The Idler, Tuesday, May 29, 2012

FORMER prime minister Tony Blair is now under scrutiny by the Leveson inquiry into the British media, for his apparently close relationship with press baron Rupert Murdoch and his New International group. Old TV footage screened shows an astonishingly youthful Blair addressing News International before he became prime minister and shortly before News International switched support to the Labour Party.

 

But something else astonished in this flashback to a youthful Tony Blair. Whatever could it be?

 

Then Bingo! That's it! The same build, the same colouring, the same poster-boy looks, the same slightly tousled auburn hair. The young Tony Blair was a dead ringer for today's Patrick Lambie.

 

Advice for Patrick Lambie: Stick to rugby. Don't become prime minister of Britain. Don't invade Iraq. Don't invade Afghanistan. Steer clear of Murdoch and News International.

 

Sock it to the Lions on Saturday! Sock it to the Bulls the following Saturday! Concentrate on winning your place against England. Then concentrate on beating England.

 

Don't let that Tony Blair fellow steal your thunder, don't worry about him. He's a total shyster and past it anyway.

 

Misinterpretations

 

"SUFFER the children", read the front page banner headline in last weekend's Sunday Times. The report beneath it was about the appalling conditions at a quasi-school somewhere in the bush of Limpopo province.

 

It's surprising how many headline-writers use this total misinterpretation of the Gospel to highlight cruelty to children. Often the phrase "little children" is used.

 

The full text (in St Mark) is: "Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God."

 

It's from the King James Bible. The English is Elizabethan – the language of Shakespeare - and "suffer" means "allow". Christ's injunction to His disciples in no way envisages suffering or hardship for children and in fact suggests the opposite.

 

It's curious the way this misinterpretation has been used by headline-writers over the decades, overseas rather more than here.

 

It first happened way back in the sixties when Punch magazine deliberately misused the phrase, and to telling effect – "Suffer the little children" – when a Papal encyclical forbade contraception. Punch's point was overpopulation and economic misery, mainly in the Third World.

 

It's not for this column to take a position on religion or birth control. But let's at least not use misinterpretations of scripture in our headlines.

 

Council house correspondence

 

SOME letters of complaint from council house tenants in Britain:

 

·        It's the dogs' mess that I find hard to swallow.

·        I wish to report that tiles are missing from the outside toilet roof. I think it was bad wind the other day that blew them off.

·        My lavatory seat is cracked, where do I stand?

·        I am writing on behalf of my sink, which is coming away from the wall.

·        Will you please send someone to mend the garden path. My wife tripped and fell on it yesterday and now she is pregnant.

·        I request permission to remove my drawers in the kitchen.

·        Fifty percent of the walls are damp, 50 percent have crumbling plaster, and 50 percent are just plain filthy.

·        The toilet is blocked and we cannot bath the children until it is cleared.

·        Our lavatory seat is broken in half and now is in three pieces.

·        Our kitchen floor is damp. We have two children and would like a third, so please send someone round to do something about it.

·        I am a single woman living in a downstairs flat and would you please do something about the noise made by the man on top of me every night.

·        I have had the clerk of works down on the floor six times but I still have no satisfaction.

·        This is to let you know that our lavatory seat is broke and we can't get BBC2.

 

Tailpiece

Reub: "Abner, what's these things buzzin' about mah face?"

Abner" "Them's hossflies, Reub."

Reub: "Hossflies? What hossflies, Abner?"

Abner: "Hossflies is them things buzzin' about the rear end of a hoss."

Reub: "Is youse insinuatin', Abner, that I got a face like the rear end of a hoss?"

Abner: "Ise insinuatin' nothin', Reub. But you cain't fool them hossflies!"

 

Last word

 

When I read about the evils of drinking, I gave up reading.

Henny Youngman

 

The Idler, Monday, May 28, 2012

That heaving deck

TOP HATS, ankle-length dresses … a whole lot of folk were going about Point Yacht Club in Victorian gear last Friday as the club celebrated the 120^th anniversary of its founding in 1892 on board the harbour tug Richard King.

In fact there's always been an ancient photograph of the Richard King on display in the clubhouse, wallowing in the lumpy waters just outside the harbour entrance. Looking at the picture, one imagined that inaugural committee clutching for support at furniture and stanchions as the meeting proceeded.

But on reflection, of course, that would not have been so. The meeting would have been held not out in the roadstead but with the Richard King at moorings in harbour.

Whatever, the picture has been cleaned up and remounted and it was focal point at an anniversary dinner that turned out an absolute hoot.

Stories from yesteryear abounded, among them anecdotes from my old pal Bob Fraser, a former commodore, who told us of occasions when couples were found making unorthodox use of the billiard table and the flag loft. (It seems the club was especially lively in those days).

The dinner was serenaded throughout by a lovely Swazi girl named Sky, who wandered among the tables singing in an absolutely angelic voice from a repertoire that ranged from Italian operetta to the current hit parade. We held our wine glasses anxiously as she hit the high notes. We were close to shattering point.

A memorable evening, to be sure. By the close, you'd have thought some of the revellers were back on the heaving deck of the Richard King.

I wonder if the committee checked the billiard table and the flag loft?

 

PYC Pies

A NICE touch was the way the kitchen staff were brought in to receive congratulations on an excellent meal of roast lamb with all the trimmings. There was a special cheer for a fellow named Eric, who has been making the celebrated PYC Pie for 30 years.

The PYC Pie is in the realm of legend. It provides both ballast and nourishment. One PYC Pie and you're ready to take on the Grenadier Guards singlehanded. I knew a fellow in Pretoria who used to spend his annual leave sailing on Durban bay, then drooled for the rest of the year thinking of PYC Pies.

They didn't feature on Friday but they'll be back on the menu today.

Name change

 

OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-40s: "I changed my iPod's name to Titanic. It's syncing now."

 

Hooligan birds

 

WHAT is it that gets into Indian mynahs? The other day I was watching one of their hooligan brawls – running into one another, knocking one another over, wings fluttering as they rolled about, all of them screeching their heads off.

 

Often it happens on the ground, as many as a dozen birds at a time. This time they were on a neighbour's roof, about six birds involved, and mixing it like in a Wild West bar fight. Now and again they would topple off the roof. Two ended up in the guttering, still fighting furiously.

 

What's behind this communal aggression? It doesn't appear to be a mating ritual. It's winter now anyway. It surely can't be territorial because mynahs forage together and roost together.

 

It's puzzling. Does anyone out there know what's behind the aggro?

 

Tailpiece

THIS girl gets into conversation with two ship's officers in a pub down in the Point area. She's desperate to get to Australia. The two – second and third officer respectively – offer to smuggle her aboard and stow her away in their cabin in return for favours. It's a deal.

After a couple of weeks at sea, the second officer tells her the mate has caught on what's happening and unless he's cut in on the deal he's going to tell the skipper. So now it's three and things are getting hectic.

One morning she opens the cabin door a crack and sees a deckhand on all fours, scrubbing.

"Pssst! When do we get to Australia?"

"Australia? Lady, this is the dredger!"

Last word

 

Boyhood, like measles, is one of those complaints which a man should catch young and have done with, for when it comes in middle life it is apt to be serious.

P G Wodehouse

 

Captain Cook Friday, May 25, 2012

PAYBACK time! The Stormers are top of the log, yet last we met we should have beaten them. It was our phase of stuttering flatulence; when we came back from a series of games we should have won, but with only a bonus point for coming close. Now we are a purring machine, playing with a confidence and zest to match our skills and brawn. This is the moment of truth.

Let's look again at last week's match. It's difficult to find superlatives sufficient to describe it. This was a game of rugby that was close to flawless on either side. Free State were magnificent, yet we edged them where it counted. We played out of our socks. This was the real deal, the kind of performance we've been building to. It's a good time to start peaking.

The game as a whole must rate as the most spectacular – and top quality – encounter of the Super 15 season anywhere. The players – both sides – running onto the ball at pace; wonderful handling; hard, ferocious tackling on both sides; a spirit of adventure throughout, the lead changing. This was classic stuff.

I understand that these days the rugby tradition of getting together with the opposition after the game for a few beers has declined somewhat at the professional level. I hope Bloemfontein was an exception. Both sides put so much into it and both played so well that it needed to be rounded off. They served the cause of rugby.

And it's not just the Sharks and the Free State Cheetahs whose reputation is enhanced. The Ukrainian lovelies of the Thunder Bar are fast emerging as rugby analysts to be taken seriously. The betting slips stowed in Katinka's suspender belt provide an uncanny prediction of the run of play.

And what of tomorrow? "Ooh-la-la!" she says, snapping at her suspenders. "Freddie Michalak! Tres sexie! Unt Patrick Lambie! Ze sveetheart! Ve don't know vich ve vant to pounce on. Yoost like vestern province, zey von't know vich to tackle. Ploemtree, smart guy! Sharks vill do it, zey like zer machine. Beesmarck, Yonnie unt Bee-e-a-a-ast upfront. Backline zey runnink onto ball, tacklink like zer crazy guys. Unt Patrick joining ze line. Sharks got ze confidence, anytink can happen. Zey best team in competition now. Zey gonna vin, zey gonna moider da bums!" Snap! Snap!

Well, there you have it. And, oddly enough, it coincides with my own analysis. (And no, I don't have privileged access to Katinka's suspender belt). The Stormers have a monster pack but they don't have our front row. We've got the beef to contain them. We've also developed that intangible factor of making our own luck. The guys are relaxed but alert to opportunity. The stuttering and flatulence are gone, the handling is there, the go-forward instinct, the running onto the ball. Watch JP Pietersen! The man is hungry. Watch Charl McLeod, I've a feeling this could be his day!

Payback Time! Remember the Alamo! See you in the Duikers'!

The Idler, Friday, May 25

Finance in perspective

 

IN VAIN do we wait for any kind of proper explanation of the paralysis of the international financial system. Was it really caused by a bunch of shyster traders? Was Karl Marx right all along about capitalism? Or did the bubble burst after decades of governments spending what they did not have? The learned economists are silent.

 

Yet here and there one gets a glimmer of understanding. Reader Eric Hodgson supplies some statistics from the United States and tweaks them to get them into a perspective we can all grasp. He tells us why the US credit rating was downgraded.

 

US tax revenue: $2 170 000 000 000
Federal budget: $3 820 000 000 000
New debt: $1 650 000 000 000
National debt: $14 271 000 000 000

Recent budget cuts: $38 500 000 000

Let's now remove eight zeros and pretend it's a household budget:
Annual family income: $21 700
Money the family spent: $38 200
New debt on the credit card: $16 500
Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142 710
Total budget cuts: $385

Oh boy!

Egyptology

 

THE ARMY seized power from King Farouk of Egypt in 1952. Ever since then it has been the power behind successive presidencies.

 

In the Arab Spring it stood by as Hosni Mubarak was toppled from power. Then it took direct control again.

 

In recent days Egypt voted for a new president, though without a constitution setting out what his powers will be.

 

Is the army about to stand down? Somehow I sphinx not.

 

 

Boskat Bohemia

 

ALARMING facts are beginning to emerge about last weekend's Varsity Rugby Day in Maritzburg, in aid of the Jes Foord Foundation. Not only were men playing against women, beer was being consumed on the field.

 

This was in a round robin pool between Alumni Over 40, the Varsity rowing crew and the ladies of Cedara Agricultural College, also known as the Boskatte.

 

The Boskatte were two players short so two well-known male desperadoes – identical twins Lambo and Rambo Lambert – made up the numbers.

 

So much beer was consumed that nobody can remember who won. Nor can they remember which changerooms Lambo and Rambo used. Did they share with the Boskatte? Nobody knows.

 

More rugby

 

STILL with rugby, here are some quotes to get us in the mood for tomorrow's match against the Stormers.

 

·         "Rugby is great. The players don't wear helmets or padding; they just beat the living daylights out of each other and then go for a beer. I love that." - Joe Theismann

·         "Beer and rugby are more or less synonymous." - Chris Laidlaw.

·         "The advantage law is the best law in rugby because it lets you ignore all the others for the good of the game.". - Derek Robinson

 

·         :"For an 18-month suspension, I feel I probably should have torn it off. Then at least I could say: 'Look, I've returned to South Africa with the guy's ear.'" - Johan le Roux (After biting Sean Fitzpatrick's ear).

·         "Every time I went to tackle him, Horrocks went one way, Taylor went the other, and all I got was the bloody hyphen." - Nick England, (On trying to stop Phil Horrocks-Taylor).

·         "Don't ask me about emotions in the Welsh dressing room. I'm someone who cries when he watches Little House on the Prairie." - Robert Norster.

·         "England's coach Jack Powell, an immensely successful businessman, has the acerbic wit of Dorothy Parker and, according to most New Zealanders, a similar knowledge of rugby." - Mark Reason.

·         : "If you can't take a punch, you should play table tennis." -Pierre Berbizier (Following Scotland's accusations of French foul play).

·         "Colin Meads is the kind of player you expect to see emerging from a ruck with the remains of a jockstrap between his teeth." - Tom O'Reilly.

 

 

Tailpiece

 

Elderly Frenchman in confessional: "Father, during World War II I hid a beautiful woman in my attic. She was being pursued by the Nazis."

Priest: "That is no sin, my son."

Elderly Frenchman: "I received sexual favours in return for hiding her."

Priest: "It was a difficult time. I am sure you will be judged kindly."

Elderly Frenchman: "Thank you, Father. Do you think I should tell her the war is over?"

 

 

Last word

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood. - Henry Miller

The Idler, Thursday, May 24, 2012

Evolution of democracy

THINGS continue to evolve in the cradle of modern democracy. A select committee of the House of Commons has reported that three executives of Rupert Murdoch's News International misled its members when they investigated the phone hacking affair at the News of the World and were therefore in contempt of parliament.

This has now been referred to the standards and privileges committee of the House for a decision as to how the three miscreants should be punished. A Labour MP has called for imprisonment or fines, though the more normal procedure would be for them to be called before the bar of the House.

This does not mean they have to buy a few rounds in the MPs' bar upstairs, it means they get marched at sword-point to the brass bar at the MPs' entrance to the House of Commons, where they have to grovel and apologise.

But the problem here is that the three – Les Hinton, Tom Crone and Colin Myler – are by all accounts anything but penitent. They believe they've had a raw deal.

What happens if they are marched to the bar of the House, where they proceed to shout: "Yah! Boo! Sucks!" to the assembled MPs? Do they then get sent to the Tower of London?

It's a tricky question in the evolution of parliamentary democracy. The affair does not cease to entertain.

Supertash

EAT YOUR hearts out, Royal Air Force types. Ram Singh, of Chauhan, India, has (as recorded on yesterday's front page) entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the man with the longest moustache.

Tip to tip, it measures an astonishing 4.27m. When he holds the tips above head-height, two great loops of hair hang down below his waist.

What a wonderful challenge for former Springbok rugby coach, Peter "De Snor" de Villiers. If time should hang heavy these days, why not devote it to grooming the moustache for great things?

Space debris

SPACE scientists are becoming alarmed by the amount of junk orbiting the earth. Six astronauts were awoken early and scrambled into escape capsules recently when  Nasa ground control spotted a piece of space debris hurtling toward the International Space Station above the Earth.

The fast-moving junk was spotted just one day before its potential impact, making it too late to manoeuvre the station to a safer orbit. The only course of action for the three Russians, two Americans and one Dutch astronaut crew was to take shelter and prepare to evacuate if required.

In the event, the debris, a chunk of a defunct military communications satellite, missed the ISS by approximately 12 km. The incident, in March, was the latest close shave for the space station. Six other crew members had to take shelter in June last year when another piece of junk whistled past, just 335m from the station.

It was a precautionary measure, but Nasa estimates that anything larger than a baseball poses a potentially catastrophic threat to the ISS. It's a problem that is getting rapidly worse. US Air Force Space Command is tracking around 22 000 pieces of man-made space debris, mostly larger than 10 cm across, and there are estimated to be hundreds of thousands more smaller bits.

What's to be done about this? Presumably the junk has in it all sorts of wiring. A start might be to get the word out among the fellows who steal copper cabling so regularly from Telkom and Eskom that there's tons of high quality stuff whirling about up there. They'll find a way to haul it in.

When to stop

 

OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-40s: "I know a guy who's addicted to brake fluid. He says he can stop any time."

 

Tailpiece

 

TWO FELLOWS are fishing from a boat in Durban harbour. The water is like glass. Suddenly a huge hand comes up out of the water. It moves across to the left. Then it moves across to the right. Then it moves across to the left again. Then it slips back under the surface.

 

"Holy smoke! Did you see that?"

 

"Yeah. Biggest wave I ever saw."

 

 

Last word

 

Ahhh. A man with a sharp wit. Someone ought to take it away from him before he cuts himself.

Peter da Silva

 

The Idler, Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The Battle of Durban

WITHOUT getting into the wider issues of the taxi unrest, on one point the drivers are quite right. They are entitled to have their tickets made out to them in Zulu. I fact this coincides with a campaign I am launching to have traffic tickets – in fact any sort of correspondence between myself and council – made out in my own language.

This is of course, English, or Anglo-Saxon. But I insist on not this modern nonsense but the  Anglo-Saxon of the 10^th century. Consider these opening lines from the epic poem, The Battle of Maldon.

… broken wurde

Het tha hyssa hwaene hors forlaten,

Feor afysan and forth gangan,

Hicgan to handum and to hige godum.

Yes, it looks a bit unfamiliar at first but soon enough you catch on – the fellows being told to let their horses go and so on. Anyway, that's the tenor of my present discussion with the council over my rates valuation. The Battle of Maldon has nothing on this.

Let us insist on our language rights, our heritage. Hicgan to handum!

Point Yacht Club

A HUNDRED and twenty years ago last week, a group of men met on board the harbour tug Richard King to form the Point Yacht Club. It was announced in The Mercury of May 14, 1892.

This Friday there's a big get-together of PYC folk at a dinner to celebrate the 120^th anniversary.

The original PYC was in Hospital Road, in the Point area, and it moved to a spot on the Esplanade then to its present premises right on the water, initially built on pilings.

Initially the club was not allowed to have a bar, being on railway ground, but that anomaly has long since disappeared. Members will gather in Charlie's Bar before making their way to  dinner at 7pm. Bookings: 031-3014787.

Splice the mainbrace!

 

Rugby day

IT SEEMS last Saturday's University of KwaZulu-Natal rugby day in Maritzburg in support of the Jes Foord Foundation (against rape) was a huge success.

Mark Schulze, one of the organisers, tells me the Varsity third team took the field to play Cedara only hours after having played a tough league match.

The UKZN Howard College team forfeited their usual colours to play in the lime green of the Jes Foord Foundation. Jes herself was touched.

Then came an astonishing gesture from the UKZN Under 20 team. A former Varsity and Natal player was so impressed by their high spirits after the game, as they sang and were levied fines by an impromptu kangaroo court ,that he made them a generous donation for beer money. The team promptly donated the money to the Jes Foord Foundation.

The cash was handed over by the Under 20 skipper, a man nicknamed "Chief", who is from a disadvantaged background.

"This is a shining example to school, academy and university players in this country, who are sometimes so preoccupied with achievements, exposure and contracts, that they are losing the ethos of enjoyment, loyalty, team spirit and honour - the very qualities which underlie the point of sport," says Mark..

He doesn't tell us about the Cedara women's side – the Boskatte – how they behaved. I think we should be told.

Tutti-frutti

A FRUIT hybrid so new it has yet to be named will be on sale in Britain from next week. Known for now as a "papple", it looks and tastes like an apple but has the skin and texture of a pear.

Other fruit hybrids: Tangelo - a citrus hybrid of a tangerine and a grapefruit; Grapple – an apple specially treated to taste like grapes; Aprium – the complex crossing of a plum and an apricot; Orangelo - a cross between a grapefruit and an orange; Plumcot - another plum/apricot hybrid; Pineberry -  a white-looking strawberry with flesh tasting of pineapple.

That'nothing. Down at the Street Shelter for the Over-40s we've got the Pawpolive. That's a pawpaw that goes in the giant martini, in which they specialise.

Tailpiece

 

TARQUIN the twit meets a beautiful girl in the forest.

"Are you game?" he asks.

"Yes," she says.

So he shoots her.

 

Last word

 

If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run - and often in the short one - the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.

Arthur C Clarke

 

The Idler, Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Long-running show

 

THE INQUIRY into the Fleet Street phone hacking scandal runs on so remorselessly that it's beginning to resemble The Mousetrap - Agatha Christie's murder mystery play that has been running in the London West End for 60 years – according to British magazine The Spectator.

 

"The hacking inquiry has become like The Mousetrap: a show that never closes. Unlike The Mousetrap, however, it is showing simultaneously in three different West End theatres: the High Court, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Magistrates Court. The proceedings have grown so far out of proportion to the offence that the Whitehall Theatre might be a better location: it has become a farce … it is not so much an inquiry as a daily revue where the rich and powerful insult and expose each other for the public's entertainment. Or disgust."

 

Yep. Punch and Judy was never like this.

 

Wild weather

 

A CABLEWAY in the Drakensberg is being explored as a project by the provincial government. It would change the tourism landscape, delegates to the recent Indaba were told.

 

Yeah, the way electricity pylons would. Is the development of a cableway compatible with the Drakensberg's World Heritage Site status? Why not a Disneyland as well? That would draw in tourists of a certain type, by the thousands.

 

Will it ever happen? Tim Condon, of the Zululand Wilderness Forum, points out that the site under investigation has some of the wildest weather in South Africa.

 

"Mother Nature rules these mountains, and the proposed site at the summit of the escarpment is one of the most volatile, unpredictable weather regions in South Africa, where at 3 300m above sea level it is subject to regular hurricane-force winds, extremely hazardous winter storms and dramatic summer electric thunderstorms with dangerous lightning."

 

It doesn't sound the greatest place to be sitting in a cablecar.

 

 

 

Back again

EL NINO is with us again. Thousands of dead seabirds have been washed up on the coast of Chile. It is believed they stayed south longer than usual because the El Nino effect - a warming of the Pacific Ocean's surface temperature – caused an influx of anchovies and sardines from elsewhere. The birds then got caught up in fishermen's nets.

If it's not the El Nino it's the Al Nina, when what's known as the Pacific Oscillation works in reverse.

It's a little confusing but it does make a change from greenhouse gases.

The Marines

MENTION of the search for a US Marine befriended by some young South Africans a long time ago recalls for Tom Dennen – who hails from America - a little-known story from the Pentagon on the dreadful day of 9/11, as told by a Marine chaplain.

It happened right after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. A day-care centre there had many children, including infants in heavy cribs.

About 40 Marines either grabbed a crib with a child or gathered up the toddlers. They took them all out of the centre to Pentagon park.

There they formed a circle with the cribs – like the covered wagons in the Old West - and put the toddlers inside to keep them from wandering off. Outside this circle were the 40 Marines who remained until the parents could be notified to come and get their children.

Tough guys with soft hearts.

Tailpiece

THIS fellow comes home from work to find total chaos. The kids are outside, still in their pyjamas playing in the mud and muck. There are empty food boxes and wrappers all around.

Inside he finds  an even bigger mess - dishes on the counter, dog food spilled on the floor, a broken glass under the table, and a small pile of sand by the back door. The family room is strewn with toys and various items of clothing;'s a lamp has been knocked over.

He runs upstairs, stepping over toys, to look for his wife. Is she ill? Has she been abducted? He finds her in the bedroom, still in bed in her pyjamas, reading a book. She looks up at him, smiles and asks how his day went.

"What's going on? What happened here?

She smiles again. "You know how every day when you come home from work you ask what I did today?"

"Yes."

"Well, today I didn't do it!"

 

Last word

 

I was going to have cosmetic surgery until I noticed that the doctor's office was full of portraits by Picasso.

Rita Rudner