Tag Archives: Tshwane

Tshwane

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

erf – earth; plot; erven; yard; peace on erf = domestic bliss

Road Safety and the Elderly

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.

Driverless Car

~~~oo0oo~~~