Tradition goes into a flutter

CAMBRIDGE beat Oxford in the traditional boat race on the Thames a few days ago. But tradition went into a flutter. The Cambridge crew didn't throw their cox into the water in celebration as they normally would.

The Thames had an abnormally high E.coli level and it would have been dangerous to human beings.

The Oxford crew complained, according to Sky News, that some of its members already had a high personal E.coli count before the race even started. The river itself stank.

What a situation at what used to be one of England's great traditional gatherings.

The yucky truth is that climate change has so boosted rainfall that Britain's ancient drainage system is no longer coping. Sewage – human and animal – is simply pouring into the rivers, the Thames included.

The drainage system – currently run by the private sector – suddenly urgently requires upgrading/replacement at a cost of billions upon billions. Will the private sector take this on? Will the Brits re-nationalise river management? But even if they do that, where do the billions upon billions come from? The taxpayers? Hoo boy!

A traditional event – the Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race – has suddenly pulled the rug from under the temperamentally complacent who insist there is no such thing as climate change. Doubters should be made to amble the banks of the Thames and other rivers. Get ducked in the waters if they persist.

This surely is a crisis that was on its way for years but has suddenly tipped into a disaster.

Early flier

WHAT did you do over Easter? Myself I spent much time motoring about the scenic hill country of the Midlands.

And there – between Nottingham Road and the Karkloof – I came upon a small monument to the man who, flying a glider, was South Africa's first-ever airman (was he perhaps the world's first?)

The monument to Goodman Household says he took flight in a glider from a ridge near his farmhouse home in 1871 and flew about 500m.

Attempting to research this further, I find several accounts, one of them attributed to a Zulu herdsman who saw it. Another says Anglican Bishop John Colenso helped Household with the mathematical side of his gliding calculations.

Yet another says he eventually broke a leg landing after a glide and then promised his mother he would give it all up and become a normal farmer's lad.

Does anyone out there know more?

Van Gogh

AND now a limerick on the arts. Van Gogh, feeling devil-may-care, Labelled one of his efforts ‘The Chair'.

No one knows if the bloke Perpetrated a joke

Or the furniture needed repair.

Tailpiece

A motorist is making his way down a flooded road after a night of torrential rain. He sees a man's head sticking out of a large puddle.

He stops his car and asks the fellow if he needs a lift.

“No thanks, I'm on my bike.”

Last word

The mystery of government is not how Washington works but how to make it stop. | PJ O'Rourke