A clearer view of Hazyview... and my parents

Fortunately my brother Abrie arrives by car to come and pick me up from the Kruger International which indeed received a major make-over from when I saw it last.

That time, if memory serves correctly, it consisted of a single, dirty pre-fab structure and a windsock wilting in the blazing heat along with the ten or so passengers eyeing the small twin prop aircraft that was due to transport them to Joburg with all the suspicion it deserved. I was there to drop off my girlfriend of the time and I silently feared for her life.

But now 60 odd passengers arrived in a four-engine jet plane from British Aerospace to be welcomed by an attractive thatched-roofed building and a direction board indicating "International Arrivals" and "Domestic Arrivals" in the same direction ... for a moment I fear that it would be the same entrance ... but no ... the internationals split off at some point ...

But then I think that if a domestic and international flight arrived at the same time there would really not be anything to stop the al Qeada operative from just walking in with the locals. I hope that the airport authorities have some kind of plan for such an eventuality ... but knowing the locals of the Slowveld I'm not going to bet any money on that.

Meanwhile I arrive home (chez les parents) armed with two bottles of wine and we have our normal familial conversations about nothing and then go to bed.

This morning I wake up to go for a leak in ... a beautiful garden ... resplendent ... even in winter ... with an astonishing array of bright colours. From the bright post office red of the poinsettias to British racing green with canary yellows to orange to auburn ... thrown in ... and much in between.

Then I realise that I have been giving Hazyview a raw deal. It is a beautiful place and it is the perfect base camp from which to visit:
Blyde River Canyon

• The Kruger National park
• God's Window
• The falls
• The Potholes ... no not the same ones you see on the roads ... for which the authorities seem to to think that putting up boards telling you to beware of them for the next 5km ... every 5km ... is a solution. My brother Abrie correctly points out they could save a lot of money by simply putting up one board saying: "Potholes for the next 7000km". This would be more cost effective. They could even do better by putting up signs outside every airport saying: "POTHOLES EVERYWHERE!"
• Elephant rides

In the morning my mother sits me down and complains ... she is lonely here ... all her friends are dead or departed ... that sounds strangely macabre ... let me put it differently ... all her friends are dead and gone ... that's not right either. OK, so here friends who are not dead all left the area and went to live in old age homes somewhere... and she wants to do the same. I mean go and live in an old age home...

My father and I disagree with her...

Why give up a luxurious environment, if somewhat financially constrained, for a small room in an old age home somewhere where it is cold and windy in the winter and warm and windy in the summer ... Cape Town ... and be more financially constrained?

My soon-to-be 80-year-old father is the general handyman for my very able sister-in-law Maretha... (Was that a bad case of hyphenitis or what? And don't say what).

So my mission of the day becomes to get them online so that my mother can chat to her offspring where-ever they may be.

First I explain the wonders of google and gmail to them ... Storing your shit in the 'cloud' and all that and having live video chats and all of that plus google docs as well as spreadsheets and the internet BEING the computer ...

Using my father's upcoming 80th birthday as fundraising motif I phone my brother Noddy and he agrees that the old folks must get connected and he pledges his financial support for the project ... as does Abrie.

The end result is that my parents will soon be talking to YOU online.

Life makes up my mind for me....

I spend the whole morning trying to do just two things .... to connect to the internet to check my flight times and make up my mind about how I'm going to get to the airport. Last night I decided to go by 'public transport' ... minibus taxis.

This morning the idea seems slightly less appealing... It would involve a lot of walking and I have a Level 3 on the Baboon Scale hangover. It is also quite warm I realise when I go outside to leave for Nuno's where I know my internet connection would work. Up to then I spent two hours trying to go online without success.

Then to confuse and frustrate me even further Charles Moore phones to tell me two things ... Firstly that he counted 169 flags on cars on his way to work ... this is fantastic news ... my flagging campaign is clearly taking off ... remember a mere two or three weeks ago when we began our survey we counted only 64.

However Charles reckons that this jump in flags had nothing to do with me ... but rather with the fact that Bafana Bafana won their game against Colombia 2-1. The Star's headline reads: Delighted fans ignore chaos. And by the sound of it I was right again. It was a cheerful shambles with all of South Africa's idiosyncrasies on display .

'Ticket checkers' taking tickets and disappearing with them ... to sell on .... taking bribes to let some people in faster ... and at the wrong entrances and in general making sure that the seating arrangements inside the stadium became 'a cheerful shambles' and clearly despite this and the mammoth traffic jam to and from the stadium counted for nought ... a good time was had by all although it is reported that the vuvuzelas were deafening ... I will do a full blog on that South African idiosyncrasy soon.

The second thing Charles tells me is that he is trying to organise one of the work minibuses to take me to the airport ... but he can't guarantee anything ... This third option throws me completely ... 'public transport' ... private taxi ... or waiting for Charles ... and still I have no real idea when my flight is ...

So then I pack three longjohns, a pair of jeans, shampoo, toothbrush and perfume head for Nuno's ... oh yes and my laptop with power supply this time.

At Nuno's I establish that my flight is at 3:30pm. I ask the darkie waiters about taxi transport to the airport and they give me the lowdown ... which sounds slightly complicated ... but I'm ready to go ... Having plenty of time I have a breakfast and drink a cleansing beer. I am on holiday after all.

Then I begin arguing with myself. "I have the money to pay for the taxi and not having a car saves me a lot of money every month. Think down-payments, insurance, petrol and general maintenance," says one part of my brain.

"You are just lazy and/or afraid to leave the comfort zone of the one taxi route you use," says the other part.

It's a hung parliament and I am called upon to make a decision. I go with the latter view ... It would be the most interesting option ...

I begin walking and only then look at my watch and realise that I have to be at the airport an hour before departure ... Life made up my mind. I turn on my heel and phone Levi ... my regular taxi guy ... he wants R350 for the trip and we settle on R300 because I'm his 'customer'.

On my way to the airport I remember why I wanted to write the blog about going to Hazyview yesterday... I was because my brother Abrie threatened to come and fetch me with his micro-light in Nelspruit ... I did not speak to him again since ... so I'll just have to wait and see what form of transport the last leg of my trip would be... And I guess forgetting about it while writing yesterday's blog was extreme denialism ... But just In case ... I'm at the airport in Joburg now and knocking back two double gin and dry lemons... My plane is due now

Not clear why I wanted to write about Hazyview ...

My parents live on my brother Abrie's farm near Hazyview. That's about 400km from Joburg and I'm going there tomorrow.

Initially the plan was to rustle up the usual suspects and go as a group ... my brother has a backpacker facility on the farm. After initial excitement about the prospect my so-called friends began cancelling on me ... but all was fine ... The back-up plan was that my sister Emily and her kids would go ... then Emily cancelled yesterday.

A visit to my elderly parents is really long overdue ... I was last there two years ago ... so I decide I will go alone and book a ticket to the somewhat pompously named Kruger International outside Nelspruit in the Lowveld. The last time I was there it looked more like the Kruger Backwater, but that was some time ago and things change ... sometimes for the better ... one can only hope.

With the main leg of my trip taken care of I phone my brother Abrie to hear if he'll come and fetch me ... no problem ... farmers are always looking for an excuse to go to the nearest big town.

Now it's time to train my considerable intellect on the vexing problem of getting to the airport from my house ... I am loathe to ask one of my so-called friends to take me and averse to spending a fortune on a real taxi ... that means public transport in the form of minibus taxis...

When I faced with the same problem coming back from Oyster Bay I even wrote a blog about the lack of public transport to and from OR Tambo International ... your gateway to the nearest traffic jam ... but that was before I knew about the only 'real' public transport here.

A kindly reader then sketched the route for me and said a trip to the airport should come in below R20 if you know where you are going ... So once again I'm faced with a three-leg voyage before I can embark on the second leg of my real trip.

First I have to get to Park Station in Joburg Central ... from there I must take another taxi to Kempton Park and from there another one to the airport. I'll start out early....

Now Hazyview is somewhat of a tourist destination itself. In itself it has all the charm of a gigantic but poorly planned shopping mall, but there are more types of accommodation to suit every pocket and people use it as a base-camp to explore the many natural delights of the Lowveld about which I will write at length once I am there.

Where am I going with this blog? That is my more immediate concern ... my view has indeed become very hazy about that. I could swear I had a point when I started out... seems to have deserted me ... I'll just publish and be damned .... and such a poor piece on top of Rian Malan's must-read piece of earlier today... I'm shooting myself in the foot. What the hell maybe inspiration will hit me in Hazyview .... and then again not ... the locals call it Lazyview in the Slowveld...

Welcome to Rachel Tolton... and Hazyview.

Rian Malan tells it as it is ... couldn't have done better in a month of Sundays update

The following piece by Rian Malan was sent to me by email and since it encapsulates many of my personal views so much better than I could say it I decided to post it here. I'm sure Rian won't mind ... if he does ... let him sue me.

It's a sunny weekday afternoon in Jo'burg, and I am lunching with friends at an outdoor restaurant. The joint we're in was hit by armed robbers earlier this week.

The newspapers on the table are full of hair-raising tribulations – our former police chief on trial for bribery, commuter buses shot up by murderous taxi bosses who won't tolerate competition, and elders of the African National Congress declining to sign the charge sheet against Julius Malema, the controversial youth leader who made global headlines the other day by endorsing Robert Mugabe, the cocky little psychopath who ruined neighbouring Zimbabwe.

Malema is now facing disciplinary charges, but no one in the ruling party is willing to take the risk of being identified as his accuser.

This is worrying. Are racist demagogues winning the battle for control of the ANC? Are decent black men scared to take a stand lest they find themselves alongside whites, trussed up in the missionary cooking pot while Malema lights a fire beneath us?

In a normal society, such questions would induce nervous breakdown, but my mates and I are laughing.

We're sitting in the African sun, sharing jokes, and wondering how to con foreigners into coming here for the World Cup.

Once upon a time, South Africans imagined that this soccer extravaganza would make us all rich.

Myself, I struggled to believe that half a million football tourists would cross the planet in the midst of a brutal recession to visit a country best known for its high crime rate.

My neighbours scoffed, preferring to believe they would make a killing by renting out their homes. Alas. Bookings are running at about half the anticipated level.

Would-be scalpers are stuck with tickets they can't even give away, and Fifa's gluttonous marketing arm has reportedly managed to lease only 1% of the luxury private boxes in our enormously expensive new stadia.

I am rather enjoying the resulting cries of pain. Fifa has made a monkey out of South Africa , encouraging us to spend billions we don't have on football stadiums we don't need in the absurd belief that we could recoup our losses by gouging football tourists whose willingness to come here was always in doubt.

Our own leaders collaborated enthusiastically, partly because they relished the glory of presiding over an event of World Cup stature, but also because they were eager to participate in murky backroom deals that saw politically connected individuals reaping obscene profits on taxpayer-funded construction contracts.

Now we're all saddled by debts it will take generations to pay off. I'm so riled that part of me would be gratified if the World Cup were a complete failure.

But South Africa is a complicated country, and there's always another side of the story. As I write, a certain Mrs Gladys Dladla is ironing clothes in my kitchen.

Gladys is an old-school Zulu matriarch, struggling heroically to maintain a huge family on her meagre earnings as my once-a-week char. She lacks the wherewithal to bribe officials who control access to state housing, so she's lived in a tin shack for 16 years.

In recent weeks, getting to work has become a frightening ordeal thanks to renewed tensions between police and the aforementioned taxi thugs.

Gladys's life seems entirely miserable, but she always shows up on time, chattering cheerfully about church and her hope that God and the ancestral spirits will soon guide us to victory in the national lottery. Gladys and I have a little syndicate going.

The World Cup is an event of huge symbolic importance to Mrs Dladla. In the next several weeks, oily ANC politicians will attempt to convince you that this tournament is a tribute to their heroic victory over apartheid and associated triumphs of the human spirit.

Hm. For people like Gladys, the longing for success is actually rooted in despair. They're so tired of being losers and also-rans, trapped at the bottom of a society that constantly threatens to degenerate into just another African basket case.

Their dream was that in June 2010 the world's eyes would descend on us, and at last find something to admire. Mrs Dladla looks on these things with enormous pride.

She feels that their glory reflects on her directly, and besides, there's always the hope that football tourism might generate jobs for her unemployed offspring.

She was a great supporter of short-lived plans to turn my rambling old home into a cheap doss house for football hooligans. In the end, I baulked at paying tribute to Fifa, whose lawyers crushed all attempts to market World Cup lodgings through any channels other than their own.

Just as well, because our doss house would most likely have failed anyway.


So now we stand before you with clean hands. We have nothing to gain from the World Cup but the pleasure of your company, so it would be nice if you changed your minds about coming. Please! We've almost bankrupted ourselves in our determination to stage a tournament that runs like clockwork.

And if it doesn't – you can have a chuckle at our expense. Last week's newspapers reported a state of abject unreadiness among the pom-pom girls scheduled to perform at the opening ceremony.

A day or two later, President Jacob Zuma informed America that we have the laziest and most useless civil service on the planet.

Elsewhere such an admission would have precipitated the government's downfall. Here, the story was relegated to page five.

I struggle to see how anyone can resist a country where such things happen. South Africa is amazing! At any given moment, all possible futures seem entirely plausible. We are winning, we are losing. We are progressing even as we hurtle backwards.

Every day brings momentous exhilarations and dumbfounding setbacks, and the sun shines brightly even in winter. Throw in the heady proximity of Mandela and Beckham, and you're almost guaranteed a splendid time.

As for crime, well, yes, crime is a threat, but our police have been given orders to smash anyone who so much as touches a hair on any football fan's head.

If you book now, you'll arrive just in time to catch a last glimpse of our fading rainbow, and the first stirrings of our next upheaval.If that sounds alarming, I wouldn't worry. There is much to be said for living on the edge, in a place shot through with "heartspace and the danger of beauty", as the Boer poet Breytenbach once phrased it.

Britain seems pallid in comparison. We are told that your election was an event of epochal significance, but from Jo'burg, it looked boring – three nice white men with almost identical opinions jostling for space on the same centrist pinhead. As for the prospect of a hung parliament… you call that a crisis? Good God. We have far worse, every day, before breakfast. And we're still laughing. Better get here before we stop.

FLAG UPDATE: Charles Moore and Kieran counted 128 flags this morning. My efforts are being rewarded.

The Boerewors Curtain lifts... and i could not do a spellcheck

So there they were ... in Soweto ... thousands of them ... all dressed in blue ... all slightly drunk and all Blue Bulls supporters ...

But they were in great spirits (no pun intended) for this historic occassion and in no small measure, I guess, excited as I was about the 'meaning' of the event.

Something to tell your grandchildren about: "I was there when the Bulls first played in Soweto..."

So there they were ... in Soweto ... all with dark skins ... all slightly drunk ... millions of them ... lining the roads ... shouting encouragement to the invading army ... some to sell 'safe' parking ... others to sell whatever and most just there for the 'gees' (see my blog about language).

All in great spirits...

So there I was ... on the back of a motorcycle ... ably driven by my boss Charles Moore ... slightly drunk ... in Soweto ... dressed impeccably in three pairs of longjohns, three thermal vests and my outer clothing ... light blue shirt by Gant ... fauve chinos from Woolworths ... black leather jacket from Markhams for Men ... pointy black shoes from a cheap shoeshop ... in fact they were not cheap ... R800 ... and an Iverness Cape.

All in good spirits ...

When Charles tells me that we will go to Soweto on the bike my stomach tightens. Those of you who read my blog regularly would know I'm not the adventurous type. Bikes give me the jitters ...

To deal with that problem I invite my sister Emily to lunch and she tells me she is also going but by public transport ... Rea Vaya (seSotho for: "We're going/moving"). The 'rapid bus transport' system between Soweto and the Joburg CBD. It is supposed to link up many parts of the metropole ... and should have been done by now ... but ain't ... this is Africa.

There was a joke about SA politicians saying: "Everything would be ready by 2010 ... Oh fuck this is 2010!!!!"

I phone Charles to tell him the good news but he points out to me that it's fine to go on the Rea Vaya ... but to come back would probably entail a long wait... and he wants to be back in time to catch the next semifinal game ... the Stormers from Cape Town against the Waratahs from New-South Wales in Australia ... So it's going to be the bike...

I'm not the type of person to shirk a personal phobia so after lunch with Emily I head to the nearest bar ... where fortunately I see Scot ... He hears my pain and buys me a tequila ... I respond in kind and then Inge arrives ... also on her way to the game ... and she responds by buying a round of tequila ... and I respond in kind ... then Charles arrives and we decide it's probably a good idea to have a tequila ... I wash all the tequila down with a cleansing beer ...

Then we set out for Soweto. I try to count flags as we go ... and get to 135 at Soccer City, the new World Cup stadium outside Soweto where some big soccer match is going down. Too many flags ... In fact the final between Wits University and Mamelodi Sundowns in the Nedbank Cup.

My previous boss ... yes the one who fired me ... once remarked: "What will they have next ... a Paper Cup?"

Once at Orlando Stadium we drive straight to the bottom of the steps ... with a ticket checker running after us ... I swear I did not hear him trying to call us back ... and apologises profusely to him when he catches up with us ... He accepts the apology and all is well.

We head for the beer garden surrounded by thousands of Blue Bulls ... with blue faces and
hard-hats with bull horns sticking from them... I sigh ... these are my people ...

I check for people ... darkies I mean ... not many in attendance ... I would say a 1000 or 2000 out of the 45000 spectators.

Three of them are sitting just behind me and I ask them why they are there ... They're not Bulls supporters ... The response is good ... They are there for the country ... as am I.

Meanwhile my sister Emily reports that outside the stadium the Bulls and the darkies were bonding big time ... She did not have a ticket and was just there to report on the 'gees' or vibe. When she went into shebeen (bar, tavern) for a beer it was packed with Bulls ... and there was not a drop left to drink ... she was referred to the funeral parlour next door ... which was packed by Bulls and there was still a beer on sale ... you got to love this country!

Well done Soweto ... and well done Pretoria. The Boerewors Curtain lifted and it was a magnificent thing ... and it was good to be there.

I can tell you much more ... but I'm tired now ... there were so many things worth writing about.

An historic event ... and I'm going to be there!

You would have noticed that I seldom ... if ever ... use exclamation marks anywhere in my text ... and to use it in a headline means it means something ... but I must confess to a bad addiction to ellipses ... Okay I admitted ... acknowledging the problem is the first step to recovery .. (you see .)

It can only be in South Africa where a rugby match between two provincial sides can take on the 'historical' tag. Normally I would dismiss such talk as 'hysterical' but for once I am in full agreement.

No lesser person than former archbishop Desmond Tutu hailed the event as historical and who am I to disagree.

When SA signed itself over to Fifa ... the Blue Bulls from Pretoria also had to give up their bastion in Pretoria, Loftus Versveld. Now the Bulls could come from no other place in South Africa. They are almost more Pretorian than Pretoria itself ... almost brutal in their their insular smugness ... but they remain one of the best rugby teams in South Africa and well respected for that by friend and foe alike.

At the same time ... It may only be a perception but I always suspect Pretoria to be a bit more racist than most other big towns in South Africa ... perhaps with the exception of Bloemfontein... but that's a different story.

Now imagine my surprise when they, having relinquished their stadium to Fifa, chose Orlando Stadium in Soweto for their Super 14 semifinal clash against the Canterbury Crusaders from New Zealand.

When I first heard that news I thought it was some joke but when I realised that it was true I thought it was a good move ... but was a bit sceptical about what the response from the Bulls fans would be ... well I'm happy to report that for once Pretoria surprised me positively. The tickets for the match sold out almost immediately and Pretoria is going to Soweto tomorrow.

This was not the only surprise ... I also learnt that the Bulls are one of the teams in the country with the most black support ... Pliny the Elder had it right: "Ex Africa semper aliquid novi."

Bishop Tutu likened the historical value of the event to South Africa's 1995 rugby World Cup victory ... and he is only exaggerating slightly.

It is true that there is nothing that can unify South Africans across the board like a great sporting victory and the 1995 event did much to unite the country at the time ... Remember Nelson Mandela wearing the Springbok jersey ... just thinking about it again gives me goose-bumps ... I was in France for that event but the feeling lived on well into 1996 when I came back ...

Pity that Bafana Bafana is so poor ... them making just the second round of the World Cup would have the same nation-building effect as the Springbok victory ... one lives in hope.

So it is historical and there is a buzz about it ... even in Joburg where we tend to be allergic to all things emanating from Pretoria. I woke up to the historical value too late and have no tickets ... Charles Moore tried ... and failed ... to get some. We then thought we would just go and watch the match in a bar in Soweto ... to be 'part' of the event but then I remembered that it is George's damn birthday. So I'll watch it from Jan's place where the party is going to be held.

So I'll say it only once ... but I'll say it loudly: "GO BULLS!!!!"
.... AND WELL DONE PRETORIA!

Ex Africa semper .... Charles Moore got us tickets to the match!! ...

We'll be going on his bike ... this will not surprise you ... fills me with dread but I shall be brave ... he pointed out to me that the traffic is going to be bad to Soweto ... and I had to agree ... we need to go on the bike ... because it's George's damn birthday!! Not really even ... It turns out that his damn birthday is only next week ...

Welcome to Adolf, Barry, Susan, Anne, Madelein and whoever else is new here.

South African language ... that you should know ...

A sort of a friend mine (I shall not divulge ... so don't ask) compiled a glossary of common South African English words that can be found on http://www.mediaclubsouthafrica.com/ ... go there for more 'good news' stories about this 'blighted' place ...

I wanted to post the direct link but I AM USING @#$%^& WINDOWS @#$%^&* VISTA ... so it's not possible.

Language in SA is an interesting topic ... if you are interested in language ... I am ... so here goes ...

We have 11 official languages and I'll try and list them ... remember I said 'try' and hopefully in 'spoken by most people' (even as alternative language) sequence ... forgive me if I get it wrong ... I'm in no mood for internet research ... check the dateline. So here goes:

1. English


2. isiZulu


3. Afrikaans


4. isiXhosa


5. seSotho


6. sePedi


7. seTswana ... these three are very close and as a language group probably much bigger than most of the above


8. siSwati


9. tshiVenda


10. isiNdebele


11. xiTsonga

I studied ... if you can call my endeavours at school studying ... seSotho or sePedi ... until I left school and I even had some vocabulary ... but then I began with French at university and since then ... I lost everything but a basic greeting.

Most whiteys profess that they regret not having learnt to speak a darkie language but very few of them ever do. Most darkies speak several languages so ... a Sotho would probably also sepak Zulu and Xhosa and all the other Pedi languages ... as well as Afrikaans and/or English depending on where he or she grew up.

On the mines everybody speaks Fanagalo ... a type of 'universal' language that was created to facilitate communication between the various nations that would put the creators of Esperanto to shame ... because this one actually works.

According to the linguistic legend Noam Chomsky, languages living together in the same space will inevitably 'contaminate' each other and nowhere is that seen quite like in South Africa ... I think in 50 years or so ... we will all be speaking Fanagalo.

For the moment one would only need a basic English in South Africa to get around. It is the lingua franca of the country after all.

So when my maid Zita reiterates her plan to become a magosha (the 'g' is pronounced with a guttural ggggg sound not 'gh' or 'gee') I know she wants to become a prostitute. Yes Zita is still adamant that she will sell her body during the World Cup ... for R500 a pop. I point out to her that it is slightly above the current market average and she retorts: "Aikona ... I will throw in a massage and and a blowjob as well ... all adding up to hard work. I just roll my eyes.

Words that you will definitively encounter in SA:

aikona - no
braai - barbeque
biltong - dried meat delicacy
boerewors - farmer's sausage
eish - an expression of pain
lekker - cool, good, fun,

and many more ... look up the glossary and come to South Africa ... you'll have a lekker time.

FLAG UPDATE: The results for this week are disappointing to say the least. I did not catch a lift with them but Charles Moore and Kieran kept on counting ... 67 on Wednesday and today ... only 60 ... that just means I have to redouble my efforts to get some 'gees' going.

'Gees' with the 'g' pronounced the same way as in magosha is the South African word for the spirit of something or a group. When things are 'lekker' everybody has gees.

Fifa bans fun... update

In a statement today the football governing body Fifa officially banned South Africans from having fun during the World Cup ... or making money.

The feudal overlord of the country for the event said the ban was necessary for several reasons which I will list below:

• People normally pay to have fun and since Fifa will not be able to share in that revenue there is no sense in them allowing fun to happen
• People having fun normally talk and laugh ... sometimes too loudly ... and that could bring Fifa into disrepute
• Fifa wants to exercise its droit de cuissage with the country anally and if we seem to enjoy it, it would diminish Fifa's pleasure.
• (Droit de cuissage ... for those who don't know is the feudal lord's 'right' to sleep with the maiden bride ... it seriously pissed off Braveheart as you'll remember)
• If Fifa can't make money out of it there is no sense in making it happen ... so they are considering to also ban sex, the drinking of anything else but the official beer, the wearing of any clothes not sanctioned by them and anything else that people may enjoy without Fifa scoring from it.

The body said that since it now effectively owns the country and all its individual inhabitants and their children, dogs, cats, pigs and chickens ... it can do what it wants when it wants and how it wants ... so brace yourself South Africa ... and bend over ... Fifa is coming.

And if you don't like it ... go and fuck yourself ... as long as you don't have fun doing it.

OK that is slightly exaggerated but it is the impression one gets when one reads Fifa's rules and regulations for hosting the event.

I pity the street hawkers looking forward to the World Cup ... they think they are going to make a killing. The 'wire-and-bead' artists on Melville's street have been working overtime to produce enough stock for the World Cup,... I pity them.

My fear is that they will have their stock confiscated and be put into concentration camps for the duration of the event.

Seriously, Fifa is being very militaristic about everything and that may be one reason why people are still a bit iffy about the World Cup.

The reason for this tirade is that a school contacted a radio station to learn if what they planned for the World Cup would be legal in Fifa's mind.

What they are planning is to have a 'fun' event to promote the WC. The radio station contacted Fifa's legal representatives and put the question to them ... the answer was that the school should download the legal requirements for trading under the Fifa banner and see if they comply.

When the radio presenter points out to the lawyer that they did not want to trade or make money ... just promote the event ... the answer is: "Zey must just zownload zee legal requirementz for trading under zee Fifa name..."

Welcome to Snieke and hallo Inge ... Inge I will blog about your preference for the 'chocolate long and lovely' tomorrow... I first need to clarify a couple of points. LOL

My day off becomes an off day...

Having worked like titans this past week we get the programme to bed early and give ourselves a long weekend.

I am happy for the opportunity to pay a bit more attention to my blog and my Scrabble games ...

I switch on the radio and hear the news ... Frederick van Zyl-Slabbert has died. Now this guy was one of my heroes.

His role in breaking the political stalemate in the '80s and averting full-scale civil war in South Africa is much underestimated. He could always be counted upon to bring a measure of sanity to the most explosive situations.

He was one of those South Africans and Afrikaners who made me proud to be one ... a South African and an Afrikaner.

With this bit of sad news to get me going I find myself stuck in the starting blocks ... I turn to Scrabble for solace and to get my mind working ... a strategy that worked well when I was unemployed.

I play all my games and even get two 7-letter words but I get no ideas.

After pottering about in my cottage for a while I decide to come to Nuno's ... have a beer and read the newspapers for inspiration.

No luck.

As per usual they only serve to depress me ... "The face of the Rolex gang terror", says The Star

This gang apparently follow people who buy expensive watches and jewelery home and rob them. This one guy was caught on CCTV .... and he looks the part of a bad-ass gangster. I hope that now that his face is known he would be caught.

The Afrikaans daily Beeld tries to milk the last bit of emotional sop out of the Airbus crash in Libya ... "My dad's plane crashed" is their headline.

The rest is mostly crime, corruption and Julius Malema stories.

All depressing.

The ANC had the opportunity to get rid of that young Hitler in the making, Malema, and instead chose just to give him a slap on the wrist and demand that he apologises for his insanity.

Very depressing indeed.

No wonder newspaper sales are plummeting ... their regular readers must be committing suicide in droves.

That was how my day off became an off day. As you can see I still have nothing to say.

My part in the success or failure of the World Cup

When Gabrielli tells me that the Germans, of all people, expected a bit more World Cup fever from us I decide to oblige her.

Although I had thought that that I had done my bit when I flagged my sister's car, I can now clearly see that this is far below what is required ... so I buy two lighters ... ever-patriotic, one with the SA flag on and another with a soccer ball motif.

I also launch an awareness campaign about the flags, asking all and sundry where their damn flags are.

To test the efficacy of my campaign I ask Charles Moore and his son Kieran to help me spot flags on the way to Kieran's school and further on our way to work.

They jump to the task at hand with diligence and here are the first results:

Yesterday we counted 24 flags up to Kieran's school and a further 40 to Randburg for a total of 64. That is our baseline then.

I counted a further 16 on during the day but that will not be part of the official statistics ... Ok I like counting stuff so what?!

I like to keep stuff scientific, so the only numbers that will count here is that of the early morning trip between Melville and Randburg with a slight detour to Parkview to drop off Kieran.

I only do this trip on Wednesdays and Thursdays so I will give you a weekly update on Thursdays.

But the early results are heartening. This morning we counted 26 to Kieran's school and a further 49 to Randburg for a grand total of 75 ... My efforts are clearly paying off.

A further bracing sign that World Cup fever is taking hold of South Africa is that my friends spontaneously started talking about it on Tuesday evening.

The talk began about who we think is going to win ... Germany got a couple of votes ... to who are our favourite 'second' teams. Jan likes Holland, Vince likes Germany, I like France, Carol likes ... I can't remember and John does not express himself ... as is often the case with John.

Then the conversation inevitably turns to the chances of Bafana Bafana. Carol says that she's sure they'll surprise us by reaching the second round. I secretly hope that she's right but my brain tells me otherwise. Jan says he'll bet her R1000 that they would not.

In fact, he says, he won't even bet her that ... he will GIVE her R1000 if they reach the second round and Vince pitches in that he would GIVE her a R100 for every goal they score ... he stipulates in the contract that this offer excluded own-goals.

So yes all things considered it would seem that my efforts to make the World Cup a success are on the right track and I'll keep you posted about my progress.

But do not expect too much too soon. I pointed out to Gabrielli that we South Africans of all colours tend to be 'last minute people'. Our history is full of telling examples of this tendency.

Just take our recent history to begin with. In the early '90s we found found ourselves on the brink of civil war many a time but we always turned away from it at the last minute ... we decided to take HIV/Aids seriously at the last minute (some would say way beyond the last minute) Julius Malema got disciplined by his party at the last minute ... some would say way beyond ... the government started to focus on our looming electricity crisis at the last minute ... some would say ... most World Cup preparations will only start functioning at the last minute ... and some way beyond the last minute .... but you get the drift.

So I am convinced that by the time most WC visitors arrive WC fever will be in full swing and everybody is going to have a great time.

Germany rejects my use of the word 'darkies' and race relations in South Africa

I share my office with three darkies. They are Ntoks, the darkie female anchor of the show, Fortune, I don't know exactly what Fortune does, but he is the only darkie follower of my blog and he laughs a lot so I quite like him ... and then there's the Erudite Mister Zee.

They are all much younger than me and probably earn much more money than I do. (There is a reason I mention this.)

Mr Zee is the marketing manager of 50/50, the environmental show that I work for. He wants to be called only Zee but screw him ... he is a Mister.

The reason for this is that it was him who helped me through my ordeal of the first two weeks in my new job.

I once told him in that time: "Zee if you cheat on your wife ... just tell her that you have a helpless Boer in your office and he is taking up all your time with ... well requests for this ... HELP! And Mr Zee saw my pain and helped.

So after Gabrielli complained about my usage of the word 'darkies' I felt that I needed to consult them before writing this.

You must remember that I worked for a blue-collar working class newspaper, Daily Sun, where the word darkie was common currency as in: "Hey Temba is this a darkie word?" Meaning will darkies understand it ...? That is how we speak here.

You must also remember that English is the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 9th, or 13th language for most people here.

So I poll my three darkie office companions about Gabrielli's complaint.

Ntoks says no it's not offensive.
Fortune says no it's not offensive.

The Erudite Mr Zee is on the phone, so I wait for him to be done before I publish the result of the poll.

Finally, I get Mr Zee's erudite attention about the question in question and he explains to me thus (and I paraphrase): "I don't find it offensive in itself ... that's how we speak here. But you must remember where the Germans are coming from ... you know the holocaust and so on ... but their collective feelings of guilt is for a past sin that was committed by their forebears with very few of the victims still in evidence. Germany has apologised and that was good.

"But here in South Africa the former oppressed and the former oppressor are dealing with each other on a daily basis... in your face ... and we must just get on with it."

Mr Zee also pointed out to me that it would have been offensive if I wrote about 'white people' and then 'darkies', but since I talked about whiteys and darkies in the same sentence ... it is how we speak here.

Meanwhile I trained Madelein to do my job because they need a back-up for me because the program (computer programs are spelled like that ... even in non-American) that we work on is full of snags and i don't want anybody to go through the same ordeal ... being dumped into a very deep pool of not knowing anything. The worst fate possible with tight deadlines.

Madi is full of nervous energy and she has not had a structured job for a long time ... she calls Zee... Doctor Zee ... you see ... race relations in South Africa ... they are really relations ... not issues.

And then again I spotted 34 flags on cars today ... I do not count those covers on the rearview mirrors of cars ... just flying the flag and more and more people are flying the flags of their 'other team' because the consensus is that our team ain't gonna makew it past the first round.

Reflections on race and the World Cup in a bar in Randburg

I am waiting for my boss Charles Moore to give me a lift home from the offices in Randburg. Earlier the day when I went to get some Chinese take-aways I bumped into my old friend Roman .... he is really old (69) and an old friend too.

Roman is a German and a chef and in his most recent incarnation the front-of-house manager at a sportsbar called Paddy's in Randburg.

Meanwhile Gabrielli ... my other German 'friend' asked me to write something about the upcoming Soccer World Cup in South Africa.

The seminal event is scheduled to begin in exactly 33 days from today and I must admit that I have not reflected too much about it ... mainly because I think it will be a cheerful shambles at best and a total disaster at worst. Let's hope for the best. My money is on a cheerful shambles.

With all these elements neatly in place, I tell Charles that I will wait for him in Paddy's in order to study the local fauna in their natural habitat because ... Randburg is not Melville.

Being of a scientific bent I count all the patrons in view (some people call this counting business of mine a disorder ... screw them).

There are 48 after-work drinkers in view at Paddy's at the time I begin my survey at 5:25pm.

They are ... 25 whitey males ... 8 whitey females ... 2 coloured girls ... 2 darkie chicks ... 5 darkie guys and 6 coloured guys ... This is not Melville.

To begin with there would be more darkies, coloureds and women in any bar in Melville, but the ambiance is also different.

There is an urgency in the air that I suspect stems from the fact that all the patrons look as if they are in sales of some sort. They talk rapidly and somewhat too loudly (their laughter is the same) as if they are sniffing a deal.

They are mostly between 20 and 35 in age and the guys are all in shirt-sleeves or T-shirts despite the fact that I find the autumn evening quite chilly ... but these are clearly hot-blooded guys ... I wonder why they they are sitting mostly with other guys ...

But I am here to reflect about the upcoming World Cup, as well, so I turn my attention to that... I count three guys wearing the Bafana Bafana (the nickname for our national football team ... meaning: "The boys, the boys") shirts. Of these two are whiteys and one a coloured.

I also notice that all the waiters, who are all darkies, also wear the Bafana shirts ... under some warmer tops. They have good sense because it is cold.

By the way most waiters in South Africa are darkies and since they only get something like 3,5% of their turnover as commission, tipping is essential here ... the going rate is 10-15% and it's rude not to do it.

This is not Melville because the waiters are attentive. My friend Jan once remarked that 95% of people would become uncomfortable if one would stare at them long and hard and the other 5% become waiters in Melville.

But I digress ... There is a campaign on to get World Cup fever going. It consists of 'Flagging the World Cup" meaning that you have to fly the South African flag. I duly buy a SA flag for my sister Emily's car ... car pointing out to her that it was not only the duty of darkies to be patriotic. I also intend to by her a French flag since we are both francophiles.

While on the subject of my sister Emily ... oh no ... it is actually the World Cup, I decide some more research is needed and I take Emily for lunch at Sakura ... a Japanese sushi and teppenyaki restaurant in 7th Street Melville. They do a decent if not spectacular sushi and teppenyaki and I'm quite fond of the latter.

Emily orders herself a French soccer jersey from a street vendor called Amen ... and I pay a R50 deposit for him to also bring me a French flag for her car. She is dubious about just giving Amen the money and i tell her not to worry.

Although I do not know Amen, he knows me. All the street vendors know me because I banned them from pushing their wares into my customers' faces when I managed the gay bar ... and enforced this policy .... quite vigourously. Amen took her number and has just phoned to say that the merchandise is ready for collection.

The reason for this outing is to count the number of flags on cars as a means to measure WC fever ... In the parking lot in front of Paddy's in Randburg I counted ... zero on about 300 cars ... I did not count the cars ... OK I just counted one row and multiplied it by three ... so do not say anything about disorders.

Melville is not Randburg but I'm disappointed to count only about 17 in all. But this is early days so I'll keep you posted about the number of flags I coun... see.

Everybody is trying to make a quick buck out of the WC ... my maid Zita wants to be a hooker and her boyfriend Martin is in on the deal as pimp. Some other people are planning to rent out their houses and live in their garden sheds ... I just hope more people read and follow my blog. It is a work in progress.

The latest news is that 'they' are now stealing the flags off the cars ... no doubt to re-sell as shop-soiled wares. Nobody knows who 'they' are. I know but I won't tell. It is especially the rear-view mirror flag covers that are being targetted. So be aware.

I will also keep you posted on World Cup fever but for now I'm off to watch rugby ... My team the Cheetahs are playing against some other also-ran team but the Cheetahs have been hitting some good form lately and my hope is that they will improve their standing from 13th on the log to say ... 12th. One can only hope.

By the way welcome to Braam van Straaten an lemartle ... or something like that ... one day you will proudly tell your grandchildren that you were some of the first to join this world famous blog.

Friends and followers

I gained my first darkie follower today ... welcome to Fortune. I don't know why but it felt like a bit of a breakthrough for a seWammba. I also think I got my first German follower ... thus welcome to Gabrielli.

I have some friends in real life. We see each other once or twice a week and of them only Mark the photographer joined the blog. The others are shining in their absence. Most of them read the blog but to press that "follow" button seems out of their reach.

Jan was the one who pleaded with me to begin the blog in the first place ... so he has no excuse.

Vince does not really like my writing style nor the content so at least he has some sort of excuse.

George is an Internet retard ... or so he claims ... because he f*cks around on Facebook enough so I suppose he has no real excuse either. You can use your Yahoo account to join George!

John, I know is not into much on the Internet except mail.

Madelein has no excuse ... she even has a gmail account.

Amanda has a baby so she has an excuse but she reads the blog so she does not really have one.

Charli says she does not have Internet access at all.

Albert ... the other lawyer ... takes down the address every Friday when we meet for drinks ... but his dad got seriously ill for the past two weeks so I forgive him.

My own 23-year-old daughter, Tamlin whom I tried to bribe to join last weekend and who said she would, still hasn't. I suspect that she suspects it would be embarrassing to her.

I have other friends all over the world who have indeed joined and also some people whom I do not know ... thanks to all of you ... may you serve as an example of selflessness to my friends.

Having been out with my friends ... I'm tired so bye.

Reversing climate change with R149!

I bought a heater.

It was was the best thing I could do to combat climate change. I'm sitting on top of it, but at my knees are not cold.

It cost me R149 and I think it is the best investment I have made this year ... OK also the only capital expenditure ... but there you go. One must do one's best to stop climate change in its tracks and when faced with such an enormous calamity it is often best to start stopping the rot close to home. Sweep in front of your own door as it were.

So I reversed climate change with R149 ... but that was a temporary stoppage like the Dutch boy with his finger in the the dyke ... or is that dike ... either way that does not bear too much scrutiny... It sounds pornographic and after 12 hours of checking language I am in no mood to check my own.

The climate in my humble abode is just fine now... and ever conscious of my footprint I have only activated one bar of my 2-bar halogen heater from a company called Aim. The weather outside has also improved dramatically and can even be considered as normal for Joburg this time of the year. Crisp clear blue skies with the trees showing off their autumn colours ... quite pretty really. See what can happen if we take action against climate change.  

Meanwhile I learnt that it rained twice as much in Joburg so far this year as it does on average, No wonder my towels are all a bit sour.

On that subject ... many years ago my brother Noddy told me how he went to the gym and having forgotten his own towel he borrowed one from a colleague ... only to find it a bit sour ... in his own words he explained what happened next: "And the very fuckin next day I got this fuckin ugly fuckin boil on my back!"

I thought of his words while wiping my face ... and got a fuckin boil on my face!

One must be careful what one thinks.

But tomorrow I must get up early again ... so off to bed with me again ... saving some more energy.

I am a dedicated eco warrior.

Climate change barometer and some questions

I do not know much about climate change, except that it is happening. I know that it is happening because I have my own barometer and that is my longjohns.

When I got to Joburg some 10 years ago I started wearing my longjohns on 1 May and took them off on 1 October (no NOT the same pair). As the years went by, the longjohn period grew longer and longer and with the exception of just a couple of days, I pretty much wore them this whole past year.

As a matter of fact, these days I have taken to wearing two pairs. I may be getting slightly older but I am in good health and 46 is really not that old ... it must be getting colder ...

So climate change is a happening reality, but what causes it?

I have trouble believing that it is man-made carbon emissions alone. I am all for cleaner fuels and cleaner living and consuming less resources, but is the opposite really the cause of climate change?

Many, if not most scientists seem to agree with me. The problem is that we do not have enough data to work with .... only about 150 years worth (if that) out of many billions of years. Earlier forecast models indicated that Joburg would get dryer due to climate change, but instead we stand the risk of drowning in the damn streets. More proof that nobody knows what is really happening.

My father also predicted that wet summers are followed by mild winters, but if the past week is anything to go by we are all going to freeze to death. That is because South African houses are designed to be cool during our long hot summers ... before climate change. Not even my father knows what is going on.

So climate change hysterics know as much or as little as the rest of us and I smell the beginnings of an hysteria-fuelled fundraising industry. There is nothing that the media love so much as predicting a looming catastrophe.

Meanwhile I support recycling and all green activities whole-heartedly ... I just wonder what the hell is going on and why damn George did not get me the damn heater he said he would ... I freezing my ass off as yet another soggy day draws to a close. I am eyeing my spare longjohns and wonder whether I should put on another pair ... or two.

About the heater ... I ordered a fan heater thinking it would use less electricity as I was lead to believe all my life, but George (he is a fridge guy and knows about stuff like that) disabused me of my world-saving notions. He told me that they all use the same amount of electricity. He went on and on about kilowatt hours but I did not really listen. I was busy recycling a glass of wine.

But the biggest question I have now is why George stopped me from buying a heater on Saturday and then forgot the cheap one for which he had a contact? The climate change inside my humble abode is really extreme ... I am wearing all clothes and I'm sitting under my duvet. Why George, ... why?

And welcome to Nicky Smith.

Cultural niche markets in porn and frowning friends .... (PG18)

When I mention to my friends that I intend writing about the different kinds of porn favoured by different nations ... some frown, others shake their heads and the writer Vince declares loudly and somewhat too angrily (in my view) that he will only read my blog if I stop writing "about shit and sex".

I try to point out to him that porn and sex only have an incidental connection, in that it involves nudity, but he is having none of that ... so OK bye Vince.

I suppose I am not an ordinary tourist. When I go to a new city, I want to know how ordinary people live there. Thus I spend most of my time in bars trying to connect to the locals. I will take in the odd museum here and there, but that would not be my main aim. No ... strolling the streets of New York, Paris, Budapest or where-ever and stopping for a beer here and there is more my scene.

In these wanderings I often land up in the seedier parts of whatever city I am in. Here one normally finds the brothels, stripshows and porn shops. I normally skip the brothels and strip shows, not out of any kind of prudery, but because my budget would not allow for it.

But as a consumer of porn, I do go into porn shops and this is where I learnt that different nations have different tastes in porn. I am not talking about the normal 'sucking and fucking' porn that you get everywhere ... it is more what I would call cultural niche markets in porn.

The careful observer will notice that certain types of porn would be given a more prominent place in the general display.

I begin with the Americans, not only because they're the biggest producers and consumers of porn, but also because their porn is so true to form. I may be mistaken, but it is my impression that the US is often trying to fuck the world up the arse with the best technology available to mankind ... and so is their porn ... clinical, high definition and anal.

The French prefer things to be au naturel and it is not surprising that they like amateur porn. They also have a little penchant for lesbian porn but I think amateur is their thing.

The Dutch and the Spanish have a surprising connection in porn. They seem to like animals. I suppose it must have something to do with those long sea voyages undertaken by their forbears ... you know that goat winking at one in a cute kind of a way after the third month on the open sea...

The Germans ... in a probable rebellion against their ordered existence, like it messy. Real messy ... like in scatological ... pissing and shitting ... OK let's move on.

The Japanese, in contrast, like it clean. For them it is pantyhose, short plaid tartan skirts, light bondage ... They are also not so obsessed with shaving off the last pubic hair in the world as the Americans are.

Surprisingly the Eastern Europeans seem to like public nudity. I is surprising in the light of the amount of it on display in say Budapest on a hot summer's day.

And South Africans? Well the darkies seem not to be interested at all and they probably think the whiteys are crazy for furtively sneaking into the shops where they man the cash registers in a bored kind of a way.

My own friends frown on porn, but they are not average South Africans. My own view is that South Africans like the emotional porn that is to be found in the twin magazines You and Huisgenoot.

A multi-billion dollar almost global media empire, Naspers/Media24, was built on the back of the schmaltz peddled in the form of 'human drama' by those two, the one in Afrikaans and the other in English.

Myself personally ... ? I like my porn soft. No penetrations, no spread-em wide, no insertions ... just beautiful naked women.

OK Vince, you can come back now ...

Meanwhile I dropped a 1.5l bottle of red wine on my big toe ... fortunately it did not break ... the bottle I mean .... my toe well ... let me put it this way: I am not as mobile as I was yesterday.