the corner office

I'm sure Americans could have a lot of fun with this chart: Loss of Natural Teeth By State (via Marginal Revolution).

This reminds me of an old joke.

Q: What has 100 legs and 3 teeth?

A: The front row of a Bles Bridges concert.

(The effect might be lost on non-South Africans).

I guess it's a bit rude to joke about Bles now that he's no longer around. It's one of my very few um, celebrity experiences, but I actually went cycling with him a few times when I was in high school, and he turned out to be a really nice person. There was a small cycling fraternity in my home town of Carletonville, and a member of the fraternity was the man whose wife Bles eventually had an affair with. In the pre-schtumping days, they were all family friends. This bloke was an ex-Springbok cyclist, and got Bles into cycling too. A group of us would get together and go training in the afternoons. One day we all pitch up at this dude's house, and there's a Beemer and this ridiculously expensive bicycle in the driveway. Whose bike could this be, we all wonder? Next thing Bles Bridges walks around the corner, kitted out in his cycling gear (and bright red towelling socks, though). Some of my Afrikaans compadres were well stoked. I got a bit of a ribbing at school but got some mileage with my mates telling them about the red socks. He joined us once or twice after that, and then the affair skandaal hit the news and well, we didn't see Bles after that.

But as I said, notwithstanding the casanova bit, Bles was a really nice bloke.

Right. Enough blogging for one night.