
Last word
If it's true that our species is alone in the universe, then I'd have to say that the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little. - George Carlin
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