THE WORLD CUP! .... THE VUVUZELA IS HERE!!!!!!!!!!

SORRY THAT I'M SHOUTING ... IT'S JUST THAT YOU WON'T HEAR ME OTHERWISE!!!!!!!!
Seriously ... Yesterday everyone who owned a vuvuzela in Joburg blew it from 12pm to 1pm ... and sporadically throughout the afternoon and evening.

My friend Jan says in his office it sounded like a beehive on the move and outside like the coming of the second revolution...

Jan must have very good soundproofing in his office because inside my office it sounded like a thousand beehives on the move .... or at least the Israelites leaving Egypt and blowing down the walls of Jericho.

I am more in agreement with his second statement and given that Jan is not prone to hyperbole, you better believe me when I say that it was an unparalleled racket...

Forget the flags ... this is going to be the World Cup of the VUVUZELA!!!!!!!!

(Just a brief note on the flags ... there were 316 of them on the last official count. The schools closed and Charles and I are no longer driving Kieran to school in Parkview so any flag count from here on would be unscientific because the parameters of our study changed.

We did briefly consider beginning a new study on our new route but when he nearly drove into some-one while counting flags yesterday ... I forbade him to count any more flags today and desisted from doing so myself. In any case we were dog tired from work because everybody else wanted to be 'off' next week ... and we wanted to be off tomorrow ... so we packed two episodes in one week .... and could not even be bothered with our own private obsessions.


Meanwhile my spy, Lizette Pretorius from Pretoria reports that she counted 173 on her designated scientific route yesterday and remarked in her confidential report: "Even Pretoria is getting it!"

The 'it' being GEES ... as encapsulated by the VUVUZELA!!!! I can even hear a solitary one now... sounding forlorn like the mating call of a moose... Never heard that sound myself but I have an imagination. Lastly flagged my hat ... SA/France...)
Okay, I admit, that was not a brief note ...

My new best friend Maphala Makgoba did indeed join my blog and now the darkies outnumber the Germans on my follower list ... so there Gabrielli.

Talking about Germans ... they seem to be the predominant group of World Cup tourists in Melville at the moment ... followed by Americans ... British ... Spanish or Portuguese (from wherever they hail, ) ... French and Italians.

This was not a scientific study but Charles Moore and I decided it should be the next survey so I began listening to the tongues around me.

But I did meet Rufus and Dan from London and Arne from Germany.
As for talking to Germans ...

I went and sat down ... tiredly ... at a German table in a restaurant in Melville to smoke a cigarette, as we do here when you are a smoker in a non-smoking section of a restaurant, and talked to them ... as I do.

Arne had two darkie chicks with him. There is something deeply unsurprising about that.

The one was Naledi (it means 'star' in seSotho) ... she did mention her last name but it was too noisy for me to hear it and the other was Patience. I did my survey on the usage of the word 'darkie' with them and they shrugged it off. No offence ... but Naledi reckoned it was "a level of education thing" or something like that.

I disagreed because I conducted a more broad-ranging survey among darkies since my last altercation with Gabrielli.

The rules of engagement are simple: I call them darkies and they call me King Charles ... sorry I could not resist that. They call me whatever ... mlungu, Boertjie, whitey... for the duration of the World Cup it would seem that we South Africans are going to be a nation united.

I am off today so I am free to mingle with the crowds ... I'll keep you posted.

WELCOME MAPHALA ... sorry ... a VUVUZELA!!!!! again.

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.