Breakfast choices aren’t tough when the options are All Bran Flakes, Honey Nut Cornflakes, and Crunchy Cookie Crisp Cereal, but it does cause some mild cognitive dissonance.
You see, whenever I hear the word ‘bran’ I can’t help thinking of an old lady’s toenails, and I couldn’t bring myself to eat fancy Cornflakes unless I was wearing a tie and rushing off to a board meeting – it just seems like too much of a responsible choice.
So it’s the one with the purple-nosed cartoonwolf on the front and spot-the-difference on the back.
Even if the box does boast ‘Whole Grain Guaranteed’ and ‘ With Added Vitamins’, I know a cereal made to look like little chocolate chip cookies that tastes like a bowl of refined white sugar can’t be good for me. And I’m fine with that, I just wish Chip the Wolf wouldn’t keep trying to tell me what a healthy start I’m getting.
Because I’ve been down that road, and it can only end in sorrow.
FROM THE JAWS OF TRAGEDY
According to Patrick Holford, who even Jesus would call a goody-goody, you should only eat fruit and Jungle Oats for breakfast otherwise you might be dead by Thursday. Reading his weighty tome, The Optimum Nutrition Bible, scared me so much I once stopped drinking milk and ran down the street screaming if anyone even mentioned white bread or deep-fried chips.
For a year I survived on water, green tea, low GI sawdust and anxiety. Not a drop of alcohol passed my lips and I gave smokers that look I was so used to getting from reborn Christians.
And I’ll admit I felt better than I ever had.
I used to think that sluggish mornings and mood swings and near-suicidal depression was just the way it felt to be alive. I got my arse to the gym, joined yoga classes, and started worshipping at the altar of fat-free me.
And inevitably, like any newborn religious-type person, I became incredibly judgemental of everyone else.
At the supermarket I’d look in other people’s trolleys and shake my head, tutting loudly. I watched barroom drunks and wondered if they knew the long-term repercussions of all that salt they consumed with tequila.
Soon enough I was climbing into bed at nine on a Friday so I could be up early enough to beat the crowds to the Virgin Active step machine, ordering a burger with no bun and salad instead of chips if I felt ‘naughty’, and telling people that an apple would wake you up in the morning faster than a cup of coffee.
I became the guy you didn’t invite to a Saturday braai because my non-drinking made drinkers feel uncomfortable. I cut the fat off lamb chops and brought no-mayo potato salad.
But I didn’t care about losing friends. I was an endorphin addict; a feel good junkie. And like all junkies the only thing I could think of was my next high.
Then I was waking up at 4am so I could get a run in before gym before work. On my lunch break I’d sneak off to the bathroom to do meditative breathing exercises. I’d always offer to make the tea so I could sneak in a bag of rooibos chai without anyone knowing.
If it wasn’t for the intervention I don’t know where I’d be today.
I arrived home to find my family and close friends in the front room. My secret stash of Ryvita and unsalted cashews piled embarrassingly on the coffee table next to multivitamins and a Billy Blanks Tae-Bo dvd.
I was ashamed.
With teary consent I allowed them to lock me in a dark room, away from any access to filtered water and fat-free cottage cheese. Working in shifts they sat with me through sleepless nights when all I wanted was just one push-up, and held my hand as, trembling, I took my first bite of a KFC Zinger.
ONE DAY AT A TIME
Now I’m back on track. Taking it one day at a time. I’ll often see someone with a yoga mat under their arm buying rice cakes and want to stop them, tell them that they’re making a big mistake.
It’s not worth it, I’d plead, you’ll only hurt the ones you love.
You might think you’re in control, I’d say, but that exercise bike is riding you.
End of Part One
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.
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.
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