Self publishers of the world unite

A blog friend recently got her book, African Ways, into print by self-publishing.

It seems as simple as ABC and that 1000's are succesfully doing just this, judging by Lulu.com Top Sellers.

I think this concept is fantastic, there is something wonderful about getting the printed word onto black & white bound paper. But maybe it's just nostalgic old me.

Brewery

My friends at SA Breweries have an interesting section of their website where they try and debunk various myths and and rumours about their beer. Mainly this concerns claims that their brew is pumped full of chemicals. Sadly the attempts at debunking can be more accurately described as straight denial coupled with the usual SAB doublespeak, "We use an internationally accepted brewing process ".

And claims : "It takes over seven weeks to go from barley to Castle! "

And then here that : "The brewing process is an entirely natural process which takes between 18 and 25 days."

I know, I know. I too sometimes feel like I miss out on a few days after a good bender, but a whole month!

I still love the stuff though.

They do raise an interesting point about the much vaunted Reinheitsgebot, that: "The law said that beer should be made exclusively from malt, hops, and water. This law was introduced as a means of collecting more taxes from people - beer was being made from odd ingredients that were not as highly taxable as was malt and hops."

So the taxman not only influences how much I currently pay per pint he even influenced the ingredients generations ago.

I guess it's just best to play it by beer.

A parable

Let us begin with a parable. It is a parable developed from a tale told John Wisdom in his haunting and revolutionary article "Gods." Once upon a time two explorers came upon a clearing in the jungle. In the clearing were growing many flowers and many weeds. One explorer says, "Some gardener must tend this plot." The other disagrees, "There is no gardener." So they pitch their tents and set a watch. No gardener is ever seen. "But perhaps he is an invisible gardener." So they set up a barbed-wire fence. They electrify it. They patrol with bloodhounds. (For they remember how H. G. Well's The Invisible Man could be both smelt and touched though he could not be seen.) But no shrieks ever suggest that some intruder has received a shock. No movements of the wire ever betray an invisible climber. The bloodhounds never give cry.

Yet still the Believer is not convinced. "But there is a gardener, invisible, intangible, insensible, to electric shocks, a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound, a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden which he loves." At last the Sceptic despairs, "But what remains of your original assertion? Just how does what you call an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?"

Antony Flew, in his book Reason and Responsibility (1968):

And to conclude, ...

"Why should you mind being wrong if someone can show you that you are?"
AJ (Freddie) Ayer

Save me from your followers

Christopher Hichens should have been at King's Park on Saturday.

Via Pierre de Vos, I travelled down the road to this great radio interview with Hichens. He pulls no punches, in defending his book, god is not Great.

It had me pondering last Saturday's rugby.
There I was, still smarting at the inanity of the Sharks throwing the game away in the dying moments and then I look up to see Jaco van der Westhuizen first cavorting like a pole-dancer on the posts and then instructing me via his TShirt slogan that the Sharks are a bunch of evil no-gooders. He prayed harder and god brought him a blind referee and Bryan Habana.

Flat Stanley Rocks

Took a quick & dirty weekend trip to Cape Town to see these guys launch their second album, "Between 2wo Worlds".

time and space collide in this moment held inside / configure and confide that you can run but cannot hide / one breath beyond compare may someday get you there / centuries gone by, generations fly / enlightened and enslaved of your ancestral alibi / but no wisdom comes at cost or have you forgottend what your father's fathers lost / if you want to come out alive / close your eyes, freedive.

Some brief clips on Zoopy will give the flavour, but take my word that these guys are amongst the best acoustic rockers this country has produced. I'm not saying that their music is groundbreaking, there is a level of it being derivative, kind of heard somewhere before, but we all absorb our influences don't we? It grows on one.

Of course, lead singer Andy Mac has a huge stage presence, literally pavarottine as well as figuratively. But he has the vocal strength and professionalism to match.

Missed out on what I gather was a monster afterparty as I had to dash soon after the gig to capitalise on an indulgent hotel room that cost about R10 a minute, but that in itself was also well worth it. Great breakfasts too.

I want this job

I want this job. Just where do they find these people? SAB copywriters I mean. They should know better than to navigate to their wordprocessors via the brewery cellars.

Another gem in the blurb announcing the arrival of Hansa Marzen Gold.

"The announcement of the new brand is well timed; as it is named after the German word for March, indicating the beginning of spring in Europe. Brewers in 12th century Germany were the first to devise ways of allowing their beer to mature through the hot summer months by brewing in March and storing their beer in alpine caves until September."

What on earth does this have to do with anything about drinking a beer with a manudactured brand name, brewed, marketed and consumed in 21st century South Africa? These guys should just learn to shut up and let the beer+ talk for itself. If only they would hurry this on to the shelves (in sleepy PE) so that I can give my honest opinion of the stuff.

+ I quote SAB: "Hansa Marzen Gold is neither a pilsner nor a regular lager, but a ‘marzen-style’ German beer" . So beer it is.

Feet in mouths

Old rugby administrators never die, are never fired, they just live on with their feet in their mouths. (Robbie v Hoskins). Robbie by TKO in the 8th round.

Some time in August last year alwaysthewit wrote:

"Hey and what-ho no Watson. I am glad. Never fear, he will play in the World Cup but he is not the panacea for the teams current difficulties right now. If he were to be selected now he will be set up to fail. "

Well, now Luke Watson truly has been set up to fail. I still think that they should pick him at full-back though. Much less likey to kick the ball away in the dying moments of the game than James or Steyn. Oh woe, how they did ruin a wonderful spectactle by some loose thinking at the end. Wish they had put their feet in the mouths rather than on the ball.

Second in the super 14 ain't so bad, but oh so close to the top.

While my air guitar gently weeps

He's right you know. That David Bullard chap.

I am a "anonymous, scrofulous nerd pumping meaningless drivel into cyberspace at all hours of the day and night simply because I [he] can’t find a girl to sleep with me [him]."

That comment, my dear sir, is offensive, full of half-researched assumptions and as bigoted as any site filled with "hideous racism" that you find so abhorrent.

Mike Stopforth makes the point that:

"..blogging is not wannabe journalism. I keep hearing Print pro’s comparing the two, looking for ways to differentiate, looking for ways to attach relevance and importance. Blogging is it’s own practice, together with the wider digital social networking practice, and I think seeing all bloggers as try-hard journalists is unhelpful"

I agree.

I also agree with Alan at MediaFrenzy that this is the most fantastic piece of marketing that Mr Bullard could possibly have asked for. Perhaps it will indicate the reach of the ZA blogosphere to him.

I sympathise with his attack on the offensive bloggers, but must point out that the wonderful thing is that those of us who are offended can and do use this very medium to expose and challenge bigotry on blogs. As in here.

As for me, when I play my air guitar I play it to the late '60s tune of Mr David Bowie. It's a song called Conversation Piece, and it goes like this:

"And my essays lying scattered on the floor, fulfill their need just by being there."

Go Sharks

Well, I've held my breath all season. Almost too good to be true, but the Sharks have pulled off one good game after another. A convincing start. A brief let-down against the Western Force aside - a fantastic season so far.

Top of the Super14 log!

I cannot complain, and whatever happens in Durban next weekend against the Auckland Blues I will not be disappointed. A season to savour.

Now, may we cruise the whole way through to bring back memories of Currie Cup 1990.

la Première gorgée de bière

I wish I could track down copies of the English edition of this book which I picked in a wonderful bookshop in Oxford years ago. Obviously attracted by the title!+

Strange that a book, which was a solid bestseller in France never took off in English translation. We're left rather with the umpteenth edition of "Chicken soup for the soul". There seems to have been an American edition but I'm not sure it has the same stories.

Delerm narrates wonderful stories on the small pleasures of life as suggested by the title story.

As Observer reviewer John Walsh notes in this 1998 review the book has a very French flavour and were the concept to be applied to English life the stories may have a quite different hue.

LEAF WITH me a-while through The Small Pleasures of Life, an unexpected best-seller in France last year by a floppy-fringed exquisite called Philippe Delerm, which is now available in translation over here. A precious little volume, about as substantial as The Little Book Of Calm, only more elaborately poetic, it offers 34 meditations on tiny joys: the first sip of beer, eating a croissant in the street, the smell of apples, inhaling an anti- cold remedy, pulling on a new autumnal jumper - you get the picture. Some of M Delerm's "plaisirs minuscules" are a little hard to empathise with (Getting your espadrilles wet? The noise of a dynamo?), but you must take your chapeau off to a clever idea.

As you read these two-page epiphanies, however, it is impossible not to imagine how different an English version of the book would be. Instead of Philippe's educated raptures about railway-station travelators and small-town mobile libraries, there would be a lot about wet dogs, conkers, linseed oil on your first cricket bat, the words "Cromarty, Forth, German Bight", Water Splash at Battersea Fun Fair, the front-loading brassieres of public schoolgirls (M Delerm doesn't mention sex at all) and, instead of his ruminative, oh-so- French "first sip of beer", the frictionless texture of your sixth pint of Dogbolter bitter at the aftermath of a London wedding.

I am left wondering then, what South African flavour such a book might take were I too sit down and write it. Something I have oft thought about in fact.

Obviously the first sip of beer remains the keynote story, but it is now a beer that sheds a quick melting shard of ice as I carefully unwrap it from a layer of newspaper. I have haggled with hawkers on a busy street in Masvingo, Zimbabwe for that beer. It is early evening but still equatorially hot and I've still have the dusty tan that only standing in the sun and walking some kilometres on untarred roads can give you. The hawker reached deep into a gas-run deepfreeze for that beer and delivered with a smile. One for me, one for my best mate. Two sips of beer, one for me , one for Craig, sitting on a rock with a world's possessions in my backpack, a freshly pitched tent, a bumpy bus ride to Harare and a whole life ahead of us.

More please, from my dear readers.

+la Première gorgée de bière = (fr) the first sip of beer

PS. Am I ever-briefly back in your lens frame yet, Ant?
PPS. Val - no mail yet.

Waiting for the Barbarians

Good Julian Gough read in this month's Prospect Magazine. Strange how the good things in life become academicised and over analysed, ever more so these days.

Back to simple pleasures I say.

Back to incoherence that parallels our lives.

Back to fun.

Back to a celebration of anarchy.

"You may think that to praise The Simpsons at the expense of Henry James makes me a barbarian. Well, it does, but I'm a very cultured barbarian. The literary novel has gone late Roman. It needs the barbarians. It secretly yearns for them"

I think that life too has gone too "Henry James" and late Roman. It too needs the barbarians.

Novelists have dwelled on recreating the classic rather than reflecting the now. I loved and thoroughly agree with Gough that a nearly hundred year old novel such as Finnegan's Wake "reads like a mash-up of a Google translation of everything ever" and is more representative of the chaos that surrounds us right now than the current crop of novels that are lauded and receive literary kudos.

Much like advertising awards that incestuously go to wonderfully creative ad industry specific ads rather than really effective advertising, literary awards seem to go to writers writing about writing rather than writers who reflect their own view of now.

Cricket Sham Cup 2007

I still cannot believe how annoyed I am at the entire shambolic farce that masqueraded as a showcase for all that I enjoy about cricket. Enough said. Thank heavens it's over.

I am fast being won over by a view that all such outmoded international sports councils (ICC, IRB, FIFA etc) should be abolished and replaced by more "corporate" entities. If it's going to be a professional sport - run it like a corporation - at least then one can fire the CEO rather than have him find a lackey scapegoat now and then.

Keo has a suggestion for rugby : "Go the rebel route".

Hansa Gold. Coming soon, in a green bottle?

There are not many big events in a beer drinkers life in South Africa.

We don't have hundreds of micro-breweries. The few we do have aren't all that spectacular despite my enjoying the Pickled Pig Porter and other stuff from the Nottingham Road Brewery.

We don't have much change in the standard fare.

Every now and then we get a decent new addition to the fold. Pilsner Urquell, for one. More often that not we get repackaged urine, as in Peroni.

So what events have we had:

1. The change in shape of the "dumpy" disposable bottle to that of the "handi".
2. The change of the lable on the Castle Lager bottle in about 1989.
3. The Castle Lager centenary in 1995.
4. The brief re-ermegence of Ohlssons Lager. Not bad that.
5. The end of Lion Ale, now that was a good dop in the last outpost in the '70s.
6. The frigging ridiculous Lion Lager++ fiasco, where SAB added 2 tablespoons of suger to each bottle and repackaged it into a trendy shiny silver-blue bottle in the vain hope of reaching and snaring the impressionable teen market. As usual the SAB marketing speak was at its best. "New Lion will become an accessory to these hip and happening young adults, and will offer them a quality beer that speaks their language." Ultimately resulting in the demise of the Lion brand altogether. I really hope someone lost his job over that.
7. Gladly the current plan by SAB to produce a new quart bottle does not include a plan to reduce the size of the bottle like they did with my pints last year. Good thing that. This country is not yet ready for the next revolution.

So when I posted nearly 2 months ago on SAB-Miller's losing the rights to brew & market Amstel in South Africa, I was eagerly awaiting the new turf war, the new brews etc. But things seem to have gone quiet on that front and by now the poor Amstel drinkers have been forced to try other brews. The lonely restaurant and bars that haven't run out of stock yet are probably not worth visiting. We had a quick flurry of ads promising that the new stuff was being brewed in Amsterdam (from canal water?) and some trite and wounded apologies from SAB, but that was that. Still no Amstel. Still no replacement from SAB.

I understand that Brandhouse will be specially bottling 650ml versions of Amstel to try and pick up the market share that SAB left behind. But, it will take some remarkable distribution efforts to compete on that turf. I suspect that the mass-market who had recently acquired the Amstel taste will as quickly find an alternative (if they haven't already) when their brew is not readily available. Amstel will be left to the miniscule market who frequent establishments that have see-through counters, lumo-blue backlighting and barmen who think they're Tom Cruise, despite probably not even been born when he began juggling cane bottles.

The whisper I heard from the friendly dame at the NBS + the other day was that SAB was bouncing back with a premium version of Hansa, "Hansa Gold", but that that release was being delayed by some objection to them bottling it green bottles with gold foil trim. Chicken on them for not going ahead with that idea. This has received virtually no media coverage at all, bar an oblique reference in Beeld.

The boring bean-counter that I am, I am rather interested to see if the new brews are one up on my existing tipple (Hansa normal).

But I am disappointed that SAB have seen fit to import the rights to a new brand when a golden opportunity existed to resurrect a true South African brand, perhaps in the guise of a premium brand. Lion Lager Gold?, Ohlsson's Cape Premium?


+ "Nearest Bottle Store"
++ I note that Lion Lager is still being brewed in Zimbabwe. Hurrah. And in researching this note found this Lion Lager ad from 1984 on Zoopy. A laugh and serious blast from the past.