Foolish Fortnight

Posted on

Yeah. Ke Dezemba in ZA and we all know what that means. But the revelry it brings isn’t new and it certainly isn’t exclusive to South Africa.

Kegeesh Ommidjagh – the foolish fortnight – begins (began?) on Oie’l Thomase Doo (Black Thomas’ Eve) (that was 21st December) on the Isle of Man, and well… they got up to some naughtiness, back in the day:

Rampant fun & the relaxing of moral codes(!) were the norm across the Isle of Man throughout Christmas in the past. Barns were claimed for dancing across the Kegeesh Ommidjagh, with fiddlers hired by public money, where parties apparently got so wild that youths sometimes felt compelled to go outside to continue their ‘close celebrations of the festival’ in the hedgerows…

There’s even a passage from George Waldron’s ‘A Description of the Isle of Man’ , written in 1731 that recounts the scenes – surprisingly candidly for those days:

“There is not a barn unoccupied the whole twelve days, every parish hiring fiddlers at the public charge; and all the youth, nay, sometimes people well advanced in years making no scruple to be among these nocturnal dancers.
At this time there never fails of some work being made for Kirk Jarmyns; so many young fellows and girls meeting in these diversions, nature too often prompts them to more close celebrations of the festival, than those the barn allows; and many a hedge has been witness of endearments, which fear of punishment has afterwards made both forswear at the holy altar in purgation.”

The whole thing is quite a read.

But if nocturnal copulation in the local farmers’ fields in the middle of winter wasn’t foolish enough, then you really need to click here and read some of the astonishingly bizarre traditions of the Kegeesh Ommidjagh.

Groups of young lads roamed the towns making ‘a rare din’ singing, dancing and playing homemade instruments, carrying mollags – inflated sheep’s bladders – with which they hit anyone who got too close. The aim was to make money, but they were perhaps hounding it out of people more than receiving willing donations!

Ah yes – the old sheep’s bladder boinkers. Always a giggle.

In church was the Oie’ll Verree service which took place on Christmas Eve. Here the singing of carols was accompanied by young women throwing peas at young men.

Standard religious nonsense.

Amidst the final drinking and dancing there was the Cutting off the Fiddler’s Head, where the fiddler lay his head on a woman’s lap and made prophesies of who would pair with whom over the coming year.
But these festivities were interrupted by the Laair Vane – a person hidden under a sheet controlling a horse’s head. This ‘White Mare’ would go around attacking people snapping its jaws until it was chased from the room.

Ah. Simpler times.

Look. There was no Netflix, no internet, no football around back then. I guess that you just had to make your own entertainment, and it does appear that the Manx people, having saved up all their joviality (and all their sheep’s bladders and their peas) for 50 weeks, really went to town on making their own stuff up for the Christmas period.

But honestly, who was the first to come up with any of this stuff, and why wasn’t he or she immediately stopped at the first mention of decapitation of musicians or people hiding under bedsheets pretending to be bits of an equine?

They were clearly all rather mad over there.

Not much has changed.

That advert, though

Posted on

OK. Brace yourselves. Here comes a shock announcement.

I went to the cinema.

Yep. First time in several (or more) years, simply because it’s not my thing (and it’s expensive, and full of people on cellphones and people talking through the good bits of the movie, all of which you’ve already seen if you were at the cinema last month, because BILLIONZ of trailers).

But I digress. Often.

I thought that I’d give it a go, and we went to see a film that was recommended to us and – once you had repeatedly suspended your beliefs in logic and reason – and in this particular case Rosamund Pike’s sooth iffrikan accent – it was ok. Actually quite fun.

It’s clearly not for everyone, though:

Reviewers say ‘Now You See Me: Now You Don’t‘ suffers from a weak plot, lack of originality, and over-reliance on CGI. New characters are unengaging, and the story is predictable. The original cast’s roles are diminished, and the film lacks the magic and excitement of its predecessors. Cheesy dialogue and unnatural conversations are frequent criticisms. Despite some praise for cast chemistry and certain magic tricks, the movie generally disappoints.

Was I swayed by the cinema experience? No, not really. But I might go again.

Might.

Why did they use isiZulu to name a diamond mine in Limpopo?
Why not use Sepedi, so that all the locals can understand?

Sorry. Just a detail. No-one in the US will be bothered by that. Or the accent.

One thing did strike me before I gave up on reality for 90 minutes, though. This ad:

I know that Rolex have a lot of spare money lying around. But honestly, what’s the point of trying to sell one (or more) of your watches to an audience from Tokai, Retreat and Kirstenhof?

No disrespect to those suburbs, but at around R120,000 for the entry-level model, surely you’re not living there if you can afford a Rolex on your wrist. Unless you’ve got your priorities all screwed up.

Of course, the issue is that if you can afford the disposable income to shell out on an Oyster (yep, that was deliberate), then you probably watch films in your own cinema room at home. And I’m guessing that you can (and do) fast forward through the half hour of ads before the main feature.

I mean, I would.

In conclusion, it’s no wonder that Rolexes are so expensive when the company insists on advertising to everyone. As the Ad Wizard once infamously stated: “aim your campaigns accurately, make your money quickly”.

I hope that Rolex are listening.

It’s beginning to look…

Posted on

… a lot a bit like Christmas.

Of course, it never really feels like Christmas here, because it’s usually somewhere around 30oC – this year is actually forecast to be 28oC – which negates the snowy scenes, cosy fireplaces and roasting chestnuts therein.

But the local builders have packed up for the season, taking with them their noise, their litter and their “petty” crime, and it does feel like things are settling slowly into the festive holidays.

After last weekend’s time away, I’ve been catching up with the jobs that need doing, including installing the patented WindBreak6000™ next to the braai, which has already made a massive difference as the South Easter continues to pomp. It’s got wheels and everything. (The WindBreak6000™, not the South Easter, obviously.)

Still some tidying up and a few odd jobs to get sorted, but let’s leave that until after the footy and a nice braai, shall we?

Olive

Posted on

Seen once before here but still a pretty elusive visitor to the back garden: an Olive Woodpecker (Dendropicos griseocephalus).

Never easy to shoot (just look at that post I linked to above), because they are so agile and so ready to slip around a tree trunk or branch just as you are getting them into focus.
Not to mention the leafy suburban garden getting between the lens and it.

But he soon got into the mood and even gave me a very brief smile before we headed our separate ways.

One of my jobs for this holiday is to compile a list of birds I have seen in – and birds I have seen from – our garden. There will be a couple of surprising* entries in the latter (African Fish Eagle, Great White Pelican) as well as the usual Cape Town run-of-the-mill feathery stuff.

* OK, less surprising now, I guess.