Tag Archives: Peter Koos Swanepoel

Don’t Call Me Comrade

I tried. Well, I made a less-than-worthy attempt. My heart wasn’t in the training. I thought, if you live on the route, you gotta have a go. If you live in KwaZulu, you’ll always be asked, Have You Done It? But I could never quite see the glamour or ‘worthiness’ of shuffling furtively round the dark streets long before sunrise. Anyway I thought, Give It A Go. I even tried the flaming hot running shorts Phil Greenberg gave me in the hopes I’d speed up a bit.

Running broeks Phil Greenberg gave me in my crazy running daze

I joined a club – maybe that’s where I went wrong? I joined Westville with their red & white hoops ‘caterpillar’ outfit whereas historically I was more suited to be a black-&-white Savage with a Zulu shield, knobkierie and spear on my chest. Years before, I had been a Savage. Running Number 451, so maybe I should have stuck to that? Westville gave me number 159738b or something – I don’t think they valued me like Savages did. That probably put me off my stride a bit.

Comrades 2013

Anyway, I shuffled and I shuffled and I ran a lot of races. 10km, 15km, half marathons and two 42km marathons.

Here’s an example of a ‘short’ training run in windy, hilly Westville, starting at our home. We took turns hosting our short runs at our homes, with tea n cake served afterwards. This is the run I worked out for the training team:

Walk up River Drive

R into Elvira

R into Rockdale across highway bridge

R Severn – down

L Mersey

L Rockdale – UP for 500m !!

Back all along Rockdale

R Tweed – Done 4km at this point

L Thames – down

R Conway – down

L Constance Cawston – UP & UP

L Somerset – UP & UP (becomes Frank)

L Cochrane (becomes Cleveland – UP) – 6,5km

L Rockdale

R Rockdale (that’s right, Rockdale again !)

R Broadway – UP

L Neville – 8,6km

L Westbrook – down, then UP

L Harrison – UP

L Springvale

R Lawrence

R River – 11,5km

Then eventually the big day arrived and I hadn’t arranged anything so I took myself off to Maritzburg to my folks. Early the next morning my Mom dropped me off at the start – long before sunrise. More dark streets – but now with crowds of lunatics milling around the red brick city hall.

comrades start

Some guy crowed like a rooster and a gun went off in the dark and nothing happened. Minutes later still nothing had happened. The chatter of the would-be runners had changed to an excited murmur but nothing else had changed. Eventually we started shuffling at a slow walk, then a very slow pace, slower even than my training pace, and some long time later we crossed the START line. The START line! I was tired already! I think I was in Batch ZZZZ.

That’s when I started thinking fu-uck! and I’m afraid that thought didn’t really leave me all day. I knew my pace was slow by the people around me: None of the runners looked like young skinny blonde Wits students, nor like Russians – and if they did look African they looked larger and rounder than me. Also, the few spectators about weren’t saying ‘Well Done!’ or ‘Go! Guys!‘ NO, Instead they were saying Move Along! in a rather critical, nagging tone of voice, I thought, Why’s no-one saying, ‘You’re looking good!? Weird that.

This was confirmed when I passed under a banner that said ‘HALFWAY’ – Half way meant I only had 3km (Plus a Marathon) to go. Springbok rugby captain Wynand Claassen recklessly shot off a gun which left gunpowder residue on my scarlet Westville Running Club shorts. Well, if that wasn’t a pointed ‘Move Your Arse’ hint! Who the hell did he think he was? He had run the race but he’d never won the race, his father had.

En route I caught up with a few long-lost friends: Jacques-Herman du Plessis from Harrismith days; Rheinie Fritsch from army days. Also Aitch and 5yr-old Jessie and 1yr-old Tommy met me in Botha’s Hill for a family reunion. They were all a bit cool though, a bit offish, I thought: Because after a while of enjoying standing and chatting to them, they all said, ‘Haven’t you got something to do today?‘ and sent me on my way. Bugger off, Koos! they said.

So I shuffled and I shuffled and then my spirits rose at a sudden thought! I started to think maybe there had been a collective coming to their senses, as there were no other runners around nor any spectators. Maybe I had got the wrong day? Or maybe everyone had just gone home to a hot bath and a cold beer?

But no, the spectators returned in Westville. Trouble is, they were all packing up their deckchairs. And so the slow torture continued. Shuffle, shuffle. Suddenly a few cops jumped in front of me holding reflective tape as I shuffled under the N3 below 45th Cutting, just before the onramp (usually an offramp) onto the Berea Road section of the N3 into town.

Go Home, they said, We need this road for tomorrow’s traffic. You’ve had eleven hours, they said, and you’ve only done 82km. Where have you BEEN?

So I went home to a hot bath and a cold beer. Look, about this heading: Actually, you can call me Comrade, I’d love that, but only in a liberation sense, not in a shuffling sense. Who knew they only give you a medal for the last 7km? The first 82km are completely ignored!

~~oo0oo~~

So now I’m also guilty of this:
“How do you know if someone has run a marathon?”

“They’ll tell you.”

~~oo0oo~~

The guys in my pics are Dave Williams, Kingfisher and Savages mate; and Dave Lowe, Westville runner; Both have done OVER FORTY Comrades – 41 and 42 respectively to be precise. That is Seriously Certifiable! I told Dave ‘Jesus’ (when he had a beard) ‘John Cleese’ (when he shaved) Williams just the other night at Ernie’s wake “You know you can stop now, right?” and he said No, I failed to finish last year for the first time ever, so this year I have to repeat my 42nd Comrades. Bleedin’ ‘ell!

A bum Rap

Snoozing on Tommy’s bed tonight he lies down and puts his head on my stomach, disturbing me with the racket coming from his Blackberry.

Dad, listen to this rap: It’s 2 Chainz, he’s cool, huh?
All I can hear is a string of chanted F-words.

Dad, he says, taking a picture of my face from navel-level, You could be a rap star. We could call you 2 Chinz.

Hoses himself. So clever. Little squirt. Doesn’t realise these chins were bequeathed to me by my gran Annie and my Ma Mary. Heirlooms.

~~oo0oo~~

Generous Souls

Off we go to St Lucia estuary for a camping long weekend. Let’s take the minimum guys, we can buy food locally. Just clear out the fridge and bread bin and let’s go. We’ll buy charcoal and meat and etc from the local Spar. I won’t even take any wine! Rather we hit the road now, shop later.

Let’s take a tent for the three teenage girls, and the twelve year-old fella and I will sleep in the back of the pickup. The simple life.

Except I realise at the first tollgate that I have left my wallet in Westville. Complication. To turn back or not. In my rucksack I find Tom’s saving card, daily withdrawal limit R300. I had just changed his password, as we had not used the account for ages, so we were good to go. We just gotta be frugal, kids, we got R300 kuphela.

And that’s where they blew me away. All four of them said “Dad, we’ve got money! You can have our money, Dad”. They each had R200 pocket money for the weekend and offered it freely! What stars.

Thanks guys, I may need that, but I have enough to fill up with diesel and we’ll just go easy and discuss it before we spend anything, OK?

The next morning I managed to activate my eWallet and cellphone banking at an internet cafe so could now draw R1500 a day! Problem solved! I gave them each R100 to thank them for their generous offers. Their eyes looked like chocolates and ice creams!

Off we went to the game reserve (entrance fee R245) and to the water park (R120 for the four of them). We wuz rich! The girls bought swimming shorts with their own money.

St Lucia camping 2

The next day that amount I could draw had ‘kindly’ been reduced to R200 (“for my safety” – Thanks FNB!), so I had to make the speech again, and again they rallied around with their offer of chipping in, but with Tom’s R300 and my R200 we were fine. We ate boerie rolls both nights – cheap!

– St Lucia camping –

Here’s an isimangaliso* pan with buffalo, waterbuck and zebra (click on the pic). The Indian Ocean is just behind that high forested dune:

St Lucia Mar 2014 (5)

Tom got on with fishing . .

. . while the teenage girls did what teenage girls do . .

– Jess took a lovely picture of some grass – with a kudu as a backdrop –

~~oo0oo~~

*isimangaliso means ‘miracle, wonder, surprise’ in isiZulu

wu wei

My garden is a wonderful tangle of KwaZulu indigenous growth gone wild. Interfered with only by my best man Tobias Gumede’s earnestly-felt desire to do something besides pulling weeds! He’s a GARDENER, so why does he get told: Do Nothing!?

Recently he trimmed the undergrowth near the birdbath and the spot where beautiful turquoise Araneus apricus spins her web each night and takes it down every morning.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

I had to sit him down and remind him:

Tobias, my good man, remember when we listened to the yellow-bellied greenbul’s complaints (nickname Belly-aching Bulbul) and you told me how it was saying “Don’t shoot the birds, it’s Spring and they’re nesting?” And how you would teach the kids in Jozini not to shoot birds in that season – and how they did anyway!?

Yep, he remembers.

Well, its Summer, and remember: We don’t trim or cut anything till the season fades and we’re sure no birds or other creatures are nesting. And even then we do it with great circumspection? Lots of ‘easy-does-it’?

Oh Yes, He Does Remember and Sorry, He Forgot.

But he forgot again and as I was leaving he asked, Can You Buy Me A Rake? Um, what for, Tobias? Oh, Yes, He Forgot, We Don’t Rake. Right.

Well, I mention this because I have recently found out that unbeknown to me, I garden according to the ancient principle of wu wei. I mean, I always suspected my method was brilliant, but wu wei! That is brill. Its the Zen (or Tao? – or something . . ) art of “masterful inactivity.”

I love it: “The Art Of Masterful Inactivity”! Wu wei! I can do this!

I’m reading a book by Esther Woolfson who lives in Aberdeen in Scotland, called Field Notes from a Hidden City. The review of her book made me want to write about all the wonderful hidden creatures in my garden and generally in Westville, so I bought it with the express intention of plagiarising it. I’ve got to the part where she writes about wu wei and I’m right behind her.

“Less is more.” German architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe popularized this slogan among designers around the world in the 1950’s. And the wisdom of this aphorism goes way, way back to the time of the great Lao Tzu, ‘venerable master.’ The concept of Wu Wei became mainstream in China, where great leaders came to see the power of “non-doing.”

I read a lot about books and then occasionally I buy one and actually read the whole thing. Often the book review is better than the book. I bought Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck by Eric G Wilson. Well, it was a very good review.

Back to plagiarism: I will write to Esther and tell her what I’m doing if I get the book done. My wu wei credentials are not confined to gardening, however, so she may be safe.

Here’s the manicured bit for soccer, rugby and biking, with refuges for creatures in front and behind. When the kids stop swimming the pool will be made more frog-friendly. Made? Well, ‘Allowed To Go’ frog-friendly . . . .

Jess MTB small
– that chlorine-poisoned water needs to go greener –

So how did I know the beautiful little turquoise orb spider I found in my garden was Araneus apricus? I went to my saucers. This one is seldom in her cups: My favourite entomologist and arachnologist Tanza said:

Hi Pete – I think she is Araneus apricus, a little orb spider. Most are nocturnal, spinning their webs in the early evening and then removing them in the morning. Maybe she got out of bed late . . . ; It is probably a “she” as the males are often (but not always) smaller.- Tanz

I first met Tanza when she was working with social spiders on the Hella Hella bridge over the Umkomaas river. Hundreds of them obligingly spun webs between the aluminium railings, allowing Tanza to mark and measure at leisure. Usually they’d be in tangled bushes!

They’re fascinating. For one thing, like me they can balloon off and fly away!

~~oo0oo~~

Tanza Crouch’s 9 research works with 278 citations and 2,858 reads, including: The influence of group size on dispersal in the social spider Stegodyphus mimosarum (Araneae, Eresidae) – researchgate.net

Dream On

Wake up TomTom, time to get up.

Ah no Dad, just let me finish my dream.

OK, but fast forward it, fella.

Five mins later: Come on, up you get!

It’s about Father Christmas, Dad.

Well, to stay on his good side you better get up, my boy.

He LOVES me Dad, I’m his best client!

~~~oo0oo~~~

A letter from an earlier time – dictated to Ma Aitch:

Tom letter Father Xmas

Twilight River Serenade

When I paddled the Berg river marathon in 1983, that crazy 200km (‘241km Pete!’ Giel van Deventer reminds me. He’s the Berg historian) f-f-freezing f-f-flatwater f-f-foolishness, the oldest oke in the race was Ole man Myers (ancient: 60 if he was a day). He lost his boat one night when the waters rose (he’d left it too close to the bank). Next day he had to find it downstream and take it back to the start – and so arrived at that leg’s finish VERY late – even after me.

When word came to the camp that he was arriving we all gathered on the bank to welcome him.

He paddled up in the dark singing:
“Roamin’ in the gloamin’
by the bonny banks of Clyde . .“

Image

Ian Myers

~~~oo0oo~~~

The Considerate Crocodile

a posse of blondes invades Tom’s nest!
up you get, lazybones!

Now we’re driving home. Dad, did you see the lions come to drink and the one crocodile ate the little lion cub?

No, TomTom, where did you see that?

On TV.

Dad, if I was a crocodile I’d just live on the water and not eat babies. I’d be a vegetarian to other animals!

~~oo0oo~~

Talent

You can’t understand teenagers. Whenever I offer to sing to Jess and her friends to save her the cost of tickets to Justin Bieber she says “OmiGawd, Dad, NO!”
When they’re in the car and I offer to sing instead of listening to their CD’s, iPods, Blackberrys or whatever, I get a loud chorus of “No Thanks Pete!” and whispered giggles to Jess about her weird Dad. And some “OMG”‘s.

But she has a soft heart*. Yesterday she came to me and said, “Dad maybe old people would want to listen to you”.

~~oo0oo~~

* also, I'm the main source of funding

Rise up, Comrades!

“We’re watching the Comrades Marathon out on the road again tomorrow!” I announce to the gang. My house is infested with five know-it-alls. We’ll get up at about 5.30 and be there by 6. The route is about 600m up the road and we like to watch the ‘up’ run if we’re home.

Aaw, Dad, can’t we watch on TV? It’s much better graphics, says the lazy one.

Here comes the sun . . and the helicopter:

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Grumble, grumble! But then the first runners arrived! And now they’re into it: My five cheer every runner.

Image

They loved it. Especially breakfast afterwards. Thanks Dad!

~~oo0oo~~

Mutiny on the Bakkie

Mutiny on the way to Lilani Spa. It’s cold and drizzling, so the back seat of the bakkie thinks cycling has become a seriously kak idea and they’re making it known:
I’m NOT riding!
We’re NOT going!
You can’t force us!
It’s too wet!
It’s too cold!

‘Snot optional,’ I intone each time. ‘Snot optional’.

This got them giggling and making up their own snot sayings:
She SNOT riding.
He SNOT riding.
We SNOT riding!
SNOT funny, Dad! SNOT funny, Pete!

So off they went pedaling in the drizzle, shivering and shouting and giggling. I drove ahead to get out of earshot of the whining. Looking back, here come the four of them . . . What a goon show!

Image

The road to Lilani is 17km of downhill. All long gentle downhill. It’s Lazy Man’s Biking Paradise. From Ahrens to Lilani you don’t have to pedal. You simply place your bum in the saddle and gravity does what it did to Newton’s apple. What’s not to like?

And when you get to the bottom, what do you have to do? Jump into the hot springs mineral waters and soak. If you’re 9 to 15 yrs old of course you’ll take great delight in saying repeatedly, ‘Dad it smells like a fart,’ cos it’s sulphur springs, and it does, but its great.

Downhill biking, warm water, cold beer if you have a driver as I didn’t, and – almost always – solitude. Heaven. If you haven’t been to Lilani Spa, get your ass over there. You can drive right in if you like, and you can stay overnight too.

Here are The Four Mutineers again:

We were in a bakkie this time, not a VW kombi, cos Aitch was gone and the ban on bakkies – ‘the suspension is too hard’ – no longer applied.

~~oo0oo~~

An Earlier Mutiny which may have given them ideas . .

Birthday Treat

Jess sixteen and Tom twelve; It’s a beautiful rainbow day, and the Dizzis (Jon & Elize Taylor) treat them to a meal at Spur

Minenhle and Lungelo tag along and, thank goodness, the younger set get their own table. Selfies and ussies and burgers and milkshakes. Heaven.

~~oo0oo~~

The GODBiRitoLS

The Great Occasional Downhill Bike Ride to Lilani Spa – The GODBiRitoLS.

Named after the fashion of the more famous GABRAN (Great Annual Bike Ride Across Natal), this one is much better! All downhill; Only a gentle 17km; Perspiration-free; Ends before tedium can set in at a rustic old hot water spring with spa baths! In which you can drink cold beer if you keep your elbow up and your chin just out of water. One inch in front of your belly button: Warm water; One inch behind your belly button: Cold beer. Kinda how I imagine heaven might be.

After, getting back out of the valley is done with the bicycles strapped to the back of the bus – kombi power, not pedal power for uphill travel. Nice and Easy!

Lilani Bike Ride (1) crop

This time Aitch drove the kombi, stopping frequently to take pictures, while I shepherded the unruly mob down on mountain bikes. Both of them. My kind of gravel cycling – downhill, downhill, seventeen kilometres of continuous downhill! Don’t ever have to push a pedal in anger. Nor do you need to touch your brakes if you can lean with confidence. Wheee!

– Catch Ma, TomTom! –
Lilani Sleepover_1.jpg
The Family

The accompanying bus was fully equipped with bike racks, a fridge, a picnic hamper, chocolate bars, cold drinks and a supportive Ma. Luxury.

Lilani Sleepover_1-001.jpg
– It’s all downhill from here – Yay! –

See another Lilani Spa bike ride here.

Read what I know of the history of this lovely resort here.

~~oo0oo~~

The Dawn (chorus) Is Nigh

Barry Porter was – rightly – immensely proud of the birdlife on their Hella Hella farm on the Umkomaas River in KZN. We would sit on their stoep many weekend mornings over the years discussing the dawn chorus we had heard before rising, which was ongoing as we drank our early morning coffee and chorus. Barry would tell us how, In all his travels, no place had ever rivalled THIS dawn chorus; “His” dawn chorus. The Hella Hella Dawn Chorus.

He did have a bit of an advantage, what with 5000 acres, numerous different habitats, twenty years of indigenous planting and the the beautiful Krantzes, cliffs, grasslands and the Umkomaas valley!

Hella Hella, Port Shepstone, Harold Porter.jpg
– Hella Hella Highover collage –

On a rare visit to the big smoke, he and Lyn stayed with us at 7 River Drive Westville and at breakfast he said in awe: This is the first place I’ve been where the dawn chorus rivals Hella Hella! I knew that, but I’d been diplomatic all those years! We were on the banks of the Mkombaan River and had recorded 121 bird species in River Drive, and found evidence of breeding in 20 of them – nests, eggs, chicks or fledglings. Our dawn chorus, too, was magnificent fo sho.

Porters RiverDr (1).jpg
Porters n Pals visit River Drive; Carol, Lyn, Sandra & Trish

Now, our new place, 10 Elston Place Westville was a horse of a completely different kettle of tea (and that phrase was a FreeState Reed-ism), when we got here seven years ago. There was one native strelitzia – the rest of the weeds were foreign nursery plants. The main trees were an avocado, a flamboyant, a loquat and a row of Aussie camelfoots.

Aitch and I soon changed that and this morning I woke up to hear an AMAZING dawn chorus!! Shades of River Drive.

Black-bellied starlings, dark-backed weavers, Westville Kookaburra (the brown-hooded kingfisher), olive sunbirds, bulbuls, white-eyes, turacos, white-eared barbets, drongos, prinias, both mannikins, puffback, boubou, francolin, ‘our’ robin, sombre and belly-aching greenbuls, GT woodpecker and all their cousins were singing, shouting and laughing at 10 Elston Place.

What a joy!

2015-04-05

~~oo0oo~~

Terry Brauer warbled:

That is awesome Pete! Summer is on the way and I will bet Aitch is part of that chorus!!

Mike Lello honked:

You mean to say the tenor clarinet – he who never pays attention to the conductor and plays with great volume and gusto – was absent? I have 4 curved-beaked unemployed youngsters on my roof desperate for an audition. Ha Ha (Hadeda!)


hadeda

Steve Reed chirped: Ibises, Mike, I’m guessing? Maybe not. Breeding well in Queensland. They have a strong presence at any sidewalk cafe anywhere in Brisbane. Especially where French fries are on the menu.

I replied: Yep. I’m sure Mike was mentioning the dreaded Greater Westville Pterodactyl – the HaDeDa, Bostrychia hagedash. I always thought the species name was hadeda, but I looked it up now: hagedash! Young David once rose from a deep n hungover sleep and shot one on his Mid-Illovo farmhouse roof for playing the tenor clarinet with great volume and gusto without paying attention to the conductor. It had got stuck on that everlasting repeat mode we all know, and paid the price.

Here are two lurking Greater Westville Pterodactyls above our roof, perched on the dead avocado tree, waiting to let rip: Ha Ha (Hadeda!)

– Westville Pterodactyls lurk, obviously waiting to pounce! –

~~oo0oo~~

Four Wild Toppies on the Old Coast

Secret Diary of a trip down mammary lane.

It wasn’t that we were actually, y’know, OLD, but . . . well, we needed a break and a brief flashback to our glory days, when the chicks used to hurl themselves at us. Well, that one. In the harbour, remember?

So we piled into a kombi and headed off to the Wild Coast, looking for That Famous Stuff they sell down there, and hoping to rendezvous with the Swedish Hockey team. OK, the Swedish Old Girls Hockey Team, who were rumoured to be doing pre-season training in Lusikisiki (or, as we called it after crawling out of The Shy Stallion shebeen) Lo-squeaky-squeaky.

As we neared the coast there was a lo-ong downhill ahead of us and I stopped the kombi and got onto Abbers’ mountain bike and whizzed down with glee. As I reached terminal velocity I did think Uh-Oh! as I felt the effects of the Black Label kicking in. At the bottom I coasted to a halt. I don’t do uphills.

It was the Black Label by the quart and sweet wine that did it, I suppose, but when we got to the actual coast where the waves break against the rugged shore, we were looking for some action. We needed a break from all the Sixties music we’d been playing, broken only by one awful interlude when Bruce snuck an Amy Winehouse CD into the player! So we lay down and had a snooze.

But Abbers had brought that borrowed mountain bike, and we no longer wondered why. Seems he wanted to get away from the competition and meet up with a longtime connection he had met when salvaging the good ship BBC China which foundered off Grosvenor back when he was but a boy in his forties. Off he went on his own, heading vaguely south, trapping that fiets stukkend.


– Check carefully: No hockey girls –

When he got back much later there was a distinct whiff of some smoky vegetation about him and the Msikaba mosquitoes avoided him like the plague. We pumped him for information, but all we got was a mumbled “Loose-titty-titty” and the fact that he had not found the now-overdue Swedish Old Girls Hockey Team, but that when we did he dabzed wrestling with the goalie.

Abbers’ head did clear after a few days and he set off fishing so as to be able to answer spouse Les reasonably honestly, give or take; but the fish were having none of it. You could actually see them giving his bait a wide berth and wrinkling up their nostrils.

wikipedia: MV BBC China was a 5,548 GT general cargo vessel. In October 2003 the ship was diverted to Italy while carrying gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment to Libya. In October 2004 it ran aground near Port Grosvenor, where it was declared a total loss and subsequently demolished with explosives. – BY ABBERS! See? This is true.

~~oo0oo~~

trapping that fiets stukkend – pedaling vigorously

~~oo0oo~~

Meanwhile, unbeknown to us . . . a few rivers further north, the Swedish ladies K4 paddling team was training on the Umtamvuna:

swedish rowing team

This is true. OK, they might not have been there that same weekend but they did go there! And they were Swedish. And gorgeous.

Msikaba Boys Weekend

Taking pictures was hard cos there was beer . . .

~~oo0oo~~

Pearls Before Swine

On Friday, August 3, 2012, Pete wrote: You can’t understand teenagers. Whenever I offer to sing to Jess and her friends to save her the cost of tickets to hear Justin Bieber or whoever, she says “OmiGawd, Dad, NO!”
When she’s in the car with friends and I offer to sing instead of listening to their CD’s, iPods, Blackberrys, bluetooth to my speakers, or whatever, I get a loud chorus of “No Thanks Pete!!” and whispered giggles to Jess about her weird Dad.

But she has a soft heart. Yesterday she came to me and said “Dad maybe old people would want to listen to you sing.”

~~oo0oo~~

Steve Reed wrote: Want to listen to you sing?  Only old people who are drunk and who are also wanting to sing. I suspect this type of forced exposure to our dubious talents (though with only the best of intentions) would have been responsible for a substantial degree of traumatic stress to our own kid . . . Character building though. 

Anyhow, good to see the SAfricans doing well in the Olympic medals. 

Aussies have brought a bunch of retired sportsmen out to have a go. The pre – Sydney games sports development initiative is now a thing of the past.

Go the ZA’s! . . and good on the Kiwis.

I wrote: Ah, austerity over posterity? The calvinist ideal. Usually used to deny poor people their fair share; but in this particular case I agree with it, I’m afraid. ‘Specially here, where much money is spent looking for medals (and my favourite: building plush, empty, white-elephant stadiums) while people have no jobs, houses or electricity. Even the lotto’ charity’ gives money to ruddy sports clubs rather than genuine charities. Bums me.

~~oo0oo~~

Back to singing: Fine tradition, drunk warbling.

Steve: One of Australia’s best has yet again done his country ‘proud’ . .

Australian Olympic rower will offer his apologies to the shop owners whose windows he damaged. Booth will also pay more than $2000 to the owners in a bid to avoid criminal charges. The 21-year-old Melbourne University student was intoxicated during the incident as the team was out celebrating.

The men’s eight rowing team qualified 6th just hours before the incident. The Australian Olympic Committee have little doubt of Booth’s involvement and say he is responsible for all reparations. Many believe the incident has caused embarrassment for the Australian Olympic team. (Me: Drunkenness has cause Aussie embarrassment? C’mon! Get real).

Booth fainted and hit his head at the police station after being arrested. He was then taken to hospital as a precaution. OK, now that’s embarrassing for Aussie.

And no, they take NO Drugs. This liquid has long been declassified as a drug by the anti-drug, pro-booze industry . .

I wrote: Having once (long ago) experimented with this very same liquid drug, I spose I should keep quiet at times like this . .

Steve: Still doing controlled experiments myself. Let’s call it research. 

I wrote: Yep – C2H5OH taken internally . . ongoing experimentation. Cos there’s still so much to learn . .

~~~oo0oo~~~

Thy Ox and My Ass

On a boys getaway weekend to Manteku on the WildCoast my kombi makes it easily down to Drifters’ camp, though I do think Uh! Oh! as we drive down, Might be interesting getting out!

Uh Oh!

Five glorious days later we pack up and head out. But it has rained and the hill is too much for the kombi. What now? We’re the only vehicle in miles and the okes who should push are way too old for the job. They sit in my fine vehicle looking at me, sipping beer and asking, So what are YOU going to do?

Luckily, our Drifters camp manager is helpful. “No problem,” he says, “I’ll get some oxen.”

Oh, the shame! My ‘friends’ roar with laughter and start preparing. To lighten the kombi? To attach the tow rope? To clear big rocks away? No. None of the above. To take pictures!

A ‘helpful’ comrade filled with empathy!
– after a false start, where the oxen made a beeline for the river, we’re now aimed right . . uphill –

To this day I am reminded of this by these helpful ‘friends’. If I mention any car trouble they helpfully tell me: “Check for ox shit in the axles.”

At the top, it’s payment time: Thanks for your time, your trained oxen and your skill!

I told the helpful owner, Verily, Thy ox saved My ass.

~~oo0oo~~