The Idler, Friday, January 31, 2020

The heavy

stuff still

to come

AT MIDNIGHT tonight Britain leaves the EU. But nothing much changes for a year at least while future terms of trade between the Brits and the EU are thrashed out.

These are likely to make negotiations up until now seem like a picnic. You don't easily unravel 47 years of intermeshing, especially in the highly integrated cross-channel car manufacturing industry.

Prediction: The end result will look much like membership of the EU for the Brits, except they don't sit in the European parliament or attend the Brussels pow-wows. But it will take more than a year.

Second prediction: The next generation of Brits will spend their time trying to get back into the EU.

Unresolved: The future status of Northern Ireland (which voted against Brexit). Will events trigger that portion of the Good Friday Agreement that provides for a vote on unification with the South (and membership of the EU)?

Also unresolved: The future status of Scotland (which also voted against Brexit). Will agitation build for another referendum on Scottish independence (and membership of the EU)?

The soapie ain't over, folks.

 

Flung in fury

NEVER fling wedding or engagement rings in a fury. It always ends in a desperate hunt.

In Birmingham, England, a fellow had a row with his wife. He took off his wedding ring and flung it in fury out into the dark. At 2am, he and a friend were still out looking for it by torchlight, according to Sky News.

A passing police patrol stopped to ask what was going on. The cops then got their dog, a German shepherd called Odin, to take a sniff at the husband and see if he could match him up with the ring.

It took Odin two minutes to find the ring in the pitch dark. Relief and handshakes, pats for Odin. A happy ending.

It recalls an incident in days of yore in the old Press Club on the third floor of the Central Hotel, in the CBD.

A fellow was in a corner at the bar, having a furious row with his girlfriend. Suddenly she took off her engagement ring and flung it in a fury out of the window.

This was three floors up. But the Central had a sloping pitch roof outside the windows. Next thing everyone was out on the roof looking for the ring, And somebody found it. Astonishing! Another happy ending.

Soon after this incident I left for a three-year stint in England. On my return I repaired to the Press Club and there in the same corner was the same fellow fighting with the same girlfriend.

I tensed. Was the ring about to fly out of the window again? How often had it happened in my absence? But no – this time the ring remained put. She'd learned you can squabble without extravagances like flinging rings in a fury.

 

Three prime ministers

MORE from Rosemarie Jarski's Great British Wit. Topic: Politics and Government.

·       There's as much chance of my becoming prime minister as there is of finding Elvis on Mars or my being decapitated by a Frisbee or reincarnated as an olive. – Boris Johnson.

·       I haven't read Karl Marx. I get stuck on that footnote on Page 2. – Harold Wilson.

·       Definition of a politician: He is asked to stand, he wants to sit, he is expected to lie. – Winston Churchill.

 

Tailpiece

 

An Englishman, an Irishman and a Scotsman walk into a bar. But the Englishman wants to leave so everybody has to.

 

Last word

The first time I see a jogger smiling, I'll consider it. - Joan Rivers

 

 

The Idler, Thursday, January 30, 2020

Pole-sitting

drama in

Dullstroom

IF YOU think things are dull in Dullstroom, Limpopo province, just imagine what it's like if you're sitting in a small barrel on top of a 30m pole.

A fellow named Vernon Kruger has been doing just that and he's been there more than two months now, breaking his own world pole-sitting record of 67 days, which he set up in 1997. He's trying to push it to 80 days.

It's not all dullness though. Electric storms get quite exciting, and the barrel has been scorched by lightning a few times.

Pole-sitting doesn't exactly get splash coverage on our sports pages, but Vernon's vigil has attracted overseas attention, including the London Times, the Guardian and Sky News.

He told Sky News: "I've forgotten why I am up here. I had some good reasons, but I've forgotten them since I have been here.

"I have broken my own record now - 22 years ago I broke it, it was a British record of 54 days. I took it to 67 and this time I'm going to try to push it to about 80."

He said it was "not too lonely" adding: that: "This time we have social media so I feel more connected.

"I talk to people below and so it's not so isolated."

Answering the question on everyone's mind as to how he manages bodily functions, he says: "Everything comes up by bucket and I have ground crew below. Restaurants are providing me with food so I have different food.

"It all comes up by bucket and down again."

Dullstroom is well-known for its fly-fishing. To that add pole-sitting. And now a new world record. Sigh! But it's small compensation for the cricket disaster..

 

 

Cathedral drama

A MAN attempted to smash a glass display case and steal a copy of the Magna Carta from Salisbury Cathedral, in England, a court has been told.

Mark Royden, wielding a hammer, was frustrated by a member of the cathedral staff and some American tourists, according to the BBC.

The Magna Carta was signed by King John of England in 1215 and is the basis of the rule of law and human rights world-wide. It seems Royden – accused of criminal damage and attempted theft - challenged its authenticity.

Could this be another side-effect of the Brexit issue that has caused such convulsions in Britain?

 

Shower thoughts

THE shower isn't just a place to sing. Separated from our cellphones, standing under running water often allows people's minds to run free. A selection from Huffington Post:

 

·       There are probably tortoises still alive that saw Charles Darwin at the Galapagos Islands.

·       You would never drive that close to a car coming at speed in the opposite direction to you if it weren't for the line of paint on the road between you.

·       One of the biggest lies in the world is that the customer is always right.

·       The truest example of Pavlovian conditioning is that every time you hear "Pavlov" you automatically think of a dog.

·       As an adult having a "boring desk job" is seen as a bad thing, but we force children to have boring desk jobs for 12+ years.

·        It must be hard for dragons to blow out candles.

 

 

Tailpiece

SCOTLAND have got a goalkeeper they call the Ancient Mariner. He stoppeth one in three.

 

 

Last word

 

Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings.

George F Will

The Idler, Wednesday, January 29, 2020

 Sackcloth

and ashes in

our cricket

 

WOE is us. Sackcloth and ashes. Cricket collapso! A wailing and gnashing of teeth. Why this debacle? The nation needs answers.

After winning the First Test in fine style and giving a pretty good account of ourselves in the Second, taking play well into the fifth day, fortunes seesawing, suddenly it's humiliation and embarrassment in the Third and Fourth.

Worse, all the good that was done in the First and Second to prove so conclusively that Test cricket is the real thing with fluctuating fortunes and an exciting sense of anything can happen – all that good is undermined. The punters will be tempted to look instead to carnival cricket – played with a white ball in pyjamas – as the real thing.

Tantalisingly, there was a time early in our second innings when it looked as if our batsmen were going to pull something off – if not a marathon chase and win, at least something respectable. But then – collapso!

Disappointment is widespread. As raconteur Spyker Koekemoer – aka Pat Smythe -  puts it:"This Proteas side need net practice in Kirstenbosch Gardens amongst the pansies …disgraceful!"

Harsh, to be sure, but the widespread disillusionment is real. So real that Ian Gibson, poet laureate of Hillcrest, fires off both barrels – he sends in two limericks.

Left barrel: 

A once proud team called Proteas,

Is driving us all to sad tears;

The batting's appalling

And catches keep falling,

Whilst the Poms earn more and more cheers.

Right barrel: 

An ordinary seamer called Wokes,

Bewildered some of our blokes;

But it was Ben Stokes

Who did in Faf's okes,

Then Wood dashed the rest of our hopes.

 

What's to be done? Let's not get hysterical and ask for the new cricket leadership figures, Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis and Mark Boucher to be recalled to the side as players.

Let's not hand the whole thing to the Minister of Sport, for him to put a former CEO of Eskom in charge of selection and coaching.

Let us rather grit our teeth and allow Smith, Kallis and Boucher the opportunity to finish what they have only just begun - build morale, find new talent and develop the winning mindset which is so obviously lacking right now, with an eye on the West Indies later in the year.

The skills are there. It's a question of assembling them and developing the right mindset. It's the kop that's lacking.

 

 

Positive old age

DURBAN poet Sarita Mathur sends in some encouraging lines on growing old.

 
Don't lose heart  
Old age is near.
Live healthily,
Exercise well ,
And age will not tell.
You can still enjoy your whisky  
And have a tot of rum as well.
You can travel all you want
If you have the travel yen.
If you want to chill and relax
You have the right.
Do not be afraid , dear friend .
Live in the present
Let it be a delight
Welcome old age.
It's your birthright .

 

Tailpiece

 

WEIGHT loss tip: If you cannot help it and have to stuff your face with food, do it standing naked in front of a mirror. The restaurant will chuck you out before you've swallowed too much.

 

 

Last word

 

Politics, n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. - Ambrose Bierce

The Idler, Tuesday, January 28

One-fingered

maestro

columnist

 

THE other day I was reading the column of my Cape Town counterpart, David Biggs – always entertaining – when he managed to astonish me twice.

Astonishment 1: David has been writing his daily Tavern of the Seas column in the Cape Argus for more than 40 years. Is this a record or what?

Astonishment 2: David tells us he can't type. He just stabs at the keyboard with his right index finger. How much has he churned out over 40-plus years in this painstaking way?

"Some readers have even told me their grandfathers used to read my columns, and then their fathers.

"For more than 40 years I have been hammering away at keyboards: first manual typewriter keyboards and then electric keyboards and finally 'touch-screen' boards, which seem to be only pictures of keyboards. Now I feel I need to make a public confession. I cannot type.

"I look with awe at competent typists who tickle out reams of words by running their nimble fingers across the keys. And I blush to admit I cannot type. All those daily columns (not to mention a couple of published books and magazine articles) have been pecked out laboriously, one letter at a time, using only my right index finger."

Wow! I say David Biggs deserves a medal.

 

 

Fast but erratic

 

HOW many fingers do I type with? Er, both index fingers mainly plus a few of the others here and there. It seems to work, it just gets into a tangle if you try to think about it. I reckon I'm faster than most touch typists but a bit erratic. (I'll beat David Biggs by a mile).

During a stint as a journalistic vagrant about Africa, I also learned to use the French keyboard on the telex machines (no email in those days), which is tiny compared with our QWERTY layout and you use only one hand (David Biggs would have been quite at home).

We also had the press telegram, where you whacked it out on a special form and handed it in at the local post office.

I did this once at a place called Vila Luso, in a remote part of Angola where' I'd just interviewed a Portuguese general who'd concluded a peace agreement with the guerilla leader Jonas Savimbi. It seemed rather important.

I handed in my despatch to a Portuguese clerk who spoke not a word of English and my heart sank as I watched him tap it out on a morse key to another Portuguese clerk in Lisbon, who would tap it out again to Johannesburg.

Sure enough, the resultant jumbled nonsense never made it into any newspaper. But it was pinned on the noticeboard as an example of my typing prowess after imbibing liquor. So unfair!

 

 

Price list

 

LIMERICK time. Chris Taylor, a stalwart of the Natal cricket society, sends in some lines from a friend in England illustrating how thoughtful they are about catering for the needs of the disabled, including the unsighted.

 

On the breast of a barmaid in Hayle

Was tattooed the price of the ale.

And on her behind

For the sake of the blind

The same was printed in braille.

 

Yes, very thoughtful the Poms are about this kind of thing.

 

 

Tailpiece

It's not my fault that I have typing mistakes, it's in my blood. I'm type O negative.

 

Last word

The trouble with the rat race is that even if you win, you're still a rat. - Lily Tomlin

 

 

The Idler, Monday, January 27, 2020

Perils of

animal

adoption

CAREFUL of rescuing that cute little abandoned kitten. It could turn out to be a baby Bengal tiger or something of the sort.

A woman in Argentina did just that, according to Reuters. Florencia Lobo and her brother rescued this cute little ginger kitten whose mother had died, on a jaunt to the north-west Argentine province of Tucuman.

She took him home, bottle fed him, cared for him, played with him and named him Tito.

Then she took Tito to a vet for a check-up. There she discovered he was not a domestic cat at all but was of the genus Puma Yagouaroundi. A pity because he would have become a great mouser, but the disadvantages of having a puma about the house outweigh the advantages.

Sad to relate, Florencia had to give the little fellow to a wildlife reserve. A wrench because she'd grown fond of him.

Yes, you adopt a little gecko and watch him running about the ceiling eating mozzies. Then he grows into a leguaan and it gets a bit hectic. Then it turns out he's not a leguaan after all, he's a Nile crocodile and you've got a problem.

You call Ezemvelo and he ends up at Lake St Lucia, though with happy memories of your ceiling.

 

 

Royal rumpus

JOAN Truscott pens some lines of sympathy for Queen Elizabeth in the current royal rumpus.

Oh dear there's a royal crisis, what a pain
For the poor Queen it's annus horribilis again.
First it was Andrew letting her down,
Whatever is happening to the crown?
Along comes Meghan so headstrong and worldly with no intent to be loyal
Such a girl isn't fit to be royal.
King Edward for the love of a woman chose abdication
Which shocked and appalled a nation.
Meghan and Wallis two American divorcees
Felt they could do as they please.
Meghan is willful and wants her own way
She has led Harry astray.
Harry, you pretend to be just one of the regular guys
But really and truly that is not wise.
You were born royal and that's your destiny
Accept that's the way it is meant to be.
When Prince Charles walked Meghan down the aisle
We should have seen she is a young woman of guile.
She is an actress, played a starring role
Getting Harry to bow to her wishes was her goal.
Queenie dear we feel for you,
We know you had to agree to their decision what else
Could you do?
If the couple's plan works out we will wait and see,
Meantime put your feet up and drown your
Sorrows in a cup of tea.

 

 

Birds in hats

IN THE American state of Nevada, pigeons are flying about wearing tiny sombreros or cowboy hats.

In Reno, sombreros seem to be in vogue. Over in Las Vegas it's cowboy hats. But according to Huffington Post it's a mystery who is making these tiny paper hats and gluing them on to the pigeons' heads.

Reno City manager Sabra Newby says it's quirky and fun but inhumane and has to stop. "Reno cares about our animals. They need protection and don't need to become a punchline."

Quite. Inagine the frustration of a gentleman pigeon who can't raise his hat to a lady pigeon because it's glued on.

Tailpiece

WHAT'S the difference between Cinderella and the South African cricket team?

Cinderella knew when to leave the ball.

 

Last word

Furious activity is no substitute for understanding. - HH Williams
  

The Idler, Friday, January 24, 2020

Exciting

news of the

cuttlefish

IN CASE you were beginning to think research scientists waste their time in truly obscure and pointless pursuits, here's some news from the University of Minnesota, in the US.

Scientists there have fitted cuttlefish with red/blue 3D glasses and watched to see if they can make out 3D movies the way humans can, according to Sky News.

Wowie! They can! The scientists showed them a 3D video of shrimps swimming about. And they made a beeline for those shrimps, bumping into the glass screen.

The scientists could barely contain their excitement. Cuttlefish see the same way we do. Another exciting piece for the journal, Science Advances.

It was not easy, says Trevor Wardill, assistant professor of ecology, evolution and behaviour at the university. "It took a lot of coaxing of the cuttlefish to make them wear their glasses." (Eventually it was achieved with glued-on Velcro)

Cuttlefish, by the way, are not those white things you find on the beach. Those are cuttlebones, backbone of the cuttlefish, which is a mollusc closely related to the squid and the octopus.

Onward with scientific research! Roll on the day when cuttlefish, squid and octopi queue at uShaka Marine World to watch 3D movies. Can the sardine shoals be far behind?

It's the march of science. Unstoppable!

 

 

Then as now

 

"I WALKED home, and there come into my company three drunken seamen, but one especially who told me such stories, calling me Captain, as made me mighty merry, and they would leap and skip and kiss what maids they met all the way."

This was written in the 17^th century. The navy hasn't changed at all since then. Nor London much.

Is it not rather marvellous that the Samuel Pepys Diary should be reaching today's youngsters on social media? (The Nkandla party line, for all its qualities otherwise, offers nothing of the kind).

 

 

Commas, fullstops

 

PUNCTUATION is all. Consider:

 

"I'm giving up drinking for a month

 

"Sorry, bad punctuation.

 

"I'm giving up. Drinking for a month."

 

 

Horror stories

 

IN HIS latest grumpy newsletter, investment analyst Dr James Greener deplores the backlog in official documentation.

"One thing that a developed state should be able to do swiftly and seamlessly is provide those services which it demands that citizens make use of. Like obtaining documentation such as passports, driver's licences, identity documents and other certificates from the Hatched, Matched and Despatched departments.

"No gathering of friends these days is complete without a horror story of delays, inefficiency and errors on the part of the civil servants tasked with providing these things. This week the very old allegation that the nation owns just one machine that can produce the laminated driver's licence, surfaced again.

"In fact, the officials responsible for keeping this precious device in working order cheerfully admit to a backlog of more than 120 000 licence cards countrywide. Can anyone else think how to unblock this bottleneck?

"And now it turns out that citizens who live overseas and require a passport are being made to wait almost a year for this vital document. Reportedly the problem may be transport between Pretoria and overseas diplomatic missions.

"What? Is the daily diplomatic pouch a myth?"

 

 

Tailpiece

 

A SCIENTIST walks into a pharmacy and asks: "Do you have any acetylsalicylic acid?"

"You mean aspirin?".

"That's it! I can never remember that word."

 

Last word

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. - Ludwig Wittgenstein

The Idler Thursday, January 23, 2020

Drama that

becomes

real-life

I WAS re-reading some James Thurber (from another era) the other day and was particularly struck by the truth and accuracy of a particular passage that describes the start of a terrible row between a couple, that sadly ends up in complete and irreconcilable separation. I repeat an excerpt as a warning and admonishment to readers of both sexes.

"It all started one night at Leonardo's, after dinner, over their Benedictine. It started innocently enough, amiably even, with laughter from both of them, laughter that froze finally as the clock ran on and their words came out sharp and flat and stinging.

"They had been to see Camille. Gordon hadn't liked it very much. Marcia had been crazy about it because she's crazy about Greta Garbo. She belongs to that formidable army of Garbo admirers whose enchantment borders almost on fanaticism and sometimes even touches the edges of frenzy.

"I think that, before everything happened, Gordon admired Garbo too, but the depth of his wife's conviction that here was the greatest figure ever seen in our generation on sea or land, on screen or stage, exasperated him that night.

Gordon hates (or used to) exaggeration and he respects (or once did) detachment. It was his feeling that detachment is a necessary thread in the fabric of a woman's charm. He didn't like to see his wife get 'into a sweat' over anything and, that night at Leonardo's, he unfortunately used that expression and made that accusation.

Marcia responded, as I get it, by saying, a little loudly (they had gone on to Scotch and soda), that a man who had no abandon of feeling and no passion for anything was not altogether a man, and that his level of detachment simply covered up a lack of critical appreciation and understanding of the arts in general.

"Her sentences were becoming long and wavy, and her words formal. Gordon suddenly began to pooh-pooh her, he kept saying 'Pooh!' (an annoying mannerism of his, I have always thought). He wouldn't answer her arguments or even listen to them. That, of course, infuriated her.

"'Oh, pooh to you, too!' she finally more or less shouted.

"He snapped at her, 'Quiet, for God's sake! You're yelling like a prizefight manager!'

"Enraged at that, she had recourse to her eyes as weapons, and looked steadily at him for a while with the expression of one who is viewing a small and horrible animal, such as a horned toad.

"Then they sat in moody and brooding silence for a long time, without moving a muscle, at the end of which, getting a hold on herself, Marcia asked him, quietly enough, just exactly what actor, on the screen or on the stage, living or dead, he thought greater than Garbo.

"Gordon thought a moment and then said, as quietly as she had put the question, 'Donald Duck' …"

Quite apart from the superb writing, much in this is instructive.

Why, I once took a blonde lady to a dramatisation of PG Wodehouse (one of my favourites), at the Sneddon. It's still flung in my face from time to time – the way I laughed like a jackass at something totally unfunny, to her great embarrassment.

Yes, much that's instructive for both sexes.

Tailpiece

HE WAS fired as a theatre set designer because he did absolutely nothing. He didn't make a scene.

Last word

 

Punctuality is the virtue of the bored. - Evelyn Waugh