Tag Archives: pub

Wasn’t Me

So a chain of 600 pubs went bankrupt and I know why. If you’re selling beer and you call yourself Thank God its Friday, that will resonate with thirsty tired working people, and you’re going to be popular. If you change your name to Thank Goodness its Friday you’re starting to wimp, and that’s not a good sign. If you then wimp it down to TGI Friday’s (what!!?) you’ve lost the plot IMO. Beer sales will steadily decline over a period of about 58 years and there’ll be financial trouble.

So TGI Friday’s went bust cos they were no longer Thank God its Friday. That, and probably also that apostrophe.

Back in 1973 they very much were Thank God its Friday, and we patronised them because that sounded like a great name. It was a special night for me cos I had been drinking beer illegally for a long time and TONIGHT I was about to have my first legal beer, thus wiping clean all past transgressions like good Catholics do. Or like bad Catholics do? I’d be getting Absolution, anyway.

In the ole Vrystaat where very little is actually vry the legal age to have a pint was 18 and I was 17 when I left for America after a few years of practicing drinking beer under sustained peer pressure. That’s my story anyway. I landed up in Oklahoma where I turned 18, but that didn’t help much. The beer was Coors light, only 3.2%, but the legal drinking age was 21. That summer Katie and family took me to Louisiana which was also 21. I had to (or should have) continue to drink feeling guilty.

Larry then drove down from upstate New York and fetched me from Shreveport in his light grey VW Beetle and we drove north through Arkansas, where we might have enjoyed a beer, but the legal age was still 21, so sadly (right! actually merrily) I was also breaking the law then.

But Missouri! Now Missouri was an 18 state and in Springfield MO we needed a beer after a long day’s drive and so we repaired to Thank God its Friday. I had my passport in my pocket, looking forward to proving I was ‘of age,’ but as always the bouncer just waved me through. I’ve never been skatted younger than I am.

So there I had a pint or two with Larry who had poured beers down my throat (me protesting) when I was an innocent fourteen year old lad back in 1969 when he was sent from wicked New York to corrupt the innocent ous in Harrismith, Vrystaat.

After that they stopped calling it Thank God its Friday and soon after – in 2024 – they went belly-up.

Cause and effect, see?

~~oo0oo~~

Damn, now Hooters has gone bust! The world sure is changing when even showing cleavage to old okes can’t sell beer!

In this case I may carry a bit of guilt. Never did go to Hooters. Felt to me like exploitation. Also, there wasn’t one nearby.

vry – free, mahala

mahala – free

skatted – estimated; collective noun: A bout of estimations (thanks Terry)

ous – young gentlemen

Rocky Horror in Senekal Vrystaat

Tabs Fyvie called me this morning: Jenny and I are on our way back from Namibia and guess where we spent the night?

I can’t guess.

In Senekal!

NO WAY!! Senekal!? I would have bet money that Tabs Fyvie would never again in his WHOLE LAHF voluntarily spend a night in the dusty and sinister metropolis of Senekal Vrystaat!

And here’s why:

~~oo0oo~~

1975: Rugby in Bloemfontein, first test Springboks vs the Frogs, the French. We drove over in Tabs’ car to watch.

– Morne du Plessis the SA captain –
– very boring footage –

One of the teams must have won, but I remember that test for something different than rugby: After the game, Tabs, Des, Raz, Stervis and I are driving back to Harrismith when the beer ran out and a kroeg – no way you would call it a pub – in the dusty metropolis of Senekal beckoned.

Tabs remembers us playing darts and drinking maybe quite a lot. By the time the barman threw us out Des had bonded deeply with one of Senekal’s left-behinds, and when we suggested we leave for home rather than go home with Deliverance for a braai, Des told us in no uncertain terms that WE could go, but HE was not leaving his lifelong mate – of three hours – in the lurch. There would be no abandonment on his watch, said Des with his nose in the air and his eyes closed – you know how he gets.

ONE fing we must NOT do, we were told, also in no uncertain terms, by Des’ Brokeback Mountain mate when we got to the small house on the wrong side of Senekal, is wake his wife. Lemme tell you carefully, you must not, no marrer whut you do, wake my wahf, you hear?

Wooden floors, five drunk ous stumbling around, I started to think this goon doesn’t actually have a wife. Conan meanwhile, is scratching around in the chest deep freeze. He hauls out what looks like a roundish, rock-hard lump of blood in a plastic checkers packet, and suddenly I get a clear image: He DOES have a wife and she IS in the house! In that deep freeze! In fact, he’s offering us a piece of her for a braai! To destroy evidence. I’m tallying you, we’re part of his alibi!

Des, I urge, we should go, this is going to take forever, I’m tallying you. But it’s like Des told us: WE can go, but HE’s not leaving his lifelong mate; his china; his Senekal Soulmate. It’s about loyalty and fidelity.

It’s midnight in midwinter in Senekal, Vrystaat. It’s not warm. Eventually a fire gets going – sort of – and the icy red lumpy piece of deceased wife sits on it, refusing to melt. Its like ice vs small fire and ice is winning. An alternative hazy recollection is the oven was turned on and the lump placed in there. This is Stervis’ recollection, but you know what he’s like. Exact facts are in dispute among us hostages decades later. Maybe we’re suffering from Stockholm Syndrome?

Meantime, Jack Nicholson has found some dop and we have to drink, and luckily this puts him to sleep and mellows the Glutz, who loves him less sleeping than awake; so we’re able to persuade him to make a bolt for it, hitting the Senekal dirt roads till we find the tar to Harrismith.

Stervis also has a hazy recollection of the Wildman pulling out a gun, Clint Oosthuizen-style, and taking potshots at us as the getaway car spins madly down the driveway, slewing sideways and throwing up stones which put Rambo off his aim. Luckily the resulting dust plume obscures us from view and saves our lives. I like Stervis’ version.

Tabs has a slightly different recollection which the years have not made any less exciting: His version is also wilder than mine: He remembers this Clyde making threats against anyone wanting to pomp his Bonnie, who he thought we may have seen – maybe she was present? Having to protect his wahf’s honour made our Clyde mutter he was going to fetch his gun. We took the break and ran for the car. Out of the corner of his eye Tabs, now the driver of the getaway car, noticed one of us was quite a way behind in this desperate race. As the car peeled out, wheels spinning, Des leapt the fence Olympic hurdler-style. His short cut got him to the moving car, the door was flung open and he dived inside, saving him from a feit worse van deaf.

Bliksem!

To this day I can experience that weird, out-of-body sensation of “WTF are we DOING here? Am I in a bad movie or in a bad dream?!”

~~oo0oo~~

I had visited Senekal once before under happier circumstances.

Sabi Sabi carousal

After a delightful game drive we rounded a bend and there before us was a fairyland under the acacias: Candlelit tables; white tablecloths; mounds of food and litres of grog; Dinner under the stars;

Litres of grog. We felt obliged to indulge. Wonderfully festive and everyone in expansive, friendly and bonhomie mood. Well, me anyway. I had fallen amongst thieves and was being happily led astray. Again.

Hyenas around the camp watched us just outside the circle of firelight. Every now and then someone would shine a torch round and there were those eyes, watching us and taking notes.

We drank all the bottles. We tried hard to drink all the boxes.

Landrovers left, one after the other. We drank on. Then came that fearful dirge, dreaded by all soaks: Time gentlemen please. Gotta go now. The last Landrover is leaving.

Go! we said. No Worries! We’ll catch the last hyena home. Bacchanalian Bravado. The rangers who’d drawn the short straw rolled their eyes and waited, then patiently herded us into the last Landrover and drove us home, pretending to enjoy our songs and wit. Some of us sitting on the bonnet passing the last box of wine from mouth to mouth.

Back in River Camp they resignedly open up the pub and we drank some more. Strangely enough we felt thirsty, they always say one should drink a lot – avoid dehydration. There was a bit of spillage on the bar counter due to enthusiasm and slight co-ordination challenges. But more No Worries, we dutifully mopped up the bar counter leaving it clean and tidy. Vicious rumours circulated that I played a central role, hoovering up the booze lake. Tall tales were told how I was held by the legs and torso by sundry drunkards and long-lip suctioned up the leftover moisture. I was only trying to help. One should act responsibly I feel.

~~~oo0oo~~~

internet pic from Timbavati, thanks

Merriam-Webster says (paraphrased): German tipplers toasting each other’s health sometimes drank a brimming mug of spirits straight to the bottom-drinking “all-out.” They called it – gar aus. The French adopted the German term as carous, using the adverb in their expression boire carous (“to drink all out”), and that phrase, with its idiomatic sense of “to empty the cup,” led to carrousse, a French noun meaning “a large draft of liquor.” And that’s where English speakers picked up carouse in the mid-1500s, first as a noun (which later took on the sense of a general “drinking bout”), and then as a verb meaning “to drink freely.”

dictionary.com says: carousal – [ kuh-rou-zuhl ] – noun: a noisy or drunken feast or social gathering; revelry.