The last thing you think, on the eve of immigration, as you stare down at your exactly 23kg stuffed suitcase is: Have I packed enough socks?
Of course, the first thing any Capetonian asks upon hearing of your imminent flight is, “You’re not stopping in Joburg, are you?” As their lips form these words a look of absolute angst will cross their face and their next sentence is always, “Because then you can kiss your luggage goodbye.”
It seems to be the one thing we all have in common, because if you believe Julius Malema then “all whites are criminals” for pinching the property long ago, and if you ask any Constantia housewife she’ll tell you that “THEY all steal!” with such certainty because she once secretly looked in her domestic worker’s coat pockets and saw some if the Lipton rooibos teabags saved especially for guests.
Whenever I hear the term ‘they’ in a South African context I can’t help but raise my eyebrows and ask, “But what would the Illuminati want with your teabags?”
After telling this same housewife you’re moving to the UK they then ask probably the most used travel cliché in South Africa, “But what about the cold weather?”
“Well,” I always reply, “it’d be nice to have something to complain about other than crime, government corruption, and the lack of Burger King.” I told Lucy if she ever hears me moan about the weather to just ask me who Julius Malema is.
In short, there’s more to life than the weather.
But after packing and repacking and weighing our luggage for the umpteenth time it looks like everything’s fine. Today, our last day in South Africa, we’re just pottering around the house, stuffing some sentimental nick-nacks in our carry-ons.
Last Wednesday my mum, brother and I buried my father’s ashes beneath a tree at Rhodes Memorial my mum and him used to picnic under. Mum said it was fitting that, after holding on selfishly to his remains for six years, we buried them just before I left.
It gave us all a magnificent feeling of closure, as well as wet faces, and mum remarked that it was such an exciting new chapter in my life. It all felt like the end of a movie, and in my mind it was less the beginning of a new chapter and more like a sequel.
But unlike most sequels, this one is bound to be as good as the original.
Boobs on the Boob-Tube
Television in the late Noughties and early, what?,Teenies, is starting to remind me of what movies were like in the Eighties.
Not because all the fading Nineties movie stars are rebirthing their careers in shows like CSI and Law & Order, but because so many tv shows feel that a story can’t be told unless a horde of nameless, forgettable actresses get their baps out.
It seems that the evolution of storytelling will eventually end in a channel-surf with wave after wave of porn and some news and cartoons in between. I expect to be washed ashore confused by Cow & Chicken, depressed by Third World corruption, and sporting a massive erection.
But it’s not just an oversaturation of Bristol Cities that stirs our loins, we need exploding heads and severed limbs too. As though producers can’t decide if we’re more aroused by a naked lady engaging in carnal conduct, or slow-motion headbutts and multi-angle roundhouse kicks.
Personally, I blame Sex & the City. Those girls made it okay to show boobs on the boob-tube, coz if it’s good for the feminists then it’s good for the chauvinists.
Not for me, though, because I’ve always believed that the concepts of sex and Sarah Jessica Parker should never be paired.
Too skinny for my taste.
In many ways television is now better than the Big Screen. At least the popcorn’s cheaper, and if you need a cup of tea or a leak there is the handy commercial break. But that’s all the ads are good for and really I prefer buying the box set and viewing and entire season in one rainy weekend.
These days all I have to worry about is strategic product placement, and if that was working I’d be driving an Aston Martin and drinking vodka martinis. So good to be able to hide my under-achieving behind a faux Zen-like contempt for material possessions.
In truth, though, I don’t really mind being tricked into buying useless luxuries, I just find the constant interruption annoying. I’d rather they put the ads into subtle, subliminal flashes.
That way they could market the BMWs behind the boobies, and the face packs after the face punches.
Not because all the fading Nineties movie stars are rebirthing their careers in shows like CSI and Law & Order, but because so many tv shows feel that a story can’t be told unless a horde of nameless, forgettable actresses get their baps out.
It seems that the evolution of storytelling will eventually end in a channel-surf with wave after wave of porn and some news and cartoons in between. I expect to be washed ashore confused by Cow & Chicken, depressed by Third World corruption, and sporting a massive erection.
But it’s not just an oversaturation of Bristol Cities that stirs our loins, we need exploding heads and severed limbs too. As though producers can’t decide if we’re more aroused by a naked lady engaging in carnal conduct, or slow-motion headbutts and multi-angle roundhouse kicks.
Personally, I blame Sex & the City. Those girls made it okay to show boobs on the boob-tube, coz if it’s good for the feminists then it’s good for the chauvinists.
Not for me, though, because I’ve always believed that the concepts of sex and Sarah Jessica Parker should never be paired.
Too skinny for my taste.
In many ways television is now better than the Big Screen. At least the popcorn’s cheaper, and if you need a cup of tea or a leak there is the handy commercial break. But that’s all the ads are good for and really I prefer buying the box set and viewing and entire season in one rainy weekend.
These days all I have to worry about is strategic product placement, and if that was working I’d be driving an Aston Martin and drinking vodka martinis. So good to be able to hide my under-achieving behind a faux Zen-like contempt for material possessions.
In truth, though, I don’t really mind being tricked into buying useless luxuries, I just find the constant interruption annoying. I’d rather they put the ads into subtle, subliminal flashes.
That way they could market the BMWs behind the boobies, and the face packs after the face punches.
Kindle & 3D Books
Whenever there’s a breakthrough along the lines of Kindle or some other form of books on ‘puter a massive cry about the death of print publishing chimes like an annoying Nokia ringtone.
And it always makes me wonder if the end of paperbacks will spell the end of the world, mainly because of an article I read positing that the only people planting hectares of trees these days are paper companies.
No more need for paper means all that land will be sold for condos or shopping malls.
Possibly a bit far-fetched and merely the wailings of hysterical luddites? I suppose we’ll only know when we’re gasping for oxygen while reading an online eco-novel that’s not much more than a long-winded ‘I told you so’.
The only problem I have with bookstores closing down and getting all my reading emailed is how I’m going to impress guests without a pretentious bookshelf lined with literature I’ll probably never read.
Less honest book-lovers will bore you with opinions on the smell and feel of a book, the sound a page makes as you turn it, and the high cost of replacing an e-reader when it drops in the bathwater.
Something that turned me off about Kindle and its ilk was a report of publishers releasing ‘3D books’. For instance a novel about the Vietnam War would have paragraphs in which the sounds of gunfire and grenades would play, much the same as if you were reading it in the thick of battle, or on a taxi ride in downtown Johannesburg.
I thought I’d try a 3D novel out before dismissing it entirely, and while reading Moby Dickin bedplayed one of those hippy whale noise CDs and asked my wife to shoot a water pistol in my face.
Needless to say, the only person having fun was Lucy.
And then I imagined online libraries. It would definitely be more convenient, and there’d be no chance of an old woman hissing “Shhhhhhh!” when I giggled at the naughty bits in a Jilly Cooper novel.
The downside would be no more sexy librarian scenario in pornographic movies.
Personally, I need books to be stay offline for a bit longer. If only so I’ve got a few joke- and useless trivia books to stack on top of the toilet cistern.
And it always makes me wonder if the end of paperbacks will spell the end of the world, mainly because of an article I read positing that the only people planting hectares of trees these days are paper companies.
No more need for paper means all that land will be sold for condos or shopping malls.
Possibly a bit far-fetched and merely the wailings of hysterical luddites? I suppose we’ll only know when we’re gasping for oxygen while reading an online eco-novel that’s not much more than a long-winded ‘I told you so’.
The only problem I have with bookstores closing down and getting all my reading emailed is how I’m going to impress guests without a pretentious bookshelf lined with literature I’ll probably never read.
Less honest book-lovers will bore you with opinions on the smell and feel of a book, the sound a page makes as you turn it, and the high cost of replacing an e-reader when it drops in the bathwater.
Something that turned me off about Kindle and its ilk was a report of publishers releasing ‘3D books’. For instance a novel about the Vietnam War would have paragraphs in which the sounds of gunfire and grenades would play, much the same as if you were reading it in the thick of battle, or on a taxi ride in downtown Johannesburg.
I thought I’d try a 3D novel out before dismissing it entirely, and while reading Moby Dickin bedplayed one of those hippy whale noise CDs and asked my wife to shoot a water pistol in my face.
Needless to say, the only person having fun was Lucy.
And then I imagined online libraries. It would definitely be more convenient, and there’d be no chance of an old woman hissing “Shhhhhhh!” when I giggled at the naughty bits in a Jilly Cooper novel.
The downside would be no more sexy librarian scenario in pornographic movies.
Personally, I need books to be stay offline for a bit longer. If only so I’ve got a few joke- and useless trivia books to stack on top of the toilet cistern.
Verbal Constipation
Every writer,at least once a lifetime, will in absolute desperation resort to writing about writers’ block; as though the act of writing in itself will serve as a laxative to their verbal constipation.
And believe me, it does feel like constipation.
You wake up in the morning with the desire to fill a page with words. But after all the rituals have been performed – coffee, cigarette, music – nothing comes out. You push and push, grit your teeth through the pain, but nothing is produced except turgid air.
The stench is unbearable. It is deleted and you push some more. Still to no avail.
In the grips of a bad block a writer will feel worthless and deluded. As though they have nothing to say and were foolish to ever believe they did.Your dream is revealed to you as childish and all this invested time a waste. Your life is a sham and you are pathetic.
Because you are a writer the melodrama comes naturally.
There are a few remedies the constipated writer might try – a walk in the park, drinks with a friend, failed suicide – but sometimes these things just don’t work and the writer realises he must figure out the cause of the block.
This is usually anxiety that manifests as an obstacle. It stands in your way, grinning malevolently, and no matter how hard you try to punch it in the face or kick it the groin it just doesn’t go down.
Its legs are rooted, you see, and the only way to topple this monster and step over it is to dig deep and find these roots – once they are found you can pull them out.
And believe me, it does feel like constipation.
You wake up in the morning with the desire to fill a page with words. But after all the rituals have been performed – coffee, cigarette, music – nothing comes out. You push and push, grit your teeth through the pain, but nothing is produced except turgid air.
The stench is unbearable. It is deleted and you push some more. Still to no avail.
In the grips of a bad block a writer will feel worthless and deluded. As though they have nothing to say and were foolish to ever believe they did.Your dream is revealed to you as childish and all this invested time a waste. Your life is a sham and you are pathetic.
Because you are a writer the melodrama comes naturally.
There are a few remedies the constipated writer might try – a walk in the park, drinks with a friend, failed suicide – but sometimes these things just don’t work and the writer realises he must figure out the cause of the block.
This is usually anxiety that manifests as an obstacle. It stands in your way, grinning malevolently, and no matter how hard you try to punch it in the face or kick it the groin it just doesn’t go down.
Its legs are rooted, you see, and the only way to topple this monster and step over it is to dig deep and find these roots – once they are found you can pull them out.
The Wild Wild West(ern Cape)
Like a loaded spring, tightly coiled and then released, his Texan drawl looped and corkscrewed and the words rolled off his tongue like a Slinky down some stairs, “Damn, it’s like the Wild West out there!”
If I closed my eyes I could’ve imagined he tipped his Stetson, placed a hand on a shining belt buckle, and maybe rolled a matchstick around his teeth… but he didn’t.
This American tourist – bright shirt, too-short shorts, those spectacles with flip-up sunglass shades – was talking about our roads.
Not the dirt or concrete, the litter or pigeon corpses, but the way we South Africans bully and barge our vehicles along and across the skinny lanes of our highways and byways.
He’d just driven to and from Simonstown and was now back in Long Street telling of the terror that is driving in the Western Cape.
THIS TOWN AIN’T BIG ENOUGH FOR THE BOTH OF US
I slowly press my foot down on the accelerator. It’s been half an hour since I got out of first gear. A police siren makes me move over to let the big truck packed with awaiting trial prisoners through. As I try to move back I slam my brakes as a red BMW recklessly swerves into my lane, the front of the car barely filling the gap and bullying its way ahead of me. I don’t hoot or make a fuss because, well, this is how it goes.
First came road rage – a selfish act or illegal manoeuvre would cause outrage. We would sit on our horns and scream expletives from the window. When we realised the driver in front couldn’t hear us we’d resort to our limited knowledge of sign language to get the message of our unhappiness across.
Then came apathy – we turfed this in the big box of ‘Things We Can’t Do Anything About So Why Bother’. Drivers balanced their right to indignation with the energy it consumed and decided to save the energy.
Finally we adopted the proverb, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, and sucked on the scabby sore to be infected with the disease of inconsiderate driving. No longer would we be muggins waiting in the queue at the turn-off; we’d just drive in the parallel lane and cut in at the front like so many others.
We took what we hated and made it a part of us.
…BUT I DIDN’T SHOOT THE DEPUTY!
Columnist Chris Roper pinpoints it perfectly when he writes that the attitude of South Africans is: It’s only a crime if someone else is doing it. We all still tut when a taxi drives in the yellow lines, stops on a red line, and cuts through traffic like a hot spur through churned cream.
But slowly it’s getting to the point where we will all do these things. It’s not quite there yet, but at the rate we’re all starting to ignore the rules of the road and the rights of other perambulators it’s only a few years off.
Instead of following any shining examples that might be out there, we have decided to instead emulate the attitudes of the worst examples.
THE WILD WILD WEST(ERN CAPE)
We might as well have John Wayne and Clint Eastwood operating public transport.
Taxi drivers are the modern day cowboys as they tear through the streets like bandits escaping the cavalry, and so often are involved in turf wars that end in a shoot-out injuring more innocent bystanders than the grunting gunslingers.
I remember a firefight in the Nineties between two taxi factions outside Claremont train station that quickly became known as “Gunfight at the OK Bazaar” – at the OK Corral they kept livestock, but at the OK Bazaar you’ll only find jackets and shoes made from livestock.
What we need is a sheriff. Maybe if we did away with all the fat, incompetent policemen and replaced them with one fearless, trigger happy vaquero he (or she) could round up these rabble-rousers and lock them up for good.
Personally, however, I’m not in favour of public lynching.
Or maybe the best thing would be for all of us to just obey the rules of the road and be thoughtful of others – stop talking on our cell phones while cutting people off, start using our indicators and stop racing to block the auto indicating into our lane, possibly let someone into traffic once in a while.
If we do this we’ll soon discover that the simple act of being nice makes us feel good. And we can save on big belt buckles and expensive shitkickers.
If I closed my eyes I could’ve imagined he tipped his Stetson, placed a hand on a shining belt buckle, and maybe rolled a matchstick around his teeth… but he didn’t.
This American tourist – bright shirt, too-short shorts, those spectacles with flip-up sunglass shades – was talking about our roads.
Not the dirt or concrete, the litter or pigeon corpses, but the way we South Africans bully and barge our vehicles along and across the skinny lanes of our highways and byways.
He’d just driven to and from Simonstown and was now back in Long Street telling of the terror that is driving in the Western Cape.
THIS TOWN AIN’T BIG ENOUGH FOR THE BOTH OF US
I slowly press my foot down on the accelerator. It’s been half an hour since I got out of first gear. A police siren makes me move over to let the big truck packed with awaiting trial prisoners through. As I try to move back I slam my brakes as a red BMW recklessly swerves into my lane, the front of the car barely filling the gap and bullying its way ahead of me. I don’t hoot or make a fuss because, well, this is how it goes.
First came road rage – a selfish act or illegal manoeuvre would cause outrage. We would sit on our horns and scream expletives from the window. When we realised the driver in front couldn’t hear us we’d resort to our limited knowledge of sign language to get the message of our unhappiness across.
Then came apathy – we turfed this in the big box of ‘Things We Can’t Do Anything About So Why Bother’. Drivers balanced their right to indignation with the energy it consumed and decided to save the energy.
Finally we adopted the proverb, “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, and sucked on the scabby sore to be infected with the disease of inconsiderate driving. No longer would we be muggins waiting in the queue at the turn-off; we’d just drive in the parallel lane and cut in at the front like so many others.
We took what we hated and made it a part of us.
…BUT I DIDN’T SHOOT THE DEPUTY!
Columnist Chris Roper pinpoints it perfectly when he writes that the attitude of South Africans is: It’s only a crime if someone else is doing it. We all still tut when a taxi drives in the yellow lines, stops on a red line, and cuts through traffic like a hot spur through churned cream.
But slowly it’s getting to the point where we will all do these things. It’s not quite there yet, but at the rate we’re all starting to ignore the rules of the road and the rights of other perambulators it’s only a few years off.
Instead of following any shining examples that might be out there, we have decided to instead emulate the attitudes of the worst examples.
THE WILD WILD WEST(ERN CAPE)
We might as well have John Wayne and Clint Eastwood operating public transport.
Taxi drivers are the modern day cowboys as they tear through the streets like bandits escaping the cavalry, and so often are involved in turf wars that end in a shoot-out injuring more innocent bystanders than the grunting gunslingers.
I remember a firefight in the Nineties between two taxi factions outside Claremont train station that quickly became known as “Gunfight at the OK Bazaar” – at the OK Corral they kept livestock, but at the OK Bazaar you’ll only find jackets and shoes made from livestock.
What we need is a sheriff. Maybe if we did away with all the fat, incompetent policemen and replaced them with one fearless, trigger happy vaquero he (or she) could round up these rabble-rousers and lock them up for good.
Personally, however, I’m not in favour of public lynching.
Or maybe the best thing would be for all of us to just obey the rules of the road and be thoughtful of others – stop talking on our cell phones while cutting people off, start using our indicators and stop racing to block the auto indicating into our lane, possibly let someone into traffic once in a while.
If we do this we’ll soon discover that the simple act of being nice makes us feel good. And we can save on big belt buckles and expensive shitkickers.
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