Chicken crossing ahead

Chicken crossing aheadhttp://leo1969.blog.co.uk/en-EUhourly82000-01-01T12:00+00:00Chicken crossing aheadhttp://leo1969.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/62/f2e4001bcb72dc0f9fa5b22975b0e8_160x200.jpgThe bomb that strips u naked!http://leo1969.blog.co.uk/2007/11/20/the_bomb_that_strips_u_naked~3327242/2007-11-20T20:57:05+01:00 Ever reflected on some of your most embarrassing moments of your childhood? At the time it was an earth-shattering life altering event, the kind of thing that makes you want just die of shame! But later on in life you can look back and laugh with the friends that laughed at you back then. Take 1981 for example. I was um…..let's see… 11? I was still in primary school. Still too young for a typical adolescent mindset, but old enough to start liking girls and impressing my friends. There I was in the bath at 16:45 when my mom called me from the kitchen. She said that I should put on a towel and "…come see something quickly. Hurry!" Of course a number of thoughts raced through my mind as I got of the bath. A fight? Nah! A chopper landing in the vlei behind our property? I would have heard it. A…a UFO?? Now we are talking. So I rush out of the bathroom with a small towel round my waist, not really caring about the little soap in my hair. I had to witness this once in a lifetime event! As soon as I reach the kitchen, mommy dearest grabs my arm with a vice-like grip and starts to frog march me towards the gate!! Despite my protests, she forged ahead muttering something about a bomb scare and all houses being evacuated. Gulp!! I began to do the maths… Bomb hidden somewhere - unknown. Evacuation – check! Mass exodus on the street en route to the shopping centre – check! D, the pretty girl I liked exiting her home (across the road) at precisely the same moment us – check! Did I mention that I was wrapped in a small towel? I mean a really small one? It barely covered my waist. And did I mention the soap still in my hair? So the last item on this equation: skinny little boy with soapy hair and what appears to be a loincloth – check!!! We get to the shopping centre to find it buzzing with hundreds of people. Some happened to be shopping after work. Others came to find out what the commotion was about. Most were evacuees like myself, they lived on the same street as me and some (in fact quite a few) were in the same class with me. One of these people was even my brother! But they all had clothes! Of course by this time I was drawing a lot of attention and sniggles could be heard from various quarters. I remember thinking, "UFO if you want to abduct me, get me out of here right now!!" It turned out there was no bomb, but I was the talk of the school the next day. <a href="http://leo1969.blog.co.uk/2007/11/20/the_bomb_that_strips_u_naked~3327242/#comments">Comments</a> Ever reflected on some of your most embarrassing moments of your childhood? At the time it was an earth-shattering life altering event, the kind of thing that makes you want just die of shame! But later on in life you can look back and laugh with the friends that laughed at you back then. Take 1981 for example. I was um…..let's see… 11? I was still in primary school. Still too young for a typical adolescent mindset, but old enough to start liking girls and impressing my friends. There I was in the bath at 16:45 when my mom called me from the kitchen. She said that I should put on a towel and "…come see something quickly. Hurry!"

Of course a number of thoughts raced through my mind as I got of the bath. A fight? Nah! A chopper landing in the vlei behind our property? I would have heard it. A…a UFO?? Now we are talking. So I rush out of the bathroom with a small towel round my waist, not really caring about the little soap in my hair. I had to witness this once in a lifetime event! As soon as I reach the kitchen, mommy dearest grabs my arm with a vice-like grip and starts to frog march me towards the gate!! Despite my protests, she forged ahead muttering something about a bomb scare and all houses being evacuated. Gulp!! I began to do the maths… Bomb hidden somewhere - unknown. Evacuation – check! Mass exodus on the street en route to the shopping centre – check! D, the pretty girl I liked exiting her home (across the road) at precisely the same moment us – check!

Did I mention that I was wrapped in a small towel? I mean a really small one? It barely covered my waist. And did I mention the soap still in my hair? So the last item on this equation: skinny little boy with soapy hair and what appears to be a loincloth – check!!!

We get to the shopping centre to find it buzzing with hundreds of people. Some happened to be shopping after work. Others came to find out what the commotion was about. Most were evacuees like myself, they lived on the same street as me and some (in fact quite a few) were in the same class with me. One of these people was even my brother! But they all had clothes! Of course by this time I was drawing a lot of attention and sniggles could be heard from various quarters. I remember thinking, "UFO if you want to abduct me, get me out of here right now!!"

It turned out there was no bomb, but I was the talk of the school the next day.

Comments

]]>Operation Barn yard!http://leo1969.blog.co.uk/2007/11/20/operation_barn_yard~3327224/2007-11-20T20:52:56+01:00 Ever been in a situation where you are so tired of something bad always happening to you that you go a little overboard in trying to deal with the problem? Some 15 years ago I was sharing a house with two friends of mine: Donny & Jones. In the first 6 months there, we were being hounded by constant attempts by burglars to break into our property. Car alarms were going off every other night usually followed by the sound of running footsteps of a panicked intruder preparing to scramble over the wall. On two or three occasions the thugs managed to get away with spot lights of one car and seriously damaged the locks on another. We were really fed up with the sleepless nights and then Donny had this brilliant idea! "Let's wait for them!" He says, excitedly. "Um… who?" I said. "The tsotsi's" he said with immense enthusiasm. (Tsotsi is a colloquial expression here in Southern Africa for a thug, a robber or a thief). I was a little uneasy, so I asked him how. His idea was that we go out into the yard and sit in the bushes at about 2am in the morning for at least an hour and a half and, here's the hard part…wait. He organised himself a knobkerrie fashioned from possibly the hardest plastic known to man. And I found myself a thick piece of wood which I converted into my "rod of correction and retribution." I can't imagine what we both aimed to achieve as we didn't know how many thugs would one day show up and whether or not they had a firearm. And the thought of sitting in the dew layered, mosquito and bug infested undergrowth (we had to be hidden!) didn't really have much appeal, at least not at 2am in the morning. But I did it anyway. Naturally Jones refused. Said that we were crazy. Then one night we were "on duty" in the bushes, cold, damp, tired and irritable, when we heard a noise next door. Donny signaled for us to approach the wall and, because only I was tall enough, asked me to take a peep next door as his sweat palms tightened their grip on his plastic …um thingy. I looked over the wall expecting to spot intruders breaking into the house next door. What I did see was my next door neighbour, who we hardly knew, apparently a little drunk, banging the door so his girlfriend could open up. It was about 3:30am and I guessed that he had been to a night club. Open and shut case. It seemed that Donnie had a different idea why this chap was knocking on his door at this time of the morning and what he said next confirmed this: "Is he still there?" "ER…yah!" "Still at the door?" "Well…it is the way in, isn't it?" Why don't you ask him what he's doing? "Excuse me? I can't do that!" "Just do it! Why is he out this time of the night during the week?" "Why are we out during the week at this ridiculous hour? Our whispering must have alerted the neighbour because he began to approach the wall and then wanted to know what we were doing outside. Really embarrassing. We never did catch anyone in our nightly vigils and "operation barn-owl" was soon suspended due to lack of sleep…. <a href="http://leo1969.blog.co.uk/2007/11/20/operation_barn_yard~3327224/#comments">Comments</a> Ever been in a situation where you are so tired of something bad always happening to you that you go a little overboard in trying to deal with the problem? Some 15 years ago I was sharing a house with two friends of mine: Donny & Jones. In the first 6 months there, we were being hounded by constant attempts by burglars to break into our property. Car alarms were going off every other night usually followed by the sound of running footsteps of a panicked intruder preparing to scramble over the wall. On two or three occasions the thugs managed to get away with spot lights of one car and seriously damaged the locks on another. We were really fed up with the sleepless nights and then Donny had this brilliant idea! "Let's wait for them!" He says, excitedly.

"Um… who?" I said.

"The tsotsi's" he said with immense enthusiasm. (Tsotsi is a colloquial expression here in Southern Africa for a thug, a robber or a thief). I was a little uneasy, so I asked him how. His idea was that we go out into the yard and sit in the bushes at about 2am in the morning for at least an hour and a half and, here's the hard part…wait. He organised himself a knobkerrie fashioned from possibly the hardest plastic known to man. And I found myself a thick piece of wood which I converted into my "rod of correction and retribution." I can't imagine what we both aimed to achieve as we didn't know how many thugs would one day show up and whether or not they had a firearm. And the thought of sitting in the dew layered, mosquito and bug infested undergrowth (we had to be hidden!) didn't really have much appeal, at least not at 2am in the morning. But I did it anyway. Naturally Jones refused. Said that we were crazy. Then one night we were "on duty" in the bushes, cold, damp, tired and irritable, when we heard a noise next door. Donny signaled for us to approach the wall and, because only I was tall enough, asked me to take a peep next door as his sweat palms tightened their grip on his plastic …um thingy. I looked over the wall expecting to spot intruders breaking into the house next door. What I did see was my next door neighbour, who we hardly knew, apparently a little drunk, banging the door so his girlfriend could open up. It was about 3:30am and I guessed that he had been to a night club. Open and shut case. It seemed that Donnie had a different idea why this chap was knocking on his door at this time of the morning and what he said next confirmed this: "Is he still there?"

"ER…yah!"

"Still at the door?"

"Well…it is the way in, isn't it?"

Why don't you ask him what he's doing?

"Excuse me? I can't do that!"

"Just do it! Why is he out this time of the night during the week?"

"Why are we out during the week at this ridiculous hour?

Our whispering must have alerted the neighbour because he began to approach the wall and then wanted to know what we were doing outside. Really embarrassing. We never did catch anyone in our nightly vigils and "operation barn-owl" was soon suspended due to lack of sleep….

Comments

]]>Diesel witch doctor?http://leo1969.blog.co.uk/2007/11/20/diesel_witch_doctor~3327192/2007-11-20T20:48:01+01:00 One would hope that at election time we are voting the best possible candidate (or rather the best available) into public office. We place our confidence in their wisdom, integrity and competence as the requisites for any public officer. So I must say it came as a suprise when I read in the paper last week that the Zim government had paid some lady, a self proclaimed n'anga or spirit medium, who claimed to be able to induce diesel from a certain rock, by pointing a "sacred stick" in the hills just outside Chinhoyi town. Apparently some liquid was seen coming from the rock and it was diesel. But it took them a while to realise that she had sent some youths to buy diesel and then, through a series of pipes and tubes, conned the Zimbabwe Government. Payments amounting to ZW$5 Billion as well as a farm, were authorised, by cabinet ministers and the Governor of Mashonaland West. My question is: Was no one suspicious that the "ancestors" had a refinery somewhere underground? Needless to say the woman ended up in court, but a significant portion of the money was never recovered (granted we are talking about US$4100, but it's still a waste). All this could have been avoided if there was a sprinkling of common sense somewhere in their collective minds. <a href="http://leo1969.blog.co.uk/2007/11/20/diesel_witch_doctor~3327192/#comments">Comments</a> One would hope that at election time we are voting the best possible candidate (or rather the best available) into public office. We place our confidence in their wisdom, integrity and competence as the requisites for any public officer. So I must say it came as a suprise when I read in the paper last week that the Zim government had paid some lady, a self proclaimed n'anga or spirit medium, who claimed to be able to induce diesel from a certain rock, by pointing a "sacred stick" in the hills just outside Chinhoyi town. Apparently some liquid was seen coming from the rock and it was diesel. But it took them a while to realise that she had sent some youths to buy diesel and then, through a series of pipes and tubes, conned the Zimbabwe Government. Payments amounting to ZW$5 Billion as well as a farm, were authorised, by cabinet ministers and the Governor of Mashonaland West. My question is: Was no one suspicious that the "ancestors" had a refinery somewhere underground? Needless to say the woman ended up in court, but a significant portion of the money was never recovered (granted we are talking about US$4100, but it's still a waste). All this could have been avoided if there was a sprinkling of common sense somewhere in their collective minds.

Comments

]]>Chicken Crossing ahead!! Drive slowly!http://leo1969.blog.co.uk/2007/11/17/chicken_crossing_ahead_drive_slowly~3311204/2007-11-17T17:20:53+01:00 KINDERGARTEN TEACHER: To get to the other side. * PLATO: For the greater good. * THE POPE: God knows. * POLICEMAN: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I’ll know why. * ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross roads. * SADDAM HUSSEIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it. * CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before. * MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives being called into question. * MACHIAVELLI: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was. * FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity. * GEORGE W. BUSH (2): We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here. * DARWIN: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads. * EINSTEIN: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference. * NELSON MANDELA: Never again, will the chicken be questioned for crossing the road. This is an ideal for which I am prepared to die. * THABO MBEKI (South african President): We need to establish if really there is a connection between the chicken and the road. * MUGABE(Zimbabwe President): For all of these years the road has been owned by the white farmers, the poor underprivileged chicken has waited too long for that road to be given to him and now he is crossing it in force with his fellow war veteran chickens. We intend taking over this road and giving it to the roadless chickens so that they can cross it without fear of retribution from Britain who promised money to institute road reform. We will not stop until all roadless chickens have roads to cross and the freedom to cross them. * ISAAC NEWTON: Any chicken in the universe shall always cross a road perpendicularly to the side of the road, and in an infinitely long straight line at uniform speed, unless the chicken stops due to an unbalanced reactive force in the opposite direction of the chicken's motion. * ZANU (PF)(Ruling political party in Zimbabwe) Spokesman: The chicken did not cross the road. This is a complete fabrication. We don't even have a single chicken in our country as the whole world knows. All the chickens were bought and consumed by the long-suffering masses at give-away prices when we sent out our comrades to enforce what our enemies are now unpatriotically and maliciously referring to as the largest closing down sale in the world. * JACOB ZUMA (Fired South African deputy President): I am gravely suspicious that this question is being asked with a malicious intention to trap me, send the Scorpions to raid my chicken run, haul me before the courts and charge me for sodomizing the chicken that walked across the road <a href="http://leo1969.blog.co.uk/2007/11/17/chicken_crossing_ahead_drive_slowly~3311204/#comments">Comments</a> KINDERGARTEN TEACHER: To get to the other side.

* PLATO: For the greater good.

* THE POPE: God knows.

* POLICEMAN: Give me ten minutes with the chicken and I’ll know why.

* ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross roads.

* SADDAM HUSSEIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it.

* CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before.

* MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives being called into question.

* MACHIAVELLI: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was.

* FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity.

* GEORGE W. BUSH (2): We don't really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road or not. The chicken is either with us or it is against us. There is no middle ground here.

* DARWIN: Chickens, over great periods of time, have been naturally selected in such a way that they are now genetically disposed to cross roads.

* EINSTEIN: Whether the chicken crossed the road or the road moved beneath the chicken depends upon your frame of reference.

* NELSON MANDELA: Never again, will the chicken be questioned for crossing the road. This is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.

* THABO MBEKI (South african President): We need to establish if really there is a connection between the chicken and the road.

* MUGABE(Zimbabwe President): For all of these years the road has been owned by the white farmers, the poor underprivileged chicken has waited too long for that road to be given to him and now he is crossing it in force with his fellow war veteran chickens. We intend taking over this road and giving it to the roadless chickens so that they can cross it without fear of retribution from Britain who promised money to institute road reform.

We will not stop until all roadless chickens have roads to cross and the freedom to cross them.

* ISAAC NEWTON: Any chicken in the universe shall always cross a road perpendicularly to the side of the road, and in an infinitely long straight line at uniform speed, unless the chicken stops due to an unbalanced reactive force in the opposite direction of the chicken's motion.

* ZANU (PF)(Ruling political party in Zimbabwe) Spokesman: The chicken did not cross the road. This is a complete fabrication. We don't even have a single chicken in our country as the whole world knows. All the chickens were bought and consumed by the long-suffering masses at give-away prices when we sent out our comrades to enforce what our enemies are now unpatriotically and maliciously referring to as the largest closing down sale in the world.

* JACOB ZUMA (Fired South African deputy President): I am gravely suspicious that this question is being asked with a malicious intention to trap me, send the Scorpions to raid my chicken run, haul me before the courts and charge me for sodomizing the chicken that walked across the road

Comments

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