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.
*Jessie 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. I’ve been driving Trish’s ole man’s 1980 Opel Kadett. He handed me the keys, his vision is shot. Glaucoma and deciding not to use the drops for years as they irritated his eyes and blurred his vision. He was right, xalatan is 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: “When driving, always watch out for old toppies wearing hats. Give them a wide berth.” My current cap says DAS Pilsener.
Also, clicking in the gearlock, fitting the steering lock, feeling the ceiling fabric fluttering on my bald head as I drive with all windows open – the aircon substitute. 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; and they have NO doubt as to what I should do. 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: Bob Ilsley was at Addington when I got there in my khaki uniform. 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 in rude T-shirts. One says, ‘IF ITS GOT TITS OR WHEELS IT WILL GIVE YOU SHIT.‘
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 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 its crowded about how “These bloody new frames you gave me are NO GOOD!”). He’s a character. Sharp as a whistle. He flies and signs off home-built planes – experimental aircraft – before they can be licensed.
* 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.
Bob’s Vagabond in his garage, being rebuilt after the PMB prang – never did fly again.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Anyway, 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 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. We took quarter bunny mutton, made my hyes water. Washed it down with Black Label and coke – one bottle, one 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. Gounden opened this “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~~~ 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~~~
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. 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.
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 like Bob.
On the 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 that keep Morris Oxfords running for half-centuries after their sell-by dates.
They woke up 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”.
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 in Brisbane:
and Brauer 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, a blue shirt 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 about 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
~~~oo0oo~~~
UPDATE: many months later
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 . .
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: 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.
My first ontnugtering to ‘Re-Hality’ TV and ‘fake news’ -type shenanigans in my sheltered ignorance was in 1973 when I went to watch the Dallas Cowboys play in Dallas and found out that not all the players were 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.
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 even the Gramadoelas in Tshwane.
Nowadays made-for-you-tube and made-for-social-media is the norm!
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? 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.
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
Our thread ended threadbare, we didn’t solve the pressing issue at hand, of the day: 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 . . . –
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 Opel Concorde Rekord-breaker up with a slightly balding oke behind the wheel drinking Black Label 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.
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.
=======ooo000ooo=======
*maybe not. An interview in Rolling Stone tells of an abusive father, two marriages, two divorces, six kids – 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.
I don’t do DIY. I was going to say except for our wedding, but on reflection, I also did that the way I do everything: Stand back and watch as others do it all, encouraging and applauding while trying to save money.
So Andre Hawarden did the invites:
What I did do was buy the booze and fill Mike Lello’s Isuzu Trooper and trailer with it and drive it out to Barry and Lyn’s farm Game Valley Estates at the foot of the well-known Hella Hella on the Friday. Lots of rain, muddy roads. It had been a wet summer following the huge September 1987 flood.
Like most bachelors when they do fall, I headed off cheerfully to meet my fate, all my own advice forgotten, marching singing to the gallows!
Luckily Saturday cleared up. I always sing ‘The robots change when I go thru, the clouds dissolve and the skies turn blue, and EVERYBODY loves me baby – – – what’s the matter with you!?‘
And the clouds did dissolve . . It got Sunny. Then Hot. Then Scorching, Humid, Sultry. It felt like all the rain of the big flood was trying to get back up into the clouds.
Barry’s big old 4X4 Ford F150 gave people a tug up slippery Hella Hella Pass so they could get to their lodgings at the nearby Qunu Falls Lodge. The Brauers, the du Plessis, the Reeds, the Schoemans, the Stoutes, the Stewarts. The Hills live nearby. Family stayed in the concrete A-frame lodge on the farm.
The sauna was pitched on the lawn under the Hella Hella mountain.
The Porters were linked up to ESKOM but just because ESKOM has arrived does not mean that when you throw a switch with a flourish that anything will happen. And so it was on our wedding day that ESKOM was feeling a bit off that day and we were without krag, power, lights and fridges.
Enter David Hurle Hill !! He roared off in his bakkie and fetched a huge diesel generator on a trailer. David is a Drrrillerr and will drill you a borehole. In fact his company motto is ‘On The Hole Our Work Is Boring.’ He linked up and threw a switch with a flourish and nothing happened.
She was not wekking, as David Hurle Hill would say.
Enter Enea Spaggiari !! All the way from Italy via Kenya and Petit outside Benoni. He climbed up onto and over and under the trailer and fiddled with wires and threw a switch with a flourish and Let There Be Light! Music! and Cold Beers! That’s Italian vernuf for ya!
Iona coaches her daughter: Make all the big decisions, but make him think he made them . . . Aitch: Ha Ha I already do that . . .
– plotting –
Then the usual stuff, the ominous music from Jaws: Tun Tun Ta Da!;Tun Tun Ta Da! What? Oh, the wedding march. The father of the bride looks like he’s having having second thoughts; Guys are thinking hm hm hm who’d a thunk this day would arrive?; Ladies are smiling – they seem to enjoy weddings; Aitch saying – ‘Honour? OK; – Obey? Are you mad!?’ and so on. The usual kak.
Then the cake, made by Lyn’s talented friend with a green frog couple in tux and wedding dress – probly a strongylopus and an arthtroleptis. In the heat they keeled over. We should have got a pic, but something like this, just green frogs and not from alcohol – from heat fatigue:
Then The Lies! You just can’t trust some people. Ten years prior to this I had done a very good job being his best man and if he had paid attention he’d have learned something. Like, to stick to the flattering truth and not tell scurrilous alternative truths that nobody wants to hear. At least nobody called the object of your attentions wants to hear them . . .
Followed by The Truth!, plain and unvarnished:
At last, we could change into shorts and relax and party.
Later came The Getaway:
Which took a while, handicapped as we were. We wore getaway kit appropriate for our intrepid honeymoon. We were headed for Deepest Darkest America.
~~~oo0oo~~~
On the Monday friend Allie Peter flew over Hella Hella in a helicopter and took pics of Rapid No.5&6 looking downstream and then back upstream:
– pinnacle rock is hiding –
~~~oo0oo~~~
Twenty Five Years Later – 28 Feb 2013 – I wrote to friends:
Crazy, innit! 25yrs ago today Aitch and I got hitched down in the Hella Hella valley in a fun DIY game farm wedding. She made it to 23yrs of married bliss (OK, she might have had something to say at this point . . ) and one month short of 26yrs together. We celebrated that 25yrs-together milestone in August 2010.
Thinking of all you good peeps that made our wedding so memorable – that’s the bachelor days before, the day itself, and the 25yrs since!
Cheers!
Lotsa love – Pete – and now Jessica & Tommy!
BTW, Lyn and Barry Porter of Hella Hella also died in 2011: Lyn in January – also breast cancer; Barry in April – hospital infection; And then Aitch in July.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Dave Hill: I remember it well – I ‘nipped’ home to fetch my generator when the power went off.
Pete Stoute:Remember the week-end like yesterday! Struggling up the other side of Hella Hella to the Qunu Falls hotel in the mud and rain – Dave Hill saving the day with a BIG generator.Will have an extra glass of vino this evening – great mates and good times.
Sheila Swanepoel:Those pics are great. What a wonderful record of a very special day. I remember the incredible heat and how you, Pierre and Pete sneaked off and changed into shorts straight after the ceremony. And how the phone kept ringing in the middle of the ceremony in the house. Linda was flower girl, Robbie was so proud of his brand new red “tight”
. . and Jeff kept putting off going to change, saying that he was charge of the antelope on the spit – he dithered for so long that there was no time to change and that pleased him no end. Bess & I sneaked down to the pool for a kaalgat swim and found Iona had beaten us to it!
Steve Reed: Will always remember the weekend; a great occasion. I think it was thanks to Mike and Yvonne in the 4×4 that we traveled safely back through the mud to our lodgings. Fond memories – raising a glass tonight to all of you!
I remember Brauer chasing a tight deadline speech writing – wise.
Pete Brauer:Damn. Been holding my breath during this stroll thru memory lane hoping that no-one noticed at the time or that no-one would still remember that poor last-minute effort.
Terry Brauer: Steve nothing has changed! PB has his own website called lastminute.com
Steve Reed:Speech was excellent. Not many can compose a wedding speech while putting on a tie with the other hand. Besides, Swannie probably tasked Brauer with the job as he was getting dressed himself.
Terry Brauer:Yip Brauer remains an orator of note and Swanepoel continues to notify me he is coming to stay usually on the day when he lands in Pretoria – 😀 Those old dogs ain’t gonna learn new tricks but love them both! T
Pete Swanie:I had prepared well in advance.
Brauer procrastinated and ignored my two rules: Keep it short; and NO LIES.
Pete Brauer:If I stuck to the latter rule the first would have fallen into place quite easily.
Tanza Crouch: Thinking of you, Aitch, Tommy and Jessy at this time. My spider days at Hella Hella are very special to me and Aitch, Barry and Lyn were very special people.
~~~oo0oo~~~
The old paper album has been scrapped, but here it is in pixels:
This from my LepSoc newsletter: Hi everyone; We will be doing a day trip to Tswaing crater, just north of Pretoria, on the 24th September, where special butterflies such as Brown-lined Sapphires, Saffron Sapphires, Hutchinson’s Highfliers, etc. can be seen.
~~~~o0o~~~~ Us lepidopterists see not only these high fliers, but others such as Skollies, Nightfighters, Pirates, Policemen and Admirals. Playboys, Pansies and Painted Ladies are also sought-after! One can go prancing after them wearing a pith helmet and waving a net! What’s not to love?
There’s even one called swanepoelii and one called brauerii
Lepidopterism is one of the more fun diseases to contract, and lepidopterists lead exciting lives! ~~~~o0o~~~~
Soutar wrote:
Keep your net stockings on.
We off to Karkloof today. Will try to bring back a dead Karkloof Blue.
That and a Pink Elephant.
~~~~o0o~~~~
Me:
¶¶ . . and a Stuffed Delegorgue’s Pigeon, a Dead Cape Parrot and . .
¶¶ Planks from a Yellowwood Tree . . ¶¶
.
Hey! We could write a song like that . . .
~~~~o0o~~~~
A Real-Life Lepidoptometrist:
Hilton Pike is a nimble optometrist fella who darts around lithely with a butterfly net, holding it rather like Obelix doesn’t hold his menhirs. A talented lad, young Hilton, he builds fancy hi-fidelity speakers, refurbishes phoropters and mounts butterflies with pins on polystyrene in glass cabinets, all the while making children. Lovely chap, I miss him. Where is he?
Swanepoel, David Abraham (1912–1990). Swanepoel began collecting in 1925. Pennington’s Butterflies of southern Africa (Pringle et al. 1994) describes Swanepoel as follows: ‘Probably no other person has spent as much time and effort in the pursuit of butterflies in the field as this great collector, who had the tremendous gift of being able to excite others about butterflies. His immaculate collection is in the Transvaal Museum. He discovered many new species and subspecies and published many descriptions of new taxa.’
– pinned specimens – from DA Swanepoel’s book –
His list of publications includes the book Butterflies of South Africa: where, when and how they fly, published in 1953 in Holland at his own cost. At the time, it was one of the most valuable reference guides to South African butterflies, citing his many collection localities across the length and breadth of South Africa. He collaborated closely with both Georges van Son and Ken Pennington. Popular names for many of South Africa’s butterflies were proposed by him. ( SANBI Biodiversity Series 16 (2010)6 ).
Swanepoel ended his book with these words: ‘In laying down my pen at the end of what has been to me a pleasurable task, I take occasion to dedicate this book to all naturalists and friends, without whose kindness and ungrudging aid it must inevitable have left much to be desired; and to those naturalists who may one day wander over the numerous paths that have afforded me so many happy, unforgettable hours – these would hardly have been possible without the grace of the Creator of all the beautiful forms described in this book. As mentioned in the introduction, this work is by no means complete, and if one day it is revised by some future observer, may he fulfil my dearest wish by building a great entomological castle upon this small foundation stone.’ (Epilogue of D.A. Swanepoel’s book, page 316).
Read more about David A Swanepoel and other pioneering flutterby enthusiasts here.
Here are three of the butterflies named after him:
– Swanepoel’s Blue – Swanepoel’s Opal – Swanepoel’s Widow –
steve reed wrote: When we lived in Clarens we had an annual visitation by what must have been the self-same Swanepoel. Khaki clad solitary figure, fleet-footing round the village with his net like something out of Peter Pan. Regarded by the locals with great interest (and a good level of suspicion ) . .
~~~oo0oo~~~
I was lucky enough to meet Ivor Migdoll, who wrote the next butterfly book (as far as I know, the first field guide) in 1987. He came to me for his glasses in Durban, and we had some good chats and I loved using his book (since mislaid!).
– I must find my copy of Ivor’s book –
And of course we are all lucky now to have Steve Woodhall, who has built on these two books’ foundations – as well as the big Pennington Butterfly ‘bible’ – and brought out his vastly improved field guide in 2005. He tells the story of how Ivor Migdoll became ill and quietly withdrew from public life. Pippa Parker of Struik Nature told him they were planning a completely new edition of the Field Guide to Butterflies (Ivor’s best-selling book) but could not get hold of him. He did some digging and discovered that Ivor had a horrible, little-known condition called ‘burning mouth syndrome’ and could hardly speak. Hence his reluctance.
~~~oo0oo~~~
And so this magic new field guide was born without Ivor’s input:
On Saturday, January 18, 2014, I wrote reasonably:
Subject: A PBH solution
for the PHBrauers of the world
I’ve been very worried
about people driving Audis into school walls, but I feel a bit better
now, as a Pretoria Boys High (PBH) boykie has put his mind to a
solution for the big Audi / Brauer problem and here’s what he has
come up with:
Google is not the only company that thinks auto-piloted cars are the future. Tesla has estimated that their time frame for having automated cars on the road is ‘within the next 3 years.’ So Elon Musk says we could be seeing cars running on auto-pilot as soon as 2016.
And none too soon!!
This way we could have inebriation AND safety . . among certain
elderly drivers.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Steve Reed wrote enquiringly:
Regarding Audis getting
driven into school walls, I need to be updated in this regard.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Brauer quickly jumped
in and wrote defensively:
Would you like an accurate version or will you settle for Koos’ ‘Clive Nel’-ified version?
~~~oo0oo~~~
I calmly wrote the
simple truth:
All I’m saying is,
The ingredients were:
– Golf;
– Beer;
– an Audi sedan;
– a school
wall.
The results
were:
– Damage to two of the above (the elderly greying culprit / suspect escaped largely unharmed due to being limp at point of impact).
– Lo-ong boring tales
of walls ambushing unsuspecting cars in the depths of Gramadoelas
suburb in Tswanie at the dead of night; * yawn *
~~~oo0oo~~~
Culprit / Suspect Brauer wrote:
Total distortion of facts. ‘Twasn’t beer. . . . whiskey, mate.
~~~oo0oo~~~
I fretted:
That’s a worrying
development. I get worried when people start drinking stuff that
slides down easily and stinks less when belched up. I feel that beer
and red wine allow your companions to know more about your drinking
habits, and give earlier warnings about ‘when’s enough’. Just by
looking at his white flokati rug one night Mike Lello knew a lot
about Milk Stout and the Rainbow Club.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Interloper Bruce Soutar
now jumps in with his tuppence worth:
At the RAINBOW Jazz Club in the Pinetown taxi rank they serve their beers in ‘quart’ bottles (750ml). One special and memorable night The African Jazz Pioneers were playing, and Swanepoel ordered a Castle. He noticed the guys next door were drinking Black Label and saw theirs was 5,5% alcohol while Castle was only 5%, so he ordered a Black Label next. Then he saw some okes drinking Milk Stout and noticed that was 6% alcohol so he smoothly oozed over to Milk Stout and then stuck with it. All the while the African Jazz Pioneers were playing their seductive swinging special jazz. Many, many milk stouts later we decided to gate crash Mike Lello for a ‘last drink’ on the way home.
They were sitting down
to supper when we staggered in. Pete S was feeling hungry, sat in
Mike’s chair and polished off his supper. Then had an urge to burp? .
. . but did not quite make the toilet bowl. Hence the
flocked–up-carti rug.
~~~oo0oo~~~
Public Service Notice: This hugely exaggerated story is to be taken with a large pinch of salt. But as interesting aside, you can see what it MIGHT have looked like under a microscope.
~~~oo0oo~~~
I objected:
TMI !! As I was saying before we were so rudely interrupted: Self-driving cars for the elderly – that’s what we need.
Aitch doesn’t mess around. Suddenly a big marquee was pitched on the front lawn. What’s that for? I ask. We’re having a party, says me wife. Oh. OK. So tip-toe’ing discreetly past my half century mark is not going to happen?
Nope.
So I help the guys lay down a dance floor; and I carry chairs. And I carry chairs. Do we need so many chairs? I ask. Carry chairs, I’m told.
Then a minibus arrives and musical instruments are carried out – a trombone, a saxophone and a guitar – and one of the guys looks familiar. Big, braces, white hair. Mario!? I say / ask in amazement. Yes, says he in an Italian accent. What are you doing here? I ask, onnosel-y. He just smiles. I spose he’s used to that.
Mario Montereggi! When he’s not marshaling his Big Band, he runs a trio, Music Unlimited, for small events: Him on trombone, a guitarist and a saxophonist.
– Mario Montereggi’s trio –
WOW!! Aitch certainly does NOT mess around!
The theme was Africa, but Brauer thought it was Out of Africa, and of course he took it literally. You know how he is . .
– Aitch put it all together – she was much younger’n me –– the sax player charmed the kids –– especially TomTom –
Instead of a solemn speech full of half a century of carefully censored praise . .
– Terry and Pete exaggerating –
Terry and Pete sang a song full of scurrilous exaggerations – and duped the rest of the mense into singing the chorus! Everyone knows Billy Joel’s Piano Man tune . .
– Brauerr song PFS 50th –
– hoodwinking everyone into singing along! – – lucky to have my folks, 77 and 83 present –
Then Jonathan and Aitch said some words and I had to correct everyone and put them straight.
– after Jon and Aitch spoke I had to leap up to defend my reputation –– good peeps gathered –– PFS 50th –
Bewilderbeast Droppings 