BYTES & PIECES

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Two items, based on comments in the news . . .

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Readers, at least local ones, will have seen quite a lot of coverage of a scandal involving the former Australian cricket team captain Michael Clarke, who was videoed shirtless in a park in Noosa engaged in a very loud fight with his girlfriend Jade Yarborough. TV presenter Karl Stefanovic and his wife Jasmine Yarborough, Jade’s sister, were also present. A video by a member of the public showed yarborough accusing Clarke of cheating on her with ex-girlfriend and fashion designer Pip Edwards, slapping him twice and walking away.

What is of interest to us at Bytes is the short but sweet response made by Pip Edwards in commenting on the sorry and sordid affair: “This is not my circus.”

I don’t know if Edwards has a Polish background or whether she was using part of a Polish saying but it is a shame she didn’t use the Polish expression in full and in its original format, the meaning being “Don’t drag me into your drama and your issues—I’m not getting involved.” –

Had she so wished, she could have used an alternative, equally apt Russian expression:

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A friend mentioned having watched a two part tele-movie on the Rebekah Vardy and Colleen Rooney trial, dubbed the Wagatha Christie trial (a reference to ‘wives and girlfriends’). Mrs Rooney, the wife of former England footballer Wayne Rooney, conducted a sting operation in 2019, accusing Mrs Vardy, who is married to Leicester striker Jamie Vardy, online of leaking private stories about her to The Sun.

Mrs Vardy denied she passed information to the newspaper and sued Rooney for defamation, but the Court found that Rooney's accusation was "substantially true".

There were some amusing moments which emerged during the case . . .

Due to "a series of unfortunate events", as Mrs Rooney's barrister David Sherborne sarcastically put it, WhatsApp messages between Mrs Vardy's agent Caroline Watt and journalists, which could have helped Mrs Rooney's case, were not available. Ms Watt accidentally dropped her phone in the North Sea while on a boat trip in Scotland, the court heard.

Mr Sherborne noted it was "a shame" that the phone was "lying at the bottom of the sea in Davy Jones' locker", prompting Mrs Vardy, sitting in the witness box, to ask: "Who is Davy Jones?"

The judge, Mrs Justice Steyn, explained: "It just means the bottom of the sea."

(Perhaps the barrister learned the nautical phrase from one of his previous libel claimant clients, Johnny Depp - aka Captain Jack Sparrow.)

Mr Sherborne himself didn't know who SAS TV personality Ant Middleton was when his name cropped up elsewhere in proceedings, while the judge and Mrs Vardy's barrister Hugh Tomlinson appeared to struggle to grasp how Instagram works.

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So how did the phrase Davy Jones’ Locker originate?

Davy Jones's locker is a metaphor for the final resting place of drowned sailors and travellers, the place in which sailors' and ships' remains are consigned to the depths of the ocean, sent to Davy Jones' Locker.

The origins of the name of Davy Jones and his Locker are unclear, several explanations being offered:

• Linguists consider it most plausible that Davy was inspired by Saint David of Wales, whose name was often invoked by Welsh sailors, and Jones by the Biblical Jonah, Jones being a corruption of Jonah.

• David Jones, a real pirate, although not a very well-known one, living on the Indian Ocean in the 1630s.

• A British pub owner who supposedly threw drunken sailors into his ale locker and then gave them to be drafted on any ship.

The earliest known reference of the negative connotation of Davy Jones occurs in the Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts, by author Daniel Defoe, published in 1726 in London.

Some of Loe's Company said, They would look out some things, and give me along with me when I was going away; but Ruffel told them, they should not, for he would toss them all into Davy Jones's Locker if they did.

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