As I write this my wife is sprawled on a deckchair outside in the sun reading Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen.
I turn to look at her in a cute red bikini and the pair of pink sunglasses she bought on our honeymoon and my heart fills with pride. Not because I’m sure she is one of the most beautiful women of her generation, but because I’ve always found Austen to be such hard work.
I wonder if admiration is the right word if she’s having fun. The same novel was a setwork for my first year Varsity English, and I have to admit that about sixty pages in I stopped reading when I realised I had no idea what was going on.
Of course, I ended up watching the BBC movie in order to pass the exam.
So many people have told me they haven’t read one book since they left school; and there is always an odd note of pride when they say this, which I find peculiar.
Maybe it’s because the books I remember reading in school were either laboriously boring or way above our young heads.
In standard five, for instance, I remember the class being dragged through Hemingway’s ‘The Old Man and the Sea’. Timeless classic it may be, but for a bunch of fourteen year olds it’s just a book about a geezer on a boat.
I also could never understand why the teacher would make every student read aloud. Up and down the desks we went, each having to follow as a classmate droned in tedious monotone with no respect for punctuation or pace.
In effect, I think school can kill any desire a young mind has for reading, and does more to promote the belief that books are boring. What we need is not for our educators to stuff classics down our throats, but for them to nurture a love of prose so that we eventually find our way to respectable literature.
As parents we also have a duty towards our children. My mum might have dashed my hopes when I dumped Castle Grayskull in the shopping trolley, but a request for a book was never refused.
My sentimental mum a while back dug out a massive packing box she’d kept for over twenty-five years full of books from my childhood. Every ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ and Roald Dahl was there, as well as a few Beano annuals, and a collection of shorter works dubiously entitled ‘The Gay Way Series’.
But that was back when ‘gay’ meant ‘happy’ and the books did not in any way promote good dress sense or espouse the merits of Abba. And they should make us happy, not make us wish the bell would ring so we could run around throwing a tennis ball at our peers.
I can only thank mum and dad for not skimping on the books. It is the reason I am never bored on the train, in a queue, and it is the reason I’m sitting here writing – books are an inspiration.
Maybe when Lucy’s finished that intimidating Jane Austen I’ll have a go.
Nothing Better Than A Broken Heart
Our first love arrives like a caped superhero exploding through a glass ceiling, landing with a boom in the pit of our stomach. This masked mystery embodies all the clichés we have come to accept – it lets us fly, gives us Herculean strength and a shield of invulnerability.
Like a geek in a Batman movie, we are all nervous excitement and idiotic grin.
But then the hero becomes the villain and we are left broken and bruised; a bloodied heap on the floor, mere moments away from death. You feel as though you were tricked, deceived and fooled – and how it sucks to be a sucker.
The pain of that first lost love is so pure we truly believe we will never get over it. We believe the rest of our lives will be spent in a dark room with the curtains closed – maybe a sad Cure version of the Superman theme playing in the background.
LOVE’S SCAB
Some of us throw our hearts on the highway a few more times. We hope the trucks and taxis will miss it, but more often than not it ends up burst and in the dirty gutter – maybe a tyre track, tin can or tossed away fag-end making it almost unrecognisable.
It looks up at us and whimpers for help, but we pretend we can’t see it and carry on walking.
We are conditioned to give a little less of ourselves the next time around. We clothe ourselves in a suit of armour. We wear that armour for so long a scab grows between it and our soul.
We allow that scab to set, and the shell becomes a second skin that we believe to be our true appearance.
THE LUCKY DENT
Then a stranger rides into town.
This person promptly kicks down the saloon doors and starts shooting the place up. Tables are upheaved, glasses smashed, and even the piano guy runs for cover.
But you just stand there in your shiny pants and metal vest. This armour has lasted so long you’ve gone from medieval England to the Wild West in it – odd that no one noticed.
But then you flinch when a bullet doesn’t ricochet. Oh yes, it gets through and punctures a piece of wobbly flesh and you’re momentarily stunned.
If you’re a coward you’ll run, find a blacksmith and fix that suit up. And never again cross paths with the wily stranger popping off armour-piercing rounds into your jaundiced belly.
But if you have an ounce of courage you’ll stand tall and let the bullets shoot through you. You’ll grow a pair of metaphorical cobblers and let the best thing that could ever happen, happen.
PLANKING IS FOR PUSSIES
Extreme sports are for people not brave enough to love.
Sounds cheesy, I know, but the most dangerous thing you’ll ever do is to love someone openly and let the chips fall where they may.
“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open,” Chuck Palahniuk writes in the sex addiction novel, ‘Choke’, and the happiest person in the world would at some stage need to have been the most miserable.
All that separates us from the other animals is our ability to fight against our instincts. We need to harden our resolve and pick up that hot coal again and again. We need to step over the pain and risk even more.
Those with courage will learn from past disaster, not merely react to it. They will let themselves again and again be swept away, run over, and shot through the heart – and one day they will get back much more than they have lost.
Like a geek in a Batman movie, we are all nervous excitement and idiotic grin.
But then the hero becomes the villain and we are left broken and bruised; a bloodied heap on the floor, mere moments away from death. You feel as though you were tricked, deceived and fooled – and how it sucks to be a sucker.
The pain of that first lost love is so pure we truly believe we will never get over it. We believe the rest of our lives will be spent in a dark room with the curtains closed – maybe a sad Cure version of the Superman theme playing in the background.
LOVE’S SCAB
Some of us throw our hearts on the highway a few more times. We hope the trucks and taxis will miss it, but more often than not it ends up burst and in the dirty gutter – maybe a tyre track, tin can or tossed away fag-end making it almost unrecognisable.
It looks up at us and whimpers for help, but we pretend we can’t see it and carry on walking.
We are conditioned to give a little less of ourselves the next time around. We clothe ourselves in a suit of armour. We wear that armour for so long a scab grows between it and our soul.
We allow that scab to set, and the shell becomes a second skin that we believe to be our true appearance.
THE LUCKY DENT
Then a stranger rides into town.
This person promptly kicks down the saloon doors and starts shooting the place up. Tables are upheaved, glasses smashed, and even the piano guy runs for cover.
But you just stand there in your shiny pants and metal vest. This armour has lasted so long you’ve gone from medieval England to the Wild West in it – odd that no one noticed.
But then you flinch when a bullet doesn’t ricochet. Oh yes, it gets through and punctures a piece of wobbly flesh and you’re momentarily stunned.
If you’re a coward you’ll run, find a blacksmith and fix that suit up. And never again cross paths with the wily stranger popping off armour-piercing rounds into your jaundiced belly.
But if you have an ounce of courage you’ll stand tall and let the bullets shoot through you. You’ll grow a pair of metaphorical cobblers and let the best thing that could ever happen, happen.
PLANKING IS FOR PUSSIES
Extreme sports are for people not brave enough to love.
Sounds cheesy, I know, but the most dangerous thing you’ll ever do is to love someone openly and let the chips fall where they may.
“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open,” Chuck Palahniuk writes in the sex addiction novel, ‘Choke’, and the happiest person in the world would at some stage need to have been the most miserable.
All that separates us from the other animals is our ability to fight against our instincts. We need to harden our resolve and pick up that hot coal again and again. We need to step over the pain and risk even more.
Those with courage will learn from past disaster, not merely react to it. They will let themselves again and again be swept away, run over, and shot through the heart – and one day they will get back much more than they have lost.
Ignore the Smell of Cheese
Like all young boys in the act of purchasing contraceptive thingies for the first time, I was acutely embarrassed.
Mingling in the shop a while, I picked up a pack of Niknaks crisps, a chocolate bar and a litre of milk. Joining the back of the queue and then leaving it when an old lady got behind me.
Eventually, when the store was deserted again, I attempted to casually rush to the counter.
As the lady rang up my items I looked over her shoulder and asked for a pack of Peter Stuyvesant Filter, a box of matches… and a 3-pack of Rough Riders, please – which I immediately hid underneath the cheese-flavoured Niknaks when yet another elderly lady walked in and stood behind me.
It was New Year’s Eve, 1991, and I was fourteen.
Before you get any ideas, the condoms weren’t for me but an older friend who imagined he was getting lucky that night. To spare his own embarrassment I’d agreed to make the purchase for him.
A few years later, when the opportunity of getting jiggy with a lady was at least a possibility in my universe, I felt the same nervous guilt when sliding a pack of ‘Wet ‘n Wild’ across the counter – always attempting to hide it amongst some other unnecessary items in case God saw and ejected a bolt of lightning from his index finger through the top of my head.
Well, not really, as I’ve never believed in a stuffy, fundamentalist God. If anything, it was probably because I imagined the till jockey would take one look at awkward me and think, “Who’d have sex with you?”
Only later in life did I come to the realisation that if the cashier was a woman she should commend me for being safe and respecting the other party’s right not to suffer a surprise pregnancy; and if the shop assistant was a guy he should give me a thumbs up as if to say, “Right on, brother.”
My brother’s art teacher must have known this and had the right idea when every Friday he’d put a big jar of Family Planning condoms out so the boys could be safe over the weekend without the mortification of actually having to ask for them.
Another friend of mine’s dad always kept the house well stocked with what he called “dong-bags”; however, I’m not sure if they were for the use of his son or rather for the couple to make sure they didn’t have another naughty little shit.
I suppose some parents might think that keeping one’s children in a steady supply of rubber sheaths would amount to encouraging promiscuity, but I’m also pretty sure those same parents would be too conservative to have that much-dreaded ‘sex talk’ with said offspring.
Sex was taboo for so long, and now with AIDS and all that keeping oneself protected has needed to come out in the open. Maybe if society just agreed that it’s the one thing we all have in common it would make it easier to talk about it. And it would certainly make it easier for the poor, clammy-palmed teenager on the other side of the counter.
The only foreseeable problem would be a downturn in the sales of Niknaks.
Mingling in the shop a while, I picked up a pack of Niknaks crisps, a chocolate bar and a litre of milk. Joining the back of the queue and then leaving it when an old lady got behind me.
Eventually, when the store was deserted again, I attempted to casually rush to the counter.
As the lady rang up my items I looked over her shoulder and asked for a pack of Peter Stuyvesant Filter, a box of matches… and a 3-pack of Rough Riders, please – which I immediately hid underneath the cheese-flavoured Niknaks when yet another elderly lady walked in and stood behind me.
It was New Year’s Eve, 1991, and I was fourteen.
Before you get any ideas, the condoms weren’t for me but an older friend who imagined he was getting lucky that night. To spare his own embarrassment I’d agreed to make the purchase for him.
A few years later, when the opportunity of getting jiggy with a lady was at least a possibility in my universe, I felt the same nervous guilt when sliding a pack of ‘Wet ‘n Wild’ across the counter – always attempting to hide it amongst some other unnecessary items in case God saw and ejected a bolt of lightning from his index finger through the top of my head.
Well, not really, as I’ve never believed in a stuffy, fundamentalist God. If anything, it was probably because I imagined the till jockey would take one look at awkward me and think, “Who’d have sex with you?”
Only later in life did I come to the realisation that if the cashier was a woman she should commend me for being safe and respecting the other party’s right not to suffer a surprise pregnancy; and if the shop assistant was a guy he should give me a thumbs up as if to say, “Right on, brother.”
My brother’s art teacher must have known this and had the right idea when every Friday he’d put a big jar of Family Planning condoms out so the boys could be safe over the weekend without the mortification of actually having to ask for them.
Another friend of mine’s dad always kept the house well stocked with what he called “dong-bags”; however, I’m not sure if they were for the use of his son or rather for the couple to make sure they didn’t have another naughty little shit.
I suppose some parents might think that keeping one’s children in a steady supply of rubber sheaths would amount to encouraging promiscuity, but I’m also pretty sure those same parents would be too conservative to have that much-dreaded ‘sex talk’ with said offspring.
Sex was taboo for so long, and now with AIDS and all that keeping oneself protected has needed to come out in the open. Maybe if society just agreed that it’s the one thing we all have in common it would make it easier to talk about it. And it would certainly make it easier for the poor, clammy-palmed teenager on the other side of the counter.
The only foreseeable problem would be a downturn in the sales of Niknaks.
SA's Shameful Response to the UK Riots
I have to admit being a bit ashamed, over the past week, to be a South African. For a change this has nothing to do with anything Julius Malema has said, but rather with a seemingly large section of the general population.
It appears that so many of us are taking the time to write letters to our newspapers to express our unbridled glee at the rioters tearing through London.
Ines Schumacher from Johannesburg writes to the Mail & Guardian asking: “How dangerous is the country?”
“…rioting appears to be commonplace,” Schumacher believes, “… each day a dozen people are admitted to hospital… buildings are burning down left, right and centre…”
The tone of this correspondence isn’t hysterical, merely spiteful.
What disturbed and perturbed me was Schumacher then remarks that because of Britain’s pre-Fifa reports on how dangerous South Africa was “what’s the harm in poking a bit of fun at them now?”
What’s the harm in “poking fun” at violence and bloodshed? Must have been high times in the Schumacher household when Anders Behring Breivik blew away dozens of youngsters in Norway, or maybe in 2008 the family spent a weekend in Alexandra to watch our own people necklacing foreigners.
The letter is glib and insensitive and petty, and I must admit that Schumacher’s attempts at humour were lost on me.
Similarly, in the Cape Argus SMS column, readers spewed nothing but clichéd vitriol: “…how the chickens come home to roost…”, “…the grass is not greener on the other side…”; and my personal favourite: “…it looks like they may taste their own medicine…”
The writers seemed to be educated, if not eloquent, at least to the most average standards acceptable, and yet they were actively encouraging our media to childishly ‘get back’ at the UK media.
They want our journos to write about how dangerous it is to visit Britain, and question their ability to hold next year’s Olympics.
I might be wrong, but I doubt that the holders of these sentiments live in houses without thick burglar bars, electric fences or 24-hour Armed Response protection. Funny, because that’s how the majority of Brits live.
In fact, it’s embarrassing that an English community’s response to the killing of a member of that community is pretty much the equivalent of a normal South African council workers’ wage dispute – shops are destroyed and robbed and people are hurt.
The difference is that this happens at least once a month in South Africa as opposed to once in a blue moon in the United Kingdom. And in the UK over a thousand people are arrested because of it compared to the handful of arrests in good ol’ SA.
I imagined that South Africans, because of our violent past and violent present, would have shown some empathy towards those affected by this disorder, but instead all we can show is a ‘tit-for-tat’ mentality and gross insensitivity.
It appears that so many of us are taking the time to write letters to our newspapers to express our unbridled glee at the rioters tearing through London.
Ines Schumacher from Johannesburg writes to the Mail & Guardian asking: “How dangerous is the country?”
“…rioting appears to be commonplace,” Schumacher believes, “… each day a dozen people are admitted to hospital… buildings are burning down left, right and centre…”
The tone of this correspondence isn’t hysterical, merely spiteful.
What disturbed and perturbed me was Schumacher then remarks that because of Britain’s pre-Fifa reports on how dangerous South Africa was “what’s the harm in poking a bit of fun at them now?”
What’s the harm in “poking fun” at violence and bloodshed? Must have been high times in the Schumacher household when Anders Behring Breivik blew away dozens of youngsters in Norway, or maybe in 2008 the family spent a weekend in Alexandra to watch our own people necklacing foreigners.
The letter is glib and insensitive and petty, and I must admit that Schumacher’s attempts at humour were lost on me.
Similarly, in the Cape Argus SMS column, readers spewed nothing but clichéd vitriol: “…how the chickens come home to roost…”, “…the grass is not greener on the other side…”; and my personal favourite: “…it looks like they may taste their own medicine…”
The writers seemed to be educated, if not eloquent, at least to the most average standards acceptable, and yet they were actively encouraging our media to childishly ‘get back’ at the UK media.
They want our journos to write about how dangerous it is to visit Britain, and question their ability to hold next year’s Olympics.
I might be wrong, but I doubt that the holders of these sentiments live in houses without thick burglar bars, electric fences or 24-hour Armed Response protection. Funny, because that’s how the majority of Brits live.
In fact, it’s embarrassing that an English community’s response to the killing of a member of that community is pretty much the equivalent of a normal South African council workers’ wage dispute – shops are destroyed and robbed and people are hurt.
The difference is that this happens at least once a month in South Africa as opposed to once in a blue moon in the United Kingdom. And in the UK over a thousand people are arrested because of it compared to the handful of arrests in good ol’ SA.
I imagined that South Africans, because of our violent past and violent present, would have shown some empathy towards those affected by this disorder, but instead all we can show is a ‘tit-for-tat’ mentality and gross insensitivity.
The Fury of Fish Hoek!
Sometimes things are so bizarre it takes a while to gather a reaction.
Walking down Main Road in Fish Hoek, an old guy comes from behind and bashes past me. I comment on it and he turns his head and says angrily, “You bumped into me!”
Dressed in a purple tracksuit and Elvis Presley sunglasses, he was an amusing sight. But what made it more amusing was when, while scowling at us, he walked into a post box.
We couldn’t help feeling as bit sorry for him after that.
Also in Fish Hoek, my jalopy stopped in the road waiting to turn right, a car pulls up next to us and a guy rudely shouts through the passenger window, “It’s illegal to turn across a solid line!”
Even if I was making an illegal turn – which I wasn’t – it’s not like South Africans follow the rules of the road anyway.
“Apparently,” Lucy says, “drinking seawater makes you mad.”
We were deliberating on the reasons behind the mental state of our new neighbours. I reckoned it was the high instance of retirees in the area, she supposed there was something in the water.
I don’t really believe my theory – there’s nothing to prove that getting old means getting grumpy. My gran is eighty-seven and lovely and charming and sweet. The fact is that if you’re young and grumpy then you’ll be old and grumpy; young + happy = old + happy.
As kids we believed there was a military base hidden in the mountains around Fish Hoek, so maybe an experiment leaked into the sea or reservoir and the water does make one surly.
Not as dramatic as a zombie holocaust but reality seldom is.
Or maybe it’s because Fish Hoek is so far away from Cape Town CBD – not so much physical distance as lifestyle – that people have just evolved differently.
Maybe all that free time for Sudoku, television, tea and rusks doesn’t make one more relaxed and laid back, but just annoyed that there are so many people having so much more fun than you.
Walking down Main Road in Fish Hoek, an old guy comes from behind and bashes past me. I comment on it and he turns his head and says angrily, “You bumped into me!”
Dressed in a purple tracksuit and Elvis Presley sunglasses, he was an amusing sight. But what made it more amusing was when, while scowling at us, he walked into a post box.
We couldn’t help feeling as bit sorry for him after that.
Also in Fish Hoek, my jalopy stopped in the road waiting to turn right, a car pulls up next to us and a guy rudely shouts through the passenger window, “It’s illegal to turn across a solid line!”
Even if I was making an illegal turn – which I wasn’t – it’s not like South Africans follow the rules of the road anyway.
“Apparently,” Lucy says, “drinking seawater makes you mad.”
We were deliberating on the reasons behind the mental state of our new neighbours. I reckoned it was the high instance of retirees in the area, she supposed there was something in the water.
I don’t really believe my theory – there’s nothing to prove that getting old means getting grumpy. My gran is eighty-seven and lovely and charming and sweet. The fact is that if you’re young and grumpy then you’ll be old and grumpy; young + happy = old + happy.
As kids we believed there was a military base hidden in the mountains around Fish Hoek, so maybe an experiment leaked into the sea or reservoir and the water does make one surly.
Not as dramatic as a zombie holocaust but reality seldom is.
Or maybe it’s because Fish Hoek is so far away from Cape Town CBD – not so much physical distance as lifestyle – that people have just evolved differently.
Maybe all that free time for Sudoku, television, tea and rusks doesn’t make one more relaxed and laid back, but just annoyed that there are so many people having so much more fun than you.
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