The Idler, Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Wear the tartan with pride

IF YOU'RE a man of rectitude and morality, make sure you wear jazzy Y-fronts. Wear the family tartan. Or else feature your favourite cartoon characters – Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse or whoever. Emblazon your crotch with catchy yet distinctive slogans. In this digital age your reputation could depend on it.

This is the inescapable message coming out of Washington as Weinergate (aka Crotchgate) creeps on as a political scandal.

Central to the thing is a pair of grey underpants of a bulging maleness that inexplicably appeared on the computer screen of a female college student in Seattle. The image appears to have come from the Twitter account of Congressman Anthony Weiner.

Weiner is not sure how it happened; indeed whether the grey underpants and the bulging matter are even his. But snide assertions are being made.

A career could be wrecked. Never wear dull, conformist underwear! It's a jungle out there!

Heaven and Hell

A DIGRESSION into theology:

Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs Italian, the mechanics German, the lovers French and it's all organised by the Swiss.

Hell is where the police are German, the chefs British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss and it's all organised by the Italians.

Another mix-up

WHICH recalls a definition of what was intended in Canada: British politics, French culture and American know-how.

What they actually got was French politics, American culture and British know-how.

Yawning gulf

AMERICA really is two nations. A table of translations comes this way for Californians who are visiting Texas – or vice versa. The Californian expression "diverse or lifestyle choice" becomes, in Texas, "sin and perversion". And so it goes on:

·         Arsenal of weapons -	gun collection
·         Delicate wetlands -	swamps
·         Undocumented worker -	Damned iIllegal alien
·         Cruelty-free materials -	synthetic fibre
·         Assault and battery -	attitude adjustment
·         Heavily armed -	well-protected
·         Narrow-minded -	righteous
·         Taxes or your fair share -	coerced theft
·         Commonsense gun control -	gun confiscation plot
·         Illegal hazardous explosives -	fireworks or stump removal
·         Nonviable tissue mass -	unborn baby
·         Equal access to opportunity -	socialism
·         Multicultural community -	high crime area
·         Fairness or social progress -	Marxism
·         Upper class or "the rich" -	self-employed
·         Progressive change -	big government scheme
·         Homeless or disadvantaged -	bums or welfare leeches
·         Sniper rifle -	scoped deer rifle
·         Investment for the future -	higher taxes
·         Healthcare reform -	socialised medicine
·         Extremist, judgmental, or hater -	conservative
·         Truants -	homeschoolers
·         Victim or oppressed -	criminal or lazy good-for-nothing
·         Religious zealot -	church-going, God-fearing individual
·         Reintroduced wolves -	sheep and elk killers
·         Fair trade coffee -	overpriced Yuppie coffee
·         Exploiters or "the rich" -	employers or land-owners
·         The Gun Lobby -	NRA members
·         Assault weapon -	semi-auto (Grandpa's M1 carbine)
·         Fiscal stimulus -	New taxes and higher taxes
·         Same -sex marriage -	legalised perversion
·         Mandated eco-friendly lighting -	Chinese mercury-laden light bulbs

 

Yes, a yawning gulf in perceptions and values. But hold on. Wasn't it the Californians who voted in Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor? Was The Terminator in reality the Warm and Cuddly Consensus-Maker?

Quirky verse

READER Eric Hodgson sends in some limericks by Kirk Miller. They have about them an appealing  quirkiness and an unusual metre. An example:

A bad over-actor named Sam

Explained his philosophy to Pam.

'Like Descartes, I can see

The real essence of me.

I think and so therefore I ham.'





Tailpiece

Jimmy-Joe is walking down Main Street in Bellefonte, Kentucky, when he sees his buddy, Bubba, driving a brand new pickup. Bubba pulls up with a wide grin.


"Bubba, where'd ya get that truck?"

"Bobby-Sue gave it to me."

"She gave it to ya? I knew she was kinda sweet on ya, but a new truck?"

"Well, Jimmy-Joe, let me tell you what happened. We were driving out on County Road 6, in the middle of nowhere. Bobby-Sue pulls off the road, puts the truck in four-wheel drive and heads into the woods. She parks the truck, gets out, throws off all her clothes and says: 'Bubba, take whatever you want!'

"That's how I got the truck."

Last word

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.

Edward Abbey

 

The Idler, Monday, June 6, 2011

A nice quiet dinner

HOW OFTEN don't we read that such and such a concert or other event in Durban has been cancelled due to lack of support? Durban people don't support the arts and entertainment, we're told. We're philistine; we're stick-in-the muds, stay-at-homes.

Yet the other night I was at an extravaganza down on the beachfront where they were packed in like sardines. The vibe was astonishing. And the show is apparently going to run on and on and on.

I confess I had never heard before of Madame Zingara's Theatre of Dreams, what they call a "dinner cirque". It was with apprehension that I learned it's an idea to go along in fancy dress, get really in the mood.

And that was indeed the thing to do. We shared a table with a cardinal (or he might have been a Papal Nuncio) who once played rugby for DHS Old Boys – pax vobiscum; also with a bearded WG Grace figure. I was in shamefully dowdy mufti but I believe the splendid legs of the short-skirted blonde who was with me more than made up for it.

Madame Zingara's has an emphasis on the zing. The action happens in a giant tent – made in the 1920s - that is all brocade, mirrors and stained glass windows. The waiters are a wraggle-taggle of cross-dressers and others who appear to have escaped from the foc'sle of a pirate ship. In an absolute chaos of lively music and breathtaking acrobatics over a central stage, the waiters charge in and out with a superb four-course dinner and fine wines.

The acrobats are from Russia and Eastern Europe. The singers are buxom local lasses who just about lift the tent with numbers that range from American jazz to Miriam Makeba's Click Song. Backsides like buffalo – voices like angels.

What a medley. The acrobatics are absolutely breathtaking. The blonde girl in a cage suspended high above the audience looks just like Marilyn Monroe. The double and treble-jointed dancers from Mongolia are simply awesome, their rhythmic contortions a sort of allegory of the process of evolution. The crowd were bowled over.

Where did all this come from? I really don't know. But Madame Zingara (whoever she might be) has hit on the right formula: Good food, good wines, good fun – coupled with real entertainment. There's something retro and refreshing about East European circus-style stuff. Nobody's bluffing anyone.

The audience sense it. They join in (in fact they took over the stage at the end). Give Durban real entertainment and the punters roll in – cardinals, cricketers and all. Give them over-the-hill rock stars and other second-raters and the punters will not be fooled. The shows are cancelled.

Here's a message for the impressarios.

 

Crotchgate continues

THE WEINERGATE (or Crotchgate) saga in Washington has moved on slightly. To recapitulate: a young female college student in Seattle received on Twitter – apparently from the account of Congressman Anthony Weiner – a photograph of a male crotch.

Questions arise. Does the crotch belong to Congressman Weiner? (He himself says he's not sure). How did the photograph get to the female student in Seattle? And was Congressman Weiner's Twitter account hacked, as he seems to believe?

Now the crotch photograph is available on the internet. It's a little startling but not too startling. It's a clothed crotch but not all that respectable a crotch. It's … no, let's leave it at that.

What's the next step? An identification parade on the steps of the Capitol? The mind Senor, she boggles!

Politico origins?

DO WE GET waterspouts off our coast? One has appeared off the coast of New South Wales, Australia- a tall, thin funnel of cloud and water spray, caused by a high layer of cold air blowing across water, and clashing with the warm air below.

According to this news snippet, various forms of sea life are often caught up in the funnel and then dumped a long way inland.

If we do have these waterspouts, do they reach Limpopo province? It could account for the sudden appearance of all kinds of weird political specimens.

 

Tailpiece

TWO fortune tellers are on the Durban beachfront.

"Lovely winter weather, isn't it?"

"Gorgeous. Reminds me of the winter of 2015."

Last word

All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.

Galileo Galilei

GRAHAM LINSCOTT

The Idler, Friday, June 3, 2011

Now it's Crotchgate

ANOTHER "gate" rocks the world. In the 1970s Republican Party spooks burgled Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate Hotel, Washington. The resulting scandal ended in President Richard Nixon resigning.

Since then, any political scandal anywhere has had the suffix "gate" inanely attached to it. In this country we had Infogate – the Information Department scandal that led to the downfall of Prime Minister John Vorster – and, in the current era, Travelgate, in which MPs fiddled their travel expenses. (This led to the downfall of nobody).

Now there's another furore in the US. A photograph, said to be of the crotch of Congressman Anthony Weiner, has unaccountably been sent to the Twitter account of a young female student in Seattle, who says she doesn't know him anyway – crotch or otherwise.

Weiner, meanwhile, says his Twitter account was hacked by somebody and is unable to say whether or not the photo is of his own crotch (presumably the angle is unfamiliar).

This is, of course, Weinergate. Surely a better name would be Crotchgate.

 

Oz obscenities

CRIPES, stone the flamin' crows! Starve the lizards, mate! They're bringing in a law in the Australian state of Victoria to allow the police to spot-fine people for using obnoxious language in public.

But the above examples of traditional Oz-talk obviously wouldn't count. I think what they're aiming at is really obscene talk – like about the last Ashes series against England.

What fun!

NOW AND THEN you get an idea of what we are missing by being somewhat out of the mainstream. In the US, lad about town Piers Morgan has been adjudicating in the opening rounds of the America's Got Talent show.

One contestant who made it to carry on to the next round in Las Vegas was a girl called Debbie with her pet parrot Danny who, we're told, had the audience in fits of laughter.

The little green parrot mimicked words like "shut-up" and even mimicked other birds and a cat.

When it impersonated a chicken clucking, Morgan got to his feet clapping. Then when Debbie revealed she also has parrots that paint and read minds, all three judges put her through to the next round.

 

Hey, stupendous!

 

But not everyone can make it. A dancing troupe of senior citizens in nappies, a man who produces flatulent sounds from his armpits and a robot-style dancer -who fell off the stage – were eliminated.

Parrots, seniors in nappies - it all sounds a barrel of fun. Why don't we have this sort of sophisticated talent?

Name shuffle

PIERS Morgan used to be editor of the Daily Mirror, in London. He was always referred to by satirical magazine Private Eye as Piers "Moron" Morgan. Now they've changed it to Piers "Morgan" Moron.

Whatever could make them be so cruel?

 

Taxi tape

 

A READER who always calls himself Hughbythesea says he recently bought a roll of double-sided adhesive tape. Amongst the suggested uses were "Fixing body and roof panels in the bus and truck industry". The tape, he says, "eliminates the use of rivets, screws and welding."

"Are the manufacturers perhaps targeting the second-hand taxi market?"

Whir, click!

YOU'RE a tourist. You settle on a bench to take in the panoramic view of the Wye Valley, say, in the West Country of England. You're taking in the sheer beauty of it all when suddenly there's a whir and a click and you're listening to the treacly voice of Stephen Fry or you're getting wisecracks from comedienne Miranda Hart.

Fry and Hart are two of the celebrities who have agreed to lend their voices to the "Talking Benches" project of the English National Trust, which has asked them to record monologues to give listeners a commentary or personal story inspired by the surroundings.

As Fry puts it: "I am very proud to be associated with a bench and I hope I provide comfort, balm and solace for many a weary bottom."

Er, thanks but no thanks.

 

 

.

 

Tailpiece

Dr Calvin Rickson, of Ohio State University, has invented a bra that keeps women's breasts from jiggling and prevents the nipples pushing through the fabric when cold weather sets in.

 

 

This was announced at a news conference, after which a group of men dragged Dr Rickson outside and beat the daylights out of him.

 

Last word

 

Against logic there is no armour like ignorance.

Laurence J Peter

GRAHAM LINSCOTT

The Idler, Tuesday, June 2, 2011

The male cleavage

 

IT'S DISTRESSING, that the Competition Tribunal have given the go-ahead for Walmart to operate in South Africa. Do we really want the shopping aisles to be thronged by grossly overweight individuals –male and female - in cotton singlets and shorts that are way, way too small for them?

 

Anyone who has e-mail will know what I mean. Walmart has become a by-word in America for grossness, flab and shocking lack of dress sense. Walmart shoppers are regularly depicted displaying the male cleavage – that is, a huge backside inadequately covered by a pair of sagging jeans; women with massive, sagging boobs; fat men with something very similar; women with handbags and other goods stowed in the cleavage; babies with dirty nappies sitting in the shopping trolleys; and an array of tattoo work, male and female, that has been distorted by flab to become the stuff of nightmare.

 

Walmart shoppers are an international joke. And here the Competition Tribunal welcomes them. It's absurd. If Cosatu stage a protest against the decision, they have my full support.

 

 

Football shirt

 

WHY DOES a zebra have stripes? Is it a donkey that's put on a football shirt? Is it camouflage?

 

Neither, it seems. The black stripe absorbs heat; the white stripe reflects it. This sets up miniature wind currents across the zebra's body, keeping him cool.

 

This I learned last Monday at St Clements, the spot where people generally get together to read poetry, short stories and that kind of thing. No, they haven't started smoking exotic cigarettes at St Clements, they showed the award-winning film, The Nature of Life, by Cape Town directors Craig and Damon Foster (they're brothers) which looks at ways – in an African context – for 21^st century man to achieve sustainability by working with nature (the way the zebra does) instead of against it.

 

Fascinating stuff. Our cities need to be intertwined with nature, to become some sort of giant artificial rain forest, not the soulless glass and concrete monstrosities they have become, requiring air conditioning, which in turn requires huge quantities of electricity generated by filthy coal-fired power stations or nuclear generators that threaten present-day calamity and the hazard of toxic waste for future generations.

 

There are alternatives: wind power, tidal power, solar power. This is cutting-edge stuff. St Clements is at the forefront.

 

Tugela Basin

 

MEANWHILE, nobody has answered my questions as to why the 26 hydro-electric sites identified by the Department of Water Affairs in the Tugela Basin have not been brought into the energy equation? Why the catchment transfer project from the Eastern Cape to the Tugela Basin has not been acted on?

 

Scientists, economists and officials from Water Affairs and the Natal Town and Regional Planning Commission had been working since 1947 on the project, envisaged as a miniature of Roosevelt's Tennessee Valley development in America, which began in the 1930s and is still running.

 

The work has been done. The Tugela Basin could support five large cities about the size of Johannesburg. There's no need for new coal-fired plants or nuclear plants. Yet all this practical, hands-on research – EIAs, the lot – has been set aside and forgotten. We are at one with the Mayans.

 

If this isn't a dereliction that is close to criminal, I don't know what is.

 

Vikings ahoy!

 

READER Brian Kennedy is reminded by last week's piece on the ancient Viking shipbuilding site discovered in Scotland of an affliction that affects only people of Viking descent. It is a curling inwards of the fingers – known as Dupytren's Contracture – that can cripple the hand if not corrected.

 

"Recent international DNA tests have proved that people, mainly men, with this complaint are of Viking descent.

"I would say, having had it myself, that it is something to be proud of. By the way, I am Irish with no Scottish ancestors."

 

Well yes, but I think the Vikings were everywhere in the old days, Ireland included. At least two kings of England were Vikings. The Norman-French who conquered England in 1066 were originally Vikings. Hagar the Horrible and his crew got around in those days.

 

Tailpiece

American tourist: "Why do Scuba divers always fall backwards off the boat?"
Irish boatsman: "Dey have to go backwards. If dey fell forwards, dey'd still be in de boat."

Last word

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.

Henry Ford

GRAHAM LINSCOTT