The Idler, Monday, April 6, 2020

Hey, let's sort

this red and

yellow nonsense

 

KEITH Parkinson, former Natal hooker and later president of the Natal Rugby Union, says we might as well use the downtime forced on us by the coronavirus to sort out the fiasco of red and yellow cards in rugby.

"The referee for the Stormers game three weeks ago, AJ Jacobs, was seriously derelict in his duty in not showing the red card to Johan du Toit in the first 10 seconds of this match.

"In spite of the TMO exhorting the ref to show red, you could detect from Jacobs's body language that he was looking for any good reason to make it a yellow, which he eventually did.

"If this incident had happened in the second half, I bet he would have immediately produced red. I have no doubt that preying on the ref's mind was the prospect of one team playing one short for the entire 80 minutes.

"At present world rugby has a policy of penalising the team, rather than penalising the player. In the modern world of professional rugby it surely has to be the other way round.

"Rugby fans pay enormous sums of money to watch professional rugby. All of them, without exception, want to see a fair contest for the full 80 minutes. We all want our team to win, but the vast majority want it to be on the basis of a fair contest. They have paid big money and they want true value.

"In any professional rugby match any player who is carded by the referee for foul play should be automatically replaced by one of the eight substitutes on the bench. In the event of a yellow, the offending player should be off for 10 minutes and, for a red, off for the remainder of the game.

"The match will be contested for 80 minutes – 15 versus 15."

Parky says punishment for the player should be decided at an automatic inquiry that follows a red card – usually suspension for a match or more, depending on the seriousness of the offence. Yellow cards should be recorded and a tally of three should also mean suspension.

"There, I've finally got that off my chest!"

 

 

No substitutes

 

Parky played rugby in the amateur days, a time there was no substitution from the bench, not even for serious injury. He once completed a game for Natal against Northern Transvaal, at Loftus, with a broken arm. His teammates had to lift the arm over his prop's shoulders at scrum time. Eina! Gutsy stuff!

After the final whistle he was rushed to a Pretoria doctor who was not at all impressed by the heroism.

"You're a bloody fool, man! I could be amputating your arm right now instead of resetting it!"

 

 

Rugby spirit

 

PARKY presides over a regular get-together in Durban North of rugby players of yesteryear – club players, provincial caps and one Springbok. Great fun. This is the true spirit of rugby.

Sigh! But when will we be allowed to meet again? Will the International Rugby Board be allowed to gather and resolve the red/yellow debacle?

These are evil times indeed.

 

Tailpiece

 

THIS fellow goes to the doctor's wearing a hat. He whips off the hat and there's a frog, apparently growing out of the top of his head.

Doctor: "Good heavens! What's this?"

Frog: "Dunno, Doc. It started out as a boil on me backside."

 

 

Last word

 

Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve. - George Bernard Shaw

The Idler, Friday, April 3, 2020

This time

Groucho Marx

to the rescue

 

EIGHT days into the lockdown. Social isolation is for most of us an unnatural and unnerving state. So is isolation from the draught beer taps, the wee dram and the accompanying bonhomie.

How do we compensate over the next 13 days? I guess we each of us have to discover our own solution. A week ago I shared with readers the delight of re-acquainting myself with the hilarious writing of SJ Perelman.

Today I do the same with an account by Groucho Marx of a Hollywood dispute between the Marx Brothers and the legal department of movie-makers Warner Brothers.

It's contained in a book I read many moons ago, Modern Humour, edited by Mordecai Richler. It's 535 pages in hardback, priced at R24.80, so that gives an idea how many moons.

I find a debate between Groucho Marx and a group of po-faced lawyers the kind of thing that makes you momentarily forget the coronavirus pandemic, the lockdown and the economic catastrophe. Perhaps readers of this column can experience the same temporary relief.

Warner Brothers produced the epic blockbuster, Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Years later the Marx Brothers announced their own movie, A Night In Casablanca.

Next they got a letter from Warner Brothers legal department warning them against infringement of copyright.

To which Groucho himself responded: "It seems that in 1471 Ferdinand Balboa Warner, your great-great-grandfather, while looking for a shortcut to the city of Burbank, had stumbled on the shores of Africa and, raising his alpenstock, named it Casablanca.

"You claim you own Casablanca and that nobody can use that name without your permission?"

The Warner Brothers lawyers then ask about the content of the Marx Brothers movie. Groucho explains that it's about a doctor of divinity operating on the Gold Coast of Africa, who has a sideline in hawking can openers and pea packets.

The Warner Brothers attorneys express puzzlement and ask for a proper resume of the plot. To which Groucho responds:

"Since I last wrote you, I regret to say there have been some changes to the plot of our picture, A Night In Casablanca. In the new version I play Bordello, the sweetheart of Humphrey Bogart. Harpo and Chico are itinerant rug pedlars who are weary of laying rugs and enter a monastery for a lark.

"Across from the monastery, hard by a jetty, is a waterfront hotel, chockfull of apple-cheeked damsels, most of whom have been barred by the Hays Office for soliciting. In the fifth reel Gladstone makes a speech that sets the House of Commons in an uproar and the King promptly asks for his resignation. Harpo marries a hotel detective. Chico operates an ostrich farm. Humphrey Bogart's girl, Bordello, spends her last years in a Bacall house.

"This, as you can see, is a very skimpy outline. The only thing that can save us from extinction is a continuation of the film shortage.

"Fondly, Groucho Marx."

At which point the correspondence from the Warner Brothers legal department dried up.

Did this divert you for a few moments? It did me.

 

Tailpiece

 

TWO retired army officers are taking a snifter in their club.

"I say, old boy – when did you last make love to a woman?"

"Er … 1958."

"I say, that's an awfully long time ago."

"Not really. It's only ten past eight now."

 

 

Last word

The things we know best are the things we haven't been taught. - Marquis de Vauvenargues
  

The Idler, Thursday, April 2, 2020

Letter from

an Irish

mother

IT'S a time of stress for families separated by distance during this dreadful pandemic. A letter from an Irish mother to her son comes this way.

"Dear Son,

"Just a few lines to let you know I'm still alive. I'm writing this letter slowly because I know you can't read fast. We are all doing very well. You won't recognise the house when you get home - because we have moved. Your dad read in the newspaper that most accidents happen within 20 miles from your home, so we moved 25 miles to Wexford.

"I won't be able to send you the address because the last family that lived here took the house numbers when they moved so that they wouldn't have to change their address. This place is really nice. It even has a washing machine. I'm not sure it works so well though: last week I put a load in and pulled the chain and haven't seen them since.

"Your father's got a really good job now. He's got 500 men under him. He's cutting the grass at the cemetery. Your sister Mary had a baby this morning but I haven't found out if it's a boy or a girl, so I don't know whether you are an auntie or an uncle. Your brother Tom is still in the army. He's only been there a short while and they've already made him a court martial!

"Your Uncle Patrick drowned last week in a vat of whiskey in the Dublin Distillery. Some of his workmates tried to save him but he fought them off bravely. They cremated him and it took three days to put out the fire.

"I'm sorry to say that your idiot cousin Seamus was arrested while riding his bicycle last week. They are charging him with dope peddling.

"I went to the doctor on Thursday and your father went with me. The doctor put a small tube in my mouth and told me not to talk for ten minutes. Your father offered to buy it from him.

"The weather isn't bad here. It only rained twice this week, first for three days and then for four days. Monday was so windy one of the chickens laid the same egg four times.

"We had a letter from the undertaker. He said if the last payment on your grandmother's plot wasn't paid in seven days, up she comes.

"About that coat you wanted me to send you, your Uncle Stanley said it would be too heavy to send in the mail with the buttons on, so we cut them off and put them in the pockets.

"John locked his keys in the car yesterday. We were really worried because it took him two hours to get me and your father out.

"Three of your friends went off a bridge in a pick-up truck. Ralph was driving. He wound down the window and swam to safety. Your other two friends were in the flatbed at the back. They drowned because they couldn't get the tailgate down. There isn't much more news at this time.

"Nothing much has happened.
Your loving Mum."

Tailpiece

MICK asks Paddy what's the quickest way from Dublin to Cork.

"Are yez on foot or in de car?"

"In de car."

"Oh, dat's de quickest way, definitely."

 

Last word

The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and stupidity. - Harlan Ellison

The Idler, Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Coronavirus –

more helpful

advice at hand

MORE advice comes this way on how to deal with the coronavirus.

"I heard a doctor on TV saying in this time of coronavirus staying at home, we should focus on inner peace. To achieve this we should always finish things we start and we could all use more calm in our lives.

"I looked through my house to find things I'd started and hadn't finished, so I finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Chardonnay, a bodle of Baileys, a butle of wum. Tha mainder of Valianun scriptuns an a box a chocletz.

"Yu haf no idr how flepin fablus I feel rite now. Sned this to all who need inner pees. And telum u luvum. And two hash yer wands, srafe day avrybobby!!!!"  

This arrived anonymously. I wonder if it's raconteur Spyker Koekemoer (aka Pat Smythe), writing some time after 10am opening time for Irish whiskey at his residence, Casa Mia?

 

 

Bug aims high

PRINCE Charles, Prince Albert of Monaco, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, British Health Secretary Matt Hancock, South African Olympic swimming gold medallist Cameron van der Burgh (now living in London) … this coronavirus bug aims pretty high.

Bojo will no longer meet Queen Elizabeth in person for briefings until he's emerged from self-isolation. It's now by telephone. Food and documents will be left at the door of his flat in No 10 Downing Street. Meanwhile, his pregnant fiancee Carrie Symonds is apparently not at No 10, she's in self-isolation elsewhere.

You couldn't make it up. This is the stuff of a super-soapie.

Then Bojo's chief adviser Dominic Cummings was photographed running away from No 10 soon after the Bojo diagnosis was confirmed this week.

Huh? What on earth was that about? Weird, weird, weird! One suspects this soapie will run and run.

 

 

More drama

IF IT'S not royalty and the politicos getting infected with the coronavirus, there's other drama in the UK.

A media release by the Portsmouth Police comes this way: ""You may be aware of a large police presence near the Rose Gardens in Southsea. There is nothing to worry about, we have an unexploded device that has washed up and will soon be securely detonared. If you hear a large bang, please do not worry."

 

Tailpiece

AN ELDERLY couple are both having problems remembering things. Their doctor tells them they're physically okay, but they might want to start writing things down to help them remember ..

 

Later that night while watching TV the old fellow gets out of his chair.

"D'you want anything from the kitchen?'

"Will you get me a bowl of ice cream?'

"Sure."

"Don't you think you should write it down so you can remember it?"

"No, I can remember it."

"Well, I'd like some strawberries on top, too. Maybe you should write it down, so as not to forget it?"

"I can remember that. You want a bowl of ice cream with strawberries"'

"I'd also like whipped cream. I'm certain you'll forget that, write it down."

 

"I don't need to write it down, I can remember it. Ice cream with strawberries and whipped cream – I've  got it, for goodness sake!"

 

He toddles into the kitchen. After about 20 minutes he comes back and hands her a plate of bacon and eggs.

"Where's my toast?"

'

 

Last word

As I grow older, I regret to say that a detestable habit of thinking seems to be getting a hold of me. - H Rider Haggard

The Idler, Tuesday, March 31

Resourceful

Aussie fights

the pandemic

 

WHY is it that toilet roll is such a sought-after item in this coronavirus emergency, top of the hoarders' lists? Nobody has explained it.

And now an extreme case comes to light. Reader Simon Chetwynd-Palmer, of Kloof, says he was talking on the phone the other night to an acquaintance from days of yore – an old girl of St Mary's, Kloof, who now lives in the town of Busselton, in Western Australia.

She told him the town has run short of toilet rolls (hoarders, I'll bet!) in the Covid-19 crisis. Her husband – an eccentric retired airline pilot – has responded in a resourceful way. He's cut a large, circular hole in the seat of a canvas deck chair and placed it in the garden above a flower sprinkler. An Aussie douche.

"I guess in these times you have to be creative," says Simon.

Creative perhaps, but does this not conjure up all kinds of alarming alternative images to be attached to the geographical expression "Down Under"? The mind, senor, she boggles!

 

 

Spyker's day

 

RACONTEUR Spyker Koekemoer (aka Pat Smythe) shares with us a day under lockdown.

"Did 7 000 paces inside Essenwood Mews … wouldn't recommend it as a tourist venue or for a Michelin Star …

"Still, mustn't grumble – it is self-catering and there is a decent stock/variety of Irish whiskey and plenty of ice.

"She of great intelligence left the empty frying pan on the stove with the gas flame going … she was a very hot number in her day … I have taken on stove duty AND washing up

"It's 9.43am … I am going to desanitise and go and watch the odd car pass by. I WILL wear a mask and a hard hat in case the mynahs poop on me.

"I will try to stay safe and keep it tidy until 10am … Casa Mia opening time."

 

 

Pithy explanation

 

THE why of the lockdown is explained.

"The virus doesn't move, people move it.

"We stop moving, the virus stops moving, the virus dies.

"It's that simple."

A pithy explanation indeed.

 

 

Excitement

 

A PLAINTIVE note comes this way.

"It''s Day Five of the lockdown. I have to put out the rubbish bins.

"I'm so excited, I don't know what clothes to wear."

 

Fiery sermon

 

RELIGIOUS gatherings are also in lockdown worldwide as Easter approaches. The internet is replacing gatherings of people. Both the Church of England and the Church of Scotland have now banned mass worship and are using social media platforms instead.

But in England a vicar accidentally set himself alight while recording a virtual sermon. Rev Stephen Beach, of St Budeaux Parish Church in Plymouth, set his jumper on fire as he got too close to some candles, according to Sky News. A fiery sermon, to be sure, but he was unharmed. It has caused great mirth in Anglican circles.

 

 

Tailpiece

 

AN-82 YEAR-OLD goes to the doctor for a check-up. 

 

A few days later the doctor sees him walking down the street with a gorgeous young woman on his arm. 

 

A couple of days later he sees him again, alone, and says: "You're really doing great, aren't you?" 

 

"Just doing what you said, Doc: 'Get a hot mamma and be cheerful.'''

 

"I didn't say that. I said: 'You've got a heart murmur; be careful.'''

 

 

Last word

 

A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humour, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself. - Jessamyn West

The Idler, Monday, March 30, 2010

A word from

the man who

predicted Covid-19

 

COMPUTER whizz and billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates predicted years ago that humanity was threatened more by a virus epidemic than by the possibility of nuclear war. As his prediction comes to pass, he has issued a statement. It's worth repeating (in edited form).

"I'm a strong believer that there is a spiritual purpose behind everything that happens. I want to share with you what I feel the Corona/Covid-19 virus is really doing to us.

"It is reminding us:

·       That we are all equal, regardless of our culture, religion, occupation, financial situation or how famous we are.

·       That we are all connected and something that affects one person has an effect on another. That the false borders we have put up have little value as this virus does not need a passport

·       How precious our health is and how we have moved to neglect it through eating nutrient-poor manufactured food and drinking water that is contaminated with chemicals.

·       Of the shortness of life and of what is most important for us to do, which is to help each other, especially those who are old or sick. Our purpose is not to buy toilet roll.

·       Of how materialistic our society has become and how, when in times of difficulty, we remember that it's the essentials that we need (food, water, medicine) as opposed to the luxuries.

·       How important our family and home life is and how much we have neglected this. It is forcing us back into our houses so we can rebuild them into our homes.

·       That our true work is not our job; that is what we do, not what we were created to do. Our true work is to look after each other.

·       To keep our egos in check. No matter how great we think we are, a virus can bring our world to a standstill.

·       The power of free will is in our hands. We can choose to co-operate and help each other, to share, to give, to help and support each other or we can choose to be selfish, to hoard, to look after only ourselves.

·        We can be patient, or we can panic. We can either understand that this situation has happened many times before in history and will pass, or we can panic and see it as the end of the world.

·       This can be either an end or a new beginning. It can be the start of a cycle which will continue until we finally learn the lesson we are meant to.

·       This Earth is sick. We need to look at the rate of deforestation just as urgently as we look at the speed at which toilet rolls are disappearing off our shelves.

·       After every difficulty there is always ease. Life is cyclical, and this is just a phase. We do not need to panic, this too shall pass.

"Many see Conrona/Covid-19 virus as a great disaster, I prefer to see it as a great corrector. It is sent to remind us of the important lessons that we seem to have forgotten."

Hoor, hoor! Profound stuff.

 

Tailpiece

WHAT'S the fastest way to determine the sex of a chromosome?

Pull down its genes.

 

Last word

The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking. - AA Milne