The Idler, Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Rose is the wine

I'VE ALWAYS felt that rose wine sets out with a marketing disadvantage because it looks so much like the stuff you use to wash your mouth out in the dentist's chair.

But it's going great guns – at least in Britain – according to the fellow who made the rose which Queen Elizabeth sipped as she sailed down the Thames last weekend. Sales have increased by 200%, he says.

He only just made the delivery. When the caterers approached him with the order he at first turned it down because the bottles had not yet been labelled. When he found out who it was for, he scrambled. He and other rose producers are likely to keep scrambling after this royal endorsement.

He produces from a vineyard of only five acres. How things have changed. There was a time when it was believed wine could be produced only in places like France and Germany, or the Western Cape and parts of Australia and South America.

Today wine is produced in England and it seems to have nothing to do with global warming. It's also made in the KZN Midlands, the opposite extreme. Go to any old Catholic mission station or monastery in KZN – even on the coast – and you will find a winepress.

Those old monks knew what they were about. It's not so much climatic conditions as skill and determination.

Slainte!

 

Roundheads

A STIFF breeze blew up as the Jubilee Pageant on the Thames drew to a close. Rain came down. The finale of a flypast by aircraft had to be cancelled. Hardly anyone seemed to notice.

Yet the Guardian – a Fleet Street newspaper that is not enthusiastic about the monarchy - contrived to get into its front page banner headline the words: "Diamond jubilee - it's a royal washout …"

The headline did not reflect the report beneath it. And the rest of the headline did concede that a million people had paid tribute to the Queen. In theory all terribly well balanced.

But a washout? Wishful thinking. Yes, Britain does have its humourless Roundheads.

Stuck on throne?

DESI HALSE was tickled by the comment of her seven-year-old granddaughter, Emma, on the Diamond Jubilee. Told that Queen Elizabeth had been on the throne for 60 years, she asked:  'Couldn't she get off?"

Desi compiled a limerick for Emma:

You ask 'Could she not get off?'
Well, that might make us laugh;
But being stuck with a will
To rule us all still
For 60 long years is quite rough.

 

Rugby lunch

AS RUGBY fever mounts, the fraternity are gearing for a lunch at Riverside Sports Club (formerly Glenwood Old Boys) on Friday in honour of Frans de Beer, Chairman of Duikers Rugby Club.

Frans has been in the engine room of rugby in this province for a long time. He played for and coached Glenwood Old Boys. He was a Natal selector and coach. He coached Maritzburg Collegians, Maritzburg University and Cedara, as well as the Duikers.

MC will be Natal and Springbok threequarter Dick Muir, who Frans discovered while he was playing for Cedara.

The lunch revives a Duikers tradition, which was always to hold a dinner on the eve of a Test match. It costs R100, payable at the door. There are no bookings.

Tax pain

IAN GIBSON, poet laureate of Hillcrest, predicts that the Mdluli case is going to cost taxpayers a packet.

A tainted top cop called Mdluli,

Exhibits behaviour unruly;

He manipulates the law,

And opens the door,

To more pain for taxpayers like yours truly.

 

Tailpiece

A COUPLE are puzzled by a girl who wanders about the beach with a travel bag. She approaches people lying on the beach, speaks briefly to them then usually wanders on. But sometimes she takes something out of the bag and money changes hands.

What is she up to? Selling drugs?

But then they notice that the people she approaches all have with them boom boxes and other electronic music devices.'

They decide the husband should lie on the beach with a big radio and see what happens. Sure enough, the girl approaches him. Later he meets his wife.

"What happened? Is she selling drugs?"

"No, she sells batteries. She Sells C Cells on the Seashore!"

 

Last word

Experience is that marvellous thing that enables you to recognise a mistake when you make it again.

Franklin P Jones

 

The Idler, Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Eton and Oxford – it shows

IT'S GRATIFYING that British prime minister David Cameron is able to correctly pronounce the name of the Afghanistan capital.

He pronounces it Kabul, with the emphasis on the second syllable, the way it's always been. TV newsreaders and others have, for some strange reason, been pronouncing it Car-bull, with the emphasis on the first syllable.

This goes with Beijing for Peking (where they don't use our alphabet or characters anyway), Mumbai for Bombay (even though the local inhabitants still call it Bombay), Kolkotta for Calcutta and Kampuchea for Cambodia. I'm not sure whether it's a weird form of political correctness or sheer affectation.

But as he announced the successful rescue of a British aid worker by special forces after she had been held captive by the Taliban, Cameron several times spoke of Kabul, the way it ought to be pronounced.

There's a lot to be said for an Eton and Oxford background.

 

Traffic volunteers

IT WAS DESPERATE stuff at the Umgeni Road-N2 interchange the other evening. It was pitch dark. The traffic lights weren't functioning. The Metro police were nowhere to be seen.

It was 6pm rush-hour. Traffic heading for the airport and elsewhere on the North Coast, heading off the N2 to Durban and in all other directions was chaotically piled up. It took me 45 minutes to get through the interchange.

I would probably still be there were it not for the astonishing effort of a group of what looked like security guards or car guards, with their fluorescently X-marked jackets.

Where they came from, who can tell? But they were directing the traffic. Four or five of them would rush out into the road and halt two or three lanes of approaching traffic, their fluorescent markings picked up in the headlights. Then other groups would wave waiting traffic across the gap created.

They whistled and yelled to get the attention of the drivers. It looked hair-raisingly dangerous. But they kept the traffic slowly moving.

Who are these fellows? Where do they materialise from? Do they get any kind of reward for this very dangerous work? Such public-spiritedness is astonishing. Should they not be recruited to the Metro police?

 

 

 

Skimpy signage

UP THE N2, the signposting to King Shaka International is appallingly skimpy. It's very easy to miss the turn-off, especially in the dark. The authorities have not yet painted on the road surface the aircraft logos which every other airport seems to have.

Turn off too early and you find yourself at the fruit machines of Sibaya casino. If you find yourself at the Kosi border post into Mozambique, you've gone too far.

 

Monkey tricks

 

MENTION last week of the folly of feeding dolphins or monkeys reminds reader Val Johnson, of Kloof, of the monkey she found eating grapes in her kitchen. He was sorting green ones from red in a box.

 

Then he was off with a large, green bunch.He sat on the courtyard wall picking off one grape at a time, popping it in his mouth and carefully taking out the pips with his fingers and placing them in a neat line on the wall.

 

 

"A well brought-up monkey," says Val.

 

Yes, he obviously went to Glenwood.

 

 

Tailpiece

 

A GOLFER is behind by a couple of strokes. "Boy, I'd give anything to sink this putt," the mumbles to himself.
 
   
 
Just then a stranger walks up beside him and whispers: "Would you be willing to give up one-fourth of your sex life?"
 
   
 
 "Sure," he says and sinks the putt.
 
   
 
  Two holes later, he mumbles to himself again, "I sure would like to get an eagle on this one."
 
   
 
  The same stranger is at his side again and whispers: "Would it be worth giving up another fourth of your sex life?"
 
   
 
 "Okay." He makes an eagle.
 
   
 
  On the final hole, he needs another eagle to win. The stranger quickly moves to his side and says: "Would winning this match be worth giving up the rest of your sex life?"
 
   
 
"Definitely." He makes the eagle.
 
   
 
The stranger: "I haven't really been fair with you because you don't know I'm the Devil. From this day forward you will have no sex life."
 
   
 
"Nice to meet you. I'm Father O'Malley."
 
   
 
   
 

Last word

 

I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered.

George Best

 

 

The Idler, Monday, June 4, 2012

The Diamond Jubilee

THE DIAMOND is a hard, incorruptible thing, possessed of its own internal purity and clarity. It prevails against whatever may rub against it. How appropriate it is as a symbol of the 60^th year of the reign of Elizabeth II in an age where politicians come and go, tyrants fall, other tyrants take over and everything seems in a state of flux.

The Diamond Jubilee inevitably focuses anew on the huge anomaly of monarchy in a democratic age. How is it that a hereditary monarch inspires such loyalty across the spectrum, to a degree no politician could hope for? This applies not only to Britain itself but to the overseas dominions where she is head of state. It applies also to the other European monarchies.

Yes, Britain has its Roundheads – mainly members of a self-obsessed chattering class. They are embarrassedly silent at times like this. There also are Roundheads in the dominions. But somehow monarchy ploughs on like an ocean liner.

It's as if people have an instinctive trust for monarchy. The colonel salutes his queen, not his prime minister. The prime minister defers to her and kisses her hands. This is not promising ground for the emergence of generalissimos and volksleiers.

That's why they're turning out in their millions in London

Halfway back

WE'RE back in the Commonwealth – which is halfway - but once we shared fully in that mystique of monarchy. That clear division between Crown and parliament disappeared in 1961. PW Botha put the finishing touches when he combined the posts of prime minister and president, the advent in South Africa of "Big Man" government – blue light convoys and all.

I think I have always understood and empathised with Afrikaner nationalism; likewise African nationalism. Yet it's tantalising to wonder whether it might have been possible – had 1948 not happened – for South Africa to progress to full democracy within a Caribbean-style dominion status.

That has to remain conjecture. As the political analysts so succinctly put it: If your auntie had gonads she'd be your uncle.

Old Natal

HOW WELL I remember the day Elizabeth became Queen. We were in class and could see the headmaster across the quadrangle, going to each classroom and calling the teacher outside for a brief conversation. After he came to us our teacher told us to get on with our own reading. She took dark glasses out of her handbag and sat at her desk. She was blubbing.

Next we were assembled in the quadrangle and the headmaster gave us the sad news that King George VI had died. So sombre a moment was it that we didn't even cheer when he next announced a half-holiday.

The news spread like wildfire. When I got home a Zulu gardener solemnly pointed skyward and told us: "The King is in Heaven". I'm sure there was no Zulu radio transmission in those days.

Back at school next day the music master assembled us again to sing God Save the Queen. It was dead simple, he said. Just substitute "Queen" for "King".

Yes, that was the old Natal.

 

Strong connections

QUEEN Elizabeth has strong connections with South Africa, of course. In Cape Town in 1947 she turned 21 and swore her oath of loyalty to the Commonwealth.

I was knee-high to a grasshopper at the time and my memory of the 1947 visit is ostrich plumes in an open Rolls-Royce as it swept by in Maritzburg.

Not too many years later I was in the last intake to swear loyalty to "Elizabeth and her heirs" as we enlisted for national service. I've never seen any reason to renounce it.

Tailpiece

A SOUTH African has over-indulged in the Diamond Jubilee celebrations. He staggers into a London pub and says: "A pint of Jubilee Special."

"I'm afraid you've had enough, sir."

"What? Shicksty years and I'm going for shickshty pints over the shelebrations."

"I'm sorry, we can't serve you."

"Can't sherve me? Thatsh a dishgrace! Where'sh your patriotism?" He takes a matchbox from his pocket, opens it and taps at it deliberately. Two white ants drop onto the bar counter.

"OK boys, wreck the joint!"

Last word

Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions.

Walter Bagehot

 

Captain Cook Friday, June 1, 2012

NADER na die pale toe! We're getting there. One game at a time. The thing is not to lose focus now. The Lions might be bottom of the log but this is a derby match (Natal versus Transvaal in the old intelligible language) and anything can happen. We musn't slip up.

I happened to be in the Middle East for last year's Currie Cup final. My TV went on the blink (as happens when there's nobody to help with the set) about half an hour before the game. I had to catch a cab from one end of Dubai to the other, to a pub where I knew they would be screening the match, and there I found myself watching in the company of two burly Transvalers. It was a painful experience. Not again!

What rugby we are being treated to now that the Sharks have found their rhythm. Province didn't know what had hit them last week. The score flattered them. One freak runaway try and one brilliant try from a forward pass.

When will those so-called assistant referees on the touchline start calling these things? It's not just forward passes. When there's a kick-and-chase, so often the chasers are offside by a pace or two as they set off. It's critical to the outcome.

And when, for that matter, will referees start insisting that scrumhalves put the ball in straight? They blow the slightest deviation in the line-out (and quite rightly) yet the scrumhalf is allowed to feed the ball virtually under the feet of his front rank. The tighthead heel has virtually disappeared from the game – a part of the craft of scrumwork – and with it the game-turning uncertainty it brings.

A little bird tells me the IRB has spotted the weakness (after how many years?) and is about to do something about it – which would be absolutely simple, just tell the refs to apply the laws as they exist. I hope that little bird is right. But he was singing in the Duikers' and over-optimism might have been induced by a few pints of XXX. I will believe it when I see it.

However, all this is to digress. What a splendid game it was - thrilling, quality rugby from a side that has got what it takes and believes in itself. At last things have clicked. And what a triumph for the gals of the Thunder Bar, whose predictions have been on the button every game. There's even talk that Katinka and her suspender belt – the new rugby oracle – will be co-opted to the national selection panel.

What of tomorrow? Katinka snaps at her suspender belt: "Ze Sharks all ze vay! Zis iss Rollus-Royce versus beat-up banger. Ze boys must yoost play, play, play, 80 minutes. Tackle, tackle, tackle! I luff zat Pat Lambie, beautiful boy! Unt soon ze beefcake Fransie Steyn. Ooh-la-la!" Snap! Snap!

Well, there we have it. One game at a time it is. We're mauling it. Nader na die pale toe!

The Idler, Friday, June 1, 2012

Clairvoyance in sport

IT'S GOOD to see the no-nonsense scientific approach being adopted by the organisers of the European Football Cup, jointly hosted this year by the Ukraine and Poland.

The Ukraine has appointed two soothsayers to predict the outcome of matches; Poland has appointed one.

The Ukrainians first appointed a psychic pig named Khryak. The Poles appointed a psychic elephant named Citta. Now the Ukrainians have followed up by appointing an additional soothsayer, a psychic ferret named Fred.

You can't have too much of this sort of thing. It follows the uncanny success of Paul the psychic octopus, who successfully predicted the outcome of every game played by Germany in the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Why should the benefits of this clairvoyance be limited to football? It's surely time they got in a few hadedahs and koggelmannetjie lizards to help them sort out the Eurozone crisis.

That's me

IT SEEMS I am a flaneur. Reader Hannah Lurie sends in a dictionary definition of the word: "An idler or loafer; a man about town."

Yes, quite right. I am indeed a man about town; sometimes also known as a boulevardier.

Paradigm shift

A CHINESE farmer has built an electric car with a turbine built into the nose, which kicks in once he's doing about 60km/h. This then starts charging the battery, meaning it has to be recharged from the mains only once every three days instead of daily.

Imagine if the world's car fleet could be converted in this way. Think of the savings in fuel, the ending of contamination of our cities.

Tang Zehnpin built his single-seater Blue Hornet in a small tractor workshop in the village of Banjiehe, an hour's drive from Beijing. It cost him the equivalent of about R14 000, using parts from a motorcycle, an electric scooter and a small hatchback car. The project took three months.

If that's what a humble small farmer can do to shift the paradigm, what are General Motors and the rest of them up to?

Towards the turn of the 19^th century, people were fretting about London and Paris being six feet deep in horse manure. Then the paradigm shifted and along came the internal combustion engine.

Now the internal combustion engine is polluting the air, creating global tensions over oil and almost certainly contributing to global warming as well. Our civilisation needs another paradigm shift.

If Tang Zehnpin can do it, why can't the auto giants show more enthusiasm?

How to sponsor

 

Response

MUNICIPAL notice: "BILL POSTERS WILL BE PROSECUTED". Graffiti below: "Bill Posters is an innocent man!"

 

Murphy's subset

WE'VE all heard of Murphy's Law. Here are Murphy's 14 other laws:

·        Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

·        A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well.

·        He who laughs last thinks slowest.

·        A day without sunshine is like, well, night.

·        Change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.

·        Those who live by the sword get shot by those who don't.

·        Nothing is foolproof to a sufficiently talented fool.

·        The 50-50-90 rule: Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90 percent probability you'll get it wrong.

·        It is said that if you line up all the cars in the world end-to-end, someone from Donegal would be stupid enough to try to pass them.

·        If the shoe fits, get another one just like it.

·        The things that come to those who wait may be the things left by those, who got there first.

·        Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

·        The shin bone is a device for finding furniture in the dark.

·        When you go into court, you are putting yourself in the hands of 12 people, who weren't smart enough to get out of jury duty.

 

Tailpiece

WHAT do you call a woman with a bottle-opener in one hand, a knife in the other, a pair of scissors between her toes on her left foot, and a corkscrew between her toes on her right foot?

A Swiss Army wife.

Last word

Boys will be boys, and so will a lot of middle-aged men.

Kin Hubbard

 

The Idler, Thursday, May 31

Revenge is sweet

"I'LL SEE YOU at dawn with pistols drawn …" It seems this is no longer the way to settle disputes and dislikes. Twitter and Facebook have replaced duelling pistols and swords.

But the anger is there just the same. A survey in Britain suggests that more than half the population are incandescent with rage about something and plan to use the social media to get even. A full 38 percent say they have already done so.

A Professor Frank Webster, head of sociology at City University in London, says the findings are alarming but by no means surprising.

"We have long known that there's a lot of anger bottled up inside people. Exasperated with workmates, frustrated by politicians, infuriated by bankers, envious of shallow celebrities ... we all have moments when the blood boils."

But he questions whether we want to live in a society where Twitter and Facebook make immediate insult, personal ridicule and hate speech so easy?

Oh, I don't know. It's a lot less drastic than duelling. And a lot easier than sending offensive items like nannygoat manure through the post.

Cyberogues

 

SKEBENGAS are cruising cyberspace again. I suppose they've always been there but they seem to be homing in on our part of the world.

 

A reader in Kloof says she was almost conned out of R1 500 by a telephone caller who claimed in a sing-song accent to be from Windows Maintenance.

 

It turned out her account had been hijacked, and she has had to change her e-mail address.

 

Yes, I got a call from a fellow with a sing-song accent who claimed to be from Windows Maintenance.

 

I told him I am rather an old-fashioned person. I have a computer that operates by a foot treadle like the old-fashioned sewing machines – but I don't talk to strangers on the telephone about it. Then I hung up.

 

A few weeks later I got another call on a different landline, this time from a woman with a sing-song accent, also claiming to be from Windows Maintenance. I hung up. She phoned again. I hung up again. Then she took the hint.

 

I would guess that the sing-song accents are from somewhere in the Indian sub-continent. The world's a village these days, the pickpockets are everywhere.

 

 

Steam, balloons

THEY get about in the Southern Districts, if not by steam train then by hot air balloon.

The Paton Country Railway has organised a run on the steam-driven Eshayamoya (Hit the Wind) Express from Maritzburg to Creighton on Sunday, June 10. The train leaves Mason's Mill at 8.30 am and steams through rolling hill country, stopping at Taylor's Halt, Ncwadi, Deepdale and Donnybrook. It gets to Creighton at 2 pm.

Tickets are R175 for adults and R100 for children aged two to 12. Taxi transport from Creighton back to Maritzburg is R100 per person. Bookings: 082 374 1417 or 039 8342963.

The Paton Country Railway also runs regular narrow-gauge excursions from Ixopo to points along the line to Umzimkulu, the steam train a replica of the "toy train" that featured in Alan Paton's novel, Cry, the Beloved Country.

Meanwhile, next month hot air ballooning will be on offer at the Creighton Aloe Festival, at the Country Club. It's difficult to imagine a more dramatic way of experiencing the landscape immortalised by Paton.

The festival is on July 21 and 22 and balloon trips cost R900 per person (half an hour) and R1 800 for the full hour. Bookings: 083-2738037.

They're taking tourism seriously in the Southern Districts.

Tailpiece

TWO IRISHMEN apply for unemployment benefit after being laid off by their factory. The first tells the clerk he was a panty stitcher. The second says he was a diesel fitter.

Comparing notes in the pub afterward, it turns out the panty stitcher has been awarded €150 a week and the diesel fitter €200 a week. The panty stitcher storms back to the unemployment office, furious.

The clerk explains that a diesel fitter is a skilled craftsman and entitled to a higher grant.

"Nonsense! He's in quality control. When I stitch a pair of panties I give 'em to him. If he can pull 'em over his fat backside he says: 'Yeah, diesel fitter!'"

Last word

Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles.

Pat Paulsen

 

 

The Idler, Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Don't feed the dolphins

A DOLPHIN has been attacking swimmers and boaters in the American town of Slidell, Louisiana. It has been living in a canal since it was washed there in 2005 during Hurricane Katrina.

Dolphins have a reputation for friendliness toward humans. But this one has nipped at the hands of several people – swimmers as well as boaters trailing their hands in the water – and wildlife experts believe it has become used to being fed by humans and now associates people with being given food.

It's much like the monkeys in Durban, which become aggressive and an absolute pest once they have been fed by humans.

We must not make the mistake of feeding our offshore dolphins. We don't want them leaping over garden fences and tumbling about our roofs, getting the dogs into a frenzy. The monkeys are bad enough.

 

St Giles

 

THE AIR HAD a delightful pungency. It was Mixed Spices day at St Giles Association for the Handicapped, down in the Point precinct. A few of us had been invited there for a breakfast to celebrate the organisation's 60^th birthday in Durban. Guest of honour was Councillor Bongani Dlamini, representing the Mayor.

 

St Giles does all kinds of things to support and revitalise the handicapped, not least in a specially equipped gym that helps stroke victims and others to recover.

 

The spice packing project is very impressive. For about seven years teams of disabled people have been sorting and packaging spices for Unilever under a contract which pays them at the normal rates for the industry. They work at bewildering speed.

 

St Giles is an association with branches world-wide. Who was St Giles? He was a hermit who lived near the mouth of the River Rhone in the south of France in the seventh and early eighth centuries. His only companion is said to have been a red deer, whose milk he drank.

 

One day the king's hunters followed the deer to her lair and shot an arrow which hit and wounded Giles. He then became the Patron Saint of Cripples.

 

King Wamba of the Franks developed a high regard for the hermit, whose humility rejected all honours. The king nevertheless built for him a monastery, Saint Gilles du Gard. He died there early in the eighth century with a high reputation for sanctity and miracles.

 

The miracles seem to carry on here in Durban. The spice contract, the gym, the people who care ...

 

Garden gear

 

OVERHEARD in the Street Shelter for the Over-40s: "I can't believe that in this day and age wearing underwear in the garden would offend so many people. Admittedly it wasn't my garden or my underwear... but still …"

Missile strike

DOZENS of homes had to be evacuated when a US Army Apache helicopter accidentally dropped a missile near the town of Killeen, in central Texas.

Police cordoned off an area where the missile was embedded in the ground without exploding. An explosives disposal team found it to be an inert M36 missile, a dummy training version of the Hellfire missile.

People on the ground in Afghanistan have not been so fortunate.

 Recommended Stories

Stories

 

Economics

 

A SHORT lesson in economics. Debt ceiling – what does this mean? How does one cope?

 

Let's say you come home from work and find there has been a -sewer backup in your neighbourhood and your home has sewage all the way up to the ceilings.

 

What do you think you should do? Raise the ceilings or pump out the sewage?

                                                                                                         

Penguin suits

A PENGUIN that escaped from a Japanese zoo has been recaptured on a river bank near Tokyo after 82 days on the run. Two keepers managed to sneak up on the one-year-old Humboldt penguin after he had been sighted swimming at various locations.

It's understood the keepers were wearing dinner jackets.

 

Tailpiece

 

Private detective: "Yesterday I followed your husband to two bars on Elm Street, three on Maple and then finally to the Humpmore Motel."

Woman client: "I see. Do you think that's enough grounds for divorce."

Private detective: "I'm not sure. He seemed to be following you."

 

Last word

 

If scientific reasoning were limited to the logical processes of arithmetic, we should not get very far in our understanding of the physical world. One might as well attempt to grasp the game of poker entirely by the use of the mathematics of probability.

Vannevar Bush