Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Oh dear, I do set myself up. I have a (bad) habit of switching on the telly and channel-hopping if I stop for a tea or lunch break. On "Celebrity Big Brother" I just witnessed the sight of someone called Jack (bully Jade Goody's boyfriend, I believe) declaring (I paraphrase) that Africans keep lizards to control the mosquitoes. Really? Which Africans would those be? Africa is not a country, it is a continent with fifty-four countries! Certainly in South Africa we have lizards and we have mosquitoes, and the lizards eat the mosquitoes. We don't keep them specifically for the purpose. Now I don't believe that britons keep badgers to eat their hedgehogs, but that's just about as facetious a thought...

Sorry...must turn the tv off!

From the Stacks Challenge write-ups coming soon - loving it.

7 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I would say stick to the radio, which is normally my answer to all television ills, but last week that was just as bad, nothing but CBB

3:16 pm  
Blogger Poem Reader said...

Ah, television. Sometimes it seems no good can come from it! Nice to have discovered your blog.

8:50 pm  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ha ha! the misinformed fools. That is not what lizards are for! We keep lizards for use in muti that makes us desirous to potential mates.

Actually, in Africa we keep trained tarantulas for a mosquito-free home. I used to keep an elephant for this purpose, but the damage she did to my hut whenever she swatted at mosquitos with her trunk and missed was too extensive, so I downsized.

8:52 am  
Blogger The Traveller said...

Yeah, but c'mon...he's not as bad as his girlfriend, with her Eskimo questions - 'Why aren't Eskimos like ice cubes? Cos igloos don't have heating, do they? And they live where it's really cold...' and the classic 'When Eskimos talk to each other, does it sound like when dolphins talk to each other?' The pair of them defy all known bounds of stupidity.

5:33 pm  
Blogger Debi said...

ooops! Did you know when you wrote this post it would develop into a debate about CBB and the reactions to it?

I was going to launch in but then thought you might despair ...

12:21 pm  
Blogger equiano said...

Welcome Soul Sister!

Thank you all you regulars for CBB comments. Just back from South Africa a month later and OK magazine covers of Shilpa Shetty remind me that the broohaha has clearly still not died down in the UK. But hey, it provided some appalling amusement while it lasted...

James, your point about what kind of racist language is considered "acceptable" is a very interesting one. Only we can change this sort of bigotry by challenging it when we hear it.

9:53 am  
Blogger Rina said...

Lol. I found the mosquitos on the Highveld (where I grew up) nothing compared to the mosquitos in Europe, especially during that hour in summer just as dusk falls. These ones are vicious maneaters. I could do with a few lizards here. And the wasps. You can't eat anything sweet outside in summer here. Aaargh I took my children to a playground for a picnic last summer and we were attacked by them. One was even trying to force my 12-year old son's mouth open to get at the sandwich he was chewing.

10:01 pm  

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