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.