If Africa Didn't Exist

Imagine there was no Africa

I can remember watching TV Globo soon after the 2004 Asian tsunami. The news anchor, solemn faced like he'd had a double sided stroke, suddenly sprang off his seat and walked over to a giant digital screen where a sexy woman was standing. A map of the world appeared. Big red arrows showed the epi-centre of the quake and the direction of the tsunamis. With only a handful of Brasilians caught up in the disaster  something else was needed to stop the masses from turning over.* Attention spans here are generally weak and would read like the report card of that kid that was in everyone's class who had to stay back a year.

While the woman was sexy, she was clearly opposed to plate-tectonics because when she clicked a button, Africa disappeared from the screen. 

Imagine there was no Africa

said the anchor. The big red arrows got bigger and headed over where Africa once was and pointed straight to the Brazilian coast. It was estimated that the waves would be at least 20 metres in height by the time they smashed onto Brazil. Later that night the station clarified the situation by confirming that Africa was indeed still there but stressed that tsumanis were a serious business and vigilance was required at all times by coastal dwellers, regardless of Africa acting as a buffer zone. Since then I have been in love with Brazilian diagrams. 

False reporting. One Wedding, Two Murders & a Suicide actually

Which brings me to a story that happened here at the weekend. It could pass as a soap opera story line. Every bride's worst nightmare. What happened was this. Rogério, the groom, drove to where the reception was gonna be with his .38 pistol, like all nervous grooms have done, and stashed it for use at the party. Later on, during the reception he snakes out and comes back with his pistol, hidden. Around two in the morning he decides he has had enough of married life and shoots the wife, killing her instantly, then he finishes off his best man before turning the gun on himself. Tragic! The comic strip below is an account of what happened in the local broadsheet, The Diario de Pernambuco -

Rogério arrives with his pistol

 Where's me wife then, thought crazy Roger...

Crack! Bang! I've had enough of your crap dancing...

Roger goes looking for his best man...

Your best man speech was shit!

Celebrate! This party's over! I'm going home!

I'm sure you'll agree that a tragic story was well told in comic strip form. Not to sound heartless but I do hope they follow up with a comic-book strip of the funerals as I couldn't picture what happened after reading the news report and before I saw the cartoon. I fear this might happen again.

It's not just grisly domestic bloodbaths that get the comic book treatment. Occasionally there is a physics and football column in the paper. Below we can see what would have happened if Roberto Carlos's incredible curvy free kick against France in 1997 had not hit the back of the net. A complex formula shows us that the ball should have come to a standstill in the French 6 yard box. But the truth is it did go into the net. If it didn't go into the net and was not impeded until it lost all power then it theoretically this might have been possible. But it didn't. As Liam Brady would say

If my granny had balls she'd be my grandad.

 But that doesn't matter. Never let the facts get in the way of a good diagram. 

The ball would have gone into a corkscrew motion until it exploded or didn't exist any more, like Africa

*Usually to the endless, mindless soap operas or popping on a DVD of men with long ironed hair singing what sounds like the same song for three hours, occasionally winking at a different camera or switching the words amor (love) and coracao (heart) around but generally consistently being cunts.