Getting down to the extreme of extreme sports
July 07, 2005 Edition 1
David Biggs
I mentioned recently that there seemed to be a craze for "extreme" sports sweeping the world. I actually had in mind stuff like careering down waterfalls in rubber boats or hanging from kites over the sea.
Apparently I don't know half of it.
Kim, who is a Tavern reader, wrote extolling the virtues of "extreme ironing". I thought I was having my leg pulled, but I am assured this is real.
"Extreme ironing," she explains, "is an outdoor activity that combines the danger and excitement of an 'extreme' sport with the satisfaction of a well pressed shirt. It involves taking an iron and board (if possible) to remote locations and ironing a few items of laundry.
"This can involve ironing on a mountainside, preferably on a difficult climb, or taking an iron skiing, snowboarding or canoeing.
"Presently it is estimated that up to 1 000 people (2003 figures) around the world take part in extreme ironing. Over 80 people competed at the world championships in Munich in September 2002."
I must confess I am gobsmacked. I was about to say: "What will they think of next?" when I read about the sport of "extreme accounting".
Apparently accountants at some of the world's great finance houses take their adding machines along and crunch numbers while free-falling from an aircraft or tobogganing down a glacier.
Why do they do it?
One accountant explained: "It adds the thrill of accounting to the otherwise mundane pleasure of skydiving."
Great guns
Gabriel, from Hout Bay, wrote to say he was often mystified by human behaviour, but the matter of the recent "amnesty" on illegal firearms puzzled him more than most things.
Gabriel is amazed at the thought than anyone would actually go to a police station and hand in an illegal firearm.
"I can at least understand those good souls who went and handed in legal (but surplus) firearms," he says.
"But why would any holder of an illegal firearm risk the exposure, the forms, the inevitable questioning, rather than just throwing it in the sea or the nearest public dirt bin (after wiping prints, of course, and taking a hammer to it if in a fit of public-spiritedness)?
"I cannot think of even one bad reason for doing so, but many good reasons not to ... Can any reader explain this to my simple mind?"
I believe he has a point there. In fact, I know of one or two people who have found themselves in possession of an unlicensed gun, which they might have inherited from a grandfather who had it as a souvenir of World War 2, or some such story.
Either you keep it in a bottom drawer, or if you're a nervous type, you drive out to Chapman's Peak and toss it over the cliff.
I am not for one moment suggesting Tavern readers should actually do such a naughty thing, but I suspect that we all want to go through life with as little trouble as possible, and wandering into the local police station with an unlicensed gun could result in a lot of tedious explaining at the very least.
Get well
A retired colleague who does volunteer work, took her portable keyboard along to the hospital to cheer up the patients. She told some jokes and sang funny songs.
When she finished, she said, "I hope you get better."
One elderly gentleman propped himself up on an elbow and said, "I hope you get better, too, dearie."
Eina!
Last Laugh
The best indication of a man's honesty is not his income tax return. It is the zero adjustment on his bathroom scale. - Arthur C Clarke
