Captain Cook , Friday, July 13, 2012

KATINKA'S suspender belt is becoming one of the most reliable indicators there is in the world of rugby. Last week when we were all worrying ourselves sick about the impending clash with the Bulls, this lissome Ukrainian lead dancer in the Thunder Bar pooh-poohed our concerns and pointed to the wad of betting slips backing the Sharks that were stowed in her suspender belt. We'd run away with the game, she insisted – and run away we did. Remarkable. The Oracle at Delphi couldn't do better.

What does Katinka say about tomorrow against the Cheetahs? She strums her suspender belt. Snap! Snap! "Zis vun vill be tight. Ze boys, zey must not relax. Zese Free Staters, zey sting like ze bee. Zis vill be tight. Tight like ze duck's ass – unt zat's vatertight."

I couldn't agree with her more. Tomorrow we face not just the physical challenge of a side like Free State – and they really are dangerous – we have to lift ourselves mentally as well to perform as we did last Friday. We have to stay absolutely focused.

Meanwhile, last week's match tells us what we've known all along. We have one of the top sides in Super Rugby. Get over the Free State hurdle tomorrow and we can carry on right to the pinnacle, in Australia, New Zealand or wherever. We've got what it takes. We're peaking at just the right time. Glory is within reach.

What a match it was. I speak as something of a connoisseur of Natal-Northern Transvaal encounters. I was there (in short pants) at Kingsmead in 1956 when we went down 9-8 – a scrambled and dodgy Northerns try in injury time – in Natal's first-ever Currie Cup final.

I was at Loftus in 1990 when Tony Watson eeled his way round the fullback to dot down and give us our first-ever Currie Cup victory, 18-12.

Last week's match was right up there with those. It was an epic. We shunted them backwards in the scrums. We disrupted their line-outs. We tackled like demons. We threw the ball about, we ran onto it. We ran in four tries. This was absolutely amazing. And it was against Northerns! (Er, the Bulls. I keep forgetting the Yankeefied terminology of today).

I don't quite agree with those who say our fairly long lay-off made us fade a bit in the second half. I think we'd burned up so much energy, that's why we faded. (In fact I thought the Bulls looked slightly jaded in the first half, with no lay-off). But in the end we did overcome exhaustion and we did get it together again and we showed the discipline and cohesion that got us that final try. This showed guts. This showed class.

Yes, the Van Diemenslanders and the Kiwis have something coming their way. We just have to get over this pesky hurdle of the Free State, who have a habit of producing fireworks. Very awkward customers.

Let the good times roll! See you in the Duikers!

The Idler, Friday, July 13, 2012

Mangaung dynastic marriage?

IS JZ ABOUT to take a new wife? The idea was floated at St Clement's this week by Spyker Koekemoer (aka Pat Smythe) in his review, in the Herman Charles Bosman idiom, of contemporary South Africa.

It seems Spyker has been reading up on English history and the dynastic marriages entered into by Henry VIII. He speculates that dynastic marriage – yet another vrou – might be the way for JZ to cement party unity in the run-up to Mangaung.

Spyker also produced a truly magnificent rendition of Mshini Wami – just as good, people said, as JZ himself.

It was stirring stuff, yet ignorant people were rude enough to laugh. In fact some of them seemed to be wetting their pants.

It's most distressing, this is meant to be serious.

Spyker vir President!

Arid land

SPYKER Koekemoer also read a poem, O My Karoo, on the sheer desperation of life in the arid Karoo.

Die ploeg hy staan

Stom geslaan

hy wag vir die donderwolk

se woorde

Die Karoo – Die Camdeboo

Sy wag ook

Vir die reen … op pad heen

Vol kleur en akkoorde

Die dam hy le bloot

Met niks in sy skoot

Behalwe die skedels van skape

en drome

O my Karoo – My Camdeboo

Jy maak amok

Met die hart

Van 'n Boer

The English translation is nowhere near as evocative:

The plough it stands

Struck dumb

It waits for the thundercloud's

words

The Karoo – The Camdeboo

She also waits

For the rain … on its way

Full of colour and accord

The dam it lies open

With nothing in its lap

Apart from the skulls of sheep

and dreams

O my Karoo – My Camdeboo

You run amok

with the heart

of a Boer.

Hey, good stuff. Not bad for a Soutie from Maritzburg.

Folk tales

VARIETY is a feature of the weekly soiree at St Clement's, dedicated as it is to the arts and to the skills of the vintner.

On Monday Pieter Scholtz and Gisele Turner will tell three folk takes from Africa: Anansi the Spider (Ghana); Unwabu the Chameleon (South Africa); and The Sisters Ayanna and Amina (Somalia).

 

Startling replies

RESEARCH in America into the attitudes of small children toward marriage yields some startling results:

·        How do you decide who to marry? – "You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming." - Alan, 10. ·        What is the right age to get married? – "Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person forever by then." - Camille, 10. ·        How can a stranger tell if two people are married? – "You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids." Derrick, eight. ·        What do you think your mom and dad have in common? – "Both don't want any more kids."- Lori, eight. ·        What do most people do on a date? – "Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough." - Lynnette, eight. ·        When is it okay to kiss someone? – "When they're rich." - Pam, seven; "The law says you have to be 18, so I wouldn't want to mess with that." - Curt, seven; "The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do." - Howard, eight. ·        Is it better to be single or married? – "It's better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them." - Anita, nine. ·        How would the world be different if people didn't get married? – "There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there?" - Kelvin, eight ·        How would you make a marriage work? – "Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a dump truck." – Ricky, 10.

 

Tailpiece

A GOOD friend is always there to bail you out of jail. Your best friend is in the cell next door saying: "Damn! That was fun!"

Last word

 

It's not true that life is one damn thing after another; it is one damn thing over and over.

Edna St Vincent Millay

The Idler, Thursday, July 12, 2012

That's showbiz, folks

IT'S THE OK Corral all over again. The party is gripped by feuding and tension. There are determined manoeuvrings to unseat the Top Man, all kinds of cloak and dagger stirrings.

In spite of open disunity, the need for firm and decisive intervention to quell the growing cacophony demanding action, the Big Shot slips out of the country on yet another international junket.

 

Yet Tex Collins has survived as DA caucus leader in the Ethekwini Council. He's seen off the backshootin' varmints. The DA Young Guns slink back to their smoke-filled rooms to plot anew.

All right, it's not quite up to the ANC Spectacular. It will most certainly be eclipsed by Mangaung (which will be a box office hit of Cecil B de Mille proportions), but let nobody accuse the DA of not doing its bit in the realm of public entertainment.

 

Meltdown all round

INVESTMENT analyst Dr James Greener predicts in his latest grumpy newsletter that the Euro will not survive. He also detects a parallel between the demise of the Euro and our own government's attitude towards the mining industry.

"It is now clear that the Euro will not survive. The experiment is drawing to a close, derailed by impurities in the ingredients that were shaken up together in the test tube …

"The most vocal supporters of the Euro now are probably only those whose careers, pensions and reputation are embedded in the founding principles and institutions of the countryless currency, and anyone who has recently converted their dollars, pounds, yen or even rands into Euros ... In due course the Euro will be no more than a deep pile of data to be mined by graduate students of the dismal science in search of a doctorate.

"Similarly the story of how a determinedly ideological and wilfully vindictive government regime managed to destroy a national minerals industry will also one day be read with astonishment …There is very little evidence to suggest that the leadership is able to accept that the mining business is about extracting, processing and marketing their products in a way that simultaneously maximises both client demand and their own profits. In the process they create jobs and pay taxes and royalties. Sadly our leaders can't accept that almost any intervention in such a system developed over centuries is very likely to break it."

Birdman

READER Mike Morgan recounts an astonishing yet charming little story about – not the Birdman of Alcatraz but the Birdman of George. He got it from a girl called Val Jensen, who used to work for him and is married to an airline pilot.

An aviationist called Jim Davis ran an outfit called Cape Flying Services when the new airport at George opened many years ago.

Swallows built a mud nest above the crew room door and Jim installed a small wooden shelf just below to catch the droppings.
On arrival at the office one morning, a baby swallow was on the ground outside the crew room door. Jim carefully picked it up and placed it on the shelf. Mother swallow was circling, voicing her concerns.

Next morning Jim decided he'd better teach the little swallow to fly. He would perch it on his finger and move it up and down so it had to flap. Little by little it gained confidence, and Jim got to the stage where he would suddenly pull his finger away and it would flap to the ground. Each day the flights got longer.

The bird's parents would help by getting upwind of Jim and dangling tasty insect offerings while calling encouragement. After about a week the bird flew from Jim's hand, did a circuit and landed back on his hand.
At the beginning of winter the swallow family flew off to Europe. They returned in spring, and every year Jim was able to reconnect with the bird - but only if he was wearing the red jacket he had on during its flying training.
Not many instructors can claim they taught a swallow the art of aviation.

Tailpiece

 

Two Russian spies meet up in a busy New York restaurant. The first one starts speaking in Russian.   The second spy shushes him quiet and whispers: "Don't blow our cover. You're in America now. Speak Spanish."

 

Last word

The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. -  Margaret Thatcher

 

 

TheIdler, ednesday, July 11, 2012

The band kept playing

IT'S THE GREATEST party in Africa. It puts Hollywood to shame. Likewise the Lord Mayor's Ball in London. It makes the Oscar Awards ceremony look like a Quaker meeting. There's nothing else quite like it.

Massed violins sob in the background. Strobe lights play on the midriffs of lovely, near-naked ladies, while fat fellows in tuxedos guzzle sushi off their tummies.

The Dom Perignon is flowing. The Johnny Walker Blue Label is flowing. The air is thick with Cuban cigar smoke.

This is the essence of high society. Everyone who's anyone is there. Until you're on the guest list, you just haven't arrived.

Yes, it's the first of the Eskom "Fun Day" parties, the start of a glittering season at R5 million a pop.

And the band kept playing as the Titanic went down.

 

Dear Abby

 

THE SYNDICATED column of American agony aunt Abigail van Buren is always worth a squint. The following queries, sent in by a reader, are all of them addressed to "Dear Abby":

 

·        A couple of women moved in across the hall from me. One is a middle-aged gym teacher and the other is a social worker in her mid-20s. These two women go everywhere together and I've never seen a man go into or leave their apartment. Do you think they could be Lebanese?

·        What can I do about all the sex, nudity, fowl language and violence on my VCR?

·        I have a man I can't trust. He cheats so much, I'm not even sure the baby I'm carrying is his.

·        I am a 23-year-old liberated woman who has been on the pill for two years. It's getting expensive and I think my boyfriend should share half the cost, but I don't know him well enough to discuss money with him.

·        I've suspected that my husband has been fooling around, and when confronted with the evidence, he denied everything and said it would never happen again.

·        Our son writes that he is taking Judo. Why would a boy who was raised in a good Christian home turn against his own?

·        I joined the Navy to see the world. I've seen it. Now how do I get out?

·        My 40-year-old son has been paying a psychiatrist $50 an hour every week for two and a half years. He must be crazy.

·        I was married to Bill for three months and I didn't know he drank until one night he came home sober.

·        My mother is mean and short tempered. I think she is going through mental pause.

·        You told some woman whose husband had lost all interest in sex to send him to a doctor. Well, my husband lost all interest in sex and he is a doctor. Now what do I do?

 

 

Rip van Richardson

 

DAVE Richardson, of Kloof, says it took him a year to read last Friday's Business Report.

 

The front page was dated Friday, July 6, 2012. When he flipped to the back to do the crossword, the page was dated Friday, July 6, 2013.

 

Well that can happen, Dave, when you get bogged down in these heavy financial pieces, especially if you close-read the share prices.

 

On the other hand, it might have something to do with the elusive Higgs Boson and Einstein's Theory of Relativity.

 

Time travel?

 

SPEAKING of which, Robert Nicolai, of Howick, notes that the particle physicists who are so excited about the Higgs Boson are not 100 percent sure they've found it.

 

"Wow! It cost them only €23.5 billion to not be 100 percent convinced of how gravity doesn't work? For that invested capital they'd better discover how to make anti-gravity cars that don't need petrol, anti-gravity sports shoes that allow us to leap tall buildings and warp-powered time machines so we can travel back in time with winning lottery numbers to just before the draw.

 

"Or those scientists should maybe have just concentrated on getting girlfriends."

 

 

Tailpiece

Mick: "What's dat you got dere, Paddy?"

Paddy: "It's a thermos flask."

Mick: "What's dat?"

Paddy: "It keeps hot tings hot and cold tings cold.."

Mick: "What you got in dere?"

Paddy: "Two cups of coffee and a choc ice."

Last word

I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true.

Dorothy Parker

 

The Idler, Tuesday, July 10, 2012

The American Dream

THE ACCOUNT that follows is an example of the American Dream. It's an account of human enterprise succeeding in spite of the false world that has been created in the digital age.

An out of work young man applied for the position of office boy at Microsoft. The human resources manager interviewed him then watched as he cleaned the floor as a test. "You're hired," he said. "Give me your e-mail address and I'll send you the application to fill in, as well as date when you may start".

The young man replied: "But I don't have a computer, nor an e-mail."

"I'm sorry," said the HR manager. "If you don't have an e-mail, that means you don't exist. And who doesn't exist can't have the job."

The applicant left with no hope at all. He didn't know what to do. He had only $10 in his pocket. He went to the supermarket and bought a 10kg  crate of tomatoes and started selling them door to door.

In less  than two hours he had doubled his money. He repeated the operation three times, and returned home with $60.

Realising he could survive this way, he started out earlier, and returned late. He doubled or tripled his money every day.

Then he bought a cart, then a truck. Five years later he had a fleet of delivery vehicles and was one of the biggest food  retailers in the US .

He decided he needed life insurance. He went to see an insurance broker, and chose a protection plan. When the conversation was concluded, the broker asked for his e-mail address.

"I don't have an e-mail."

"You don't have an e-mail, and yet you've built an empire. Can you imagine what you could have been if you'd had e-mail?"

"Yes, I'd be an office boy at Microsoft."

The Verger

THE ABOVE is, of course, an adaptation of W Somerset Maugham's short story, The Verger, in which a man loses his job as verger at St Peter's Church, Neville Square, because he can't read and write.

Wondering what to do, he feels like a fag. But he's run out. And he can't find a tobacconist's anywhere in the neighbourhood.

He spots a gap in the market and opens a tobacco stall. He ends up owning a chain of them across London. He's a wealthy man.

Then, on a visit to the bank, the manager is astounded to find that his wealthy client can't sign his own name. "Imagine where you'd have been if you could read and write!"

"I'd have been Verger at St Peter's Church, Neville Square."

Yes, enterprise wins. But the secondary message is a little disturbing. Not knowing your way about the digital world is like being totally illiterate.

We have to adapt. That's why my cellphone has a little handle on it which I crank before saying: "Hello … Sentraal?"

Facebook, here I come!

Phone Stack

MEANWHILE, reader Eileen van der Velden brings us a trendy new game designed to restore the lost art of dinner table conversation.

It's called Phone Stack. When you and your friends go into a restaurant, you stack your cellphones face down in the centre of the table. You ignore them as they ring and as they announce the arrival of e-mails and text messages. You get on with chatting to your friends.

It's not easy though. People are sorely tempted to reach out and answer their phone.

But the first one who does that picks up the tab for everyone's meal. It's a harsh discipline, but something has to be done if humanity is to recover its capacity for intelligent conversation.

Tailpiece

 

PRESIDENT Obama went to visit former President Bill Clinton. While at Clinton's place he paid a visit to the bathroom where he was astonished to find a solid gold urinal. That evening he told Michelle about this unusual piece of bathroom equipment, which he felt to be a bit ostentatious and over the top.

 

A couple of days later, Michelle and Hillary had lunch together. The subject of the solid gold urinal came up and the girls had a good laugh.

 

That evening Hillary said to Bill: "I've found out who widdled in your saxophone."

 

Last word

 

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

Will Rogers