DINNER PARTY INTEL: Explosive hunting trips

1. Army invaded

The army base at Makhanda (Grahamstown) is in danger of being overrun, not by any enemy but by civilians.           

Parliament’s committee on defence visited the base and found that part of a perimeter fence had been stolen. This allowed people from an informal settlement on the base’s border to hunt on a training area that holds wildlife — but also unexploded ordnance.  

2. Snakes barely alive

Most people won’t go near a black mamba, but last week residents in Westville, Durban, surrounded one to protect it. They stopped traffic and stood a few metres from the snake on a busy road after the mamba had apparently been hit by a car and seemed unable to move easily.

Snake catcher Nick Evans came to the rescue, taking the 2.4m mamba for X-rays (no bones broken). He nursed it back to health and this week  released his patient into the wild.  

3. Oscar copycat?

A man on trial for his wife’s murder in the US had been studying the Oscar Pistorius case, according to detectives.           

Bryan Anthony James, of Washtenaw County, Michigan, is accused of fatally shooting his wife at their home in 2019.           

Detectives found several searches on James’s cellphone that connected to reports of Pistorius’s murder of Reeva Steenkamp in 2013. Pistorius was convicted in 2016 and remains in jail, pending a possible parole. James’s case began a week ago with jury selection.