DINNER PARTY INTEL...

The topics you have to be able to discuss this week

1. Horses of a different colour

An inspection by the National Council of SPCAS at the defence force’s equine centre in Potchefstroom earlier this year found horses to be in a “perilous condition”, according to the animal protection agency’s executive director, Marcelle Meredith. This led to 27 horses being euthanased. Other horses needed to be removed. But at the police’s mounted academy in the same town the situation was completely different. The animals there were “in excellent condition”, Meredith was quoted as saying on defenceweb after an inspection in August.

2. Authors argue after book review

Investigative journalist Jacques Pauw, author of The President’s Keepers,

and former journalist Chris Steyn, who wrote The Lost Boys of Bird Island

together with ex-policeman Mark Minnie, have gone to war — over a book review. It began when Pauw excoriated The Lost Boys of Bird Island ,after which Steyn replied in kind. Pauw hit back. Both books are published by Tafelberg, which must be rubbing its hands in glee over the publicity, and possibly increased sales.

3. Tiny pest a huge threat to Joburg’s trees

Joburg’s man-made forest is being threatened by the polyphagous shot hole borer, a minuscule bug that could kill up to 1-million trees. The Forestry & Agricultural Biotechnology Institute at the University of Pretoria is leading a study of the beetle, while Joburg’s City Parks is looking at ways to fight the scourge and is collaborating with scientific and arboreal organisations on a problem for which there is no known solution. The beetle has destroyed ornamental trees and orchards in California and Israel.