A very little bit of thinking

I received an email this morning with the environmentally friendly suggestion to “think before you print” tagged onto the sender’s signature. So I decided to think for a bit. This is what I came up with:

1. I feel entirely neutral towards Kelloggs K with milk and dried cranberries – I neither like it nor dislike it, but continue to eat it as I suppose it is a more nutritious breakfast than Cadbury’s whole nut chocolate. On it’s own, however, Kelloggs K is just dire.
2. No matter how savvy I think I’m being, I will never know enough about cars to avoid being ripped off when they break. Asking questions merely allows the ripper-offer in question to respond in any way he wants – I cannot tell the difference between, e.g. “the prop shaft seal and CV boot are broken,” and “the turnip grinder has dismantled the Anacondan maze-recorder.” This bothers me.
3. The same applies when buying electronic equipment such as TV sets and cellphones, life insurance, and financial investment products.
4. I believe that the Nedbank ATM at 90 degrees on Rivonia, has not been operational for the past two years.
5. I find Neil Patrick Harris extremely attractive.
6. I don’t agree that this is the ugliest dog in the world.

 Righteo, now I can print.

A spoonful or 10 of sugar

This weekend was characterised by the intake of an abundance of sugar (of the “a minute on your lips, a lifetime on your hips” variety). Very, very much sugar was consumed. As a result, a number of sugar highs and ensuing lows were had, some more intense than others.

And all this was done in the name of fundraising for some sport I’ve never heard of, and still really cannot describe or identify, called Crossfit. I thought it might have involved horses, Mauve Dane suggested that perhaps mountains were involved, and Goth Girl and The Director seemed to have no idea whatsoever. No matter – the important thing was that the fundraising involved the tasting of more than a dozen different varieties of chocolate cake and a cup of tea, which is an utterly fabulous way to pass a sunny, Highveld winter’s morning.

We all voted for our favourite, and a cake that was all looks but no substance very nearly won – it was fittingly named the ‘Los Angeles Cake’ by the Dane. This was a damn fine idea, and I would love to repeat this with other cakes and foodstuffs, barring chillies.

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On an entirely different note, I saw an article on Alternet today describing how a right-wing conference was held in America very recently to figure out how to get Republicans to regain a majority there. A quote from the article reads: “During one discussion, panelists suggested supporting English-only initiatives as a prime way of attracting ‘working class white Democrats’.”

Here’s a picture of the banner they chose to display.

M.J.

While it’s sad to hear of the death of Michael Jackson, I can’t help thinking that his death probably came at a ‘good’ time for him.  Jackson no longer has to deal with any further embarrassments regarding child abuse allegations and a largely dwindling career (despite his upcoming 50 concert London gig, which I suspect he would not have got even halfway through).

The music genius’s death is far enough away from the most recent criminal allegations against him to have improved public perception I think. Good or bad, people forget quickly.

What MJ’s death means is that he doesn’t have to grow old, which I think would have devastated him. Surely for this child-man, old age would have been unbearable.

For me, the real Michael Jackson – the man who wrote pop songs and lyrics and like no other, who created dance moves and routines that dazzled, and who introduced the world to black shoes and white socks – died a long time ago. Now the world can join Jackson, finally, in the mourning of his death.

Astounding, amazing, earth-shattering sports reporting

As a general experience, I find reportage on sports to be rather dull. This is not because I dislike sport, nor because I believe it is inherently boring, apart from soccer and badminton. It is mostly because in an attempt to distinguish their reports from those of competitors, broadcast sports reporters end up sounding terrifically idiotic.

Last night, I watched the news on SABC 3 at 19:00, which included the premier of that pitiful province, Limpopo, implying that it wasn’t fair of the media to criticise her and her department as they’ve not yet been in office for 100 days, and everyone knows that new regimes have 100 days of criticism-free governance. 

So naturally I was left bemused, which persisted until the sports report began, and a prerecorded piece on Wimbledon was aired, giving details of the match between Venus Williams and Swiss Stefanie Voegele.

We were told that despite Voegele giving Williams a little bit of a run at times, “class overcame talent” ultimately, when Williams defeated her opponent. We were also told that Voegele did not show any “respect” for Williams’s prowess in…well…trying her best to beat Williams.

So, the message we TV watchers were left with was that Williams has class (and probably talent) whereas Voegele  has only talent, but probably not all that much because she lost, didn’t she? Also, certain players are worthy of respect, while others aren’t. Does allowing a former Wimbledown champion to win indicate respect? Should there have been a ring-kissing ceremony prior to the match? How does the concept of respect come into a tennis match?

As an aside, what I love most about sports reporting is when someone or a team receives a “drubbing”. It makes my day when a team is just destroyed, as the likelihood of the word ‘drubbing’ being used by a commentator or reporter becomes infinitely higher. I try use this word in ordinary conversation but find the fact that I don’t play sport – apart from the occasional squash game – impinges on my being able to use the word in relation to myself.

They keep on knockin…

 Today I received yet another A5-sized advertisement for “Psychic, fortune teller, herbal therapist”, Professor Ramah…obviously at a set of traffic lights in Sandton. How Prof. Ramah differs from his previous incarnation as Prof. Whako and Sheik Kassiim is that Prof. Ramah offers answers to a new batch of distressing sexual and witchcraft-related questions he poses on his leaflet, including:

“Can’t you produce enough sperms?”

“Do you experience knocking on your roof/door?”

“Do you see strange things in your house hold?”

 Although I wouldn’t dream of denying the pain of not being able to produce enough ‘sperms’, the latter two questions did make me wonder, while flicking radio stations, if perhaps my flat has been hexed. The truth is, I do see strange things in my household, and I do experience knocking on my door.

The knocking has become problematic and, in 99% of cases, is caused by two of the young girls who live diagonally below me. There is no pattern to how frequently the girls knock on my door – sometimes it’s three consecutive days in a week; other times they can go a couple of weeks before pestering me. On Friday, they arrived within five minutes of each other and asked/demanded if I had the inside of a toilet roll and a stapler, respectively. I had neither.

They’ve asked me for many things, these girls:

-          Five rand (so she wouldn’t get smacked by her mother, conniving little brat)

-          DVDs (‘Finding Nemo’ and ‘Hairspray’ are their favourites)

-          Magazines

-          A note pad

-          Prestick

-          Glue

-          White nail polish

-          Swimming goggles

-          A waterproof jacket

Oh yes, and once to do their homework, which I’m sure I got wrong. This, of course, is excluding the many occasions I’ve chosen not to answer the door when they’ve knocked and wanted me to watch their song-and-dance routine. Christ.

In terms of the strange things I see in my household, there is very much of that presently owing to the fact that Mary the Cleaner is allegedly near death’s door, and thus has not come to work today. That’s well and good – Mary must recover. It does present a problem, however – my flat resembles a floordrobe and I am sure the ecoli are proliferating. And then there’s the change of the duvet cover issue.

Sigh.

Perhaps I’ll have to pay a visit to Prof. Ramah. My problems are large, like my penis isn’t. I need the strong herbs.

Death no longer an valid excuse for late flight arrivals

There are some occupations which largely require that one remains alive in order to do the work. Practising surgery is one that springs to mind; driving a bus, mining precious metals, playing cricket professionally and flying a Boeing 767 from Brussels to New York, are others.

Or not, as it happens.

It seems the pilot of the aforementioned trans-Atlantic flight did, in fact, die while at the controls. The passengers only found out, however, when they noticed a horde of emergency vehicles on the tarmac.

“The crew of the Boeing 767 made an announcement over the
loudspeaker asking if there was a doctor on board, but Martha Love, of Greenwich, New Jersey, who was sitting in the first row of the plane, didn’t suspect anything was amiss. The flight attendants continued to serve snacks. Passengers read
magazines and watched movies. And the flight stayed on schedule.”

There are important lessons to be learnt from this, but the most pertinent is certainly that should the most important member of a team pop his/her clogs, there is no reason for the project to be delayed or derailed.

You, doctor, fear not – your overtired and underpaid scrub sister will take over your delicate neurosurgery should you expire.

To the South African bus driver, no-one will notice the difference between your conscious attempt at driving vs your rigor mortis grip on the steering wheel.

To the decomposing Department of Home Affairs…you have not allowed death to halt your reign of inefficiency, incompetence and generalised unwillingness to stop us citizens from trying to draw blood from a very dead stone.

Finally, to some of my colleagues…I know you’ve been dead for years, but still I value you. Lots.

The Joyous Commitment Agnostic….or something

There’s a tasty tidbit of an article on The Times (U.K) website today offering a scientific postulation for why women are/remain single. It appears that some new research has found that the hormone oxytocin helps women

“…overcome “neophobia” in relationships – i.e., not totally freaking out at the thought of bonding with a stranger. One study claims that romantic bonding is a form of stress (an argument many of us will be ready to accept), and oxytocin helps diminish that stress”.

In essence, it seems study suggests that women with more oxytocin are better able to bond with partners and thus avoid being single. I don’t know where this leaves single women intent on finding a mate, though. Will they (I?) line up in droves during their lunch hours at the rooms of the first medical practitioner who becomes licensed to dispense oxytocin injections? Would this ever become legal? I don’t think it’s as bizarre a development as it sounds.

This could be a helpful scientific explanation for the reasons so many of us have not met people who make us wanna dance in the rain (blegh!), but I believe much singledom results more from a mismatch between opportunity and allure, than a wilful decision specifically not to see if one can enjoy spending time with someone else.

And while I, and I would wager many others, would like to hope that I’m more the ‘Joyous Commitment Agnostic’ than ‘The Victim’, the reality is more likely that the very act of classifying oneself as such is a desperate attempt to nullify the shame of being single in one’s 30s, with no sign of ‘fixing’ the horror. ‘

RAPSing

 A group of us attended the final evening’s performances of RAPS, the South African schools one-act play festival, last night. It is gratifying and encouraging to see teenagers so enthused and involved in the magical world of theatre. Good, bad or somewhere in between, these performances are heartfelt and clearly provide a means for these kids to display a creativity and passion that perhaps they can’t access in other aspects of their lives. 

RAPS is undergoing wonderful changes. For the first time in its 40-year history, the festival was captured on film – strange but true. A RAPS website has just gone live (http://raps.org.za), a Facebook page has been created as well as a Twitter feed. The festival, thanks to the recent appointment of a smart, innovative, strategic woman, shows every indication of being the premier introduction to the dramatic arts in the country. 

Next year May, please support RAPS simply by going to see some of S.A’s future acting, directing and production stars in action, before they become famous. And offer suggestions on the website – I know they would welcome all thoughts that would see RAPS growing and developing. 

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On another note, the Young Communist League has said The Beautiful Game is one that should be played by S.A’s soccer team with “the militancy and radicalism” of the 1976 Soweto student uprising. 

Yes, the Young Communist League says Bafana Bafana should “apply the militancy and radicalism of the June 16 martyrs on the field of play by performing well and doing the country proud” during the Confederations Cup tournament, which kicked off today. 

I do love how most of S.A. youth leagues are able to bring militancy and radicalism into just about anything, including, I’m sure, cooking, candle making and sleeping. 

Empty vessels, eh?

Da devil made me wanna brand you HIV-positive.

 First it was Hansie Cronje almost a decade ago, who proclaimed that the devil made him fix international cricket matches so that he could benefit financially. Now a member of Swaziland’s parliament has said that Luci was responsible for his comments that people found to be HIV-positive after testing be “branded on the buttocks”.

However, Timothy Myeni, who’s also a gospel singer and a pastor, has apologised, saying, “The devil has trapped me so that he celebrates that, from a Christian, such an uncalled for statement has come out. I am very sincere. I am very sorry. I understand very well that this was a blunder”.

Perhaps paster Miyeni thought unless he apologised for his comments, Satan would command the Treatment Action Campaign to make good on its threat to disrupt his upcoming gospel music concerts in Cape Town.

It’s evident that the devil has been a busy chap/chapess of late. Luci has obviously been precipitating the uttering of many nasty, demented and/or bewildering statements by a bunch of crazies the world over:

“It’s an unfortunate incident to happen on a Sunday morning.” — Wichita police captain Brent Allred speaking about the murder in a church of controversial abortion provider George Tiller.

“It is clear that the far left is exploiting—exploiting, the death of the doctor.  Those vicious individuals want to stifle any criticism of people like Tiller.  That and hating FOX News is the real agenda here.” – Bill O‘Reilly, FOX News host in the U.S.

“We don’t have to molest the kids, neither should we rape them and abuse the young ones.” – Julius Malema, leader of the ANC Youth League. (It’s nice of him to say that we don’t HAVE to molest or rape kids. Whew.)

” [We must] teach children to sing the National Anthem, Umshini Wami and how to pronounce ANC at an early age, then we will be working towards Jacob Zuma’s dream of the ANC ruling till the son of somebody comes back” – yes, Julius again.

Who knew the devil was also responsibly for stupidity, irrationality and an utter inability to express oneself?

Hang up or we’ll make things unpleasant…

Today I phoned a doctor’s rooms in order to try set up a time to interview her over the phone. When the receptionist finally answered the call, she huffily told me that she was on a call, and reluctantly asked if I wanted to hold on or call back. I chose the former option, which was a mistake. For the sin of opting to wait it out, I was made to listen to Elvis’s “Love me Tender”…the ‘your call is on hold’ version, which sounds about as close to the original as carob is to chocolate.

Because ‘on hold’ music usually sounds like a six-year-old playing one key of the piano, repeatedly (think of the musical score to “Eyes Wide Shut”),  it very rarely sounds like music, and almost never sounds like the song it imitates. And that problem was heightened today because it so happens the “Love me Tender” contains a pretty long string of the same musical note. This had the effect of an extended, single note which sounded just like those machines which tell you someone’s dead on TV. Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep.

Yes. I felt pretty dead after the twelfth repetition. I capitulated…I hung up.

Elevator music, including even that of Kenny G, is better than this kind of noise. Whoever designed and sold that ’song’ should be forced to listen to his/her ADHD child/nephew/niece/godchild play Chopsticks for twenty straight hours, while bound and gagged.