They’re generous, kind. ‘Hospitable’ doesn’t describe the half of it. What? Tolerant? Long-suffering? OK OK.
Share our home, share our food, you can even share my car. Hang on, the Ford Flammable? Is that not a hostile act?
Anyway, I drove it, donning my asbestos underpants and gloves, and it was a revelation. I didn’t know they made Fords without shakin’, rattlin’ n rollin’;
Or Fords with little TV screens on the dash that say in plain English, “oil change overdue!“ as can be seen in the actual shot of Brauer’s dashboard above. And bespoke unraveling upholstery. No boot space though – full of golf kit and old planks that ‘might come in handy one day.’
Look, it was missing a pedal and an ignition key, but thanks to my mechanical skill, I managed to get it moving. I restarted it numerous times when it stalled till I realised I just couldn’t hear the engine. It has a tiny engine smaller than a pint of milk, whereas mine has three full diesel-filled litres. And I’m used to my diesel operating and grumbling in no uncertain terms. You don’t think, ‘I wonder if this engine is running,’ in my car.
Oh, I needed a loan car cos mine was being studied by automotive engineers and marketers marveling at its 17yr-old wonders. They’re considering relaunching it as a special edition.
The Kruger National Park is easy, convenient, good roads; most camps have camping as well as chalets; also shops, so Jess is happy; she can bail out of camping and book a chalet when the weather gets rough – in this case, HOT! And she did, she certainly did. We camped less than a week, we chalet’d more.
Following a well-worn trail we trekked up to Harrismith and enjoyed a lovely night at Pierre and Erika’s home. Again. Then on to the splendid hospitality of the Brauers in Tshwane, home of the ancestral Tshwanepoels. Again. One doesn’t need to eat vegetables for months after a Terry dinner, as I have to eat Brauer’s veggies as well. He’s pure carnivore.
Then a four-year reunion of six colleagues who met as first year optometry students exactly – gulp! – fifty years ago.
– 1974’s eighteen year-olds –
On to Phalaborwa and into the park. But not before I’d gunned the old bus up Magoebaskloof pass, passing a much younger Toyota and Ranger and causing a high-pitched squeal from under the bonnet. It sounded like a fanbelt and it stopped when I switched off the aircon. This made me happier and Jess sadder, so we spent the next morning watching handsome young rooikop Pieter fixing the belt tensioning bolt, WTMB. Jess confessed later she’d been watching his pert blue-overalled bum as he leaned into the engine bay.
With our coolness restored and the 2008 Ford Ranger looking like a million dollars R600 later, we headed for Letaba camp, on the way spotting a ratel (honey badger) carrying its prey – a likkewaan (monitor lizard) about a third of its bulk. A special sighting! After staring at it in wonder through my Zeiss binocs, I remembered the camera just as it trotted off.
On the banks of the Letaba river, lots of hippos in and out of the water. About twenty floating while a dozen, including a small calf, grazed in full sun on a hot day!
Herds of eles. We drove into one herd as we rounded a corner. Got flapped at by go-away ears on our close left and right. I obliged. Jess needs lots of space between her and eles, and I’m happy to oblige. I don’t need to interfere with their lives, I just want to watch them.
In Letaba I had a problem with the stupidest primate in the whole Kruger National Park. Homo sapiens. Me. I left my car door open for “just a minute” as I went to our nearby safari tent and a vervet got my nuts. My luxury tree nuts from Checkers. That primate is a big problem. Hopefully he can evolve and improve his focus and short-term memory.
More Homo sapiens grumbles. I am not a hunter. But if I was I would maybe consider missing (shoo-ing, not shooting) three kinds of animals in the Kruger: – People on their phones talking to Venda or Cape Town at a volume appropriate to the distance. One was telling someone to drink eight glasses of water a day, and take rehidrate morning n evening. *sigh* Kak advice and I must listen to it. – Rugged camper okes using their fancy electric n mechanical camping aids, such as aircon running all night in they karavaan; Ryobi hammer nut-tighteners on their levelling jacks; and remote-controlled motorised jockey wheels! – Joggers plaf plaf plaffing round camp panting and thinking of Comrades or Waai-tality points, checking their odometers and their heartache, you know the type. Otherwise I’m chilled. I wave at them and force a grin. I very seldom shoot them.
Beautiful dawn chorus in the mornings, the new members being Mourning Doves; the oboists in the background were our biggest hornbills. If they formed a band they should call it The Leadbeaters.
Bucorvus leadbeaterii
– ve oom’s crocs –
Later I heard a sound I thought might be the Red-billed Hornbill tutting slower than usual, but it was a croc! Well, an oom’s Croc. He was walking past on his way to ablute, and his left Croc was squeaking.
Martial, Bateleur, Fish, Wahlberg & Brown Snake Eagles; Brown-headed Parrot, Puffback, European Bee-eater, Lilac-breasted Roller, Marabou Stork. Night sounds included nagapie (bush baby / galago) crying, Levaillants Cuckoo, Scops & Pearlspotted Owls; Crowned Lapwing. Hippos grunted and hyenas wailed.
Bush Shrike & Bush Snake
In Shingwedzi camp Jess said, Dad! A snake just fell out of that tree! She pointed at about six mopani trees. I couldn’t spot it, but I know Jess spots things, so I walked towards the trees. A helpful Grey-headed Bush Shrike flew down next to the snake. The Spotted Bush Snake fled up the tree trunk, and the bird buzzed off before I could get a pic of its beautiful colours. That would have made a stunning pic. Oh, well, here’s the skinny lil colourful snake on his own:
We met up with the caravanners who’d helped with our mfezi invasion last year. They have now been camped in the same spot in Shingwedzi campsite for over fifteen months. They reported that the snake had visited them some time later, and been removed from their caravan tent by the same Ranger Shadrack, resident snake catcher.
On to Punda Maria where we camped right next to the lovely pool; Twice a day we cooled down in the heat. Then Jess said, Whoa Dad! It’s too hot! booked a chalet and switched on the aircon. All the units had these noisy old window-rattler aircons! Aargh! Ah Haydim, as Bob Friderichs used to say.
Technocamping! Fanie arrived and porked his cor. Martie hopped out and watched, tjoepstil, as Fanie hak’d af and started manoefring ve treiler wif a remote control ding. After a while I thought I’ll just record this, and filmed a bit of ou Faan’s faan. Or fun. It was all worth it op die ou einde, the West Wing and the Norf Wing were ontplooi’d, and the double verdieping rose up. Once ve satelliet dish was up he could settle down and watch rugby. Just as if he’d stayed home by the house. Pic to come
That was ten days in the park and we left Pafuri gate after visiting the very special Pafuri picnic spot on the Luvhuvhu river and Crooks Corner where Moz, Zim and SA meet.
Handyman Running Repairs
I’d been flagged down twice driving around by kind drivers stopping me to inform me ‘your number plate is ‘falling off.’ It’s not, it’s just creatively attached, vertically instead of horizontally. But now two camouflaged soldiers with R1 automatic rifles stepped out of the shade of a baobab and told me the same alarming tale. I told them my same response, ‘Thanks, but I can’t fix it now as ibhubesi might eat me.’ Usually that got a sage nod of agreement, but these gents said, ‘Nah, no problem! You can get out here and fix it!’ brandishing their weapons. That put me on the spot. I hopped out thinking, I spose at this stage a rugged oke would haul out his full toolkit, start his generator, power up his drill and choose the right bolt n nut from his annotated collection. I opened the back of our camper and aha! found what I needed to effect a permanent repair: Jessie’s pink sneakers. Sorted.
Next stop Nthakeni Bush Camp where owners Kobus and Annelise have set up lovely duo Gloria and Thelma to run their own Thusani Shack Restaurant independently.
We enjoyed two full English breakfasts – with a large helping of potato slap chips – and two huge suppers of their homegrown chicken, pap, veg & salad; then beef stew, rice, veg & salad. The third night we just sat outside our chalet and burped.
– Muriel and Jessie –
Now, after about six nights camping and seven in chalets, we headed west – on to Kaoxa Bush Camp and Mapungubwe National Park, where Bots, Zim and SA meet, and David Hill’s mate has a wonderful bush camp.
Turns out it wasn’t about us at all. Not nearly as interesting. But besides that, a lovely book and a fine achievement, Terry! Proud of ya!
Men in dresses, men in hats. Being Terry, though, the sterling – often leading – efforts of women were mentioned too, in this story of her church and its centenary. It was her parents’ church and hers for all of her life – that’s well over . . . um, many years and some decades. Not the full hundred though.
I got a nice message from the author in my copy:
I got the author to autograph it!
Glad she acknowledges my underrated acting abilities!
Ancestral home of us Tshwanepoels. We have land rights. We’re biding our time before launching a land claim. As soon as Trump and the Guptas are in gaol, we’ll launch our bid. Meantime, I’m just visiting Chez Brauer in the Gramadoelas for Easter to keep death off the roads without driving on the pavements.
– early Tshwane – from the family album –
With Terry away that evening I thought I’d better buy food; you know how bachelors are, the fridge would be empty. So I took my Checkers deli ready-cooked booty and went to put it in the fridge. Dorothy had let me in – Brauer was still slaving over a hot autorefractor. Well, when I opened the heavy fridge door, two pounds of butter and three jars of anchovette fell on my toes. The fridge was filled to Terry-pacity. There was two kinds of every delicacy from 140 of the 200 countries of the world in that capacious fridge. I shoved my packet in and quickly slammed the door; only two pawpaws escaped.
Their beautiful kitchen was stocked with alles in wonderland – stuff for Pesach; stuff for Easter; stuff for Passover, Diwali and Lent; bunnies, brightly coloured eggs, marshmallow eggs, designer cubic eggs with dark chocolate (those were yum), and etc. Most of it was, of course, thanks to us pagans, who contribute all the fun stuff to holidays and celebrations. Think about it: The grog! the naked dancing! bonfires! You know that, right? We have Bacchus on our team, I think, don’t we? Probly Venus as well. The Abrahamic religions only contributed guilt and hellfire.
Krag
Diwali wasn’t so good; the lights were dim; thanks to Eskom – they switched off. So Brauer kick-started his borrowed generator and hey presto! Except for a bit of bronchitis. The generator would roar, then sigh, then get a death rattle and vrek. Some investigating was needed. We switched off everything we thought would draw a lotta power, but still the sukkel‘ing. Then Terry Sherlock had a thought: She switched off Brauer’s bar fridge. Aha! THAT was the problem, of course. That amount of hooch draws kilowatts. Now we had Peace on Erf.
One tense moment
Terry stopped Sid when he arrived at the top of the stairs. ‘Wait There, I’ll Help You Down,’ she pressed pause. Sid waited obediently while she sorted out a few things in cornucopia. Sid had driven himself in his BMW, he’s fully licenced and experienced in driving since 1948. Having escorted him down the steps, Terry said, ‘Sit. I’ll Make You Tea.’ She reached for the exact spot in the kitchen where, among 467 other items, she knew Sid’s cake was waiting. Silence. Uh, Oh! Confession time! There wasn’t a rat in the house. Well, not a small furry one anyhow. I had scoffed it the day before! I say let them eat . . . whatever Sid got instead.
~~oo0oo~~
gramadoelas – dodgy area with a truck stop and generator right outside the guest bedroom window; residents have corrupted the name to Maroelana to hide the dodgy
pavements – sidewalks
alles – Alice
vrek – go kaput
kaput – go vrek;
vrek – dead
sukkel – battle; suffer; struggle; like bronchitis
So the streets of Parys, Vrystaat, much like the streets of that other Parys, France, were very interesting if you like shopping and eating on the pavement. I did have a good brekker at the Lekker Bistro, indoors cos it was raining. But then I skipped the shopping to drive the roads to the west. Near Viljoenskroon I saw Simbra bulls for sale and asked Des if I should get him one but no reply yet. He used to live in Viljoenskroon, so I thought the bull would feel at home with him. Update: Mercia says he can’t buy any more bulls. Something about foot-in-mouth. I spose he’s been talking kak again.
Choosing a road less traveled, I headed for Schoemansdrif across the Vaal, but chickened out at this minor stroompie drif which could have been deeper than it looked. As I waited and contemplated how deep was my bakkie, a Landcruiser came past, stopped, then decided to proceed. It sank down to above its big wheels, so I christened this spruit drift Omdraaidrif, made a u-turn and crossed the Vaal instead at Scandinaviadrif which has a high bridge, and gave me a great view of the full river.
Pilanesberg price! Ouch!
Bakubung Lodge was R2400! One person! One night! But it was late, I’d run out of options, so I gritted my teeth. For once I checked that I was getting the Old Goat price and the friendly lady assured me she had not mistaken me for anything younger than ancient. ‘Remember this is for dinner, bed AND breakfast,’ she kindly tried to ease my landing, feeling my pain.
– vetkoek, vino, bathtub –
But I’d bought grub in Potchefstroom and the thought of a dining room didn’t appeal – other people, you know? So I ate Cordon Bleu in my comfy room – actually in the bath, up to my chin in hot water. Vetkoek n Mince ala Potch washed down with a vintage merlot. For you label-readers, it was 13,5%, R54 and some change, February. Only 750ml, so not the finest, but complemented the vetkoek well. A delicate nose, bosveld notes.
Pilanesberg grassy plainsPilanesberg hills
On to Dinokeng. I dialled a number I found. It was Wim. I was welcome to stay at his place, man; Did I have a tent and a mattress? No? OK, then phone Fanie. He might have a roof and a bed. I did. He did. How does R600 sound? Fanie asked me. I said Fine, baie dankie Fanie, still suffering from the R2400 the night before.
Thekwane Camp
Supper was an avo and a crispy bun from Potch Spar. There was a kettle, and friendly camp manager Bothwell brought me some Ricoffy sachets. On the drive out I saw a bird I couldn’t place. I decided melanistic shaft-tailed whydah. Maybe a world-first. Me and my camera were too slow again.
In Pretoria I finally made my long-awaited visit to AHA camper makers and ordered my piggyback slide-on camper for the old Ford Ranger, paid my deposit and was told: Come back on the 11th May.
Now Easter weekend loomed and I remembered another time I had almost got caught out by Easter. I headed for comfort and luxury. Top-notch accommodation and world-class fare at rock-bottom prices. At 60 Pinball Ave, Gramadoelas, Tshwane. Home of that fine chef and splendid hostess Terry Brauer. Also her husband.
I gave a talk in the Kruger Park once called The Art of the Game Drive. It was magnificent, complete with exciting sightings and livestreaming. Pity was, I had an unappreciative audience. Well, they were from behind the boerewors curtain, so . . you know how they are.
It almost sounded like they had a pet monkey with them, as they kept muttering Ari Aap as I drove them serenely in quiet splendour and exquisite comfort in my VW Kombi 2,1 in subtle camouflage blue and white. But you won’t believe this, when I stopped to examine old poo there was audible sighing. Philistines. The talks are still wildly popular, but I notice none of that particular batch were ever repeat guests. And I mainly have repeat guests. *
*Like Jessie. She has been a repeat guest dozens – scores – of times. She can appreciate the Art of the Game Drive. ‘Specially if she has her phone, her music and noise-cancelling earphones with her.
Have you checked my white horse? Well, white VW kombi – WHICH . . was towed into the garage while on holiday two days before new year. Today I towed it again – to a clutch place.
Meantime, I’ve been driving Trish’s ole man’s 1980 Opel Kadett. He handed me the keys, his vision is shot. Glaucoma, and poor ole Neil’s deciding not to use the drops for years as they irritated his eyes and blurred his vision. He was right, xalatan eyedrops are a bitch. But . .
I await the verdict on the kombi’s clutch – which I hope is better than VW’s R17 290.
I KNEW I shoulda fitted a Stromberg.
Peter Brauer wrote:
How thick can ONE man be?
Read what you wrote: ‘Been driving Trish’s ole man’s 1980 Opel Kadett.’
Do you not see the message in that? Let me help you:1980……Opel . .
Give the kombi to the clutchplate and buy a fucking Opel. Of ALL people I thought you would have learned something as a student.
I wrote:
Problem is – no matter how hard I try – I don’t get the 1980 feeling driving it. I just remember Kevin Stanley-Clarke’s firm statement, as he drove us around Doories in his chocolate brown Alfa, carefully changing gears in its ‘notchy’ gearbox: “When driving, always watch out for old toppies wearing hats. Give them a wide berth.” My current cap protecting my ever-so-slightly balding spot which I’m told is there I can’t see it – says DAS Pilsener.
Also, clicking in the old Opel’s gear lock and fitting the steering lock is a ballache. Feeling the ceiling fabric fluttering on my bald head as I drive with all windows open – the aircon substitute – is .. interesting but distracting. Then waiting for the misfiring to end after switching off – it all brings back TOO MANY memories.
PS: New crutch and “dual flywheel” (TF is that?): R9 900.
Steve Reed wrote:
Like I said: Buy a Toyota.
I wrote:
The WORST thing is, you’re right. As my Toyota patients never tire of telling me. With the Durban Toyota plant just down the road I see a fair number of them and their suppliers for their eyes; and they have NO doubt as to what I should do, them having perfect eyesight now, allowing them to see the answer to my problem clearly. Obviously. Trouble is: The Hi-Ace minibus has a bench seat – I can’t stroll back for a beer or a kip or to feed the kids. That’s a deal-breaker.
Steve wrote:
I never owned a Toyota in my life, despised them in fact, till arriving here in Australia and had to take the cheapest / most reliable / least offensive on the tweedie handsey (second hand) market.
Try standing on hot used car lots in the Brisbane heat !!! Water boarding is a kinder form of torture.
Eventually when my head and body was about to be fully done in, I gave way and said “OK OK I’ll take it” and by some luck I was standing on the Toyota forecourt at the time.
VERY pleased I was not standing next to a Kia or a Holden Captiva.
As for the clutch, anything that can take six months of the good wife Wendy’s clutch abuse and still be on the road is OK for me. And I am brave enough to say this in front of her – then duck.
I wrote:
It’s a sad state of affairs that I will take anything that doesn’t give me kak in the line of cars and women nowadays.
Which reminds me – and takes us to Aeroplanes: Bob Ilsley was at Addington when I got there in my khaki uniform. 1980. He was in legs, I was in eyes. He made woorren legs for the hobbling. He’s turned 81 now, still flies the plane* he made in his garage – a Piper Vagabond – and waltzes around Montclair in rude T-shirts. One says, ‘IF ITS GOT TITS OR WHEELS IT WILL GIVE YOU SHIT.‘ Another says, ‘Please stop your tits from staring at my eyes.’ We’re talking incorrigible.
I’ve made glasses for him since 1980: Glass PGX execs; 3 cyl power, same axis; SAME heavy, dark Safilo zyl frame (same frame, not same type of frame), same add, same same; Tried changing a number of times to new frame, multi, CR39, flattops, different axis, whatever, and every single time we go back to EXACTLY what he had before.
Last year we tricked him. We made a free pair of CR39 flattops (‘temporary’ we told him) in a better frame (still zyl, but thinner) and made him wear them while we took his old specs and “searched for a frame just like his perfect one”. The search continued while his wife, all his girlfriends and even some mates told him he looked much better. Now he has stuck to them (except every now and then he walks in with his old ones on and kicks up a huge stink in the front office when it’s crowded about how “These bloody new frames you gave me are NO GOOD!”). Said with twinkling eyes. He’s a character. Sharp as a whistle. He flies and signs off home-built planes – experimental aircraft – before they can be licensed to fly.
* or would still be flying his Piper Vagabond tail-dragger if he hadn’t pranged it on take-off in PMB with his wife on board. He is re-building it in his garage now. See here why they call these craft ‘rag and tube.’
Bob’s Vagabond in his garage, being fully rebuilt after the PMB prang – he never did fly it again
His long-suffering darling of a wife, Barbara, came out of the prang bruised and arm in a sling. Bob was unscathed. How’d you manage that? he was asked often. ‘Hard right rudder,’ he’d say with a mischievous grin. ‘I thought landing on top of Barbs would be safest.’
~~oo0oo~~
Anyway, back to cars: Owning a Toyota probly makes you more boring in the long run: You, for instance, would not have to catch a lift with friend Bruce to fetch your car in Umbilo Road (and the clutch feels kak, thank you).
We made a detour for lunch – a currie at the famous Gounden’s. Gounden’s is at the back end of a panelbeating shop between Umbilo and Sydney roads. You walk thru the workshop to get to it. Lekker bare place, cheap tables with a big bar doing good trade. Many ous there for liquid lunch. After which they go back to work to fix your clutch. We took quarter bunny mutton, made my hyes water. Washed it down with Black Label and coke – one quart bottle, one long can, long sips from one then the other. R80 for the both of us. Service: Of the Hey You variety. Ambience: Faint sounds of panel beating in the background. Apparently, Gounden opened his restaurant to spite his wife when they divorced. Her restaurant is a few shopfronts away, on the street: Govender’s Curry House. We feel in such cases of matrimonial argy bargy, we should support the husband.
~~oo0oo~~ Clutches: My good wife Aitch also should be employed on a test track for concept offroad trucks along with Wendy. A mate from England visited and Aitch drove them around quite a bit while I worked to make money to take them all to Mkhuze. He drives ancient Peugeot heaps and lovingly tends them with kid gloves, keeping them alive long past their date de vente (sell-by date), so this was an eye opener to him. He said a Cockney version of Yussiss! and described how she takes no shit from a gear lever, nor a clutch. She knows first is somewhere up in that far left corner and she shoves the lever there without any how’s-your-father.
~~oo0oo~~
Back in the air:Bob is now 82. Last week he came in with his “Recycled Teenager” T-shirt. To proudly collect his – wait for it – Glass PGX Exec Bifocals in Thick Square Plastic Frame. “Much better” he says. His CR39 flattops were coated with a thick layer of some spray. Probably make-your-plane-more-aerodynamic juice. Took lots of cleaning with acetone to get them clear and smooth. He did acknowledge they were clearer than they’d been in months. But the execs were better.
Today he’s back from passing his flying medical. “Told you” he says. “You wouldn’t lissen” he says.
Today he’s off to Kokstand to check if a home-built – built by the local hardware man – is safe to fly another year. He’ll certify it if all’s well. If the hardware man has done a good job, Bob won’t punch a hole in it and say, You’ll thank me later.
Next week he’s on his way to Oshkosh in Wisconsin to the world’s biggest home-built aircraft show. Sleeps in a pup tent in the campground to save tom.
Last time he flew a simulator of the Wright Brothers’ first aircraft. Crashed after 3 seconds. Went to the back of the queue and stood in line again to have another go. Flew it for 44 secs that time. Longer than the brothers themselves.
Steve wrote:
Amazin. Where do you get PGX glass execs from? That stuff is illegal here – we live in a nanny state though. Had a dude on the phone for 20 minutes wanting glass PGX trifocals. Banging on about how he could buy PGX exec TRIfocals on the net if only he could get someone to fit them for him. Had not given up and had been trying for 18 months. PLUS of course being a veteran he needed to have them free. Veterans Assistance (V.A) here only does SV or bifocals, plastic only and a free pair every two years. Clear rules. He has been in battle with the head office of V.A. and after 18 months says he is beginning to make progress. Fantastic. Over here if you whinge long enough, know how to use email, have time, and use the term “human rights” you can have anything. Just shout loud enough. Its all yours. And then the taxes go up.
I wrote: Your veteran sounds unlike Bob. Bob would probly made his own from the smashed windscreen of his Piper Vagabond.
On the PGX execs, I got a definite NO WAY from Zeiss, Essilor and Hoya, but of course in Debbin there are lots of little one-man labs with family connections in places far away that keep Morris Oxfords running for half-centuries after their sell-by dates.
They woke up a connection inside Hoya who then found a pair covered in dust. The add was +1,75 not +2,00, but I said “What’s the difference?” and we made them up. Bob’s as pleased as punch, like I told you. He loves a good “I told you so.” I told you so.
Steve wrote:
Like Horseshoes and Handgrenades, closies DO count. Excellent.
We were talking bathrooms and cupboards and renovation projects. My friends are carpenters, like that Galilean ou, so they were vying for the gold medal.
There was Steve jesus in Brisbane:
and Brauer jesus in Tshwane:
If I was to enter the fray, I needed to lay down some groundrules to stand a chance in this fiercely competitive minefield that looked vrot with danger.
So:
I tip-toed in:
Subject: Architectural and Conceptual brilliance – The Solution
When critiquing my design, please be fair and take time and motion and cost implications into account. And remember low environmental impact and low resource-consumption should be heavily weighted. I will admit to one advantage over you poor souls: blissful bachelorhood.
I give you: My Bathroom Cupboard:
True, it’s actually in my bedroom, but wait! This neat innovation leaves the mountain bike undisturbed, and the bathroom cupboard ‘nook’ still with endless potential:
Great interest was shown by the judges . .
Terry Brauer:
mmm . . – perhaps you . . (a) need to go shopping – a little sparse on the blue shirt thing; (b) there may be a light problem here unless you are saving on blinds to keep out the glare; (c) Yip, no potential female species will fall for this design I fear !
~~oo0oo~~
I had to defend myself . .
Me: I don’t understand! I have a blue shirt for Monday, a blue shirt for Tuesday, blue shirts for Wed, Thurs and Fri; and a darker blue shirt for Saturdays. What “shopping”?
~~oo0oo~~
Brauer: Amazing how one misses the wood for the trees, but I was in awe of your metrosexual side that had put up new blue curtains for the retro dressing room (although I was suspicious that it was a ploy to dodge having to do some manly woodwork) . .
~~oo0oo~~
Steve Reed: I think for modesty sake you could consider hanging the shirts at a lower level to cover your nether regions and minimise offending the neighbours and the kids’ friends but otherwise … brilliant.
~~oo0oo~~
Terry B: Very insightful Steve (she obviously means the part where he said ‘brilliant’ . . )
~~oo0oo~~
Brauer: Insightful or unsightly?? (a biased judge obviously ignoring that ‘brilliant’ comment)
~~oo0oo~~
Me: Insightful. Even Mrs Suboohi Choudry next door would agree.
She can’t see into my bedroom at all, even though her driveway is only 2m from it. I mean it’s a JUNGLE out there. Her driveway is also 2m lower. She would need a machete and a stepladder, and she doesn’t have a ladder, she borrowed mine to paint their house.
~~oo0oo~~
I think all this intense interest and back-and-forth means I won the Design Contest, handily trouncing the Galilean carpenters.
~~oo0oo~~
UPDATE: many months later
Announcement:Leaps and bounds.
The home decor front is proceeding apace.
I hope you two carpenters can keep up.
My window is once more filled with trogons and pittas and louries. Quite shirtless.
Built-in cupboards have sprung up in the bathroom. Assembled with me own lily-whites. The mountain bike has been moved to the TV room.
The ooh-ing and aah-ing queue forms from the left . .
~~oo0oo~~
vrot – not fraught; rotten
“How long have you two been carpenters?” – “We’ve only just begun.”
Peter Brauer wrote an email – it becomes this, my first guest post:
Subject:
My latest Clinical research at its best
I’ve been asked on numerous occasions whether eye problems can result in general fatigue and lethargy – “If I read till late at night I feel fatigued the next am”. I’ve not been convinced and have always been rather skeptical of any such link.
However, after three very late nights (in fact early mornings) of computer work and reading, I woke this morning with abnormal fatigue and literally had to drag my weary body to work. So after thirty five years of thinking otherwise, I now thought I had irrefutable proof that eye strain could do this to me.
That was until I discovered that having removed my plus-fours before retiring at 1am last night, the little white tablet I had taken for cholesterol was in fact a very similar looking little white tablet for knocking you out for a good night’s sleep! I had taken a Stillnox and not a Prava!
So yes, my eye problem certainly resulted in the extreme fatigue and weary body that my legs could hardly drag into my office this morning. But it wasn’t eyestrain that did it – it was PRESBYOPIA.
So if you feel listless in the morning, forget the dietary advice on what constitutes a good breakfast . . maybe it’s just time for a good eyetest . .
…
Wisdom followed . .
Another Peter (Muller) wrote: Ja well no fine – the problem I see is having to drag your body to WORKat all at your age . . stop doing that, and the fatigue will go away . .
This Peter (Swanepoel – me) wrote: SOUND advice from Muller, as always. – and thank goodness that other little tablet is blue . . if it was also a little white tablet there could be pandemonium at 1am in this interesting bedroom clinic.
~~~oo0oo~~~
plus fours – golfers and presbyopes use these; Peter Brauer is both; So who knows which ones he was removing in his interesting bedroom clinic . . ? Methinks we should install cameras . .
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
When I found them they were huddled together like Vaalies on a beach. Oh, wait! They WERE Vaalies on a beach. I should have taken a picture of Brauer’s beach outfit: A double-padded fluffy anorak. Sort of a Tshwane Tshpeedo. And a hoed.
We soon scurried off the dreaded sand in search of lunch. In their defence, it was blowing a gale. I kindly took them on a guided tour of – what place was it? – and then speedily straight to Canelands overlooking ve beach.
Back at the cottage:
– ‘thinks’ – is this old top in an anorak in pain? What’s that noise? –
Their cottage overlooked the beach from on high and despite being grandkid-infested, was very pleasant except for the absence of beer.
Perched high on a cliff, it puzzled me. I thought I remembered our cottage back in 1980 as being right on the beach . .
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
. . and then I remembered: It was Blythedale Beach in 1980. Not Sheffield . .
Sat, Feb 12, 2011(Newser) – An asteroid all but buzzed Earth on Friday, NASA has revealed. The asteroid, known as 2011 CQ1, passed just 3,405 miles above the Earth’s surface as it hung a sharp turn around the planet. That’s the closest near-miss ever recorded, beating a record set by a rock in 2004 by a few hundred miles. The asteroid was just a meter wide, small enough that Earth’s gravity would affect its course, in this case bending its path 60 degrees. Not that there was any real danger if the asteroid had veered into Earth’s atmosphere . . OK, they’re starting to talk nonsense so we’ll cut them off there.
Me: Brings to mind the heroics on Blythedale Beach when we single-handedly (the other hand was holding cheap liquor) fended off the comet which was threatening planet Earth at the time. Whether it was the coleanders and coriander and spatulas or the alcohol fumes from our breath that caused it to veer away is a moot point: Bottom line is it BALEKA’d and the planet was saved. Funny how little credit we have got for that over the years. Maybe we fell asleep at the medal awards ceremony . .
Steve reed wrote: Jees – I had [almost] forgotten that heroic weekend. I now recall the collander, and making do with some pretty substandard alcohol [probably not a GREAT wine as in 4 Hillside]. Also I recall some of us may have slept on the beach. Bulletproof days. Was that Filly with us as well as her friend whom I remember clearly was from Marandellas in Zim. Wait! A flashback:
‘Comet – it makes your breath small clean;
Comet – it tastes like gliserine.. ‘
Of iets. Not sure that I want to remember too much more…
Me: So many flashbacks! Maybe as the brain cells die, those old pickled ones gain more prominence? Maybe the flashes are vitreous detachments? Surreal. The sales jingle for comet continues:
‘Comet! It makes you vomit
So take some Comet
and vomit
Today . . ‘
Hooligans. I was innocent. I fell amongst thieves . .
But its all true. You can check the 1980 newspapers: How many comets hit Blythedale beach that year? NONE. Not one.
OK, so our comet – probably 8P/Tuttle 1980XIII – may have been further away at 37,821,000km, but it was 4500m in size, not a puny 1m rock. So it’s still a good thing we were out there all night shaking our fists at it, daring it to approach.
~~~~oo0oo~~~~
The next day the weather improved, so I claimed some credit: ‘Did you get the good weather I prayed for for you guys?’
Brauer: You clearly have a more direct line then this bunch of unbelievers.
The sun shone down on them. Smiling grandkids, happy windloos days. Actually I hadn’t actually prayed. I pulled some strings. As St Peter I have connections, so I called on the Roman god Venti and the Egyptian god Amun about the wind. Together, they delivered. Bacchus was unable to help with the wine situation.
I was reading about 1966 – when the Beatles got blasé and the British pop music invasion of the USA waned.
Yankee
marketers stepped in:
Pop abhors a vacuum, and just as the originals (The Beatles) ‘disappeared,’ a full-page ad in Billboard promoted a ‘different sounding new group with a live, infectious feeling demonstrated by a strong rock beat’. The Monkees, a four-man group, assembled after ‘research and development,’ to star in a Hard Day’s Night-type TV series. The timing was perfect. Touted as ‘the spirit of 1966,’ the four good-looking group members reproduced the elements of the Beatles’ unified 1964 camaraderie. It was a great record, but it also contained a clear message: if the Beatles weren’t around, they would be cloned by the industry, and the younger teens would hardly care that it wasn’t real: A typical comment: ‘I thought the show was great. It’s kinda like A Hard Day’s Night but it’s even better because it’s in color and we can see it every week.’
How very American. I was appalled.
I scribbled to one of my many Rock Star Wannabe friends: The kak started earlier than we might think.
Personally, my first ontnugtering to ‘Re-Hallity TV’ and ‘fake news’ -type shenanigans in my sheltered Vrystaat ignorance was in 1973 when I went to watch the Dallas Cowboys play American football at their home ground in Dallas and found out that not all the players were cowboys. Or even Texans! In fact very few were Texans, they were bought and paid for from sommer anywhere. A year or two later there was even a Dallas Cowboy called Naas Botha!
Then I found out the amateur college football team we supported – OU – Oklahoma University – also had players from anywhere and they were anything but amateur! Everything was paid for under-the-table, and cash and cars were handed over left and right to these ‘amateurs.’ A few honest journalists would actually call them ‘shamateurs.’
Then in South Africa, along came Louis Luyt who thought, What A Good Idea! and he proceeded to cock up our rugby. Soon the Natal Sharks on an away game in Bloemfontein didn’t even have to book a hotel: All the players just stayed at home with their Ma’s!
I had forgotten the story about the Monkees. They were a purely manufactured group, chosen for their looks and put together like a soap opera; Scripted. Nothing real, or spontaneous or natural about them. The Beatles had actually been real. They actually had started like other good bands, in a lounge in someone’s home in some obscure suburb. Like, maybe, a band might start in the Gramadoelas in Tshwane. Unlikely, but you never know.
Nowadays made-for-you-tube and made-for-social-media is the norm! Fake, really. Damn!
Peter Brauer wrote: The difference with the Gramadoelas group of Tshwane is that we were chosen for our undoubted, unrivalled talent and pin-up good looks. Insufficiently rewarded for years of the hard slog that us musos have to go through before hitting the big time . .
Me: A breakdown is probably imminent. I mean breakthrough. Hang in there! What you need is a gimmick. Can any of you grow your hair? I thought not. Can the chick wear outfits like Cher? Maybe include a lot of vloekwoorde in your act like Die Antwoord? When last did you smash your equipment? Have you strangled a rooster on stage?
Think.
There must be something you can do.
Brauer: Where would biting a chunk out of a toilet seat rank in babe magnetism?
Me: I must say that is quite bad-ass. How do you keep repeating it on stage, though? Decades ago, you ous missed your chance to drown in your own vomit at age 27 like real rockers.
Brauer: A nightly dose of tequila and repetition on stage is a cinch . .
Me: Ja, but I’m worried you’d run out of teeth to send scattering across the stage after a while. So the impact wouldn’t be as dramatic.
~~oo0oo~~
Our thread ended threadbare, we didn’t solve the pressing issue at hand: How can a Tshwane Rock Group achieve fym? ‘Course, Brauer could always fall back on the real talent in the family and provide backup to his talented vrou:
– the Warbling Brauers belt out a rude song full of untruths . . . –
~~oo0oo~~
kak – rot; decay
ontnugtering – eye-opening realisation; hello-o
sommer – jis
jis – just
Gramadoelas – backwoods; sticks
Tshwane – like Nashville; place of latent talent; ancestral home of the Tshwanepoel tribe Homo tshwanepoelii
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.
Its amazing that old oke in the middle is still ALIVE!
In this photo you see 150 years of contact lens practice, lecturing, innovation and expertise. It’s clear from the way their specs are carefully centred that these okes KNOW their contact lenses!
Sid Saks on the left started practising as an optometrist around 1958, Brauer in the middle around 1978 and Des Fonn on the right around 1968 (I’m guessing, but it’ll be close).
Des lectured me in contact lenses; Brauer was in my class actually, so maybe he isn’t THAT much older than me – but definitely older; Sid mentored us when we ventured into private practice – me over the phone occasionally, but Brauer needed direct supervision. In fact, in order to get a job Brauer married Sid’s daughter.
A recent booze-fuelled reunion in Pretoria – Des visiting from Canada.
Steve Reed wrote: I love it. Over here in Aus, the national broadcaster has a competition called ‘Exhumed’. A fitting term for those of us, like yourself, who played in a band as a younger person but wanna give it one last go.
The blurb is: Exhumed is a band competition with a difference. It’s not for has-beens, it’s not for wannabes, it’s for the never-weres. It’s for people who play music for the sheer love of it. If you fit that description, enter and listen to your Local ABC Radio to be part of Exhumed. You could hear your track on the radio, be interviewed on air, perform at your local Exhumed event and feature in an ABC Music release. Each station across the country will choose a winner. Of those winners only six will go through as finalists and perform live on TV at our Grand Final. But just one will take home the title ‘Exhumed Winner 2013’.
I wrote: C’mon Brauer! Enter the Botox Ballies Blues Band in this great competition!
Reminds me of a gathering of old canoeists where someone said, We’re the Has Beens. Mate of mine hurriedly clarified, “Swanie you’re not a Has Been. You can’t be a Has Been if you Never Was.”
PS: Reed, you may not know this, but the BBBB is quite famous behind the Boerewors Curtain among certain square circles that are often in their cups. They even pay to play at some events in far distant little known venues. Serious! Brauer’s on guitar and quite vocal.
He got lost under a pair of bloomers that was lobbed onto the stage once. Rumour has it.
As for the suggestion that I actually ‘played in a band,’ truth is more like ‘played with the band’s instruments at the same time the band was rehearsing and was tolerated by the band members.’ To be accurate. 1973.
. . . to actually stop and think WTF and HOW TF and holy guacomole!
An oke from Pretoria who had the misfortune to be sent to Pretoria Boys Hah – and thereby dip out on a decent, co-ed, normal, non-pervy upbringing* – has just sent his car (which he happened to be involved in the design and making of himself) into deep space.
He took his own car, put David Bowie on the audio player, wrote DON’T PANIC ala Douglas Adams from Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy on the dashboard screen and fired his fuckin own aut OUT INTO SPACE!
Up into orbit around the Earth, then out towards Mars, but past Mars so that a red convertible will now be orbiting the Sun for the next billion years! Obviously Pretoria Boys High was focused elsewhere in the 80’s while the rest of SA was keen on a big anti-littering campaign.
And there it goes, actually jolling in space, the first open-top car to ever cruise with the whole of Earth showing up outside the window, then fade away in the rearview mirror as Mars grows bigger. As far as picking up chicks goes, its odds are no worse than Pretoria in the 80’s.
If you had told me this in the Doories pub I’d have told you:
Shut The Fuck Up, and
Sit The Fuck Down
(I got that from my new millenium kids)
Holy shit!
————
This is so amazing I can personally only think of ONE WAY in which it could have been made even more awesome:
If they’d fired a grey and grey 1965 Opel Concorde Rekord-breaker up with a wax figure of a slightly balding oke behind the wheel drinking Black Label beer and singing Lou Reeds’ Walk on the Wild Side on the playa and ALICE’S RECTUM written in lipstick on the windscreen – now THAT . .
. . THAT woulda trumped this little sports car.
Not a convertible, a convert-ed – it would have a roof, but same would be dented cos of some maniac jumping on it with a space suit on.
On board the red sportscar is something very special.
The Arch – pronounce ‘ark’ for archive – library, created using a new technology, 5D optical storage in quartz, developed by Dr. Peter Kazansky and his team, at the University of Southampton, Optoelectronics Research Centre. The disks are written by a femtosecond laser on quartz silica glass. Data is encoded digitally using plasma disruptions from the laser pulses. Arch 1 is smaller but this new medium is expected to soon achieve a storage capacity of 360 Terabytes – 7000 Blu-Ray Disks! – per 3.75 inch disk of quartz, and is stable for at least 14 billion years under a wide range of extreme conditions. Today this is the best way to store data for billions of years in space.
The Roadster will orbit the Sun for at least millions of years and will likely be the oddest object in the solar system, and thus the perfect place to put an Arch library so that it can be noticed and retrieved in the distant future.
~~oo0oo~~
*maybe not. An interview in Rolling Stone tells of an abusive father, two marriages (update three), two divorces (update three), six kids (update eleven); Where does he find the TIME for all this!?
** We had an ancient goat of a Pommy optics lecturer named Frank Duro who would say “Alice’s Rectum” when anyone fussed. He meant “Alles sal Regkom” – all will be well.
