The wall of fame

A good blog buddy asked me if (rhetorically I think) if beer was my answer to everything. I think it might be. It as least as good an answer as any other.



In my digs days I had the pleasure of having a complete double garage as my bedroom. It had space for a pub, lounge furniture, dart board etc. It had two steel doors and no ceiling so was mighty cold in winter but I’m full of fond memories of the place. On one entire wall I pasted hand-written quotes that I gleaned from stuff that I read, heard or saw. This was pre-google days so it wasn’t as easy to find pithy quotes as it is now. I’ve still have a plastic folder full of these quotes and transcribed them once in a moment of nostalgic boredom.

These are often attempts to describe or answer life’s great questions as briefly as possible. At least half a dozen or so of them have beer or drink as a theme. Most of it is typical undergrad fare but when I look at this collection in hindsight I have been fairly consistent in my thinking and in what thoughts appeal to me since.

This is going to be a long post – but here follows my entire wall of fame. Through it all I think beer may remain the answer. Perhaps though it really lies in the quote from Baudelaire below (scroll anon you’ll have to page way down to find it).

“No man has ever dared to describe himself as he truly is.” - Camus

“No bird soars too high if he soars on his own wings” - Wm. Blake

“Some things are so big they make no sense” - Bowie

“I don’t have no sports car and I don’t even care to have one. I can walk anytime around the block” – Robert Zimmerman

“You followed the motto of ‘be drunk be happy’, kept your crafty arms around female waists, and felt the beer going beneficially down into the elastic capacity of your guts” – Allan Sillitoe in Saturday Night & Sunday Morning

“The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom” - Wm. Blake

Stars are the nipples of angelspressed against the face of heaven- Grace Nichols

“Always do right. This will gratify some people and astonish the rest” – Mark Twain

“Only the supremely wise and the abysmally ignorant do not change”- Confucius

“The excesses of youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest about 30 years after date.” - Colton

‘Six pints of bitter,’ said Ford Prefect to the barman of the Horse and Groom. ‘And quickly please, the world’s about to end.’The barman of the Horse and Groom didn’t deserve this sort of treatment, he was a dignified old man. He pushed his glasses up his nose and blinked at Ford Prefect. Ford ignored him and stared out of the window, so the barman looked instead at Arthur who shrugged helplessly and said nothing.So the barman said, ‘Oh yes sir? Nice weather for it,’ and started pulling pints.He tried again.‘Going to watch the match this afternoon then?’Ford glanced round at him.‘No, no point,’ he said, and looked back out of the window.‘What’s that, foregone conclusion then you reckon sir?’ said the barman. ‘Arsenal without a chance?’‘No no,’ said Ford, ‘it’s just that the world’s about to end.’‘Oh yes sir, so you said,’ said the barman, looking over his glasses this time at Arthur. ‘Lucky escape for Arsenal if it did.’Ford looked back at him genuinely surprised.‘No, not really,’ he said. He frowned.The barman breathed in heavily. ‘There you are sir, six pints,’ he said.- Douglas Adams in The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy

“The only way to overcome temptation is to yield to it”- Oscar Wilde

“I wonder if I’m happy, wonder if I’m madI wonder why the whole wide world’s so wonderfully sad.I don’t know about that, but I can tell you thisWhen I drink a lot of beer you know I gotta piss”- Gordon Gano

“It is great to live. Most people mereley exist”- Oscar Wilde

“life isn’t a matter of luck, of good fortune, it’s whether the heart can keep singing when there’s really no reason why it should at all.”- Raymond Souster

“It is the person – regardless of the medium that he uses – who makes a work of art into a work of art.”- Man Ray

“Specialise in fun
Take it as it comes”
- Jim Morrison

“Once a philosopher, twice a pervert” - Voltaire

“An idea that is not dangerous is not worthy of being called an idea at all” - Oscar Wilde

“You should not anger yourself about this world: it does not care. Whatever comes, assign to its proper place in your little world and you will be happy.”- Plutarch

“If God didn’t exist, everything would be possible” – Dostoievsky

“Your soul is oftentimes a battlefield upon which your reason and your judgment wage war against your passion and your appetite.” - Kahlil Gibran

“Life is a faked orgasm and we play it like a game.”

“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair”– Kahlil Gibran

“I don’t have a drinking problem unless I can’t get a drink”- Tom Waits

“It is hard to realise how badly we are fooled by the abuse of ideas” - Carl Jung

“The unknown is shown only by a bend in the known.” - Norman Nichloson

“I have my freedom, but I don’t have much time.”- Mick Jagger

Stunted SonnetLove is like a cigaretteThe bigger the drag, the more you get.
- Adrian Mitchell

“I kissed three time her shivering lips.I drank their naked chill.I watched the river shiningwhere the heron wiped his bill.I took my love in my icy armsin the Spring on Ringwood Hill.”- Thomas Kinsella from ‘In the Ringwood’

‘We are the dead,’ he said.
‘We are not dead yet,’ said Julie prosaically.
- George Orwell 1984

The ozone layer is a bit like Mother Nature’s G-spot, everybody talks about it but nobody knows quite what it does or where it is.

“Don’t laugh babe, it’ll be all right.” – Bowie

“Socialists like the poor so much that they create more of them.” - Jacques Godfrain (French parliament 1993)

“The difference between men and women is that men are lunatics and women are idiots.” - Rebecca West

“Man’s belly is the reason why he does not easily take himself for a god.” –Nietzsche Beyond Good and Evil

“The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer despite my 30 years’ research into the feminine soul, is: What does a woman want?”- Sigmund Freud

“Polite conversation is rarely either” – Fran Leibowitz
“Any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in Mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.”
- John Donne

“Real ladies don’t know the price of things, they like mad, extravagant gestures; their eyes are beautiful innocent flowers, hot-house flowers.”
- JP Sartre Nausea

“I hate a dumpy woman.”
- George Bernard Shaw

“Guns are made of steel and wood
but the wondrous giver of life
is flesh between your legs.”
- Dave Cunliffe

“Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell deserves to stay there.”
- Sidney Harris

“I too know the lightning. In its shapes I recognise Gods fucking.”
- Paul Matthews

“….no thought is contented.” - Richard II,V,iv

“Give me chastity and continency – but not yet!”- St Augustine

“A cup of ale without a wench, why alas, ‘tis like an egg without salt, or a red herring without mustard.” - Lodge & Green (1590)

“The army works like this: If a man dies when you hang him, keep hanging him until he gets used to it.”- Spike Milligan

“When one suggests you’re a donkey do not fret; only when two speak thus go buy yourself a saddle.”- Talmud

“What men commonly call their fate is mostly their own foolishness.”- Schopenhauer

“I disapprove of what you say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it.”- Voltaire

“There is no education like adversity” - Benjamin Disraeli

“Do not divide people into good and evil, People are either tedious or charming.”- Oscar Wilde

“Genius is 1% inpsiration and 99% perspiration”- Thomas Edison

“We must learn to live together as brothers or we will perish together as fools.”- Rev Martin Luther King

“I want to tell her that I love her a lot but I got to get a bellyful of wine.”- The Beatles Her Majesty
“And make the income tax optional.”- AA Milne

“A happy life must be to great extent a quiet life for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.”- Bertrand Russell

Dum spiro, spero (While I breath, I hope)

“I’ll wash my own brains, thank you very much.”- Fiona Pitt-Kethley

“If war doesn’t kill you it’s bound to start you thinking.”- George Orwell

“Unquestionably, one penis is more than enough.” - Paul Duncan

“She didn’t mind if his feelings were wine and his thoughts grapes.”- Vladimir Holan

“If little else, the brain is an educational toy.” - Tom Robbins

IN A STATION OF THE METRO
The apparition of these faces in the crowd;
Petals on a wet, black bough.
- Ezra Pound

The Musings of an Alcoholic Coming Out of a BenderIs that my toe?I ought to knowif that’s my foot I see…Yes, it must be my toe!Look, I can wiggle it, so…But wait…Now let me see…Perhaps it’s not my toe,because I don’t really knowif I am in bed with me…?-Vic Wright

“To live outside the law you must be honest.” - Bob Dylan

“It is the nature of every advance, that it appears much greater than it actually is.”- Nestroy

“A great pleasure in life is to do what others say you cannot do.” - Walter Gagehot

“You silly twisted boy!”- The Goons

“…there is a story of a Swedish tramp, sitting in a ditch on a midsummer night. He was ragged and dirty, and he said to himself softly and in wonder, ‘ I am rich and happy and perhaps a little beautiful.’”- Steinbeck the log from the Sea of Cortex

The mask of evilOn my wall hangs a Japanese carving,The mask of an evil demon, decorated with gold lacquer.Sympathetically I observe The swollen veins of the forehead, indicatingWhat a strain it is to be evil.- Bertolt Brecht

“ A way a lone a loved a long the ….. riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s from swerve of shore to bend of bay brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.”- James Joyce Finnegan’s Wake

“…the trouble with having the vote, is that other people have it too.”- JR Lucas

“Within the foreseeable future, man will either destroy himself or take off for the stars. It is doubtful whether reasoned argument will play any significant part in the ultimate decision.” - Arthur Koestler The Sleepwalkers

Why are fuck, suck and cunt still denigrated by so many as the nastiest most unspeakable words they can think of and quite unthinkable as things of beauty or activities to work at or relish or adore? - Jesus H Christ (Michael Horowitz)

“A soldier should not be drunken more than once a week. It would of course be better if he were not drunken at all, but one should not expect the impossible.”- Genghis Khan

“Neither gods nor human beings made this cosmos. It is (like) an ever living fire, being kindled in measures and extinguished in measures.”- Heraclitus

“I think that we have never had A world so sad and mad and bad And, being part of it, I see That part of it is due to me.”- AA Milne

“He who is not contented with what he has would not be contented with what he would like to have.” - Socrates

“Sex is just politics with the clothes off.”- Malcolm Bradbury

“Change is the nursery
Of music, joy, life and eternity.”- John Donne

“What’s so civil about war?”-Axl Rose

“To see the world in a grain of sand,and a heaven in a wild flower;Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,and eternity in an hour.”- Wm Blake

“Hell is other people.” -Sartre

“So many women, so little time.”- Nietzsche

“Friends demand to be lovers,
Lovers spend the night and end becoming friends.”
John Brand

God that curry was hotAn hour ago the intensity of hungerripped my stomach, too many cigarettes, a headache but a reality at least; now it’s move over, shut up and let me sleep.- Tom McGrath The Evidence

“Love of power… is an extremely dangerous motive, because the only sure proof of power consists in preventing others from doing what they wish to do.”- Bertrand Russell

“Never alter anything that you have written, especially if someone else asks you to.”- Bertrand Russell

“All marriages are happy. It’s living together afterwards that causes all the trouble.”- Raymond Hull

“Every man likes that game you call love
but it don’t mean no man no good.”- Robert Johnson

“Remember all the tales great Ovid wrote – Goddesses love to fuck – don’t miss the boat!”- Fiona Pitt-Kethley

“It’s not what you are that matters, it’s what people think you are.”- Andy Warhol

“Personally, I used to believe in reincarnation, but that was in a previous lifetime.”- Paul Krassner

“In confusion, my soul is divided in two: One is passion’s slave; the other, reason’s to command.”- Sister Juana Ines de la Cruz

E = mc2

Don’t try to tame the wild god.

facilus est descensis Averni - The road to hell is an easy one

“The idea is like grass. It craves light, likes crowds, thrives on cross-breeding, grows better for being stepped on.”- Ursula K. Le Guin

“I see God in my asshole in the flashbulb of orgasm.” - William Burroughs

“The nakedness of woman is the work of God.”- William Blake

“…poems are born in the bubbling soul of the crotch.”- Grace Nichols

“Between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ is there really much difference?”- Tao te Ching

“The best way to pay for a beautiful day is to enjoy it.”- Richard Bach

“Beneath it all desire of oblivion runs”- Philip Larkin

“He who doubts what he sees will ne’er believe, do what you please.”- Wm Blake

“Education is what you know after you’ve forgotten all you learnt at school.”- Albert Einstein

“a pretty girl who naked isis worth a million statues.”- ee cummings

“Everything depends on how near you sleep to me.”- Leonard Cohen

“If we executed one in seven of our economists, the financial pages would look rosier.”- Peter Porter

“When wine is gone, and money spent, then small beer is most excellent.”- Richard Porson

“We were not exasperated with women, for the female is ductile.”- Ezra Pound The Condolence

“Be always drunken. Nothing else matters: that is the only question. If you would not feel the horrible burden of time weighing on your shoulders and crushing you to the earth, be drunken continually. Drunken with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue as you will. But be drunken….”- Charles Baudelaire

“When women want to make mistakes one should not prevent them.”- Erich Kastner

“Imagination is far more important than knowledge.”- Albert Einstein

a politician is an arse uponwhich everyone has sat except a man- ee cummings

“My wife or mother may be a fool, or prostitute, malicious, lying, deceitful: if they be of what consequence is it that they are mine? What magic is there in the pronoun ‘my’ to overrun the decisions of everlasting truth?”- William Godwin condemning heroism that is irrational

“But in fact, nothing do we know from having seen it: for the truth is hidden in the deep.” – Democritus

“The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer someone else up.”- Mark Twain

“The gods love the obscure and hate the obvious.”- Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

“The rich have butlers and no friends and we have friends and no butlers.”- Ezra Pound

“There are no mistakes. The events we bring upon ourselves, no matter how unpleasant are necessary to learn; Whatever steps we take, they’re necessary to reach the places we’ve chosen to go.”- Richard Bach
Der der deary didi!
Der? I? Da! Deary? da!
Der I, didida; da dada,
didideary-da. Dadareder, didireader. Dare I die deary da? Da dare die didi
Die derider! Didiwriter
Dadadididididada.Aaaaaaaa! Der i da.
- Terry Eagleton

Andy, where is my 15 minutes?

“Work is what you do so that sometime you won’t have to do it anymore.”- Alfred Polgar

“Souvent femme varie, bien fol est qui s’y fie.”
Francois I of France
Women are so changeable, only a fool relies on them

“Nothing is ever accomplished by a reasonable man.”- George Bernard Shaw

“None of the mistakes you make are likely to destroy the universe.”- William James

“You are innocent when you dream.”- Tom Waits

“Never trust a man in a blue trench coat
Never drive a car when you are dead.”- Tom Waits

“I insist that a girl
Stripped to the waist
Is the first and last miracle.”
- Charles Simic

“Love pardons even the passion of the beloved.”- Nietzsche

Someone's stolen my beer

12% of every damned bottle I consume this holiday has been stolen!

This is old news but I don’t think that it received the airplay that it should have at the time.

In recent years South African beer has always been served in the following containers.

340ml can
340ml non-returnable bottle (“handi” – previously “dumpy”)
375ml returnable bottle (“pint”)
750ml returnable bottle (“quart”).

Now – in August 2006 there was a subtle change to this. The “pint” bottle is now 330ml. 88% of original size.

SAB released this bizarre media release at the time.

SAB Communications Manager Michael Farr said: “Consumer research showed us clearly that there was demand for a more individual drinking experience at an attractive price. The 330ml single serve returnable provides our core consumer base with the opportunity to exercise individual choice with a single serving at a very competitive price. At between R4.00 and R4.30 versus R5.00 for the non-returnable 340ml serving, it is an attractive value proposition.”

Along with further inanities about this being in response to international trends that would also reduce littering!

What PR twaddle. Someone should hang for this.

I have some questions.

1. Consumer research? Nobody asked me!
2. Since when does reducing the size of my drink give me a “more individual drinking experience”?
3. What are these guys smoking?
4. What do these guys think I’m smoking if they think I’ll believe this rubbish?
5. Why should we have to follow international trends that make my beer smaller? Just because the Americans can't handle a decent handful of beer why should I suffer?

And now for those of out there who have just lost 12% of their beer with every order, which one of you has seen a reduction in price at their local pub?

I wish I could boycott the products in question in protest but that would be really silly wouldn’t it.

Opsimathy

“Where have you been?” you might quite rightly ask. Well the answer is: “Not too far away and mighty busy”. I have missed the blogging world but an opsimath of note I sure have been with all manner of reality being thrust at me and with me being on a ascent of learning that I can barely believe. But, I’m loving it. What a fantastic thing – this human condition that realises that there is no such thing as human nature. We choose, we learn, we do what we believe is best & we live with the consequences.

If you believe there is such a thing as human nature then that human nature must apply to you as an individual – which means that your own nature becomes self-fulfilling. A belief that “I have a shy nature” or “I am doomed to be involved in abusive relationships” will become your reality. Face each day afresh and you can do anything. Try reading this book for a pop psychology approach to this way of thinking. Wayne Dyer's - Your Erroneous Zones.

And then we learn some more and what a wonderful life it is when we find out that we can handle almost anything life throws at us.

As, finally I arrive at the week that my family and I will all be in the same town and my leisure time moves out of the airport waiting lounge I wish you all a fantastic festive season. Take care on the roads. Have fun. I’ll be back in the new year – hopefully a little more regularly than the last 7 weeks or so.

Warm love and wishes upon you all. ATW

Hot Stuff

Well the Chilliboy finally makes it to the big time. Good luck good man. You bear the mantle of being the most likely man to keep the ominous threat of excessive political interference in the game at bay. As said earlier in the year, you have the brand to unite the nation behind you much like Ntini has done for cricket.

Why do you wave the Orange White & Blue?

Well, we won the rugby and that perhaps saved Jake White's bacon for a few months. But the entire occasion was spoiled by the immature behaviour of a number of South African so called supporters who decided it was cool to wave the oranje, blanje, blou. The sad thing about these individuals is that they were not beer-bellied and moustached. They were in their early twenties, born just a few years before Mandela's release. I both cringe and weep for their ignorance.

Follow up: article here.

“We are proud South Africans and we no longer live in the new South Africa,” said Johannes Wolfaardt (21).Asked how they reconcile their view with the fact that if it were not for the new South Africa the Springboks would not be playing at Twickenham, Wolfaardt looked a bit surprised. “What you’re saying is not what my dad says. And what he says, is true.” Well I hope you stay there.

Up the Organization

Well, I suppose it's a good thing that blogging has moved down the list of priorities in my life at present. Driven jointly by arriving in a hectic new job and having a IT network that seems to circumnavigate the world before getting to the www. (Damn slow it is too).

My posting history this month has been abysmal, I do concede. Ironic - that being in a environment that I'm learning so much & having my brain crammed with so much information and thoughts of how to deal with this information I just don't have much time to share that with my dear blog community.
Some thoughts on business life now that I'm finally outside the professional services.

• Selling time by the hour sucks, how on earth did I ever manage 8 years of weekly timesheets?
• This is so much more real but I learned a hell of lot by being allowed to scratch around in the underbelly of many paying clients over the years.
• People believe they can and do succeed in getting away with virtually anything . I still believe it will catch up with them one day.
• Racism remains frighteningly present in our society.
• Traffic sucks , one cannot believe what a pleasure it is to get to work in less than 5 minutes.

I noted in my previous post of how good this book is. But I'm now convinced. I've selfishly decided not to give it my MD just so that I can quote little bits from it and quietly put plans into action based on the ideas in this book. Robert Townsend's book, "Up the Organization: How to stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits" is the best guide to managing a small business I have yet to stumble upon.

Just as an indication of Towsend's tone he makes suggestions that all executive offices ,including the CEO's, should be the same size (small) and furnished with the same basic furniture. Anyone who makes over $150 a week (in 1970!) should set his own office hours and should never have a job description. He also instigated a revolt when the book was first published and he indicated that no-one should have a secretary. (bearing in mind my borrowed copy is nearly 40 years old and coming apart at the seams - As it is now out of print I've ordered a replacement 2nd hand copy via Amazon for about $20 including shipping).

One of those weird quirks is that searching for this book, Amazon suggests I may also be interested in Gustav Mahler : Vienna : The Years of Challenge (1897-1904) by Henry-Louis De La Grange. I am not sure I see the relationship between the two subjects!

I've had a weird hunch since January 2006 that this year was a turning point in my life and that as look back on it over the years hence that this will become ever more apparent. So far so good. Just got to find a good pub in PE + (not that I haven't been trying) and it'll be a done deal.

+ by the way - kyk - the pub you mention is mere spitting distance from my new (very old) house.

And that reminds me I haven't quite worked out how my bank manager is going to handle our household's shift from 2 income single mortgage operation to that of a single income and double mortgage. (anyone want to buy/rent a decent place in Paulshof?).

My favourite phoney quote

"We trained hard . . . but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form up into teams we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralization. "
Petronius Arbiter, 210 B.C.

Welcome to my life. It seems that I've been hired to do (some of) the reorganizing though. On top of moving towns, moving my life, buying a house, trying to sell the other house that I just bought and moved into.

Turns out that the above quote from old Petronius is probably phoney (made up, perhaps?). Anyway I am surrounded by plenty of confusion, ineffieciency and demoralization right now, but I don't believe I've ever been as energised and animated about a job as a am right now. May it last long.

I was reminded of the Petronius quote which I stumbled on ages ago while currently reading Robert Townsends, book, "Up the Organization: How to stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits". This book, written a year or two before I was born by the guy who turned AVIS around in the middle of last century is as relevant as ever. This review and this one provide a taster. Great book and beats 99.99% of all the other management claptrap literature that abounds, especially anything by Jack Welch.

MXit Schmixit

So what is all this fuss about Mxit? OK, I can buy the idea that it does provide a cheap alternative to SMS for bored teenagers with dextrous thumbs who want to talk to people they know and have set up as personal contacts. But the mainly bad press about it abounds.

When I was younger my parents and teachers all warned about not allowing oneself to be picked up by sweet talking strangers. Nothing has changed other than the vehicle that they are travelling in.

But the concept of trawling chatrooms at all hours of the day trying to find a like minded soul and finding such souls through brief abbreviated enquiries such as : asl pls? (translated as: Please would you be so kind as to let me know what your age, sex and language is?) is quite inane. I was curious about this and did try to see what all the fuss was about. But seriously it's too much effort. No one tried to pick up "80w" (get it atw ?) and it's just too much effort to try and engage in this. I'm not sure what I would have done had anyone decided that I was worth "going pvt" with anyway! There is simply no way of knowing if the counterparty is who they say they are.

No wonder parents are concerned, they should be. Not only because of the chance (small as it is) of their kids being picked up by a masquerading child pesterer but rather because the concept and discussion is so mindless and futile. If flirting and dating is being reduced to communicating in brief, thumb written monosyllabic abbreviations I pity the modern teen. Those any older, well they are just sad.

PS. for those who were wondering I am still alive.

Billy Joel - Johannesburg 26 October 2006

Concert Review – Billy Joel does Randburg, South Africa.

OK, he’s an old master, no denying. He admits himself that we’re 25 years too late. “25 years ago I was sh!t hot, but now you’re just going to have to take what’s left of me.” And that’s what we got. Good fun, a great jazzy backing band and some tried and tested, well worn songs sung in a well-worn comfortable voice. He has maybe dropped a key or two during some numbers but it hardly detracts.

This is the same show that sold out Madison Square Gardens for 12 consecutive nights in January 2006. Here is a good well informed review if you like the technical side of things. I quote part of it:

"All in all, the show did not disappoint. It was as nostalgic as I hoped it would be, but not in that awkward, "wow, things have really gone downhill" way that I had feared. With a few exceptions, Billy Joel and his band sounded fantastic and put on a high energy, entertaining show. Yes, he shuffles around the stage instead of running, and stops for a swig of water between every song (and occasionally during someone else's solo). But no one else in the world can make that music sound that good, and on the whole, I'm glad he's still doing it. Bravo, Billy, and thanks for the memories."

Self-deprecating, especially when singing out the tried and tested sing-alongs. He lets the crowd do the choruses. He did look a bit bored at times. But who wouldn’t be with the same songs for 30 years? He’s done it all before but he perks up the interest by throwing in some lesser known songs and giving the band members a chance to put in solid solo efforts, especially the trumpeter & sax players. And he seems to be really enjoying himself.

Then all of a sudden the place is roaring to AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell”. But it’s not Billy Joel singing, it’s one of his roadies aka Chainsaw. The guy has a serious belly of jelly, barely restrained by his T-Shirt and such that I’m sure he hasn’t seen his nether regions for at least a decade. But hell old Chainsaw can sing and gets the crowd going, and imagine the kudos of having Joel on supporting guitar. The Australians are going to love him on the next leg of the tour.

Joel is at his best when he is attacking the piano keys. He thumps a mighty tune from the black & whites with his fingers mainly, but also with his elbows, feet and even for a moment his arse.

And yes, he does finally sing the Piano Man. (well the audience sings it really).

A thoroughly good evening out, worth dealing with traffic (to which BJ quipped that it seemed worse than his native New York). I’m well glad I went, even if it was 25 years too late.

A man is not a piece of fruit

"I put 34 years into this firm, Howard, and now I can't pay my insurance. You can't eat an orange and then throw the peel away - a man is not a piece of fruit" - Willie Loman in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.

People do treat you differently once the resignation letter has been signed and submitted. Not badly, just differently and a little distantly. Perhaps it's part jealousy and for some a sense of failure and disappointment? Not that I feel discarded during my last week (and nearly 8 years), just that I hope I never get to feel the way that Willie Loman felt. Moving on is a way to avoid becoming a piece of fruit.

Monday night misogyny

"A cup of ale without a wench, why alas, 'tis like an egg without salt, or a red herring without mustard." - Lodge & Green (circa 1590)

When I was trying to find the exact source of the above quote (I couldn't, so it is only quoted from a scribble in my notebook) I came across a paper discussing Lodge and Green's late 16th century plays. The author, Dr William R. Dynes, comments as follows:

"These plays locate sin within the mundane transactions of English life, and are especially concerned with a perceived disintegration, however historically inaccurate, from a gracious and hospitable past to a present populated by the predatory wealthy and the victimized poor."

So it seems then, that disintegration from a gracious and hospitable past to a present populated by the predatory wealthy and the victimized poor is the bane and whine of every generation.

Ditching your car

In the wake of yet another unsuccessful South African car-free day..
Via Brennie who I found while searching for this Ammons poem to share with the Ant.

don't establish the
boundaries
first,
the squares, triangles,
boxes
of preconceived
possibility,
and then
pour
life into them, trimming
off left-over edges,
ending potential:

But I digress (again).

Back to cars (or lack of them). This link to an article by Martin O'Malley on the virtues of being carless.

O'Malley writes: "I recommend not owning a car to any aspiring writer. I get at least a dozen column ideas a year from the sights, sounds, smells, insults, laughs and epiphanic discoveries of jostling along with other pedestrians. And I walk more, which makes my doctor happy. I save between $600 and $700 a month not owning a car, which comes to $7,200 to $8,400 a year. This means over seven years I have saved between $50,000 and $58,000. Add to this the fact that five years ago I quit my pack-a-day cigarette addiction and I’m up another $18,000. If I give up drinking I may start turning a profit."

I'm not going to go into the great SA debate of there being inadequate public transport etc. Millions of South Africans get by without cars, why can't I? Answers on a postcard.

In many ways I think we are more American than we would like to think. If I were to substitute "South Africans" for the "Americans" in this sentence I think it would lose none of its truth.

“The car industry has done a fabulous job of convincing Americans that their status and self-worth are tied to their cars.”  Chris Balish (Author of "How To Live Well Without Owning A Car").

But I'll leave it to the master to have the final word:
"I don't have no sports car and I don't even care to have one. I can walk anytime around the block."
– Bob Dylan

the centre cannot hold

Ouch! (perhaps because the truth hurts).

Rian "My Traitor's Heart" Malan is widely quoted, alongside Andre Brink, Nadine Gordimer, Chris Hope & JM Coetzee, in an article in the M&G. Which is in turn quoted from this article he wrote for the Spectator, free registration required.

"We thought our table was fairly solid and that we would sit at it indefinitely, quaffing that old rainbow nation ambrosia. Now, almost overnight, we have come to the dismaying realisation that much around us is rotten."

"There won't be a civil war. Whites are finished. According to a recent study, one in six of us has left since the ANC took over and those who remain know their place."

Malan's contention that the removal of whites from [the centre of] civil society is the cause of what we are experiencing has weight though. The centre has been removed and not always adequately replaced.

So we are led through Achebe ⁺ to Yeats' poem, The Second Coming:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Perhaps the quote from Nadine Gordimer is closest to my thoughts:
"There are things that are remarkably good and things that are very, very worrying."

But like "Malan and Brink [who] insist they will not be driven out of their native land" I am in for the long haul. Perhaps it's because I know my place or is it because, like Yeats suggests, I am one of the best who lack all conviction, or both?

⁺ Ironically born in the same year as Kunene and one of the good African writers that my apartheid schooling did expose me to.

Mazisi Kunene (12 May 1930 to 11 August 2006)

I'm frequently shocked at how little I know about my country and its people. Via Sotho/Rethabile Masilo I was led to this Guardian obituary for Mazisi Kunene. (some extracts).

Mazisi Kunene, who has died aged 76, was one of Africa's greatest poets, inspired by the history of the Zulu people, the struggle against apartheid in South Africa and the oral tradition of African literature. He was as cosmopolitan as he was nationalistic, espousing an African literary and cultural ethos along with Chinua Achebe, Ngugi wa Thiongo and Wole Soyinka. He also worked for the ANC in London during the apartheid years and taught African poetry in the United States.
...
Kunene's seminal work was perhaps Emperor Shaka the Great: A Zulu Epic (1979) in which he brought Emperor Shaka, the Zulu king, back to readers in a way that many critics said was more convincing and appreciative than the tyrant and evil war general some of the history books documented him to be. Achebe referenced Kunene's Emperor Shaka the Great at the end of his novel Anthills of the Savannah. Charles Larson compared the work to Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey.

The 1980s and 1990s were perhaps Kunene's most prolific times, producing eight major works in both English and Zulu. These include Anthem of the Decade (1981) and The Ancestors and the Sacred Mountain (1982). He returned to South Africa in 1993, the year that Unesco honoured him as Africa's poet laureate. In 2005, he was named South Africa's poet laureate.

There is also this LA Times Obit.
"Mazisi Kunene is simply the greatest African poet in the 20th century. Period," Masilela said. "He was in the forefront of liberating Africa culturally by making us go back to writing in African languages."

Also this tribute.

I am shocked at my ignorance. Here is a South African academic writer, poet and academic that I have never read and shamefully admit to never have heard of. Ignorance is not always bliss and this is something that I must put right.

Tribute to Mshongweni: A Great Nineteenth-Century African Poet (1977)

After the festival, after the feast
After the singing
After the voices have faded into the night
And the sounds of talking have ceased
And the angry winds have shed their manes
And people have stopped to dance
You voice and your voice only Shall rise from the ruins

UPDATE:
This is strange (Prompted by a comment made here ) and I’m not sure what to make of it:

While the passing of Kunene was quite promptly reported and obituarised (is that a word?) in the local media it took some a long time to flow through to the rest of the world (where it was reported then by some prominent news organisaions:

Locally (in South Africa)

The SA Dept of Arts & Culture _ (19 August 2006), John Matshikiza in M&G (28 August 2006) , IOL (14 August 2006).

Rest of World

Seemed to be triggered by the AP releasing this as a news item on 19 September 2006 – That’s more than 5 weeks after he died!

The LA Times & Gaurdian obits (19 September 2006) linked above. The Times (23 September 2006),
Fox News (19 September 2006). And bringing up the rear, our neighbours at The Namibian (3 October 2006)

Like the whale poet I too don’t really know how obituaries in news departments work. I assumed that most large organizations have a stock of pre-prepared obits which they update when they require them. It seems that the greater world (much like myself) has been slow to awaken to the life (and death) of this great poet.

Snuki's listing ship

I had been wanting to comment on the ominous developments in the SABC news room. Having first posted on this topic in June this year when I voiced my suspicion that Zikalala was the motivating force in this debacle. Fortunately Inyoka has done it for me and has linked to most of the relevant comments.

UPDATE: The question I had meant to pose above is: Will Zikalala survive this? I think he well might.

Further: Thami Mazwai responds to Anton Harber is this Business Day article. He does make an interesting (and very postmodern) point though.

"I take issue with Harber’s opportunistic intervention based on his one-sided view of history and life. His real gripe is that our portrayal of a diversity of opinion is not compatible to his notion of diversity. Were we to load our platforms with the Freedom of Expression Institute and their satellite structures, and the usual potpourri of loudmouths in Cape Town, Grahamstown and Johannesburg who have arrogated themselves over us as custodians of liberal principles and values, he would be chortling with delight."

Essentially he is saying that we all have diverse opinions about what diversity of opinion is. I can't argue with that.

Who owns the "liberal principles" and are they in fact all that desirable?

Scarlett sings Tom Waits

This lass never ceases to amaze me and rarely disappoints. Not only is she looking fantastic and being the quintessential screen siren, now she does this:

Scarlett sings Tom Waits.
According to Foxnews.com, actress Scarlett Johansson has signed a record deal and is recording her first album: Scarlett sings Tom Waits. The record might be released somewhere next spring by Rhino Records' recently reactivated Atco label.

I've always been surprised that more people haven't covered Tom Waits songs since they are great songs but to be frank (no cryptic pun intended) he doesn't have a great voice. Rod Stewart and the Eagles have covered some songs but not much else. I'm placing my pre-order right now. Hope she throws "The piano has been drinking (not me)" into the mix.

But, and I stand under correction, it's not the first time that she has stood up to the microphone - I believe she once guested as a member of the Pussycat Dolls.

On another note: They need to ban those Triumph underwear billboards scattered all over Jozi. These are far more dangerous and distracting than talking on my cellphone while driving. I nearly rear ended the vehicle in front of me on two separate occasions this morning.

South African Comix

No. Not the Vlismas, Barry Hilton, David Kau, Mark Sampson kind. Rather the good stuff done with pen & ink some sort of computer software.

I'm no expert and am not in the local comic loop (most of SA industries are pretty incestouos and the comic techies seem no different) but these sites are mostly original, witty, pithy and funny. Worth a visit if you haven't been there before.

Jeremy Nell at Urban Trash. (he's about to release his first book - pre order here)
Mike Scott at Bru&Boegie
Rico (the guy from Madam&Eve) at The Dog ate My Sketchbook.

The artist techies comix seem to collaborate at SKRIBBL and at IllustrationFriday.

I also love Hugh McCleod's GapingVoid 'back of business card art' so much that I've put his feed on my site.

I'm sure there are stacks more of them out there. Please feel free to let me know which SA talent I'm missing out on.

Arlo's the wit

Came across this on my Arlo Guthrie search. Couldn't resist.

"You can't have a light without a dark to stick it in." - Arlo Guthrie

By the way, if you're anywhere near Glen Ellyn, Illinois you can catch Arlo live tonight at the McAninch Arts Center.

Synapses and success at last

It's weird how life all sort of links up, somehow it is almost as if there is some invisible subliminal spiderweb that connects random events, information and matter together. Well it seems to happen in my brain anyway and if you read the my last few posts I will try and indicate how they link all together. But since it is my mushforbrain that they are mixed up in it could be a little bit confusing.

The Dylan (Zimmerman) quote in yesterday's post was sparked by the same quote being appended on an email from a good mate of mine, the biggest Dylan fan in the world and the man who introduced me to the bloke "with a voice like sand and glue" who could write stuff like (my favourite line from Subterranean Homesick Blues). "The pump don't work , 'cause the vandals stole the handles" (do go read the rest of  lyrics if you don't know the song..)

Well there I was thinking about the meaning of life and trying to get inspired by songs and of course there is the bit of inspiration and there is Sunscreen inspiration of:

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Yesterday morning on my way into work I gave Arlo Guthrie's "Alice's Restaurant" a whirl in my tape player. It's alwaysthewit's best ever protest song and the tales around it are well worth researching. Miss Wit, at age 4 and a half, also thinks its a wonderful ditty. The whole of side one (18 minutes of it) dedicated to the title song. Capital Radio (which I also referred to recently) introduced me to the song. What other station would indulge you with an uninterrupted 18 minute spoken word folk song?

Guthrie and Dylan were '60's peers and that song has the chorus line: "You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant, Excepting Alice".

So here goes.

Dylan says wake up in the morning and do what you want. Guthrie suggests a good place to get what you want (cause you can get anything there, "excepting Alice") is Alice's Restaurant. Mary Smich (the sunscreen chick) says it doesn't even matter if you don't know what you want.

And there is the Indian car that I do want but can't seem to get. But thankfully, after all that, the Indian success mantra that I quoted yesterday was :"Success means never having to wear a tie." HURRAH! In this respect, today and perhaps for some time going forward, I have achieved SUCCESS.

Monday morning kickoff

‘A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night, and in between he does what he wants to do' - Bob Dylan.

 "Success means never having to wear a tie." - seen on a Tantra T-shirt in Mumbai.

Sunscreen

Highveld's Rude Awakening are overdosing us with commercials and promotions at the moment. For goodness sake, win this, win that, buy this, buy that, sms us for this and we'll send you this. And now for a quick commercial break. All for a fee of course. Wake up guys, you're signing your own death knell as we will move to choice based, ad-free, podcasts and satellite radio sooner than you realise.

Interestingly Mansfield was one of the many that cut his broadcasting teeth in the late 70's and early 80's at Port St John's Capital Radio 604. What a station. I have a vivid memory of being 9 years old in bed with yellow jaundice and listening to the Stones 'Emotional Rescue' on my first ever Sanyo portable radio.

Check this youthful picture from Mansfield's thin days.

Other well known voices from the time:

Kevin Savage (now running KFM in Cape Town)
Darren Scott (now at East Coast Radio in Durban)
Tony Blewitt (now Classic FM's breakfast host)
John Berks (ex 702)
Martin Baillie (ex everything - now in the UK or Ireland I think)
Dave Guselli (now at East Coast Radio in Durban)

And lots more.

Anyway that's not really what I wanted to write about. In amongst the ka-ching ka-ching of Mansfield's till this morning they did take the time to play Baz Luhrmann's sweet motivational Sunscreen ditty.

Baz is the Aussie movie director who directed Moulin Rouge, Strictly Ballroom and a host of other Aussie & Hollywood flicks.

I'd always assumed that this was all Luhrmann's doing. That he came up with the words and was the narrator. Wrong! While trawling the web for the lyrics I came across this tale [The Cyber-Saga of the 'Sunscreen' Song] which tells how the lyrics were originally drawn from the light hearted writing of Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich (who subsequently published the work in this book) and were read by an actor. For a time there was also an urban legend that Kurt Vonnegut was responsible for the lyrics.

Whatever the origin's I still relate to the thoughts and one-liners contained.

"Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives, some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.
Get plenty of calcium.
Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone. Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t, maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself, either. Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it, it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own.
Dance. Even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room."

Brings to mind John Colton's comments: "The excesses of youth are drafts upon our old age, payable with interest about 30 years after date."

It also brings to mind the mantra of :
Dance like no one is watching, Love like you've never been hurt, Sing like no one is listening, and live like it's heaven on earth. To which I once heard someone add the quip: "Make love like you're being filmed."

The Hindustan Ambassador Folly

For the Ant who is nagging at me to post and is probably bored with my recent rugby diatribes.

I do go off on tangents and get a little obsessed with collecting stuff. As my profile says I do treasure old stuff. I also love the whole retro aspect of new stuff that is modeled on old ideas. Or old stuff that still works really well even if there is a bit of ritual and effort involved in getting the thing going. My old vinyl turntables would be a case in point. Normally these obsessions last a few weeks and then fizzle out. My current one however is lingering like the bout of bronchitis I have.

My current obsession relates to a car. The Hindustan Motors Ambassador. (Official Site)



This car, which Hindustan Motors began building in 1954 using the tooling from the defunct Series II Morris Oxford is still in production over 50 years later.

It now has a new Isuzu engine and comes with the options of power steering and aircon. One can also obtain it with bucket seats in front (ie 2 separate seats) but the long bench seat in the front is still the de rigueur choice to pack in the whole family. But all in all it is pretty much the same vehicle that was churned out 50 years back. A kind of motoring time capsule.

It remains the Indian taxicab of choice and the yellow and black cabs abound in the larger cities. There are some 60,000 in Mumbai alone. They have been converted to run on cheaper and less polluting compressed natural gas. (Them cars below huddled under the tarpaulin are topping up their CNG tanks).

This is the great Mumbai tourguide (Khan telephone +91 982 139 1916) that Dave referred me to standing alongside his trusty Amby.

It is also the primary mode of transport for government and military officials.

Why on earth I want one I do not know, and quite what it will mean in the in the Clint Eastwood philosophy of “You are what you drive” , I am equally unsure. Perhaps is just the maverick in me that doesn’t want to be pigeonholed as a typical car driver.

What I do know is that I do want one and that it’s going to be one mighty expensive and bureaucratic nightmare to get it here.

I cannot find anyone who has imported one into South Africa, and with our strict vehicle import regulations designed to protect our own manufacturers this is going to be a hell of a process. The Ambassodor’s currently sell in India for the equivalent of about US $10,000. So that’s about R80,000 and climbing daily. Add at least 70% import duty & VAT. Add the costs of getting SABS clearance to import. Add the costs of shipping it here. Add the costs of licencing. Add the chore of insuring the car and putting in some decent sound. Etc etc. But I guess I’m going to look at about R160,000 for my folly. Trade in my trusty Isuzu long-wheelbase bakkie for maybe R45,000 and I’m still a few bar short, and I fear I’m unlikely to convince Wesbank to finance the difference.

That means that I’m going to have to convince someone in my family to lend me the cash (on reasonable terms for sure) and this means that I have to get one of the few members of my family who have deep pockets to buy into my folly. So far they all think I’m mad. They also think my idea of buying a car from India is mad. So the arm twisting on this could be fun.

By all accounts this is an uncomfortable, clumsy handling, noisy and not-too-fuel-efficient piece of classic engineering. Just my cup of tea.

Some more articles and reviews here.

These guys are the UK importers and have some good reviews on their site.

Unofficial Austin Rover site

Cars that time forgot.

Celebrating 50 years of the Amby

Free State 30 - Sharks 14

Rassie on the roof
Tra la la la la
There’s a Rassie on the roof
Tra la la la la la
Rassie on the roof
Tra la la la la
He looks like the devil in disguise
Wise wise

Show me your motion
Tra la la la la
Come on show me your motion
Tra la la la la la
Show me your motion
Tra la la la la
He looks like the devil in disguise
Wise wise

All the beer’s run dry
Got no more to slake my thirst
All the beer’s run dry
Got no more to slake my thirst

I remember one Saturday night
We had a team that beat FreeState
I remember one Saturday night
We had a team that beat FreeState

Beng-a-deng
Beng-a-deng

Rassie on the roof
Tra la la la la
There’s a Rassie on the roof
Tra la la la la la
Rassie on the roof
Tra la la la la
He looks like the devil in disguise
Wise wise

REPEAT AD NAUSEUM

Synopsis:

John Bishop sums up the game well here and here. And the bunny lives on with its 8th life.

But essentially it is started with a ridiculous childish gamble of teamlist muddling and confusion from Dick Muir. Add an intimidated referee who awarded 7 quick penalties to the Free State in the horrific first quarter while the Free State coach marshalled his troops from the rooftop with coloured paddle signals. An overenthusiastic linesman then decided that Ackerman's punch deserved 10 minutes in the bin.

It was all downhill after that.

But what about the rules here? This is one that is not being enforced by the refs beyond a bit a of plaintiff pleading by them. Time for some penalties to be issued for this.

(Rule 1.7) During a match no person other than the players, the referee and the touch judges may be within the playing enclosure or the playing area unless with the permission of the referee which shall be given only for a special and temporary purpose.

Play may continue during minor injuries with a medically trained person being permitted to come on to the playing area to attend the player or the player going to the touch-line. Continuation of play during minor injuries is subject to the referee's permission and to his authority to stop play at any time.

At half time the referee shall allow the coach of each team on to the playing area to attend their teams.

Players are being attended to pretty much all the time by waterboys and "doctors", often disrupting play.  The fact that these staff are fitted with communication earpieces suggests that their role on the field is more than simply administering bandages and anaesthetic spray. This must either be formalised or stopped. Nothing pees me off more than sports where loopholes are exploited - it's just not fair play as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe I'm too old school or idealistic, but I really believe that the battle should be played and won/lost on the field without the influence of an army of generals and technicians sitting on the roof.  A few stern and insightful words at half-time should suffice.
Where does it all stop? Earpieces in the ears of all the players? Satellite tracking of your opposite number? Embedded TV's in your eyeball so you can replay the last opposition move? Microphones on the field and team of crack code-breakers to figure out the lineout codes? Live wind speed and direction analysis to guide place kickers where to aim?

It's a similar "can't beat them then join them" mindset that continues from a previous posts about "thigh binding".

Disappointing from the Sharks.

But what the hell, the motto of the lone Sharks supporter lives on:
 Dum spiro, spero

Snuffing out bunnies

And then there is the fact that each team has its very own Currie Cup "bunny" - a team they have been unable to beat this season.

On 5pm on Saturday the Sharks face the Cheetahs in the semifinal at Bloemfontein. The Sharks’ bunny happens to be the Free State Cheetahs. But it’s a bigger bunny than most since it’s been growing in stature since 2003 and now stands at 7 consecutive losses.

What is one to make of the Free State bunny and how does one snuff it from existence?

Sharks coach Dick Muir’s well thought out plan according to Mike Greenaway of the Mercury is to “deny the Cheetahs possession”. Wow. What insight.

I guarantee though that Rassie Erasmus, the most astute of tactical coaches in the country, has figured out a Sharks weakness somewhere. I am not sure if I’ve watched all 7 of the above losses, maybe I have, but in each game that I have watched the Cheetahs have pulled a trick out of the hat (maybe it should be bunny out of the hat?). The hand of Rassie is patently evident in these tactics and quite quickly as a TV spectator I have been able to see through this tactic, whether it is targeting a particular player or exploiting an angle that exposes the Sharks.

The problem has been that the Sharks don’t seem to be able to identify and counteract whatever maverick tactic is thrust at them fast enough. They continue to bash away with their own premeditated game plan without figuring out that they have a gaping hole that they need to plug.

So if I were Dick Muir I would deliberately set out to identify what Rassie is up to as quickly as possible and get the waterboys on the field immediately with a message as to how plug the hole. If Muir can’t spot the plan quick enough he should phone me. That might snuff out the bunny.

Good luck gentlemen. I'd love a WP-Sharks final.

Basking in my identity

As if my previous post didn't allude to enough tensions in my identity. There is this article by Stephen Oppenheimer about the myths of British ancestry from Prospect Magazine.
Going back no more than 150 years I have fairly even mix of English (Yorkshire), Scottish (Strathaven), Irish (Cork) and Swedish (Somewhere) blood. This would indicate a solid mix of Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Celtic breeding. Or so I thought.
Now I find out that :
"The genetic evidence shows that three quarters of our ancestors came to this corner of Europe as hunter-gatherers, between 15,000 and 7,500 years ago, after the melting of the ice caps but before the land broke away from the mainland and divided into islands. Our subsequent separation from Europe has preserved a genetic time capsule of southwestern Europe during the ice age, which we share most closely with the former ice-age refuge in the Basque country."
SO NOW I AM BASQUE! (PART SPANISH).
At least that's not quite as far to straddle.

Interestingly have a look at the Basque flag & the Union Jack. The flag makers seemed to have established a link long before the geneticists.

Children of Albion

One of my all-time favourite reads is a (now) battered paperback copy of “Children of Albion: Poetry of the Underground in Britain”. Edited by Michael Horovitz and published in 1969. I can’t remember where I picked up the used copy I have but it may have been while bumming about in London as a young varsity dropout (after my gap-year at UCT). So since I was about 19 or so. I still love it.

Since I’m pretty awful at rote learning it is rare that quotes and poems stick in my brain but for some reason this couplet in a poem by Dave Cunliffe has stuck.

Guns are made of steel and wood
But the great giver of life is the flesh between your legs.

It doesn’t really make sense as a statement but it just seems right somehow.
 
And also this one from Adrian Mitchell

Stunted Sonnet
Love is like a cigarette
The bigger the drag the more you get.

The poems are full of Blakean reference interposed and  grappling with the horrors of Vietnam and Korea, the new found freedoms of love and jazz and rock 'n roll in the 60’s and the legacy of parents still recovering from WWII.

Professor Robert Sheppard writes thoroughly on the context of the book and where it’s place in the UK protest / beat poetry scene of the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Nostalgically and dreamily I sometimes wish I’d been part of that scene or at least a fly on the wall.

Identifying so much with these "Children of Albion" I often  wonder just how much of a 'soutpiel' I am.
 
For those not aware of the origins of the term 'soutpiel' or its derived term 'soutie' it is a well described on Wiktionary as :
(South African, vulgar, army slang) An English speaking South African. So named for having one foot in South Africa, one foot in England and his penis dangling in the Atlantic.

I am one and have never denied this or felt otherwise. I rarely recall anyone objecting to be called by this term despite the intended insult from the Afrikaans, usually moustachioed, 'insulter' and often used to silence the insult with the quick retort of : "Why, thank you for reminding me of the fact that itwould reach the Atlantic were I to straddle over it".

The tough bit is dealing with trying to bind my soul with soil I was born on, that I dearly love but often feel somewhat out of place in. There are so many streets and venues in this country that it is impossible to blend my white skin into. I took a wrong turn into a taxi rank in the CBD the other day and was clearly reminded that I didn't belong there as my heart started pumping as I made as hasty a retreat as possible. ChampagneHeathen illustrates a recent example of this sort too. Rian Malan in his must read (though maybe a bit dated now) book My Traitor's Heart also somewhere has a similar anecdote about how conspicuously out-of-place white student activists looked when toyi-toying on the streets. I have a similar issue with many aspects of other cultures. As open-minded as I think I am I have to make the post-modern conclusion that it may not be possible to to reconcile my understandingof those cultureswith the culture itself since my understandingwill never be anything but that. (ie my own blinkered view).

Will I ever be able to shake loose the curse of the Atlantic straddle and put both feet on either continent? I doubt it is possible.
I resign myself therefore to the neverending tug-of-war that this puts to bear on my soul.

Big Decisions

A little while ago I hinted at an upcoming big decision. Well, ironically none of those 3 options materialised. But another one did land in my lap. On Friday I received a brief note inviting me to be financial director of a troubled and relatively small subsidiary of an enormous SA company. I'll take that thank you very much. But that means, bye-bye Jozi. Hello Port Elizabeth. (which is why it was such a big decision).

So, if I'm a little quiet over the next week or so, bear with me.

The public gets what the public wants / But I want nothing this society's got

Over at Burnt Symmetry there are some interesting parallels and observations re: Chavez & populism.

Some additional thoughts.
Mugabe also began going popular in about 1992 (1992-1980= 12 years).
2006 - 1994 = 12 years (what happened in 1994 again?). But I digress.

The blame here is partly placed on shoddy journalism (absence of objective reporting). I’m not sure that this is the case though. More & more I see people clustering around the type of news that they like to read. Stories and opinions that resonate with their world view. So the papers write what most people like. I visit liberal blogs but pass only a cursory glance over the single thesis blogs like crimeexpo.

I don't think that this concept of opinion-loaded reporting is a recent phenomonen though. See here.

As The Jam so profoundly thundered in the 70's: (OK they hit number one with this in March 1980, but it is so 70's..)
What you see is what you get
Youve made your bed, you better lie in it
You choose your leaders and place your trust
As their lies wash you down and their promises rust
Youll see kidney machines replaced by rockets and guns
The public gets what the public wants
But I want nothing this society's got

I would go further to say that frankly I think it's always been the case that journalists write for their audience. Since the dawn of time.

For instance when my great-great-grandfather was jailed for two weeks by Paul Kruger when he was the editor of the Pilgrim's Rest based "Gold Fields Mercury" in the 1870's it was for writing for his audience (the miners) and criticising the actions of the government of the day. While his news may have had its roots in fact it was driven by his opinion. Such was his following though that the miners stormed the jail and released him. This was considered a revolt and a detachment of soldiers - 25 men and a cannon - was sent from Lydenburg, but good sense prevailed and it all came to naught.

The very fact that one can usually, and always have been able to, classify newspapers as left-leaning, right-leaning, conservative or liberal indicates that there is a bias inherent in the content.

The problem arises when we forget this. We just need to be aware that everything we read is clouded by opinion and most of the time we like it that way. Yes, sometimes this opinion masquerades as fact - and we do need to be awake to that. Engaging and blindly accepting the word of the media is a bit like entering a dark alley and not expecting to be mugged. Vigilance helps in this environment. In fact your very survival depends on it.

But all is not lost. If something is reported that is of consequence and is overly-crowded with bias then there is bound to be someone who challenges this. And the forum to challenge does exist. It exists in the shift that is coming for the “The people formerly known as the audience”. (That’s you & me, ladies and gentlemen).

Rick Astley

I don't know why this bugged me (and I am too scared to ponder on why any further), but more than once in the last while I have caught myself wondering whatever happened to Rick Astley. Fair enough he was pure bubblegum pop from the Stock-Aitken-Waterman stable but he had a decent voice and cross generation apppeal. I thought he would have at least survived, or attempted to resurrect his career at some point.

So eventually I just had to find out. It seems that he didn't really vanish at all. He had a sell-out tour of the UK in 2004, has had reasonable success in the States and last released an album earlier this year (currently ranked #526,554 in Music on Amazon). So now we know. Not that I'm rushing out for the Greatest Hits CD or anything.