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REUTERS<\/p>\n
A musher greets his dog during a break in a stage of the Sedivackuv Long dog sled race in Destne v Orlickych horach, January 26, 2012. Each year, racers from all over Europe arrive to the village of Destne in Orlicke mountains in Czech Republic to take part in this race series. REUTERS\/Petr Josek (CZECH REPUBLIC – Tags: SOCIETY ANIMALS)<\/p>\n
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NEWT Gingrich wants the moon to become the 51st state of the US. Okay, he didn\u2019t say it in so many words, but this week in the Florida primary contest ahead of the presidential election later in the year, he was perfectly explicit. The moon has to be permanently colonised and it has to be an American colony. No arguments. <\/p>\n
We outsiders get struck a bit schtum<\/em> by this kind of thing. The moon has no atmosphere; it has no water; you can\u2019t grow anything there. In fact, you can\u2019t even breathe unless you\u2019re wearing a space suit with an oxygen supply. <\/p>\n The only thing the moon has going for it is that it has very little gravity, so, if you feel like it, you can jump over the town hall (if there was a town hall), but then somebody else would do it also and your record wouldn\u2019t stand for very long. <\/p>\n But obviously we don\u2019t get the big picture. The place erupted in cheering when Newt made his big announcement. He got a standing ovation, including people in the platform party. <\/p>\n The guy could conceivably end up as president. Should we worry? Perhaps not. If he is focused on colonising the moon, he can\u2019t do much harm anywhere else. <\/p>\n And if he should succeed \u2013 in winning the presidency plus colonising the moon \u2013 well then, we can look forward to future lunar primaries as presidential elections come up again. <\/p>\n Let\u2019s get the big picture. <\/p>\n Lurid stories <\/p>\n THE net draws in as arrests are made in London in connection with allegations of the bribing of police officers by the tabloid newspapers \u2013 an investigation that runs in parallel with another into the phone-hacking scandal. <\/p>\n How far back will they dig? Will they investigate how, back in the \u201970s, the Barking and Dagenham Advertiser (a notoriously scurrilous and sensationalist weekly rag) splashed such reports as \u201cChinese cook dragged into Thames trying to hold on to runaway wheelbarrow on gangplank\u201d and \u201cDrunken pensioners in fisticuffs in pub next door to pay-out point\u201d? <\/p>\n The suggestion is that the information on which such reports were based emanated, not from the official crime conferences held by the police, but surreptitious encounters in a certain Barking pub with sawdust on the floor, where police officers were regularly plied with pints of ale, in return for which they told lurid stories which found their way into print. <\/p>\n Yes, I did spend part of my apprenticeship into hackery and scribbling on the newspaper mentioned. No, I am not prepared to comment on the insinuations of bribery and malfeasance. This extradition thing is becoming a racket. <\/p>\n Essex Girls <\/p>\n THAT newspaper covered the two Essex towns of Barking and Dagenham, part of the London overspill and habitat of the famous Essex Girls. Barking is quite near the Isle of Dogs, though this is coincidental. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon Berkynge, which means \u201cthe place of ash trees\u201d. It is a waterfront town on the Thames estuary \u2013 and is full of history and character. <\/p>\n Sir Walter Raleigh was married in the local parish church. Captain Sir Henry Morgan, the famous pirate who became governor of the Bahamas, is buried in the churchyard. The names of the local pubs are pure poetry: The Barge Aground, The Ship and Shovel, The Crooked Billet\u2026 <\/em>Nostalgia\u2019s not what it used to be.<\/em> <\/p>\n Dagenham? Well, you\u2019ve heard of the Girl Pipers. Phwoar-r-r-r. <\/p>\n Rigid stylists <\/p>\n AN ODDITY of that paper was an absolutely rigid style rule. If a report concerned a person from Barking, the two had to be linked in the introductory paragraph. The same with Dagenham. <\/p>\n It didn\u2019t matter much with Dagenham, but it was irksome to have to write: \u201cA Barking pensioner scored big at the dog races this week\u2026\u201d or \u201cA Barking postman was severely bitten by a dachshund\u2026\u201d Similarly, we had Barking vicars, Barking firemen, Barking councillors and Barking policemen. <\/p>\n The management would not budge on the style rule. Woof, woof. I want a transfer to the Isle of Dogs. <\/p>\n Ask the Bard <\/p>\n DRAMA poser: If you cloned Henry IV, would he be Henry V or Henry IV Part II? <\/p>\n Tailpiece <\/p>\n \u201cNURSE, how\u2019s that little boy doing; the one who swallowed all the five-cent pieces?\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cStill no change, doctor.\u201d <\/p>\n Last word <\/p>\n My theory of evolution is that Darwin was adopted. \u2013 Steven Wright<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" REUTERS A musher greets his dog during a break in a stage of the Sedivackuv Long dog sled race in Destne v Orlickych horach, January 26, 2012. Each year, racers from all over Europe arrive to the village of Destne in Orlicke mountains in Czech Republic to take part in this race series. REUTERS\/Petr Josek […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-7611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}