The Idler Friday, March 20, 2020

Our world

is turned

upside down

TODAY we should have been anticipating tomorrow's humdinger at Kings Park against the Waikato Chiefs. Sigh! But the world has been turned upside down.

There's some talk of setting up an interim competition for local sides, just to keep the chaps fit and fired up. Here's hoping. We're getting tired of endless TV replays of Makazole Mapimpi's try last weekend, brilliant as it was.

But would such matches be TV fare only? No fans allowed at the grounds? Truly, we have fallen on evil times. And this is so across just about every sports activity worldwide. There's a void, the consequences do not bear thinking of.

Ja, tog.

So let us instead discuss the depravity of poaching. The BBC tells us two extremely rare white giraffe have been killed by poachers in north-eastern Kenya. Rangers found the carcasses of the female and her calf.

A third white giraffe is still alive, thought to be the only remaining one in the world. And obviously the last, there being no breeding pair left.

Does this not make us feel sick? To what depths of depravity can humans not descend?

Okay, a white giraffe is not nature's best camouflage. But does it deserve to die at the hands of poachers?

The white appearance of these giraffe is not albinism – which would give them pink eyes – but due to a rare condition called leucism, which causes skin cells to have no pigmentation.

And at this point a bell rings. The same was true of The White Lions of Timbavati in Mpumalanga province, according to the research of my old pal Chris McBride, the zoologist who did the research and wrote the book.

Chris and his wife "Glynnis with a 'w'" – after PG Wodehouse – now run a safari camp in Zambia. Chris, a tall, skinny, bearded fellow, a kind of scruffy lookalike of DH Lawrence, used to be a regular at the Tourism Indaba in Durban.

I was once in a supermarket with him on the Berea. We approached the check-out, where the cashier was a very attractive young Zulu lass.

Chris is a fluent Zulu linguist. "Are you married?" he asked.

"Yes," she giggled.

Chris looked downcast. Then: "Have you got a sister?"

"Yes. Hee, hee, hee!"

The other cashiers on either side were listening intently.

"Does she look like you?"

"Yes! Hee, hee, hee, hee, hee!"

All the cashiers within earshot started shrieking with laughter. They relayed the conversation all the way down the line of cashiers and all began cackling with mirth; also many of the customers.

Chris went on to explain that he needed another beautiful woman to come and work at the camp in Zambia because it was too much for his beautiful wife.

The store supervisor came out of his office to ask what the heck was going on. The whole place was rocking with laughter.

"It's the tall, skinny, mad one with a beard," one of the cashiers said. "He's making us laugh."

Chris McBride, a serious scientist.

 

Tailpiece

 

PICASSO surprised a burglar at his chateau in France. The intruder got away but Picasso gave the gendarmes a rough sketch. On the basis of that they arrested a mother superior, the minister of finance, a washing machine and the Eiffel Tower.

 

 

Last word

 

I was married by a judge. I think I should have asked for a jury. – Groucho Marx.