Chairman Mao, Bat Bombers, Tree Climbing Crocodiles and more...

Hey, hey it's Friday and time for some funny bone ticklers.  I follow UberFacts on Twitter purely for their daily dishing out of ridiculous facts which breaks the monotony of angst and despair from news sources.

American based, not everything is of interest or relevance down here but there are some complete howlers, such absurdities that it's worth taking a few minutes to confirm the facts.  So far, I haven't caught them out but here are a few of my 'favourite things', as Mary Poppins would trill.

During WWII, the US wanted to bomb Japan using bats rather than an atomic bomb.  I swear, it's true - read the article on http://www.historynet.com/top-secret-wwii-bat-and-bird-bomber-program.htm.  What's so astonishing is that not only did President Roosevelt believe this plan had legs ("This guy is not a nut ... worth looking in to"), the lengths the military went to in order to thoroughly test the plan was bizarre.  Bats were put in ice cube trays and chilled to make them hibernate, then were fitted with teeny little bombs, taken up in a plane and dropped from 5000 feet.  

Test one wasn't very successful - most of the bats didn't properly awaken from hibernation and were unable to fly!  Still, the tests continued, using some 6000 bats in a determined effort to make this plan, well, fly.  The project was finally shelved in August 1943, much to the inventor's distress.  

Fortunately, testing on animals at that time apparently didn't elicit the (rightly so) furious public outrage it does today.

Continuing on, according to documents released by the State Department in 2008, during a personal meeting between Chairman Mao Tse Tung and US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1973 good old Mao bemoaned:

"You know, China is a very poor country. We don’t have much. What we have in excess is women. So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands." The Chinese leader drew laughter when he returned to the proposition a few minutes later. "Do you want our Chinese women? We can give you 10 million." he said, adding: "We have too many women … They give birth to children and our children are too many."

Don't believe me?  Look at http://foreignpolicy.com/2008/02/15/mao-offered-kissinger-10-million-chinese-women/

Just where do we start with this?  (And to be fair, it was probably said in jest.)  The logistics of transporting 10 million women across the world. How many jumbo jets would flood JF Kennedy airport?  At an average of 4 passengers per taxicab, how many cabs would fill the airport ranks?  And can you imagine the commotion of 10 000 000 tongues, jet lagged but still fighting to utter their daily average of 30 000 words...

And, of course, they DO give birth to children...apparently, that's a female thing which has nothing to do with men.

The import would, however, have been great for retailers.  10 million new customers, fresh from the bleakness of Communist China, hitting Macy's and Nordstrom.  

Which leads me to funny fact number 3 - the average UK woman will own 111 handbags in her lifetime.  I'm sure the average American can match that.  Are there enough cows in the world to provide sufficient leather for 10 million x 111 handbags?  Not to mention the shoes... 

Still, as crocodiles and alligators can climb trees (ok, if you insist, Google this UberFact as well! https://www.livescience.com/43291-crocodiles-can-climb-trees.html) perhaps the bags could have been crocodile skin? 

No, it was probably better to keep those women locked up in Beijing.  The methane levels breeding cows for those bags and shoes would have fried us by now.

Last, but most certainly not least, is making diamonds from tequila. Yup, some ill considered research and experimentation by Mexican scientists has done this very thing. "The scientists noted that 80-proof tequila (40 percent alcohol) had the ideal proportion of ethanol to water to create diamond films. In order to make the diamonds, they evaporated the tequila into a vapor, and then heated the vapor above 1400 degrees Fahrenheit before depositing it on silicon or stainless steel trays. The resulting diamond films were between 100 to 400nm in diameter and free of impurities."

What a load of bollocks and a shocking waste of magnificent tequila - none of my friends would exchange that magic elixir for a rock at any price.  What would our Hottie Dottie Diner's conferences be like without a margarita or 17?    

https://uber-facts.com/2015/03/06/you-can-make-diamonds-out-of-tequila/

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2008-11/creating-diamonds-tequila

Despair in the midst of a passion filled stadium

I admit to thinking long and hard before writing this post.  Lightly Green is usually a cheerful look at the ridiculous around me, or delights in revealing some gems discovered on one adventure or another.  Today's story weighs heavily on my heart, though, and banging it out on a keyboard is the only way I know to stop my mind running the tale on an endless loop of restless nights.

Ellis Park was at it's usual Test fever pitch when we arrived for the SA / France rugby test (see the previous blog, Taxi,Taxi for our transport tale!) The brick and concrete passages and ramps were crammed with over 40 000 fans, predominantly green and gold (who could not stare at the grown man in his Springbok onesie, complete with a horned hood!) although the dude with a stuffed imitation chicken hat, with legs and a head flopping listlessly alongside his jaw was also a good sighting.

Vendors selling biltong (beef jerky), soft drinks, flags and ice cream clambered up and down the stands, waving samples of their wares hopefully at the crowd and doing a fair business because being a noisy, interactive spectator is physically demanding work equalling the brute force activity on the pitch.

Crowd watching is always entertaining, a vastly diverse mix of spectators in groups large and small different in every detail except one - their enthusiasm for rugby.  Beer flowed, voices roared and 'our' team were giving the opposition a reasonable thumping.  Life is good.

Or not. The sun had long packed up for the day, allowing winter chill occupation of the stadium. Concrete, cold's best friend, eagerly absorbed and passed on the rapidly dropping temperature and it was then that THE ice cream seller climbed up towards us.

Aged somewhere in his mid 20's, his solemn face was the only motionless object in the stadium.  His eyes, dull with hopelessness, arrested my gaze and clutched my soul. I felt his story.  

Who knows how hard he fought to get a job selling ice cream in winter to a crowd more intent on beer?  How many taxi's did he have to catch to get to the stadium, and how much of that single day's earnings did transport suck up? How many ice creams would he sell and would he be in trouble with his employer for not selling them all?  Did he have a long, cold journey home in the dark, late on a Saturday night ahead of him.  All this to earn what?  R50?  R100?  And what about tomorrow?  Rugby is seasonal and the stadium not regularly used.  

A tsunami of guilt washed from my head to my toes, radiating through Him Outdoors absorption with the match.  Shaking his head at my story, he bought ice creams we didn't want and asked what else we could do?  

The minute rational part of my brain agreed.  We are in no financial shape to change the life of one extra person, let alone the millions of needy around us. Adopting a local creche and doing what we can within our means has us at our limits.  But it is not making a difference to the bigger picture of desperation and need, which continues to grow like an untreatable dread disease.

Amidst thousands of people spending hundreds of Rands on watching a single rugby match, here was an individual doing his damnedest to scrape some survival money.  Some would say he's lucky, he got the gig but is that really good enough?

South Africans are thoroughly overwhelmed by the immensity of the need in this country.  Monthly, jobs are shed.  Inflation pushes against constraints. Millions of people live incredibly hard lives just trying to survive and make do.  How many are able to improve their lot?  And the politicians continue to bicker, deceive, play magician games with the economy and peoples lives - the SASSA debacle is an outrageous crime against humanity, in my view.  And that's just one in a basket of indecent governance issues, albeit probably one of the most critical considering SASSA pays grants to the most desperate in society.

It's too easy, being overwhelmed by the numbers, to generalise and switch off to the sea of hopelessness we live in.  But sometimes, it's a photograph by Sam Nzima or Kevin Carter, highlighting an individual, that finally breaks the protective wall of our complacency.

My anonymous ice cream seller was that individual to me.  Seeing a person and not a crowd made the problem real and not a number.  But I still don't have any ideas to make a real difference in the larger picture.

My 20-something year old sons have hope - they are making their own way in the world but they have the resilience and the tools to cope with the challenges along the way.  They have the confidence to stride out for their dreams, and the bounce to recover from setbacks.  They got these qualities from a comfortable, supportive home where food, warmth, power, water and transport were always available.  Parents who established rules and, alongside their rights, taught responsibilities.  Parents who dropped them off at school in the morning and were home in time to cook dinner and supervise homework.  

These, I believe, are the essential foundations of any society.  We can't throw 'entrepreneurship' around and expect people to make a success of this difficult path just because it suits the government to throw this back on it's citizenry rather than create sustainable jobs.  Or education.  Or ensure that health and decent homes are available to all.

'Cry the Beloved Country' has become popular among the chattering class on social media but I refuse to cry for a collective.  I'll weep for a young man who is a Born Free, and without prospect.

Taxi, Taxi

Rugby.  The South African male's nirvana which for most of winter keeps them glued to the telly, beer in a vice-like grip while they give the ref, coach and team the benefit of their expert advice naturally (to their great frustration) ignored by the guys playing the game.

Being in the city when the Springboks face France at Ellis Park guaranteed that we'd make a plan to attend the match live, and Him Outdoors decided that the fiendish stadium traffic would best be tackled via the Gautrain.  That was a good call as our memories of post match gridlock are not happy ones.

Clutching Gautrain cards we arrived at Rosebank station and asked to top up the balances to cover the cost from Rosebank to Ellis Park (about 10 kms as the crow flies).  R85 (phew!).  Plus an additional R101 for new cards as ours had expired.  A solid R186 each for a quick train ride - outrageous! Uber here we come.

I'd deleted the Uber app to declog my bulging phone memory so it took a few minutes to reload it.  In which time, Him Outdoors had hailed down a taxi and was beckoning me to hurry up and get in.

Taxi.  Yes, a real live, Oxford Road, 16 seater Toyota Hi Ace special. A battered veteran of the daily crush to move over 1 000 000 South Africans to and from work and shops.  And me dressed like a teddy bear, a bulging Michelin Man figure prepared for freezing stadium conditions.

                                  

In I roll, squeezing into the back seat corner and watching in complete fascination as our R20 is passed forward to the driver and off we stutter.  The taxi was everything you'd expect - the interior light smashed, no panel on the side door, an engine making the choking noise of an overworked espresso machine.  When it was running, of course.  Frequent shudders threw the passengers forward in their seats as stall after stall brought us to a halt.     

                                

The taxi stopped to pick up a glamorous young woman.  Cautiously, she opened the door and stared at the occupants.  "Oh, men only" she said, beginning to step back.  "My wife is with me," piped up HO.  Giving us a level look, she climbed over two empty seats and sat next to us.  As did the lady picked up at the next stop. HO did what he always does and got chatting.  "These guys pay a woman to sit in the taxi, but she works with them," our companion explained."I never get into a taxi full of men, even if there is one woman in the taxi.  It's too dangerous."  A sobering reality check about the dangers on our roads, which don't only come from vehicles. 

"Why is the driver doing that?" I whisper to HO.

"What?"  

"Holding a R100 note at arms length out of the window." 

Within minutes, it became clear.  As we putt-putted up Jan Smuts Avenue, another taxi drew alongside and the passenger handed five R20 notes to our driver in exchange.  Aha, smaller notes required!

This process was repeated as we drove through Hillbrow.  This time we stopped across the road from a fish and chip shop and our driver summoned a passerby to take the R100 note into the shop and get more change.  

"How do we tell the driver where to drop us?" my husband asked his neighbour. 

"You don't," she replied.  "He stops where he wants to."

Indeed.  Within four blocks we were ejected into the middle of a busy intersection.

"Ellis Park is over there, let's walk until we find a metered taxi," suggested HO. Fat chance of that in the lower end of Bree and Smit streets, which were pretty much stationery Hi Ace taxi ranks.

It was quicker and less obstructed to simply walk along on the road because the pavements overflowed with hairdressers, pedestrians, salesmen, on-the-hoof eateries and barbecues, rubbish and displaced cement pavers making the going underfoot tricky.  All we had to negotiate on the tarmac were piles of weird rubbish on the edge of the road - broken chairs, curtains, odd shoes...household type of garbage which we assume came from some of the adjacent abandoned buildings.  

Even at my brisk pace, there was plenty of opportunity to survey the surroundings.  Neatly dressed women lugging shopping bags, one mother impatiently pulling along her little girl, proudly wearing her fairy princess dress over a warm cardigan; an elderly grandfather in his Sunday best jacket and hat, carrying his toddler grandson over a wet morass of garbage and running water. 

All normal, slightly old fashioned Saturday-afternoon-shopping-in-town scenes that large suburban malls have rendered history for most of us.

I loved it.  Every single minute of it.  Decrepit warehouses, showrooms and flats, one dated 1910 and others which looked even older.  In places, renovated buildings stood out proudly, glowing with colourful paint and neat fascias.  The blare of 50 genres of music competing above hooting vehicles and a Babylon of voices.  The whiff of diesel and other less savoury aromas. The people, intent on their business even if it was just relaxing, having a beer or a bite to eat, twitching their hips in tune with the music.  Smiling.  Everyone was smiling. Living in the moment, getting on with Saturday in time honoured tradition.

I'm so glad we didn't take the train.

They Grow So Fast

Living in the sticks does have it's drawbacks but at least we get have the opportunity to get mega excited about teeny little things!

Like, for instance, having a son who, yes, I know I've told you a million times, is a pilot.  Now, our darling little airport only has one commercial airline using it, and yay, No 1 son now flies for that particular lot.  Mostly, he lands, turfs off the pax, loads the next lot on and takes off without getting out of his seat.  But every now and then, he brings the last plane of the day in and flies it out again the next morning, necessitating an overnight stop.

So whoop, whoop, I'm all a'flurry with the prospect of picking him up and going out to dinner.  This is a truly special treat as his birthday is in 3 days time and it's been a while since we've celebrated together.

A series of messages have just floated in from him and I'm howling with laughter.  I spent years telling the boys that my role in their lives was to give them something to whinge about in later years.  Lots and lots of embarrassing moments they will never, never, inflict on their own progeny. (oh yes, they will.  Where's the fun in raising kids if we can't have a laugh at their expense every now and then?)

But this communication takes the cake!

No 1: Last landing at 18h55. If you want to see me looking handsome in uniform.

Me: Hell, yes, before you morph into a pumpkin!

No 1: Flying with the chief today though so will probably say hello but nothing too dramatic.

Me: OK, noted.

No 1: Then I'll see you at the lodge afterwards.  I'll probably get the rental car.

Me: OK

So there you have it, gentle reader.  My son feels the need to warn off his mother - absolutely, definitely NO public displays of affection in front of his Chief Pilot.  In fact, maybe best to adore from afar.

PS, "See me looking handsome in uniform"?!!!!  Did years and hundreds of thousands of ZAR spent on obtaining his pilot's license include ego and arrogance lectures?  There is nothing wrong with his self esteem.  Luckily for him, I know and appreciate his dry sense of humour. He doesn't really believe what he says. Much!

The Value of Research

Who hasn't snorted tea up their nose whilst reading a snippet on what the latest scientific research has uncovered?  Parents of teenagers don't need a laboratory to tell them that teenagers spend more time playing computer games than doing homework.  How many of us are kept awake at night figuring out why a cookie crumbles or how to make the perfect cup of tea?

Karma being what it is, I gave birth to a scientist so have spent many hours listening to his excited chatter about discoveries and expanded knowledge. My cynicism covers a reasonable amount of interest and acknowledgement that all discoveries have a value somewhere along the planetary plane, but I admit to having had a tremble of trepidation at the prospect of sitting through the description of 38 PhD theses at Junior's graduation.

However, I'm delighted to eat my fears and report that these clever scientists rock!  Each and every one has produced a thesis that not only could I understand what they had worked on, I could also see an everyday and immediate use for this valuable research.  Kudos to one and all for tackling solutions to problems such as malaria, cancer, pest control, fish breeding, water pollution, food security, forest governance, water service delivery, rural livelihoods, African horse sickness, computing infrastructure for rural schools, invasive plant control, fish ecology and so on and so forth. 

Returning home, wrapped in a fuzzy warm cloud of feel-good energy, I checked Twitter to catch up with the outside world.  "A 2012 study found that shoppers who use coupons are more relaxed and happier than shoppers who don’t use coupons," screamed an Uber Facts headline, ignoring the fact that we are now in 2017 and this research isn't cutting edge by any means.

Even overlooking the fact that 5 year old research doesn't deserve space on a social media outlet dedicated to breaking news, Uber Facts has ducked my optimistic bubble deep into the witching pond. For the love of all I hold dear, please explain:

1. who on earth thought this was a topic worthy of investigation and how did they get funding?

2. was anyone really surprised by the outcome? After all, it takes time to cut out and present a coupon at check out (tick 'relaxed' for that) and yeah, saving money makes most people happy (second boxed ticked.)

3. as for the non-coupon shoppers, many of whom will be in the queue waiting while a supervisor is called to authorise the coupon, watching their lunch hour minutes tick away, what have they got to be happy about? Firstly, they don't have a coupon and are paying full price. Secondly, for reasons not of their doing, they are condemned to spend an extra few minutes in the supermarket queue.

Having, without expending a fraction of the time, energy or expense no doubt spent on the above study, drawn the identical conclusion, do you think I'm eligible for a subsidy? A generous coupon, perhaps? I'm always happy to put my hand up and help science, particularly if a study grant is in the offing.

After all, I'm the woman who housed glass jars containing dead insects for her offspring's entomology projects in her freezer. Funny how he hasn't remembered this now that he has a bursary. I'm sure I'm due some rent...

96 Billion to 1

This week's blog is neither a rant nor a funny, so if you tuned in to either raise or lower your blood pressure I'm afraid this isn't the space for that today.

Instead of providing a chuckle, I need to unravel a mystery triggered by a skincare advert I saw on the telly last night.

Scientists employed by one of the globe's largest skincare and cosmetic companies (I honestly can't remember which one, it could have been LÓreal but it doesn't matter, the only difference between one brand and the other in terms of advertising is the name and livery) have made another amazing breakthrough and voila, user trials prove that "78% of women saw a difference" after slapping this stuff on their faces.  

Yawn.  "So what?" you ask "Your point is?"

My point is the small print insisted by consumer bodies and advertising standards boards. By law, these multi billion $ giants have to reveal their sample size and there it was, tucked away at the bottom of the screen. In this particular case, 44 women were sampled.

Read that again.  FORTY FOUR, out of a possible 3.5 billion women on the planet.  

Google tells me that the worth of the cosmetics and skincare industry is projected to reach $675 billion in 2017.  My rusty maths turns that into a spend of $96 billion per PERSON on planet Earth.  Phew!

An industry that gigantic uses state of the art laboratories and top scientists and specialists, spending millions of dollars in their research race to produce the holy grail - eternal youth.  Well, at least until you pop your clogs cos immortality hasn't been cracked yet.  But the drive to be the youngest looking corpse is worth $675 billion and the big guns want the lion's share of that boodle.

Yet they have so little faith in their own product that they test on a minuscule sample of potential customers?  We have school classes bigger than that sample!  The average McDonalds, a take away restaurant, can seat more than 44.  A sample of 44 people has less than no value in proving the efficacy of this goop.

Think of the multi millions spent on the research and development, the packaging and marketing - it's eye-watering.  To shout about what 78% of FORTY FOUR women reported?  Pathetic!

If I was marketing director of any of these industry giants, I'd send the product to the furthest flung, most desolate regions in the world.  Women in the Aussie outback, Sahara desert, jungles of South East Asia and South America and yes, even women scientists in Antarctica, would be trying my cream.  I'd pick women who had never had the opportunity to slap lotion on their faces ever, which is guaranteed to show positive results after a few weeks and give me the statistics I want - 100% improvement.

Of course, that's a suspect figure so I'd round up a group of my brand's most loyal, first world customers and let them at the new miracle cream.  Naturally, as they are using my current miracle worker, I don't expect amazing results from this batch (after all, my product is the best on the market and delivers what my substantial marketing budget promises, right?!) But that's perfect.  If I make this sample less than 10% of my group, that gives me a realistic statistic to report - 90% of 6000 women saw an improvement...

Eagle Eyed Birdies

I've never spent much time (any at all, actually) considering the supposed supersonic eyesight of birds.  'Eagle eyed' and 'birds-eye view' roll effortlessly off the tongue without using a single kilojoule of brain energy considering the factual basis of the idioms.

We do enjoy feeding our feathered garden aviators, however, and installed a smart penthouse feeder well out of cat paw reach. The local feed merchant makes a fortune out of the seed I buy from him because one thing is for sure about birds, when they find an easy source of food they call a friend.  Or several dozen.

You can tell when my mind is having an 'off this planet' moment because the things that engage my thoughts at times....  For instance, how do the birds know the pantry is open today?

Picture the scene.  I've been away for several months and the fly-through diner closed.  The diner is a wooden platform with four pillars bearing a roof, so a bird's eye view doesn't come into play here, it's impossible to see from overhead whether the buffet is stocked or not.

Fickle friends as they are, the birds have absconded from our garden during the famine and not a single one is to be seen when I pile a jug of seed onto the table. One thing I did notice is that the price of birdseed has increased by 30% during my absence, so the recipients of this largess had better up their entertainment game accordingly.

Just add oranges then grub's up!

 It took 20 minutes, then first the Bronze Mannikins pulled in en masse,
followed by the African Doves and a Pin Tailed Whydah all in a'flutter.  

How?  How did they know lunch was served?  Do they have a freakish sense of smell to rival a hyena?  Or X-Ray vision like some feathered Superhero?  For months there was nothing on the table and I thought they'd left the 'hood.  Perhaps they left a sentinel to keep a lookout for the feast?

It's a mystery to me and I hope that some knowledgeable twitcher can enlighten me.  

20 minutes later

In a different vein, but reminded by the 'eagle eye' thing, do you remember your child's first 'dirty' joke?  We all recall where we were when Mandela walked free, Princess Diana died and the Twin Towers sank into dust, and most good parents remember the moments of first teeth, first steps and so on.  I have notes in the baby books to tell me those things, the dates and moments escape me.  Big blush, bad mother.

Being a working mum, the first step moments in our house were witnessed by Francina Twala, beloved second mum to both boys and the person who kept it all together in our home.  I was met at the front door by a beaming face and excited chatter about how No 1, and then No 2, had passed the milestone.  Like all mothers do, I burst into tears but unlike good mothers, my tears weren't about missing those first steps but the twang as yet another apron string was cut.

No, in my upside down motherly role, I remember their first naughty jokes. Is that normal?  No 1 confronted me one evening while I wallowed in a hot bubble bath, clutching a book and a glass of wine.  Oh, for those pre-reading glass days when reading in the bath was possible!  A treat lost indeed.

The joke was about a jungle warrior wounded in battle.  He'd lost an eye, his right arm, his left leg and the appendage men are most concerned with.  The witchdoctor replaced his missing bits with the eye of an eagle, the arm of a gorilla, a cheetah's leg and yes, an elephant's trunk.  Checking progress during the follow up consultation, the warrior reported he could see very, very far, throw his spear very, very far, outrun all his enemies but oh, dear, his trunk kept picking grass and stuffing it up his you-know-where.

Caught between wanting to be a correct mum and enjoying the joke as much as for the acting and accents No 1 adopted in the telling, I roared with laughter and sank deep into the bubbles.   

And that, my friends, is what runs through my head when 'eye of an eagle' is mentioned.  Except now, the 'eye of a Bronze Mannikin' is mystifying me!