The Idler, Friday, September 9. 2016

Jesse and Juan

TOMORROW is the moment of truth. Can the pairing of Jesse Kriel and Juan de Jongh inject purpose into an otherwise listless Springbok side and present a realistic challenge to the All Blacks? Or will the negativity that has afflicted the Aussies prove infectious?

Something has to be done to rescue this southern hemisphere competition from becoming a cakewalk for the New Zealanders, who are currently playing at a different level of pace, handling and enterprise. Prematch analysis of ourselves versus the Aussies reads depressingly like also-rans versus also-rans. It's as if there are only two real sides in international rugby these days – the All Blacks and England.

Something has to ignite our rugby. We need to snap out of this psychological condition. Much rides on Jesse and Juan tomorrow.

Much rides also on the Currie Cup. If the Sharks can pull it off against Free State later in the day, good things lie in store. Can we hope that the Currie Cup can, in time, rediscover its role as a furnace for national rugby?

We need a Rugby Indaba – a re-invigoration of club rugby and the Currie Cup; get more people playing, increase the pool of talent. Strong national sides need a proper base, which is what they have in New Zealand. We have to snap out of our malaise. It won't happen overnight but it has to start somewhere. Why not tomorrow?

Let's get moving! The damsels of the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties are getting restless. They're strumming at their knicker elastic. If we don't have the customary celebratory feu de joie tomorrow, when the streetlights are shot out with catapults fashioned from knicker elastic, ugly demonstrations of displeasure could ensue.

Intriguing book

I'VE just put down an intriguing book that captures the essence of life in a sector of this province. Hazara: Elegy for an African Farm (Natal Society Foundation) is by John Conyngham, a former editor of the Witness, and it describes the cane farm where he grew up on the North Coast, from the time it began in the 1920s.

Hazara is named after the regiment in British India in which John's grandfather served. The district had several British India connections; also British, Malayan, Maltese. Also French-Mauritian. John's own family has Irish and Scottish connections, also North American. It all distilled into being part of an ordered but effective and prosperous cane-growing community, that came into being just about the time South Africans of British origin were fading into being a politically marginalised sub-group as Afrikaner nationalism gathered force, eventually to be followed by African nationalism.

It's a matter of fact account of the daily lives of Conyngham's antecedents, at times marred by personal tragedy and achingly sad. And because of their connections on the Indian sub-continent and elsewhere, the book digresses at times into lively accounts of the war against the Japanese, as well as other campaigns during World Wars I and II. Conyngham's own father was a fighter pilot in the RAF who took over the farm and brought it to a new peak of productivity.

But although it is intensely personal, the book is written in such a way that it accurately reflects what was happening in Natal and in wider South African society. Hazara happens to be close to the conflict zones of the Bambatha Rebellion, in 1906, and Conyngham does not shy away from those echoes, the unresolved contradictions of European settlement on what had been Zulu territory.

The book is called an elegy, and correctly so. The tone is elegiaic - restrained, respectful, a recording of a phase in the life of Natal that has all but passed. It is beautifully written and superbly put together and illustrated. The research that has gone into it is prodigious.

Hazara is more than the story of one family in a prosperous North Coast community. It speaks far wider and is a worthy piece of Africana.

Tailpiece

THE golfer slices his drive at a Scottish links. It richochets off two trees then lands in a bog.

He turns to his caddy: "Golf! It's a funny old game, isn't it?"

"Aye. But it's no meant tae be."

Last word

An ardent supporter of the hometown team should go to a game prepared to take offence, no matter what happens.

Robert Benchley

The Idler, Thursday , September 8, 2016

Zuma for coach

 

MY OLD rugby pal Sam Hutton has come up with a brilliant idea. Why doesn't Jacob Zuma take over coaching the Boks?

 

"I know nothing about politics, but perhaps a wee bit about rugby.

 

"I was player/coach of Hillcrest Villagers Third XV for two years in the 80s.

 

"If the president could teach the players to jink and sidestep, and pass the ball as beautifully as the way he can pass the buck, we would be unbeatable.

 

"And the Gupta guys as selectors. After all, if they can select a cabinet, selecting a rugby team would be easy.

 

"Stranger things have happened."

 

They have indeed, Sam. In fact the strange things that seems to be happening every other day in this country, you simply could not make up.

 

At which point, I must point out that Sam had a rugby career that predated his time with Hillcrest Villagers Third XV. He also played front rank for Ireland.

 

And not only that, as a front-ranker he once put over a drop goal for Ireland. This makes him unique in the annals of rugby, anywhere and at any level.

 

Sam is a man who has to be taken seriously. Jacob Zuma for Springbok coach!

Nondescripts

THE Hillcrest Villagers are, of course, a splendid bunch of fellows. One of the best rugby parties I ever went to was after they played the touring Nairobi Nondescripts.

The match nearly didn't take place because half the Nondescripts were in the Point Road clink the night before, after being found scrumming against a palm tree.

There was a language problem. Our cops couldn't speak Swahili.

I can't remember if Sam Hutton had anything to do with it.

Join the navy!

ANNALS of the American War of Independence … The USS Constitution (Old Ironsides), as a combat vessel, carried 48 600 gallons of fresh water for her crew of 475 officers and men. This was sufficient to last six months of sustained operations at sea. She carried no evaporators (fresh water distillers).

 

According to her ship's log, "On July 27, 1798, the USS Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men, 48 600 gallons of fresh water, 7 400 cannon shot, 11 600 pounds of black powder and 79 400 gallons of rum."

 

Her mission: "To destroy and harass English shipping."

 

Making Jamaica on October 6, she took on 826 pounds of flour and 68 300 gallons of rum.

Then she headed for the Azores , arriving there on November 12. She provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64 300 gallons of Portuguese wine.

 

On November 18, she set sail for England.. In the ensuing days she defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 English merchant ships, salvaging only the rum aboard each.

 

By January 26 her powder and shot were exhausted. Nevertheless, although unarmed, she made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland . Her landing party captured a whisky distillery and transferred 40 000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn. Then she headed home.

 

The USS Constitution arrived in Boston on February 20, 1799, with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whisky, and 38 600 gallons of water.

Do the arithmetic! Join the navy!

 

Whack! Whack!

A HUGE black bear – standing at more than 2m on its hind legs – attacked 63-year-old Atsushi Aoki as he was fishing in in the mountains of the Gunma Prefecture, in Japan.

Was Atsushi discomfited? Not really. He's also a martial arts expert and he proceeded to give the bear a pasting, punching it repeatedly between the eyes, according to this piece on Sky News.

Eventually the bear ran off into the forest, defeated.

Do bears harbour revenge? Do they enroll in kickboxing courses? We watch the Gunma Prefecture with keen anticipation.

Tailpiece

A WOMAN'S house is robbed. Hysterically, she phones the police. They tell her there's a dog unit in her area and it's on its way.

A policeman comes up the garden path with an alsation on a leash.

"Just my luck!" she sobs. "My house gets burgled and they send a blind policeman!"

Last word

You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind legs. But by standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men.

Max Beerbohm

 

The Idler, Wednesday, September 7, 2016

No free lunch

JUST who will pay for that wall Donald Trump wants to put along the Mexican border – to keep out rapists and drug runners – if he should win the US presidential election in November?

Trump insists that Mexico will pay. The Mexicans say: "No way, Jose!" And curiously enough it wasn't even discussed during that extraordinary sortie Trump made to Mexico to meet President Enrique Peña Nieto, the visit based apparently on a misunderstanding.

The Mexican people are appalled that their president should have invited Trump into the country after all he's said about rapists and drug-runners. There's unease and anger south of the border.

But Nieto is fighting back against his detractors. He vehemently asserts that he made Trump pay for lunch during his visit to Mexico City.

"As soon as we sat down to order, I made it very clear that I had no intention of paying for lunch," Peña Nieto said. "And when the check arrived, I made absolutely no move to pick it up."

Responding to the Mexican President's claim, the Trump campaign issued a statement of its own. "As anyone who has read The Art of the Deal knows, Donald J Trump is a master negotiator. While he did pay for Peña Nieto's lunch, he extracted a commitment from the Mexican President to pick up the check the next time they go to dinner. It's a well-established fact that dinner is far, far more expensive than lunch. Yet again, Donald Trump entered into a negotiation and won big."

Yes, that's satirist Andy Borowitz in the New Yorker again. Only three months to go, folks.

Cops who care MEANWHILE, more news from America. The Richland police report finding a man's body in the Columbia River, near the confluence with the Yakima River at Columbia Park. The dead man's name will not be released until his family has been notified.  The victim apparently drowned due to excessive marijuana consumption. He was wearing black fishnet stockings, a red garter belt, a pink G-string, a strap-on dildo, purple lipstick, a flappy blonde hairpiece and a "Trump for President" T-shirt. He also had a cucumber lodged in his rectum. The police removed the Trump T-shirt to spare his family any unnecessary embarrassment.   The police do care.   Only three months to go, folks.

Billy Beaumont

VARIOUS rugby anecdotes remind reader Colin Hiles of a story told by Ian Robertson, former Scottish flyhalf and later a BBC broadcaster.

 

 

England hadn't beaten Wales for many years. They were due to play them at Cardiff Arms Park and, as was the then practice, stayed at an hotel across the road from the ground and walked to the game.

Billy Beaumont was making his way to the ground when he was approached by a Harlequins type resplendent in houndstooth jacket with leather elbow patches. 

 

"Well Billy, old chap, I hope the better team wins"

 

Beaumont:  "I hope bloody-well not!"

 

 

Complexity

A FORMULATION comes this way, aimed at any young fellow who is contemplating matrimony. The new relationship is a lot more complex and nuanced than, say, the straightforward one with a dog.

 

The later you are, the more excited your dog is to see you.

Dogs don't notice if you call them by another dog's name.

Dogs like it if you leave lots of things on the floor.

Dogs' parents never visit.

Dogs agree that you have to raise your voice to get your point across.

You never have to wait for a dog; they're ready to go, instantly, 24 hours a day.

Dogs find you amusing when you're tanked up.

Dogs like to go hunting and fishing.

Dogs won't wake you up at night to ask: "If I died, would you get another dog?"

If a dog has babies, you can put an ad in the paper and sell 'em.

If a dog smells another dog on you, it won't kick you in the crotch; it just finds it interesting.

If a dog runs off and leaves you, it won't take half your stuff. Yes, these are valuable points to bear in mind.   Tailpiece BEFORE you criticise anyone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticise, you're a mile away and you've got their shoes. Last word

 

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me. - Noel Coward

The Idler, Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Putin looks cocky

TV FOOTAGE of the G-20 gathering in China captures Russian President Vladimir Putin looking uncharacteristically buoyant and cheerful. The newsreaders have remarked on it.

But why should Putin not be buoyant? One of the participants is engaged in an exercise which could end in the evisceration of the European Union – a process comparable with dissolution of the old Soviet Union more than two decades ago.

Another participant – a senior Nato member – is in a state of political upheaval.

Another participant's chancellor has received a stinging electoral slap in the face over her open-door immigration policy.

And in yet another case - a participant   which calls itself the leader of the free world – the presidency could very soon go to a buffoon of astonishing ignorance.

Given that the stable two-party system has meanwhile all but collapsed in both the UK and the US, "western democracy" seems to be in a kind of melt-down.

Putin has reason to be feeling bullish.

 

SAA

INVESTMENT analyst Dr James Greener notes that SAA has placed a newspaper advertisement inviting anyone interested to oblige with a loan.

"It really was a very modest little notice wondering rather diffidently if there was anyone out there who might be interested in lending them some cash. Well R16 billion actually, so quite a bit more than 'some'.

"As yet there has been no word if they have raised anything more than eyebrows. It's rather well known that the airline is bust in everything but the law and that it's run by folk with scant idea of what they are doing.

"So aside from the fly-by-night unregistered and unknown financiers with very dodgy friends, principles and principals, no serious lender is likely to reach for the phone after reading this pathetic little cry for help.

"In all likelihood it is the taxpayers who will be hoisted back aboard the tired old splay-footed white steed and made to gallop to the rescue of the flag carrier yet again."

I wonder, perhaps SAA could station their agents at traffic lights to raise a little that way.

 

 

 

More threesomes

LAST week we mentioned the case of threesomes – two men, one woman – of various nationalities being shipwrecked on an idyllic tropical island.

Now a reader who calls himself NDC says there were also Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans.

"The Australians set up a professional rugby league competition funded by their bar and casino. The Chinese spent most of their laundry money at the Casino. The Australian woman -- a glamorous model - was the main prize at the casino -but- no one has yet won the main prize - the Australians know how to run a casino business.

"The New Zealanders built a Maori canoe and left the Island with their woman on a rugby recruitment trip to the surrounding islands.

"With the departure of the New Zealanders and with the Australians focused on their rugby league competition, the South Africans contemplated being the rugby union champions of the island but got beaten by the two irishman. The Irish have been partying ever since.

"The South Africans have spent their time re enacting the game to work out how they lost to the Irish. They have even tried to contact their overseas based players by sending messages in a bottle.

"As for the Englishmen - they have raised their flag on the island and decided their difficulty in engaging with the English woman is because there are too many foreigners on the island, disrupting the English character.

"They have taken a Brexit vote requiring all other Europeans (except for one Irishman) to leave their island and return to the continent. The Chinese have been invited to remain on the Island and continue with their laundry. The Australians and South Africans have been given visiting visas.

"The surviving Spaniard turned out to be Argentinian and has been expelled from the island by the English after he attempted to name the island Las Malvinas."

Tailpiece

PADDY goes for a medical examination. The doctor is astonished to find banknotes stuffed in his ears. He takes them out and counts them.

"There's exactly R1 950 here. What goes on?"

"Ah, dat's right. I wasn't feelin' two grand."

Last word

He has Van Gogh's ear for music. - Billy Wilder

The Idler, Monday, September 5, 2016

Shock horror drama

ARE the headlines in this newspaper a little too demure, lacking in pungency?" A reader sends in an item from the Scottish Daily Record, headed: "Drunken bucking bronco gran jailed for biting Orangemen's legs at Ayrshire village fun day."

Why does the Mercury not produce lively headlines like this? he asks.

That is a humdinger, it's true. It's arresting, it grabs the attention, which is the purpose of newspaper headlines. But the headline writer had the advantage in this case of having some rather lively facts in front of him.

The drunken gran was really rotten drunk. She was fighting and pushing kids out of the way so she could get onto the fairground bucking bronco. Two Orangemen from the Young Conquerors Orange Band tried to stop her, eventually sitting on her in an attempt to subdue her, which was when she attacked their legs with her teeth.

And all of this was recounted in court, along with her previous convictions which included assaulting her ex-boyfriend and his brother; and fighting with four police officers when stopped for a breath test while driving.

It's a gift for a headliner writer. It doesn't happen every day. It recalls another famous headline in the erstwhile News of the World, in capitals across a double page spread: "NUDIST CAMP MANAGER FINDS MODEL WIFE NAKED IN BED WITH CHINESE HYPNOTIST FROM CO-OP BACON FACTORY."

Again, the kind of thing that doesn't happen every day. The headline writer pounces on his chance.

Yet one takes the point raised by this reader. It's as well to keep an eye on localities such as the Bluff for similar opportunities. Okay, we don't have Orangemen and Orange Bands on the Bluff, but we do have some high-spirited and colourful grans. Bring them into contact with liquor and fairground bucking broncos and the outcome could be spectacular.

Collecting funds

WHICH recalls the occasion of the young lad on the Bluff who was collecting funds on behalf of the Brighton Beach Boys' Brigade Bugle Band.

He opened a garden gate, walked up a long zigzag path to a house perched on top of the hill and rang the doorbell. A little old lady answered the door.

"Good morning, madam. I'm collecting funds on behalf of the Brighton Beach Boys' Brigade Bugle Band and I wonder if you would consider …"

"Eh?" She cupped a hand at her ear. "You'll have to speak up, I'm deaf."

"Madam" – he spoke loudly – "I'm collecting funds on behalf of the Brighton Beach Boys' Brigade Bugle Band and I wonder if you would consider …

"Eh? Speak up, boy, I'm deaf!"

"Madam – he roared – "I'm collecting funds on behalf of the Brighton Beach Boys' Brigade Bugle Band and I wonder if you would consider …"

"You'll have to speak up, boy, I'm deaf!".

He gave up. He turned and made his way back again down the zigzag path. As he got to the gate, the little old lady called down: "Little boy, don't forget to close the gate!"

"Oh, bugger you!" he said under his breath,

"And bugger the Brighton Beach Boys' Brigade Bugle Band also!"

Security flap

RUGBY news from Australia. The Springboks' rugby practice was delayed nearly two hours after a player reported finding an unknown white powdery substance on the practice field.
 
The coach immediately suspended practice while police were called to investigate.
 
After a complete analysis, experts determined that the white substance unknown to players was the tryline.
 
Practice resumed after special agents decided the team was unlikely to encounter the substance again.n

Scary thought

 

DAVE Peters, of Kloof, reminds us of some lines by HL Mencken : "As democracy is perfected, the office of the president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day, the plain folk of the land will have their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."

 

Oh dear, does this mean Trump is going to make it?

 

Tailpiece

A SOUTH African visits an establishment on Hamburg's famous Reeperbahn. But soon uproar breaks out, there are squeals of dismay from the girls and cries of "Pervert!" A bouncer shows him the door.

Poor guy. All he did was ask if he could pay in rands.

Last word

Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.

Harry S Truman

 

 

The Idler, Friday, September 2, 2016

Trump goes Mexicano

THE Donald Trump presidential election campaign in the US has been bizarre from the start. Could it become more so? It could indeed. Trump has been bellowing from the start about his intention to build a high wall along the border with Mexico to keep out rapists and drug dealers. The Mexicans will have to pay for it, he insists.

Mexican President Pena Nieto – and Latinos generally – have been outraged and insulted.

Then Nieto apparently invited both Hillary Clinton and Trump for neighbourly talks, never dreaming for a second that Trump would accept. But accept he did. He was down there in the enemy's territory in a flash, to embarrassment all round, for some stiltedly polite platitudes.

At this point, according to satirist Andy Borowitz, writing in the New Yorker, President Obama sent Nieto $5 billion in exchange for keeping Trump in Mexico for the rest of his natural life, insisting he also grant  him Mexican citizenship.

But if this is true it seems not to have worked. Next thing Trump was back in Arizona telling cheering supporters that his Mexico wall is very much on and though the Mexicans might not realise it, they are going to pay.

Back to Borowitz. He also says Trump's vice-presidential running mate, Mike Pence, governor of Indiana, attempted to flee the campaign bus after a "bathroom stop" at a McDonald's in rural Virginia in the early hours.

When he did not return to the bus after 20 minutes, Trump staffers fanned out across the Virginia back country, where the governor was believed to have fled.

"After 45 minutes of searching, however, campaign officials located a bedraggled and dazed Pence walking along Virginia State Route 287, where the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee was attempting unsuccessfully to hitch a ride. A sobbing Pence returned to the bus."

He quotes Hope Hicks, Trump's press secretary, as saying this was an insignificant incident in a long and exhausting campaign: "We're grateful to have Mike Pence back with us, and we won't let him get away again."

It all becomes increasingly bewildering. Borowitz is the only thread of sanity in the thing.

Splish-splash

ON OUR TV screens in recent days we've had figures in outlandish costume diving and splashing about in what appeared to be thick, sloshy mud.

It turned out to be the World Gravy Wrestling Championships outside the Rose 'n Bowl pub in Stacksteads, Lancashire, England. These are what the name suggests.

That's a relief. I thought for a moment it was the outfield at Kingsmead.

Another big 'un

WELL, here we go for five out of five. We saw off the Bulls last week in a nailbiter and if we can do the same with Western Province tomorrow, we're on the hallelujah trail. This Currie Cup season gets better and better.

How was Curwin Bosch getting a full house last week – penalty, try, conversion, drop goal? And Inny Radebe at flyhalf? Cool, collected, getting his line moving in fine style. Terrific defence.

Here's a youg side that's building, game by game. A coach who's encouraging them to go for it. It gets better every game. 'Erewego, 'erewego 'erewego!

The place to watch, of course, is the Street Shelter for the Over-Forties, where the gals are already strumming at their knicker elastic in anticipation of the celebratory feu de joie, when the streetlights are shot out with catapults fashioned from the elastic.

But this time I shan't be there, I'm afraid. I'll be up in Maritzburg for a get-together with my Collegians clubmates of yesteryear. I expect it will be rather sedate – a bit of chess and that kind of thing. Then maybe dancing girls and gypsy fiddlers. Plus bok-bok. Then maybe shooting up the dartboard with a shotgun. They're very tasteful and traditional at Maritzburg Collegians. Things build up slowly.

Tailpiece

A TRAFFIC cop draws level with a car that is speeding on the highway. To his astonishment he sees the woman behind the wheel is knitting. He winds down his window and yells: "Pull over!"

"No! Scarf!"

Last word

Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator, but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.

W. H. Auden