The Idler, Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Zimbabwean crusty pie

FOUR Chinese nationals face deportation from Zimbabwe for killing and eating more than 40 rare tortoises

Animal welfare officials found the skeletal remains of 40 endangered Bell's Hinged Tortoises, in a raid on the men's house. They had apparently been dropped alive into boiling water.

It's the kind of thing that's happened in Zimbabwe before, of course. There was the fellow who won a tortoise playing darts in the Mazoe pub. When he won again next night, the barman presented him with a goldfish in a bowl.

"What's this?" he said. "Why not another of those meat pies with the hard crust?"

 

Icy crawl

AN UNIDENTIFIED man has been photographed crawling in his underpants across the frozen River Stour in Essex, England, to rescue his Jack Russell terrier that had fallen through the ice.

Both ended up in the freezing water but the owner managed to rescue the dog. Then he dressed again on the riverbank and strolled off with his mutt.

A touching little story. I happen to know the River Stour; it runs into the North Sea at a place called Manningtree. I bet I know where man and dog thawed out – a pub on the edge of the village (still on the Stour estuary) called The Skinners Arms. Nice and snug, I've thawed out there myself on occasion.

Euro-business

THIS Eurozone crisis and the Greek bail-out are probably getting a bit beyond most of us. But fortunately British satirical magazine Private Eye gives us a succinct rundown, written by "Our Economics Expert, Hugh Nose."

"What happens is very simple. Britain is asked by its EU partners to lend £19 billion to help bail out Greece which cannot pay its debts to various banks.

"Britain replies that it has no intention of lending the money because it is not a member of the Eurozone. So the EU partners go to their friend Mrs Lagarde who runs the IMF and get her to ask Britain for the money, a request which Britain cannot refuse.

"Britain of course doesn't have any money because it is very seriously in debt itself. So in order to raise the money for the IMF it has to borrow the £19 billion from various banks, thus putting itself even further in debt.

"When the IMF has received the money, it will lend the money to the Greek government so that it can give it all to various banks. Thus the crisis will be resolved for another few days and all the bankers will be happy.

"But then they will notice that the Greek government, having borrowed £19 billion, is even more in debt than before, and even less able to pay it back to the IMF.

"So the IMF will not have the £19 billion to pay it back to Britain, which will not therefore be able to pay it back to various banks from which it had been borrowed.

"The bankers will naturally be very cross and will insist to Mrs Lagarde that the IMF must bail out Britain so that they can get their money back.

"The IMF then approaches Greece at the suggestion of the EU, to ask for a loan to bail out Britain.

"The Greeks naturally respond to this by … (This is quite obviously rubbish, can't you come up with something more plausible? Ed)

(No, nor can anyone else – HN).

Oh dear, what hope?

 

Tailpiece

TWO FINE southern ladies are on the front porch having iced tea. One sticks out her hand and says in her slow southern drawl: "Look at this ring my husband gave me. Isn't it nice?"

"Oh that's nice, that's real nice."

"And just last month he took me on one of them Caribbean cruises."

"Oh that's nice, that's real nice."

"Well, sweetheart, doesn't your husband ever buy you nice things or send you nice places?"

"Oh, when we first got married he did send me to etiquette school."

"Why'd he do that?"

"Well, you see, before when someone told me about the jewellery their husband gave them, or the trips he sent her on, I would've just said: 'Sonofabitch! Who gives a rat's ass?' Now I say: 'That's nice, that's real nice.'"

Last word

Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.

HG Wells

The Idler, Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Lord Lucan mystery resurfaces NEW EVIDENCE has come to light suggesting that Lord Lucan – who went on the run after killing his daughters' nanny in London, apparently mistaking her for his wife – was smuggled out of Britain to Africa. A former detective says there was a highly credible sighting of him in an African country (not named). And a woman who worked as a secretary for Lucan's great friend, John Aspinall, now says she arranged for Lucan's children to be flown out to Kenya and Gabon, so that he could view them from a distance without making contact. Mind you, what's all the fuss about? Lord Lucan was spotted several times on South Beach, Durban. So were the Great Train Robbers and Elvis Presley. Another theory LONDON society had been positively abuzz with the Lord Lucan affair. The most bizarre theories abounded. It was generally felt that he had slipped out of Britain with the assistance of wealthy and influential friends, including Aspinall and multi-millionaire Sir James Goldsmith. But in her recently published autobiography, Clarissa Dixon Wright – one of the ladies in the BBC's Two Fat Ladies cookery series – says there was also a theory was that he'd committed suicide and his body was fed to the animals in Aspinall's safari park. Aspinall maintained for a long time that Lucan had committed suicide aboard his yacht in the English Channel – but then, years later, suddenly announced his death. People presumed he had died with an assumed identity somewhere in Africa. Now it seems even more likely. South Beach? I always wondered about that fellow selling toffee apples. Snow diet AS REPORTED in the news pages, a man has been pulled alive from a car that had been buried in snow in Sweden for two months. He had survived on eating nothing but snow since mid-December. Temperatures have been as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius. It was in the northern Vaesterbotten county, where the rider of a snow scooter noticed the roof of the car, then saw movement. He called the police. They found an unidentified man in his mid-40s huddled in a sleeping bag, starving and barely able to move or speak. He was taken to hospital. I hope the nurses were tactful enough not to feed him ice cream.       Recommended Stories   Traffic Psalm   MICHAEL Green, retired editor of our sister newspaper, the Daily News, says he was driving along Musgrave Road the other day when he saw a smart car driven by an attractive young Indian lady. The car had a personalised number plate: "PSALM 40 – ZN".   "I looked up Psalm 40 in the Authorised Version of the Bible. It starts: 'I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me and heard my cry'.   "Rather appropriate for a traffic jam, don't you think?"

 

Pink Bulls

IN HIS LATEST grumpy newsletter, investment analyst Dr James Greener takes issue with the pink rugby jerseys adopted by the "Blue Bulls" for away games.

"Sports teams enjoy the sometimes quite substantial income derived from the sales of replica kit. Will the Blue Bulls ever sell any of their new, hideous and dreadful zigzag-patterned pink jerseys?

"Fortunately the blue-blooded faithful of Loftus will never have actually to witness in the flesh their team prancing about in pink as these abominations are for away games only – presumably to induce the opposition to laugh themselves out of the game.

"My guess is the marketing team from the supplier included several good-looking young women dressed in these shirts, who distracted the board long enough until the chairman signed the order."

Barbie Duke

THE DUKE and Duchess of Cambridge – William and Kate to most of us – are be marketed as Barbie dolls in their wedding gear. Kate will wear her Alexander McQueen outfit, in miniature, and William will be in his scarlet-coated Irish Guards uniform.

It could have been worse. At least they weren't grabbed by the Cabbage Patch dolls.

Tailpiece

THE STUDENT has a large brass gong and a hammer hanging on the wall of his digs.

"What's that for?" asks a friend.

"It's a talking clock. Watch!"

He whacks the gong a resounding blow. A muffled voice comes through the wall: "Knock it off, you idiot! It's two o'clock in the morning!"

 

Last word

Progress might have been all right once, but it has gone on too long.

Ogden Nash

 

 

The Idler, Monday, February 20, 2012

High-wire act to beat 'em all

A DAREDEVIL is to attempt walking a tightrope across Niagra Falls. Nik Wallenda – member of a famous high-wire stunt family – has been granted permission by the Niagara Parks Commission (Canadian). The American authorities had already agreed.

The last person to tightrope walk across Niagra Falls was James Hardy, in 1896.

And in Australia two German tourists, Florian Herla and Niklas Winterwere have "slacklined" across a dizzy drop between cliff faces at Hanging Rock, in Victoria state.

A slackline is the opposite of a tightrope, the manoeuvre possibly even trickier and more dangerous. And in this case it was illegal because the daredevil pair didn't have the permission  of the park authority.

Meanwhile, a local daredevil is said to be planning a high-wire balancing act to beat them all. Municipal Treasurer Krish Kumar plans to balance the Ethekwini budget, in spite of the Manase Report, billions in new loans, billions in non-payment for services and a seething cauldron beneath him of corruption, nepotism, and political cronyism.

This puts Niagra and Hanging Rock absolutely in the shade. Krish will probably perform his high-wire act at Moses Mabhida stadium, a symbolic first step in getting it to pay for itself.

AndRecommended Stories

White elephant

THE ARCHITECT who designed the stadium that has been completed in Stratford, in the East End of London, for this year's Olympics says there's a danger it will become a white elephant because its future use has not been properly thought through.

Steve Lawrence says a joint athletics/football legacy would never generate the cash needed to sustain the stadium.

"In its present form with athletics only, it's definitely not viable. If you look at the 1928 stadium in Amsterdam, if you look at the Barcelona Olympic Stadium, if you look at Munich ... All of these stadiums require support from the state and have done in the long term.

"The stadium in Amsterdam is now nearly 90 years old and it still needs state support and, as things stand, we will be supporting the Olympic stadium for the next 100 years."

Now why does this sound so familiar to us in Durban?

In the red   ECLIPSED rather by the pyrotechnics accompanying the release of the Manase Report into skullduggery in municipal government is an item that Ethekwini municipality plans to borrow R2 billion.   What happened to Durban's previous standing as one of the world's two debt-free cities? (The other was the City of Westminster, in Greater London).   It would be interesting to know when exactly we began sliding into the red.     Diamond geezer   PRIVATE Eye, the British satirical magazine, celebrates Queen Elizabeth's diamond jubilee with a piece written by the Queen herself about BBC television personality Andrew Marr.   Headline: "'What is Andrew Marr really like?' asks Her Majesty the Queen."   Teaser: "Elizabeth Windsor has had unique access to the long-serving interviewer and here exclusively gives her inside view of the man they call 'the Diamond Geezer'"   The Queen describes Marr as charming, witty, incredibly well read and "very keen to ingratiate himself with the Royal Family." He is also an intensely private man and has had regular audiences with prime ministers over the past 20 years.   "It hasn't always been easy for Andrew. – one thinks back to the Annus Horribilis when he was editor of the Independent –  but he has triumphantly weathered the storms and emerged as the key national figure in Britain today, without whom I cannot imagine having the will to carry on being Queen."   "© Elizabeth R"   Oh, lovely stuff!

Tailpiece

PRODUCTION line dialogue:

"Oi, mate! You're wearing an earring."

"Yeah, so what?"

"But you're so conservative-like."

"We can change."

"When did you change?"

"When me wife found the earring in me truck."

Last word

No animal should ever jump up on the dining-room furniture unless absolutely certain that he can hold his own in the conversation.

Fran Lebowitz

 

Captain Cook, Friday, February 17

HERE we go again. Hardly have I settled in from my recent posting as PT instructor in a nudist colony in San Francisco (those star-jumping sessions – oh boy!) when I find myself ensconced again as conduit between the Florida Road Rugby Colloquium and the great reading public of KwaZulu-Natal.

And what a season stretches ahead. There's the Super 15, to begin next weekend. There's the Six Nations, to resume next weekend. There's the England tour in June. Then there's the Rugby Championship (formerly Tri-Nations), where we need to settle some old scores arising from the World Cup.

Let's look first at England. If there's any truth at all in the scuttlebutt, by the time they get here they could well be under none other than Nico d'Mafiosi d'Machiavelli Malletti, the wily old Sicilian bandit who had been coaching Italy (very successfully, it must be said) and now seems to be floating about rather. That could be interesting – and just when we were beginning to forgive him for the Gary Teichmann debacle.

England have now played two matches in the Six Nations. Everyone deplores the way Scotland somehow contrived to lose a match (at Murrayfield!) that they almost totally controlled. That's quite true, of course. But it does say something about England's tackling, which was ferocious and gave away absolutely nothing. Heyneke Meyer – take note!

Okay, England just scraped home against Italy, but you can't really read too much into a game that's played on snow in an actual blizzard. It always narrows the gap.

Four things stood out in that England-Scotland encounter (and the same was true of Wales-Ireland): superb handling; threequarters taking the ball at pace; superb defence; and correct body posture. When a forward (or anybody else for that matter) takes the ball on the charge, he has his head down and his legs pumping. To stop him is like having to tackle a bushpig.

Too often in New Zealand our big men – Bismarck, his boetie, Schalk Burger and all of them – would break out, running upright and carrying the ball like a kugel's handbag. They got knocked down, mugged; they got robbed of the ball. It doesn't happen when you're in bushpig mode. That's something we have to get into our game. Maybe Heyneke needs to take them to Kruger Park for a weekend.

This weekend it's a lull in both hemispheres. Next weekend the game is on. It's a new era – a new national coach and an influx of new players. Let it roll! We're standing by for the Florida Road feu de joie (the celebratory shooting out of streetlights using catapults fashioned from the ladies' knicker elastic). It might be a new era but some rugby traditions never die.

See you in the Thunder Bar! I've dug out my Ukrainian phrasebook and the gals are rarin' for the new season. In fact I've already made my predictions for the Super 15, the England tour, the Championship and the Currie Cup. Katinka has them safe under her suspender belt. At the appropriate moment, all shall be revealed. Watch this space!

CAPTAIN COOK

The Idler, Friday, February 17, 2012

Buddy, can you paradigm?

LET'S run this up the flagpole and see who salutes. Just so long as we tick all the boxes, brainstorm the thing and come out smelling of roses. Think outside the box, that's the key. But never forget the elephant in the room.

Where does all this absurd business-babble come from? A theory is that it originates with professional workshoppers – organisers of gung-ho gatherings where the most horrible cliches are cobbled together at the close of three days or so of vacuous discussion on just about any topic.

Workshoppers are people who have absolutely nothing to do with engineering or associated crafts. They are there to talk and build good vibes. They use the word as a verb: "We need to workshop this …"

It's a world-wide phenomenon. Writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, performance coach Andrew May produces some absolute beauties:

·        Let's stir-fry that in the ideas wok."

·        There's no I in TEAM.

·        Pick the low hanging fruit.

·        You're on my radar."

·        Let's socialise that document.

·        Let's take this offline.

·        Let's take an ideas shower.

·        Let's give it 110 percent.

·        Let's push the envelope.

·        This needs 2.0 Thinking.

"The bottom line at the end of the day is I'd like a win-win situation and to get inside your head and incentivise you to think outside the box and touch base with me by providing your value-added proposition on the best paradigm shifts you've heard of late."

Yes, quite. Buddy, can you paradigm?

How do they express that 2.0 thinking thing? Do they say: "Two point nought"? "Two dot zero"? I'll take a raincheck on that one.

G-spot

SCIENTISTS have at last identified what is known as a woman's G-spot. It's located at the end of the word s-h-o-p-p-i-n-g.

Rugby in schools

IT'S COMMENDABLE that the KZN Rugby Union is to focus on schools that don't offer rugby as a sport – and especially those that once did but have since slid away – to get youngsters playing. That's the way to get representivity in the game – from the very bottom. The rest then flows naturally.

A next step should be to boost club rugby, make playing the club game really attractive to school-leavers. This is good in itself and it would vastly increase the pool of talent for provincial and national selections.

When it comes to slide-away schools, Durban Girls' College needs attention. Wally Clarkson and Pat Lyster (both old boys of the Girls' College Kindergarten in the 1920s) played for the Springboks in 1937. Since then there's been nothing of note.

Drive past Girls' College and you see girls in hockey kit, girls in netball kit – but none in rugby kit. There are no scrumming machines on the sportsfields, no "tackling man" contraptions. Very slack.

With Patrick Lambie now a Springbok, Michaelhouse are catching up fast. Durban Girls' College needs the rugby union's urgent attention.

 

 

Tailpiece

A TRAFFIC officer flags down a woman driver. "Ma'am you were speeding. Can I see your licence please?"

"I don't have one."
"Don't have one?"

"I lost it for drinking."
"I see, can I have your vehicle registration papers please?"

"I don't have them. I stole this car and hacked up the owner. His body parts are in plastic bags in the boot if you want to see."

The officer slowly retreats and radios for back-up. Next thing five police vehicles are circling. A senior officer cautiously approaches, clasping his half-drawn gun.

"Ma'am, could you step out of your vehicle please? One of my men told me that you've stolen this car and murdered the owner. Could you please open the boot of your car?.

She opens the boot. It's empty

"Is this your car, Ma'am"?
"Yes, here are my registration papers."

"One of my men claims you don't have a driver's licence.

She takes a driver's licence out of her bag and hands it over.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am. One of my men reported that you don't have a licence, you stole this car and you murdered the owner."

"I bet the lying bastard told you I was speeding too!"

Last word

 

Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings.

George F Will

 

The Idler, Thursday, February 16, 2012

Slugging it out

ST CLEMENTS continues to entertain. This Monday evening get-together of folk with a taste for the quirky in art and literature is a welcome refuge from the Great Issues of the Day (which mostly, and so tediously, seem to involve Comrade Julius).

This week we had Pieter Scholtz and a panel reading from amusing short stories he's written from a tiny village in France, which he apparently visits regularly.

They're set in the village cemetery, and we had themes like ghosts slugging it out for the heavyweight boxing championship of France; plus a deceased brothel madame trying to re-engage with her clients now at rest in the cemetery.

As I say, amusing – but this absinthe is strong stuff. I'm glad Pieter takes a break in Durban now and again.

Lexophilia

READERS are cautioned against an outbreak of lexophilia – a bizarre fixation with free-flowing word association. It has gone viral on the internet and can cause severe disorientation in recipients. Examples:

·        You can tune a piano but you can't tuna fish.

·        When the smog lifts in Los Angeles, UCLA.

·        The theory of earthquakes is on shaky ground. 

·        Dud batteries were given out free of charge.

·        A dentist and a manicurist married. They fought tooth and nail.

·        If you don't pay your exorcist you can get repossessed.

The only known antidote is whisky.

Baywatch beaches

AMERICA is a free country – as long as you obey the rules. On the beaches of Los Angeles County, California, you can now be fined $100 for throwing a frisbee outside of the designated areas. Children digging a hole deeper than 18 inches could land their parents in trouble.

It's caused a storm of protest on the social networks but the authorities say it's to prevent sunbathers getting trampled or children having sand collapse on them in deep holes.

Those are the Baywatch beaches. What kind of trampling would there not be if Pamela Anderson were to put in a re-appearance?

 

Big election year

LILIAN Develing, of Hillcrest, points out that 2012 is a big election year. There are elections in the US, Russia, France, Egypt, Mexico, Taiwan and Venezuela, as well as in about 30 other countries around the world. The quotes that follow might be apposite:

 

·         We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. – Aesop.

·         Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumb. - Plato.

·          Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. - Nikita Khrushchev.

·         When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; I'm beginning to believe it. - Irving Stone.

·         Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. - John Quinton.

·         Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other. - Oscar Ameringer.

·         The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it. - PJ O'Rourke.

·         I offer my opponents a bargain: if they stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them. - Adlai Stevenson.

·          A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country. - Texas Guinan.

·         I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. - Charles de Gaulle.

·         Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. - Doug Larson.

Lilian should know about this kind of thing. She's charged with watching Ethekwini Council on behalf of ratepayers.

 

Bird-proof

 

READER Gray Braatvedt brings us news of a technological breakthrough.

 

"I have just seen a new, bird-proof milk bottle top. It's impeccable!"

 

Tailpiece

 

She: "You never listen to me, you hear only what you want to hear."

He: "Sure, I'll have a beer."

Last word

When a true genius appears in this world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.

Jonathan Swift

 

The Idler, Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Commonplace … then it's gone

 

SOMETHING seems commonplace. Then suddenly it's not there any more. People of my vintage will remember the colourful earplugs (iziqhaza) once worn by Zulu men, whether in town or in the deep rural districts. The earlobes were pierced then carefully stretched to hold these brightly patterned wooden discs that were several inches (about 60 mm) in diameter and proclaimed the Zulu ethnicity of the wearer.

 

But when did you last see a pair, if you remember them at all? The story of the earplugs – their patterns, their meaning and the way they were overtaken by modernity – is contained in a book that has come this way: Amagugu kaZulu/Zulu Treasures, republished by the KwaZulu-Natal Heritage Council (Amafa) in a second edition.

 

Illustrated in colour, this coffee table production looks at the entire range of Zulu craftwork and artefacts – pottery, beadwork, weaving and metalwork, placing it all in its historical context. A fascinating section covers Zulu iron extraction and ironsmithery in the precolonial era.

 

Amagugu kaZulu/Zulu Treasures also has some historical paintings and photographs, one being of King Cetschwayo "draped in a bear skin".

 

A bear skin? Then one recalls that Cetschwayo was exiled to London for a time after the Anglo-Zulu War, where he apparently made a big impression on Queen Victoria and cut a dash in society. The bearskin painting was by British royal portrait artist Carl Sohn.

 

The Anglo-Zulu War was, of course, one of the more shameful episodes of the colonial era, opposed as unjust and absurd by Sir Henry Bulwer, Lieutenant-Governor of Natal. But he was overridden by the gung-ho Cape-based militarists represented by British High Commissioner Sir Bartle Frere, who had the ear of the imperial government. Twenty years later, a similar fate was to overtake the Boers.

 

The tragic follies of empire.

 

Nguni markings

 

ANOTHER section of the book is sheer poetry as it presents (with colour photographs of the animal in each case) the Zulu descriptions of the markings on their Nguni cattle.

 

A white, rust-speckled cow is Amaqanda Kacilo (The eggs of the lark); another is Umzumbe (Sugar bean). The reddish, speckled coloration of this cow is exactly like that of the sugar bean. Delightful.

 

Amagugu kaZulu/Zulu Treasures is available for R150 from the Heritage Council (Amafa) offices in Longmarket Street, Pietermaritzburg. Whoops! Longbelly Street. Whoops again! Langalibalele Street.

 

 

Kangaroo trial

 

LONGBELLY is, of course, the way British MPs pronounced the name of Chief Langalibalele, of the Hlubi people, when – prompted by Bishop Colenso - they took up the issue of his kangaroo trial on charges of rebellion.

 

It ended in Langalibalele's reinstatement and the recall in disgrace of Governor Benjamin Pine, who was stripped of his knighthood.

 

The occasional justice of empire.

 

 

Anfield cat (again)

 

THE ANFIELD Cat that (as mentioned last week) held up play between Liverpool and Tottenham in an English Premier League match has become an internet celebrity.

 

The grey-and-white tabby has more followers on several Twitter sites set up in its name than celebrity Liverpool signing Stewart Downing.

 

On the actual night the cat invaded the pitch, Liverpool supporters chanted: "A cat, a cat – a cat, a cat, a cat!" – a variation on their traditional chant: "Attack, attack …"

 

All this excitement because of a cat on the pitch. Good heavens - I hope a wildebeest doesn't invade next week, there'll be pandemonium.

 

Tailpiece

 

A STUNNING blonde arrives at a casino in Las Vegas. Clearly tanked up, she declares she's from Cork and full of the Irish luck. She bets    $20 000 on a single roll of the dice.

 

She says: "I hope you don't mind, but I feel much luckier when I'm completely nude." At which she strips and rolls the dice, yelling: "Come on, baby, Mama needs new clothes!"

As the dice come to a stop, she jumps up and down and squeals: "Yes! Yes! Zowie! I won! I won!"

 

She hugs each of the dealers, scoops up her winnings and her clothes and disappears into the night.

The dealers stare at each other dumbfounded. One asks: "What did she roll?"

 

"I don't know … I thought you were watching."

Moral: Not all Irish are drunks. Not all blondes are dumb. But all men are men.

Last word

 

I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity.

Tom Stoppard