The Idler, Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Firing squad politics UK

WHO WOULD be in British politics? There they're dismantling the welfare state as fast as they can. Only the national health service and education are ringfenced. They are doing everything the purple-faced squires and retired major-generals have been demanding for years. Cut the benefits! Get the slackers out to work!

Then an elderly cove known as Lord Young, who is some sort of enterprise adviser to the government, applauds all this and mildly remarks that some people in Britain think the state owes them a living.

This sets the geiger-counters chattering. Whoops! Political fall-out! Next thing Lord Young is out on his ear.

The Tories will do anything to rid themselves of their image as the harsh, uncaring party. Even if it means firing squads for their own when they step ever so slightly out of line.

 

Politics USA

IN AMERICA, politics has taken an ugly turn following the mid-term elections. Steven Cowan, of Wisconsin, was "fed up with politics" as he sat down to watch on television the popular celebrity dance show, Dancing With The Stars, having taken a few drinks to get himself in the mood.

Then who should he see on the screen but Bristol Palin, daughter of Tea Party figure Sarah Palin, former Governor of Alaska, who had been prominent on the channels in the run-up to the elections.

This enraged Mr Cowan, who fetched his shotgun and blasted the screen. When his wife, Janice, remonstrated, he pointed the gun at her. She fled and called the police.

A police team surrounded the couple's farmhouse throughout the night and negotiators eventually persuaded Cowan to give himself up. He has been charged with reckless endangerment.

His wife says he was upset that the controversial Sarah Palin's daughter should be dancing on television in spite of her lack of talent.

Some might say the same about Bristol's mum on the national political stage.

Politics Argentina

MEANWHILE, politics has taken a robust turn in Argentina. During a budget debate in the legislature, Graciela Camano and opposition politician Carlos Kunkel had an exchange of words, after which the Senora got up and punched Kunkel in the mouth.

Then she stalked out of the debating chamber. Hell hath no fury ...

The incident was captured on live TV.

There's been only one incident of fisticuffs in our parliament that I can recall. This was when a brawl broke out in the National Assembly as it adjourned. There was once a case in the House of Commons when Northern Irish MP Bernadette Devlin rushed across the floor to pull the hair of Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe and scratch his face.

It's not for nothing that the distance across the debating floor in the House of Commons (and our old House of Assembly) is two sword-lengths.

It's different in other parliaments, where the lay-out is semi-circular and proceedings – in France and Italy especially – are often more like tag-wrestling.

Democracy has wonderful variety.

Sweet tooth

HERE'S an idea for Johannesburg restaurateur Kenny Kunene who celebrates his birthday by eating sushi off the bodies of semi-naked ladies. In New York, clothing designers and pastry chefs have teamed up to create edible catwalk outfits.

Models strutted up the catwalk in outfits such as a white chocolate Urban Superwoman and a milk chocolate version of Lara Croft, the video game tough gal archaeologist.

The annual New York Chocolate Show, which is in its 13th year, opened last week at the Metropolitan Pavilion - attracting more than 10 000 chocolate lovers.

Just call him Sweet Tooth Kenny!

Peachy pooch

A CHIHUAHUA named Momo (Peach) has qualified as a police dog in Japan. She will be placed in the handbag of a plainclothes policewoman who will mingle with crowds. Then, at a signal, Momo will emerge to spring at the jugular of pickpockets and muggers.

No, only kidding. The 3kg dog will be part of a search-and-rescue team used for disasters such as earthquakes. Her small size means she will be able to squeeze into places too narrow for dogs such as German shepherds.

The heavy work is still for the rottweilers.

Tailpiece

IF MARTIANS live on Mars and Venusians live on Venus, who lives on Pluto?

Fleas.

Last word

Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is competently programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest.

Isaac Asimov

GRAHAM LINSCOTT

 

The Idler, Tuesday, November 23, 2010

All of it eminently sensible

THE GUINNESS Book of World Records has always attracted the weird and the wacky. It reaches a crescendo every year on Guinness World Records Day, and last week more than 200 000 people took part, hoping to make it. Among the feats:

·         In Gloucestershire, England, pensioner Thomas Lackey broke his existing record as the world's oldest wing walker by flying 500 feet above the ground, strapped to the wing of an aircraft.

·         In London, American Ashrita Furman broke the world record for the heaviest shoes by walking 10 metres at Tower Bridge in shoes weighing a total of 146.5kg.

·         In Paris, can-can girls at the Moulin Rouge produced the most high kicks ever in a single 30-second chorus line.

·         Also in Paris, Anatol and Monika Stykan - a male and female balancing act - broke the world record for the most stairs climbed while balancing a person on the head - on the steps of Sacre Coeur Basilica.

·         In New York, 400 dogs put on cowboy hats, tiaras, T-shirts and ponchos to clinch an entry as the largest-ever convention of pooches in fancy dress.

Other records toppled included the largest painting by numbers, the world's largest shoe (a canvas trainer, Size 845) and the most concrete blocks broken whilst holding a raw egg.

Well, that's what the rest of the world was doing. Very sensible. We've yet to learn what Julius Malema was up to.

Chuggalug

AN AUSTRALIAN brewery has offered a free beer to every adult citizen in the country, should the national cricket side win back the Ashes from England in the series which begins this week.

The free beers – offered by Foster's Lager - would become available through vouchers printed in the newspapers countrywide.

This might seem the ultimate in cricketing patriotism, the start of a party reaching from Botany Bay to Beyond the Black Stump.

Yet the exercise would cost about A$20 million. Maybe Foster's believe they're on safe ground.

Flag splendour

BRITISH prime minister David Cameron was interviewed on TV over Nato and Afghanistan. Standing in the corner in the background was a Union Jack.

When did the Brits adopt this American practice of displaying the national flag indoors on such occasions?

We adopted it in the days of PW Botha. Every government office suddenly had its flag, every desk had its miniature. The practice is still going strong today.

It recalls the words of the Chinese sage who inspired the title of Evelyn Waugh's novel, Put Out More Flags.

"A drunk military man should order gallons and put up more flags in order to increase his military splendour."

This is not to suggest that Cameron was squiffy drunk on TV. But, having scrapped the Ark Royal, maybe he does need to boost the military splendour a bit.

Banister

SOME truisms on the banister of life:

·         The only time the world beats a path to your door is if you're in the bathroom.

·         I hate sex in the movies. Tried it once. The seat folded up, the drink spilled and that ice, well it really chilled the mood.

·         It used to be only death and taxation. Now, of course, there's shipping and handling too.

Tailpiece

A MARRIED couple in their early 60s are celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary in a quiet, romantic little restaurant. Suddenly a tiny, beautiful fairy appears on their table. She says: "For being such an exemplary married couple and for being loving to each other for all this time, I will grant you each a wish."

The wife says: "Oh, I want to travel around the world with my darling husband."

The fairy waves her magic wand and - poof! - two tickets for the Queen Mary appear in her hands.

The husband thinks for a moment: "Well, this is all very romantic, but an opportunity like this will never come again. I'm sorry my love, but my wish is to have a wife 30 years younger than me."

The wife and the fairy are deeply disappointed, but a wish is a wish. So the fairy waves her magic wand and - poof! - the husband is 92 years old.

Moral: Men who are ungrateful bastards should remember that fairies are female.

Last word

What we call "Progress" is the exchange of one nuisance for another nuisance.

Havelock Ellis

GRAHAM LINSCOTT

The Idler, Monday, November 22, 2010

What about bunnychow, pap en wors?

 

WE'VE missed a trick. At a conference up in Nairobi, Unesco (United Nations Economic and Social Commission) has been busy doing things like put France's traditional gastronomic meal on to the world's "intangible heritage list".

The traditional gastronomic meal, I gather, is the full thing from hors d'oevres, right through six courses to the coffee and cognac. Were it not for this Unesco intervention, there would be a danger of Paris going over to McDonald burgers and hot dogs.

Unesco has also put on the list traditional Mexican food; plus cultural non-food items that are considered to be at risk in today's globalising world – Spanish flamenco dancing, Colombia's marimba instrument and chants from the Pacific coast (also Colombia). Also the huaconada, a traditional dance of the Mito people in the Peruvian Andes. Plus Mongolian folk dancing, the tango in Argentina and Croatian lace-making.

It's nice to know Unesco is not shirking these vitally important issues but what is our diplomatic service doing to get our own cuisine and culture on that intangible heritage list? Things like bunnychow, pap en wors, spook 'n diesel and the gumboot dance.

We pay our dues to the UN. Let's get value for money.

Street names

A LAND surveyor of my acquaintance was at work in one of the townships on the periphery of Durban when he was approached by a group of men carrying sticks and looking none too friendly. They wanted to know if he was responsible for putting in the street name signs.

He was not. It turned out they were annoyed that people from elsewhere had been employed to dig the holes and put in the signs. Local people should get those jobs, they said.

The tension had vanished. To make conversation, the surveyor asked what names had been chosen. Mbeki? Malema? There was a great stock of heroic names from which to choose.

The leader of the group shook his head vigorously.

"No, we name our roads after trees and animals. People are only trouble. If they name a street after a person, we pull the sign down"

Yet Ridge Road becomes Peter Mokaba. Essenwood (a tree) becomes, Oh, I forget now. Broadway becomes Swapo (a group of people). And so on, and so on. You have to go to a township to hear some sense.

Mind you, the thing is still sub judice, to be decided by the Court of Appeal. We of the St Petersburg Forum – St Petersburg, Leningrad, St Petersburg again – look on with amused detachment.

 

 

Carbon hysteria

STOCKS analyst James Greener does not share our city manager's enthusiasm for the international climate change conference being held in Durban next year.

To quote his newsletter:

"Once again throngs of carbon-based life forms with zero knowledge about science will gather to demand in voices filled with carbon dioxide that the rather vital 6^th member of the periodic table be banned from the globe. It will be a mess and another bill for ratepayers."

You could hardly put it more pithily.

 

 

That's showbiz

 

READER Brian Kennedy notes that RTE Ireland's radio and television had a headline on its website last week: "Britain's Prince Wiliam to marry". It was under the heading "Entertainment".

 

Well, that's it: bread and circuses.

 

High heels

IF YOU'RE flying Air Asia from Kuala Lumpur to London, don't get a fright if the stewardess in the red outfit and high heels has a beard. It will be Sir Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Air, paying off a wager with Tony Fernandes, CEO of Air Asia.

Each had agreed to dress up as a stewardess and serve on the other's airline if his Formula One motor-racing team lost to the other.

Branson's Virgin Racing entry to the F1 lost to Lotus, headed up by Fernandes. Although both teams completed the season with zero points, Lotus were placed ahead in the rankings because of better finishing positions.

These international financiers play it tough.

 

Tailpiece

BUTTERCUP and Daisy are chatting and chewing the cud.

Buttercup: "'Ere, have you heard about this mad cow disease?"

Daisy: "Yes. Sounds nasty."

Buttercup: "Makes me glad I'm a chicken."

 

Last word

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don't need to be done.

Andy Rooney

GRAHAM LINSCOTT

Captain Cook, Friday, November 19

 

The Idler, Friday, November 19, 2010

It's the computer age ETHEKWINI municipality has a way to go. A man living in Kandos (near Mudgee in New South Wales, Australia) received a bill for his as yet unused gas line stating that he owed $0.00. He ignored it and threw it away. He received another bill and threw that one away too. The following month the gas company sent him a very nasty note saying they were going to cancel his gas line if he didn't send them $0.00 by return mail. He phoned them and they said it was a computer error and they would take care of it. Next month he decided it was about time he tried out the troublesome gas line, figuring that if there was usage on the account it would put an end to this ridiculous predicament. However when he went to use the gas, it had been cut off. He phoned the gas company who apologised for the computer error once again and said they would take care of it. Next day he got a bill for $0.00 stating that payment was now overdue. Assuming that having spoken to them the previous day the latest bill was yet another mistake, he ignored it, trusting that the company would be as good as their word and sort the problem out. Next month he got a bill for $0.00. This also said he had 10 days to pay his account or the company would have to take steps to recover the debt. Giving in, he mailed the company a cheque for $0.00. The computer duly processed his account and returned a statement to the effect that he now owed the gas company nothing at all. A week later, the manager of the Mudgee branch of the bank phoned and asked what he was doing writing a cheque for $0.00. The $0.00 cheque had caused the bank's cheque processing software to fail. It therefore could not process any cheques received from any of their customers that day. The next month the gas customer received a letter from the company saying his cheque had bounced and he now owed them $0.00. Unless he sent a cheque by return mail, they would take immediate steps to recover the debt. At this point he decided to file a debt harassment claim against the company. It took nearly two hours to convince the clerks at the local courthouse that he wasn't joking. The gas company was eventuallyordered to rectify its accounts system, compensate the customer for cheque dishonouring charges, compensate all the bank's other clients whose cheques had bounced and pay the customer $1 500 a month for five months of aggravation. Moral: Computers can cost you.

Aussie idiom

THIS is the first time I have known the name Mudgee to appear in such a context. Usually it's a part of Australian idiom, an expression of appreciation of a well-endowed sheila.

"Like a set of Mudgee mailbags, mate!"

Zambia patrol

SOME news from Zambia. A young police officer was taking his final exam at police staff training college . Question:

"You are on patrol on the outskirts of Lusaka when an explosion occurs nearby. On investigation you find a large hole has been blown in the road and there is an overturned van lying nearby. Inside the van there is a strong smell of alcohol. Both occupants - a man and a woman - are injured. You recognise the woman as the wife of your divisional inspector, who is at present away on a peace-making mission. A passing motorist stops to offer you assistance and you recognise him as a man who is wanted for armed robbery. Suddenly a man runs out of a nearby house, shouting that his wife is expecting a baby and that the shock of the explosion has made the birth imminent. Another man is crying for help, having been blown into an adjacent dam by the explosion, and he cannot swim.

"Describe in a few words what action you would take."

The officer thought for a moment, picked up his pen and wrote: "I would take off my uniform and mingle with the crowd."

 

Tailpiece

EMPEROR Nero: "Why aren't we making any money out of this colisseum?"

Financial adviser: "The lions are eating up all the prophets."

Last word

In literature as in love, we are astonished at what is chosen by others.

Andre Maurois

GRAHAM LINSCOTT

The Idler, Thursday, November 18, 2010

Another fairytale unfolds

IT'S ASTONISHING how the supposedly antiquated and politically and intellectually backward institution of monarchy strikes a chord all over the world. A TV channel the other night showed newsreaders bringing the story of Prince William's engagement to Kate Middleton in Russia, France, Germany, China, America, Australia, and several European countries I couldn't identify. There was no mistaking their enthusiasm.

Why should this be? Is it really the "fairytale" factor? Do the Chinese, say, have their own fairytales about the humble girl being courted by the handsome prince? Maybe they do, I just don't know.

Or is it that monarchy actually does play a vital role in society – above politics, a focus of national pride, a rallying point and a lot of fun?

Is it coincidence that Spain, for instance, has moved from a bitter civil war to a prolonged fascist dictatorship, to political and economic freedom – under a constitutional monarchy?

Makes ya think.

In Britain itself, of course, there is vocal opposition to the institution of monarchy, mainly among the intellectual chattering classes. How lonely they must feel at times like these.

 

 

Cabinet cheer

BRITISH prime minister David Cameron says news of the engagement was greeted with a cheer around the cabinet table in No 10 Downing Street.

I'll bet. There's nothing like a royal wedding to take the mind of the public off the austerity measures that are being introduced. Bread and circuses? That would perhaps be unfair, but it's not altogether off the mark.

Will this royal wedding be a lavish bash? At a time of austerity it's a tricky one. Yet at the time Queen Elizabeth married Prince Phillip (she was then still a princess) Britain was in even worse post-war austerity. The people themselves insisted on whooping it up. It could turn out the same this time.

 

 

The shadow

OF COURSE, there's a shadow to all this. William's mother also had a "fairytale" romance that went sour, lapsed into soap opera and spun into tragedy. It was cringe-making to watch old footage of Princess Diana running the gauntlet in the streets of London of the paparazzi who eventually killed her in Paris.

There's no reason to believe anything similar should happen this time. William and Kate seem an exceptionally well-balanced and good-humoured pair.

But their minders need to carefully plot course. Royal romance has a great potential for schmaltz, which so easily becomes soap opera. It's the natural habitat of the agony aunts of Fleet Street, not to mention the professional royal-watchers, whose qualification for the job has always escaped me.

But I'd guess William and Kate can rise above it.

The script

IS THERE a more ordinary middle-class name than Kate Middleton?

Stand by for William to be created Duke of Somewhere-or-other so Kate can become Duchess.

The royals know how to write a script.

Old 'un

WILL the royal wedding be the occasion for the return of an old joke that first surfaced at the time of the coronation in 1953?

A South African has been celebrating so hard in London that a pub refuses to serve him. Slowly and deliberately he takes a matchbox from his pocket and empties on to the bar counter a pair of white ants.

"Okay, boys. Wreck the joint!"

 

Windfall vase

A CHINESE vase discovered during a routine clear-out of a house in London has fetched £51 million at auction, leaving the sellers flabbergasted.

The 18th century work of art, a masterpiece from the Qinglong dynasty, was expected to sell for between £800 000 and £1.2m.

But the bidding attracted many Chinese buyers seeking a piece of their imperial past and the bidding went into the stratosphere. The price fetched astonished both the auctioneers and the owners, a mother and son from Ruislip. Nobody can remember how the vase ended up in their home.

I wonder about that imperial past bit. Did somebody put out the story that the vase was packed with powdered rhino horn, a lifetime's supply of male potency?

Tailpiece

PUB MENU:  "A pie, a pint and a kind word: R5."

Customer (pie in one hand, pint in the other): "What's the kind word?"

Barman: "Wouldn't eat that pie if I were you."

Last word

 

A bore is a man who deprives you of solitude without providing you with company.

Gian Vincenzo Gravina

GRAHAM LINSCOTT

The Idler, Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The more things change ...

SCIENTISTS at Oxford University have discovered that a video game known as Tetris can be useful in preventing people having psychological flashbacks to distressing episodes in their past.

The psychology department tested a group of people. They were shown distressing videos – horror crashes and so on – then were split into three groups. One played Tetris – which seems to be a game in which you use coloured building blocks on-screen – others played a game called Pub Quiz and the rest were told to just sit around and twiddle their thumbs.

They were also asked to keep a flashback diary for a week.

The Tetris players reported considerably fewer flashbacks than the others, the Pub Quiz people considerably more.

The researchers suggest that Tetris, or a visual-spatial task like it, could be developed as a kind of "cognitive vaccine" against psychological flashbacks. It could become an alternative to current treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Those Oxford psychologists need to extend their research to South Africa, where there's a rich field of flashbacks. At the same time, Tetris needs to be imported in bulk as a matter of urgency.

Every time Glen Aggliotti appears in court charged with all kinds of skullduggery, much of it relating to the former commissioner of police, we get a flashback to when another Aggliotti  was in a monster land scandal in which he was in cahoots with the Nats.

Every time a government functionary fulminates over "fronting" to frustrate the BEE programme, we get a flashback to Nat cabinet ministers going incandescent over "fronting" by whites on behalf of Indian businessmen so they could circumvent the Group Areas Act.

Every time Julius Malema or some other politico cries "Racist!" when the parliamentary opposition dissects government non-performance, we get a flashback to PW Botha crying "Boerehaat!" in precisely the same circumstances.

Every time a black academic insists on the vernacular languages becoming the medium of instruction in universities, we get a flashback to Verwoerd saying the same thing - denying black students exposure to the international mainstream.

Every time the minister of sport, or the parliamentary portfolio committee on sport, express themselves on the racial composition of sports teams, we get a flashback to John Vorster saying virtually the same thing.

Every time a politician tells us of the five million jobs in the pipeline, we get a flashback to successive Nat ministers saying "next year" the "Bantu" will start streaming back to their homelands.

Ensovoorts, ensovoorts. So many flashbacks.

 

Financial turmoil

ALL KINDS of financial turmoil in Europe. Will Ireland have to be bailed out by the EU? When will the Spanish wake up to the fact that they're in a crisis? Are Portugal and Greece still there?

Will the Euro survive as a currency? The stresses are immense. Maybe they'll all go back to their punts, francs, marks, schillings, lira, escudos and so forth.

As we ought to go back to pounds, shillings and pence. It was a far superior currency. When I left school a pint of beer cost 1/6d (15 cents); a cup of coffee cost twopence (2 cents); you could get a mixed grill on the beachfront for 4/6d (45 cents); and you could take a girl out to dinner for a quid.

I rest my case.

Atrocities

THE RHINO poaching atrocities prompt some angry lines from Durban poet Irene Emanuel. She calls her poem The Dark Side:

 

They live on the dark side

where life means money;

riches taken from the

life-blood of fast-fading species.

 

Only on the dark side

are these destroyers found

coiling alongside the devil,

making pacts with murderers.

 

They hack off rhino horns;

shoot tigers for their bones;

torture bears for their bile;

force-feed geese for pate;

rip the fins off sharks;

club seals for their skins;

the list is endless,

the suffering is without merit.

 

They live on the dark side,

the cold hunters who kill

without compunction,

in the name of ostentatious greed.

 

Those soul-less executioners

will take the last rhino,

the last tiger and they will kill

until every last bird, fish,

reptile, butterfly and beast

is wiped off the planet.

And then the dark side

will encompass Earth.

 

Tailpiece

HOW many feminists does it take to change a light bulb?

That's not funny!

Last word

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is at all comprehensible.

Albert Einstein

GRAHAM LINSCOTT