My granny Annie had an older brother Ginger. He was the oldest of the seven Royal Bains and a great sportsman. They owned the Royal Hotel and were not to be confused with the Central Bains, who owned the Central Hotel!
This old report was reprinted in the 1997 Hilton vs Michaelhouse sports day brochure:
Drop goals were four points and tries were three in those distant days. I like that the one side was “smarter with their feet” . . and that that beat “pretty passing”.
~~~oo0oo~~~
I’m a nurture over nature fella, but a century later Ginger’s great grand-nephew repeated the slaughter of the Michaelhouse girls . .
Recording and reminiscing; with occasional bokdrols of wisdom, one hopes.
Random, un-chronological events and memories after meeting Trish, marriage, children and sundry other catastrophes.
NO PERMISSION GIVEN to Artificial ‘Intelligence’ wannabes or LLMs to steal content. Don’t steal other people’s stuff, didn’t your mother teach you that!?Shame on you!
bokdrols – like pearls, but more organic. Handle with care
~~oo0oo~~
Note: I go back to my posts to add / amend as I remember things and as people mention things, so the posts evolve. I know (and respect) that some bloggers don’t change once they’ve posted, or add a clear note when they do. That’s good, but as this is a personal blog with the aim of one day editing them all into a hazy memoir, this way works for me.
This is American football. At Super Bowl time. And Keith Knight of The K Chronicles gets it. It could just as well be soccer, rugby, olympics or any of the scams that ‘professional sports’ are these days . . and have been for a long time.
My additional South African punchline would be “The fact that these sports get funding from our Lotto as “charities”: PRICELESS!!
Steve Reed wrote drily: Now hang on Koos. (Sure its a $10 000 ticket, but) I heard today that under your seat you will find a goodie bag. This contains earmuffs, hand warmer, a radio, Chapstick, mittens, tissues and a bandana! Definitely worth it.
~~oo0oo~~
Our friend Louis used to say ‘Dis My Gat Se Deksel’ which means ‘This Is My Arsehole’s Lid’ meaning ‘This Takes the Cake’ or – ‘This Beats Me’ or – ‘How the Hell Do You Explain That?’ or – ‘What a Scam!’
“To a person uninstructed in natural history, his countryside or seaside stroll is a walk through a gallery filled with wonderful works of art, nine-tenths of which have their faces turned to the wall” – THOMAS HUXLEY – English biologist
“Bird-watchers are tense, competitive, selfish, shifty, dishonest, distrusting and – above all else – envious. I know many who are generous, witty and delightful company – but they’re no fun!” – BILL ODDIE;
“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment…and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn” – HENRY DAVID THOREAU, author, poet & philosopher – I once had a pigeon shit on my shoulder while collecting money for charity – shaking a tin – outside the Jeppe Street Post Office In Johannesburg ca.1975; Does that count?
“God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages.” – JACQUES DEVAL , French playwright
“If you bird, you will see stuff” – THE ORACLE, birder
“A weird screechy howl, which rises in a nerve-shattering crescendo, to peter out like a cry of a lost soul falling into a bottomless pit” – AUSTIN ROBERTS, original author, Roberts’ Birds of Southern Africa – talking about the Manx Shearwater? – Or me when dipping out yet again on an African Broadbill?
“I don’t GO birding. I AM birding!”– FAANSIE PEACOCK, birder – Yes, always! I agree with Faansie, an amazing birder with the best possible name for one– even better than mine.
“Use what talents you possess: The woods would be very silent if no birds sang there except those that sang best.” – HENRY VAN DYKE, American author – Who thereby gave me permission to sing in the shower and while driving . .
It was a sad fact. The Umgeni was going to be dammed. Again. The fourth big dam on its course from the Dargle to the sea. Many people love dams. I hate them. They ruin the valleys and change nature for ever. Dams wipe out species – many before we even discover them; they flood huge areas of wetlands, riverine forest and grasslands; they displace people and affect everything living downstream. Large dams hold back not just water, but silt and nutrients that replenish farmlands and build protective wetlands and beaches. If you love rivers, dams are the enemy – the disease that kills. Dams don’t just change the river valleys in our waterways, they obliterate them. Yet people love them.
So the Umgeni was going to be dammed and damned; and I wanted a last paddle on that part of the river which was destined to be for ever gone.
So I rounded up some boats and some non-paddling friends in August 1988. Come and paddle a part of the famous Duzi Canoe Marathon course, I said. And the suckers fell for it! Geoff Kay, Mike and Yvonne Lello, Pete Stoute, sister Sheila; and wife Trish joined me in the valley. Some brought some kids, and some valley kids joined us.
We launched the boats with fanfare, breaking a bottle of champagne on each one’s hull (OK, not really) – AND:
They didn’t float! The river was so shallow they hit the bottom, even thought their draft was like two inches!
– oops! –
Oh well, it turned out to be not a paddle but a trudge. And – literally – a drag. But fun nonetheless!
I stared at the banks and the valley walls as I trudged. Soon yahoos would be racing outboard motors here. Soon this life and interesting variety all around us would be drowned forever.
Everyone has heard of Kamikaze, Karate and FuckuOkies, and they know you shouldn’t mess with these Japaneeziz ous;
So when Sonny Bill bumped into one of the Japanese jockeys that verpletter’d the Oirish, he was thankful he was wearing dark-coloured trousers.
The thing is these little okes – like this real live one with Sonny Bill – grin and bow but what they’re actually thinking is Aiee Ya!
– Sonny Bill with the menacing Japan futility back –
This one told Sonny Bill about the time he hoofed the ball upstream, FAF-style and Hubby fell on it and his underdog team beat the fearsome Enjin-Knees team. Sonny Bill listened and learned.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Taifuu – Japanese for Typhoon
Fukuoka – city in Japan
verpletter’d – pulverised
Aiee ya! – Japanese for pasop
pasop – watchit
Enjin-Knees – Mechanical, Civil, Chemical and Electrical
For those keen to learn yet more about the exciting, honest-joe world of racing brown horses from one end of a field to the other end of the same field, all the while whipping they asses, David Gee Gee Simpson resurrected the exciting horse-racing saga:
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Hi All – It was Winx by three lengths in the George Ryder Stakes at Rosehill, her home track, for the final time this morning early – or late afternoon for Hogan and Spatch in Australia. Just a flick of the reins at the 300 meter mark by Hogan’s Mudgee mate Hugh and it was game over.
Win number 32 on the trot. The awesome tale continues.
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Me: 32 wins! Liewe bliksem! That’s ridiculous – or rickadulious as Louis Slabbert would say.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Scratchmo hoped: Swannie, I think I have a convert. Yes you are correct, it is astonishing. Winx has the most wins in the history of racing World-wide. The most consecutive wins in World history.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Me: Aah, I thought I had a convert! I thought you’d see my point, that if you herded a whole bunch of horses to the top end of a field and chased them down to the bottom end of the field you may just as well have taken them straight down to the bottom end and saved time.
But
if you insist I’m converted, where can I buy myself a Winx or two?
Also, who’ll feed the thing?
And what will I do about the SOB’s who’ll want to trip my brown Winx horse if it was leading the field? And what can I sell a foal for once I breed one?
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Dave Ample Thighs Simpson wrote: Forget about someone trying to trip your horse, you must first find an honest midget!
Feeding
is easy. A sack of old mielie cops a day from Tabs’ farm should do
the trick.
I don’t know what the foal will go for, but maybe Godolphin will pay US$$$5 million. Godolphin is the stable of Sheik Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, so I think he has the loot. If not him, maybe our great South African Sheik, Sheik Markus will buy it.
One
always has to remember the risks of racing, if Winx breaks a leg,
she’s dead.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Me: Now you’ve made me nervous. I am not going to buy two Winx’s anymore. Not even if Tabbo gives me free mielies.
Speaking
of Sheik Markus. I sincerely hope he goes to chookie for a while. I
think that would be nice.
Also: Why do they ship horses all over for live-action pomping instead of using AI – Artificial Insemination? Put it in an envelope, mail it, insert it by hand? Those who like a little romance could kiss the envelope when they seal it.
. . . .
And you still haven’t admitted to the fact that the brown horse usually wins . .
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Scratchmo, Equestrian Gajima Wizard Simpson, replied: AI is banned for registered race horses. Bloodlines are very important in the horse racing industry, so must be tracked to perfection, which I should imagine DNA can now do anyway, but I guess it also prevents any particular stallion’s bloodline from becoming too dominant globally, as he must actually pomp to make new race horses. For top stallions you must pay big loot for a pomp.
Also,
each race horse has a passport and an inserted ID microchip, which is
checked before each and every race.
And then the killer blow: Sorry Swannie, but there are three main colours of race horses, Grays, Bays and Chestnuts. So the bad news is that brown horses never win.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Me: Damn! I’ve been wasting my money all these years! Must be thirty, forty Rand I’ve wasted! Blown!
Amazing
the Pomping Passport story! If humans had those there might be a bit
more decorum! And a microchip in each guy’s willy.
I spose the Stallions Union agitated for no AI! They’d want to keep flying round the world, meeting mare chicks. Give them a jab and then fly off to pastures new, no parental care asked for, nor offered. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.
I imagine it’s quite a fraught scene when he has to do the deed. Injuries could happen!? So I’m guessing they don’t leave them alone in a nice quiet corner to first fall in love and whisper sweet nothings? Develop true feelings? Probly a highly supervised pomp, like a porno movie, complete with cameras and KY jelly?
– yep – thought so – no privacy – – hardly the kind of romantic ambience every mare dreams of –
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Comedian Mark Simmons asked – and I think he has a point: ‘To be or not to be a horse fancier, that is equestrian.’ I used to be – back when there were brown horses.
We were talking horseracing. About galloping knowledge and great expertise about the sport of kings, when along came someone who actually knows what he’s talking about (damn!). He also seems to have developed a disease since we last saw him: Horse Sickness: Probably ‘cos its lonely in the saddle in Port Elizabeth . . .
Dave ‘Scratchmo’ Simpson said: As you guys mention horse racing, meet my beloved Stormy Eclipse:
As
you can see, Stormy is the most beautiful horse with a wonderful
character and a great record – run 39 times with 9 wins.
Stormy’s sister is running at Turffontein on Saturday. So if you have (me: absolutely . . ) nothing to do, watch the 7th race on Channel 239. Her name is Storm Destiny. She has a chance. (And Hood was right! Could it be he knows what he’s talking about!?).
Stephen
for you, I also have a filly – her name is Ample Glory and will
begin racing this year. I am secretly confident that Ample will be
the next Winx. Do you know when Winx will next race? – Her first
race of the season was usually the Apollo Stakes at Randwick in mid
Feb.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Stephen ‘Spatchmo’ Reed replied: Howzit Dawid. Good to hear from you. My racing knowledge is scrappy but I see Winx is due to run on 13 April as you probably know in the Queen Elizabeth stakes. She is certainly big news here in Aussie. Racing seems like a big thing everywhere. I see radio and news channels run 24/7 with racing reports including the SA Turffontein and Greyville races. [free to air, not pay channels]
As for ample glory, I googled it and all I could find is:
i’m writing a story about the glory of my AMPLE thighs.
But
I will keep an eye out
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Simpson: Hi Spatch, Well, it is really good to hear from you. My belated response comes from your mail going to junk. I still see Hubby around and he still calls you Spatchmo and me Scratchmo.
Hope all is going well in the mighty Oz. I guess my daughter Victoria will end up there, poor child, as she married an Aussie. Just joking – he is a hell of a nice guy – unlike those cheating cricketers and horse trainers. They have learned well from our insatiable politicians.
It is a little early to find the magnificent Ample Glory on the www as she will only make her first appearance in I guess about 3 to 5 months – but so far all is looking good. See attached pic of Ample with Frankie Dettori in the saddle:
– that is a filly, is it? –
If you don’t know Frankie – google him as he is a terrific character – getting most of the World’s best rides and has done some amazing things including winning the Arc de Triomf five times. When he wins, which is most of the time, he leaps out of the saddle in the winners circle, much to the delight of the crowds. Watch it on Youtube. I’ll convert you guys yet.
I
got up early last Saturday to watch Winx win the Apollo Stakes at
Randwick. She seems to not have lost any of her late speed from last
year. Her next will probably be the Chipping Norton Stakes also at
Randwick, this or next weekend, then George Ryder Stakes at Rosehill
and the then the QE Stakes before retirement to make baby Winx’s.
If you are living in Sydney, you and Wonderlikke Woman must go and
watch her, you will not regret it. If you need a ticket, Winx’
jockey is a guy by the name of Hugh Bowman and he comes from the
mighty metropolis of Mudgee. There is an optometrist there called
Hogan who looks after the Bowman family eyes. So maybe he could swing
you a ticket or two.
Keep in touch, Dawid Scratchmo Hood
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Me: Hoodlum – I stared very hard at that picture after your glowing description, but all I could see was a brown horse and a tanned Italian. Am I missing summing?
I
have added the mighty Hogan of Mudgee onto this thread for cheep
tickets . .
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Simpson: Yes Swannie, you noticed. Just testing your attention to detail. The dude on the back of my horse wishes he was Frankie.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Glen ‘Hogan’ Barker wrote: Thanks for adding me to this thread, Pete.
Yes, Hood is quite correct as last Thursday 14th I had Hugh Bowman’s parents come in to get their eyes checked. Quite a coincidence as their daughter, Hugh’s sister, lives a couple of hundred yards down the street from us, and they stayed the night. Their farm (or property as they call it here) is an hour west and further away from the ‘Big Smoke,’ i.e. Sydney, before all three of them went down there on Friday to watch the Apollo Stakes on Saturday for Winx’s 30th consecutive win.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
Me: 30th consecutive win! That’s insane. Must be a record, surely?
Tell me Hood, it’s a brown horse, right? They seem to be faster, generally . . .
(thought I’d throw in a bit of insider knowledge and expertise there . . )
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
But Hood came up with two other words for ‘brown’, can you believe it, just to pour cold water on my theory: ‘Sorry Swannie, but there are three main colours of race horses: Grays, Bays and Chestnuts, so the bad news is that brown horses never win.’
Now, I knew horse racing was rigged, but I never guessed it was this bad . .
PS: I think Ample Thighs would be a good name for a race horse.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Here’s the actual pic of Scratchmo’s promising filly Ample Thighs with Frankie Dettori (or is this Frankie Dube?) in the saddle:
~~~oo0oo~~~
Scratchmo wrote: ‘unlike those cheating cricketers and horse trainers.’ And of course, Catholics:
– at least the one disgusting oke – the one in a dress – is in gaol –
‘Just two schoolboys and me,’ I told the lady at the entrance to Albert Falls dam recreation area.
OK, two adults and one pensioner, she said, totting up the fee. And sizing us up at a glance, bitch. Oh well, she was spot-on – they are in matric after all.
They were after bass and I was after birds. They got one and I got many.
The boys are lined up outside the tote on the roof of our shopping centre. There’s horseracing at Kenilworth and they have a sure thing running and they can’t miss this opportunity to make an investment and win big and be able to treat the family. Maybe to a treat like getting home early?
Every day there’s races. If not at Kenilworth then at Greyville, Scottsville, Turffontein, The Vaal and elsewhere. Also overseas. In fact there’s hardly an hour when some horse isn’t pointlessly beating another horse somewhere in the world, so there’s always a good reason to be on top of the roof in Montclair rather than at home with all the kak you get that side. At home you say something and they tell you ‘Don’t talk kak.’ Here you say something and the boys say ‘Really!? You Swear!? Don’t choon me man, that’s kif!’ then they have their turn to tell a lie.
There’s a bar in the tote but hey man, bar prices are a squeeze man, also they charge you just for a single and what good is a single when time is short, I ask you? So there’s constant movement in and out of the tote to the cars parked just outside with their boots open. Small drinks are bought now and then and fortified with dop from the bottle in the boot. Polystyrene cups if you’re avoiding the bar altogether.
Then disaster strikes! The tote closes down! What to do now? Still they meet and still they drink and still they talk. But its not the same and it starts dwindling. Fewer and fewer cars arrive until its only the real stalwarts, the die-hards. The ous who will listen to your stories as long as you listen to theirs.
Maybe also the ous who never really were betting on the horses anyway?
We’re hosting a young man from Pretoria Boys High in the 2015 rugby season. One of the u/14 rugby squad on tour to KZN to get their asses whipped by Westville Boys High.
I feed them steaks (they ‘have to eat steak Dad, they’re rugby players’) and send them to bed early – the game is usually early when you’re in the D team.
Tom sidles over to me: Dad, thank goodness he’s asleep, he talks non-stop, and HIS ACCENT! Hmm mm!
This about his PBHS guest Owethu (who told me earlier in a quiet chat when Tom and Jose were in the cottage that he only speaks English. He understands Ndebele when his parents speak it, but he doesn’t speak it himself). We’re hosting him on their rugby tour to KwaZuluNatal. They’ve been allowed to enter from behind the boerewors curtain. Special visas.
My son the accent snob. I guess what probably happened was Owethu interrupted him. Once.
~~~oo0oo~~~
PBHS is Pretoria Boys High and we’ve been having a lot of trouble with their past pupils as far as decorum goes. One is blasting polluting rockets into the atmosphere and one is blasting Audis into buildings.
Small wonder Tom was wary of this one.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Before this, I had written: The feisty flank of the u/14D’s (DEE, not EEE* now, take note) scored two tries against Kearsney as a warm-up to the impending doom facing the wimps of PBHS. I was working, but it was as if I was there as he modestly told me about bouncing people left and right as he zipped down the touchline like a wing (his preferred position) for the one near the corner, and forcing his way over near the uprights for his second. My suggestion that this was in part due to my influence and advice got a snort of derision.
The PBHS victims bus down to KZN in trepidation this coming weekend.
*and hopefully one day to be my BEE
Steve wrote: Sheesh – good lad. Especially against Kearsney. PBHS should be shitting themselves. Great stuff. Well done Tom.
Dad, says seven-yr-old Tom, I’m tired of the 5km and 10km races with Mom. I wanna go on a longer race with you, please.
So we enter the 18km race starting at the Eston country club and meandering thru Tala game reserve. Days before, it starts raining; and it rains; and there’s mud – A LOT of mud. And mud puddles and pools of water and muddy lakes to cross at every dip in the road.
I pushed, I shoved, I carried, I dragged. I went ahead, dropped my bike, went back and scraped mud off their bikes, then pushed them; When I couldn’t free the brakes from the balls of sticky mud, I carried them.
We watched people bail left and right. Tractors and trailers were available en-route to offer rescue, and the trailers got piled high with bikes abandoning the slog. But we pushed on, stopping every few metres to scrape sticky mud out of the brake calipers.
And they made it! Not many did. On the way home they recuperated like this:
– komfy kombi kipping –
Not one pic of the mudslog! Aitch had the camera; Anyway, my hands would have been way too muddy!
~~~oo0oo~~~
Looking at the pictures I thought, ‘Am I imagining how tough that day was?’ So I went looking and found an actual report on the race – still no pics! It was too wet and muddy to carry cameras, I guess.
August 2009 – Eston Illovo mud bath
Rode the Eston Illovo MTB Challenge last Sunday. A race from hell. 30mm of rain the night before and wet, misty conditions on the day. Temp about 12degC. The mud was so thick it took us 45minutes to ride / push / scrape the first 3 kms. So you imagine.
Seemed to improve a bit after that, but that was just a wish. Slippery and muddy all the way. I fell going into a drop down to some single track. Bit dazed, but OK. Actually, I seemed to have put my bad shoulder back into place. Made our way to the first water table. Many people opting to get a lift home from there. I decided to push on and it took 2 hrs to complete the last 15 kms. I must have pushed about 15 kms overall in the race.
Bikes breaking all around. derailleurs, chains most common. Guys where pushing home with 20 kms to go with no chain. Took me 2 days to clean my bike. Had to renew my disc pads @ R400. Like servicing a car.
Completed in 5hr40 minutes. Only 1000 completed of the 3000 starters. – The Dodge
The same guy did a 20km ride at nearby Hammarsdale, and finished in 1hr 31mins!
So no, I wasn’t imagining it was a tough day out there!
When we grew up outside Harrismith ca 1959 we couldn’t use the lounge. The lounge was filled edge-to-edge by an upside-down speedboat. The old man built his first speedboat in this lounge, now showing some wear-and-tear many decades later:
Younger sis Sheila, in the picture with Mom & Dad, says he also added the stone cladding to that fireplace.
Later we moved to town; to 95 Stuart Street on the eastern edge of the town ca.1961; In 1972 Mom and Dad moved from the house we grew up into a new owner-built house in Piet Uys Street near the middle of town.
After us three kids had all left home and Mom & Dad had retired, he developed another urge to build a boat. Luckily this time in a boatyard with the help of boat builders.
– note the numberplate. He’d go and wheedle a good number out of the ous at the licencing office –
One cold winter’s day ca.1990 we took it, shiny new, for a spin on Sterkfontein Dam outside Harrismith: Me, Dad, two Eskimos and Sheila, the semi-eskimo.
Dad, Mom, Trish & me – pic by Sheila
We zoomed over the spot where Mom estimated her old farmhouse was – on Nuwejaarsvlei, where she grew up. She worked out where the farmhouse had been by lining up ‘Horsehoe Hill’ and ‘Sugar Loaf Mountain,’ as they called the hilis on their farm.
Update 2025: Today on a phone call we spoke of this again and Mom said how she loved those walks to the hills on the farm with her Dad Frank. He had taught her those names for them. ‘How long ago was that?’ she wondered. ‘He died when I was 15.’ Well that was 81 years ago Mom. And your walks were before that, as he died after you’d moved to town.
No! she said. So long?
~~oo0oo~~
That vehicle licencing office: The ole goat had OHS 153, 154 and 155; and for my first car he got OHS 5678. I want an easy number for my son, he said. Are ve Oom not sure you don’t want raver a difficult number for your son? asked the wise fella helping him.
