The Mercury

Another ‘rooikop’ rugby star?

- Graham.linscott@inl.co.za

IT WAS an arresting moment as Steven Kitshoff led the Stormers out on to the field for their URC match against Leinster last weekend. He was holding hands with two kids in Stormers colours.

One was a pretty blonde girl, presumably his daughter. With the other there was no presuming. He was a younger kid, stockily built with a mop of red hair, just like his dad – Steven in miniature, a little red-haired terror.

His future career in rugby will be watched with interest.

The Stormers made it against Leinster. And what a sensationa­l comeback for the Sharks against Connacht. From 10 points down at half-time to 10 ahead and with a bonus point at full-time – Yahoo! A superb performanc­e that must rate as one of the Sharks’ best. The instinct is there in large doses.

The URC competitio­n against northern hemisphere sides is the best thing that’s happened to our rugby.

Twitter

IN HIS latest grumpy newsletter, investment analyst Dr James Greener turns his analytical skills to Twitter. As a non-tweeter (having been warned by my daughter that participat­ion would simply bury me in the scribbling­s of fellow-cranks), I find this illuminati­ng, being otherwise in the dark. Over to James:

“Those people that you see with their noses buried in their phones became very excited by the news that ownership of Twitter had changed. This is a rather cleverly named computer programme (‘app’, to the cognoscent­i) that anyone can use freely to share their opinions, prejudices and sense of humour with someone who cares and untold millions who don’t. Twitter is a very popular app (short for applicatio­n – ugh!) among dozens of this genre (social media – more ugh!) and is a good place to start when searching for crazies, bigots and extremists of every stripe.

“Sometimes the opinions offered offend the owner/controller or one of his friends and just like in the days of newspapers (remember them?), the publisher can delete the Tweet and even ban (cancel – another ugh!) the Twitterer altogether.

“Whether this actually constitute­s an infringeme­nt of any relevant freedom of speech legislatio­n is moot. Twitter’s new owner is Elon Musk, the Pretoria-born and brought up boytjie whose talents and achievemen­ts are extremely impressive, dwarfed only by his ability to rustle up over a weekend the $44 billion to cover this purchase.

“Elon has already announced that the company will filter out only illegal contributi­ons. Let’s see how that works out! There is no limit to man’s ability to be evil. Equally interestin­g will be the financial return on this investment. Just like this newsletter, there is no subscripti­on fee to read Twitter!”

Tailpiece

WHAT will they do if King’s Park floods again?

Send on the subs of course.

Last word

WRITE a wise saying and your name will live forever. | ANONYMOUS

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THE IDLER

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