Tag: south africa

7 Up

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Not the sugary carbonated “lemon” drink. That would be a ridiculous subject for a blog post. Although, as I’ve always said: “When life throws you E128 and E204, make 7-Up”.

But no, today marks the day seven years ago that I arrived in South Africa and began my role as the country’s favourite import. It’s a bit of a weird one, but we have celebrated it each year since I’ve arrived.
People are never quite sure what to say when we tell them that it’s n years since I came over.  “Congratulations” is all very nice, but what are they really congratulating me on? “Well done on making a decision to move house”? Or perhaps “Amazingly, you’ve survived more than a few hours in this crime-ridden hellhole.”

Hellhole. Why would anyone come here? I mean really…

Whatever their reasoning, what is the correct response from me? “Thanks for having me”?

It’s been a busy few years: getting married, building houses, playing with TB and making children, but it’s been an amazing few years as well.
And no, I – we – have absolutely no plans to live anywhere else, so you may as well stop asking (or praying). With its vast array of entertaining politicians, days full of decent weather, friendly people and cheap beer, together with the flat mountain, the superb lifestyle and the huge range of public holidays: this is very definitely home now.

Notes on celebration

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Many people will be waking up this morning with stinking hangovers, but not me. We’ve effectively written off New Year’s Eve for a few years by having kids. Too much hassle, too much money (have you seen babysitter rates recently?) and it’s not like there won’t be New Years Eves when we’re ready and able to go partying again in a less than a decade.

But just because we choose not to celebrate doesn’t mean that others can’t, of course. And lying in bed, listening to others celebrating the clock doing what it only does another 364 times each year, I had a couple of thoughts.

Firstly, people – and here by “people”, I mean “women” – who are consistently surprised by the pop of a champagne (or local equivalent) cork: why?
Imagine the scene: a handful of revellers gather round the host, who has a bottle of bubbly in his hands. He tears the foil, he untwists the wire, and he eases the cork out in front of his expectant audience. And when the pressure of his thumbs and the gas inside the bottle reach the critical force, the cork comes out with a  loud “pop” and flies off into the darkness.
We’ve all seen it many times before.
Well, apart from Little Miss Surprised, we have. There’s always one.  Seriously. And I’m not talking about  the people who cheer the pop. That’s also always seemed a little odd to me, but we’ll let it go in the spirit of general misplaced exuberance.
If you don’t believe me, then watch next time you are at a cork-popping moment. One woman there will be apparently shocked at the sound and sight of the cork leaving the neck of the bottle and will squeal.
I have never really understood what this woman is expecting to happen at the critical moment. A herd of fairies to magically appear with sparkly pink earmuffs for her? The cork to silently fall from the neck of the bottle into that pile of feathers that no-one had previously seen? Or what?

Whatever it is she is expecting, it’s not what happens and so you get the inevitable pop-squeal combo every time.

Does this behaviour stretch into other areas of her life as well, I wonder? Is she alarmed by the sight of the green light after waiting at red traffic lights for some time? Astounded that the sun comes up each morning? Astonished that Julius Malema appears to have said something rather silly again?

And then, fireworks.
Now fireworks seem to have a bit of a bad reputation in South Africa. Not for me, you understand – I love them – but in this country of equal rights for all *cough* we apparently have to consider the rights of  pets as well.
And as we all know, fireworks and pets don’t mix. Don’t mix well, anyway.

Thus, on Guy Fawkes night, which is inexplicably celebrated here in SA (why don’t we celebrate every foiled foreign terror plot in this way?), those who wish to use fireworks are directed to specific and limited sites across the city to set them off and have fun far away from those lovely dogs which only disturb us firework-users on the other 364 nights of the year. And then everyone is happy – apart from the moaning dog owners who want fireworks banned completely because Graham (their pedigree short-haired dachshund) is ever so sensitive and even the thought of fireworks puts him off his Woofies Gourmet for hours at a time. Yes, yes, we know he barks all night and keeps you awake and s**ts all over the local fields and footpaths where your kids play and walk, but then he would, because that’s what dogs do – it’s only natural, see?

Well anyway, there were a few fireworks going off around midnight last night (Lord only knows what effect they had on the lass who was surprised by the champagne corks) and I suspect that local dog owners will be up in arms about the whole thing. Shame.
I’m expecting letters galore into the Cape Times about that. They should probably also complain about the thunder at 6 o’clock this morning which was 17 times louder and longer, but they probably won’t because Mayor Dan Plato is  powerless to do anything about that. Actually, he seems pretty much powerless to do anything about anything, but that’s for another more politically motivated post sometime later in the year.
And it was then that it came to me. In the same way that the firework-users are banished to remote sites on November 5th, so should the dog owners (and their dogs) be on New Year’s Eve. It’s only fair (in the same way that tens of thousands of people are denied exit from their homes and emergency medical assistance so some cyclists can complain about the wind one Sunday each year). The dogs could bark, howl and defaecate to their heart’s content, miles away from where people are enjoying themselves with some harmless and colourful small explosive devices.

Yes: let’s start each New Year with a degree of fairness, parity, understanding, compromise and shared responsibility, shall we?

Ja, right…

P.S. Cape Town tourism post now moved to tomorrow.

SA Xmas

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While many may say that there’s nothing like a traditional UK Christmas – dark nights, snow on the ground, roasted chestnuts and a local pub or seven – I’m very much getting used to Christmas in summer. We spent most of yesterday sitting around the pool, braaiing crayfish and drinking beer. And as today seems to be turning into an absolute scorcher as well, I would imagine that more of the same is in order.

Christmas means many things to many people, but since becoming a dad, it’s really all about the kids for me. Not that that means I don’t enjoy giving and receiving gifts as well. After last year’s amazing present from my wife (and even though it all ended in tears), I had high hopes for something extraordinary and had been dropping hints about viticulture for the past few months: I have always dreamed of owning my own vineyard. Things seemed to be going well, as Mrs 6000 kept dropping hints about my dropping hints – a sure sign that my hint droppage had not gone unnoticed.

It was only when I opened the gifts on Christmas morning that I realised that there had been a breakdown in communication somewhere along the line. I had said “viticulture”, she had heard “vermiculture”. And as those of you well versed in Latin will already have realised, that means that I now own my own little worm farm. It does produce a liquid product, but you really don’t want to be drinking it. However, my veggies will love it and I can always get a wine farm next year, can’t I darling? Darling?

Hello?

Anyway, the kids loved their presents – a motorised crane for the boy, a stereotypically intricate German doll’s house for the girl – and the wife will be running and gymming to her new mp3 player.
While I’m not tending to my worms, I will be mostly reading this gift from my parents. Bittersweet stuff.

But for now, it’s back to the original plan: pool, beer, braai.

The Soutpiel conundrum

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I get called a lot of names because of this blog. Some are nice, but probably most are not. The less pleasant ones dribble limply into the metaphorical pond, like water off a duck’s back. But there’s one which is fairly regularly used each and every time I make any criticism of South Africa (that being both my home and the country where I pay my taxes) or anything or anyone South African.
That insult is “Soutpiel” – usually abbreviated to “Soutie”.
And it reared its ugly head again after the Zuma v Zapiro post yesterday.

The term is almost exclusively used in a derogatory manner, but when I actually looked up (or asked someone, can’t remember) what it meant several years ago, I almost burst out laughing.
A quick look at the wonderfully-titled Wikipedia page “Alternative names for the British”, tells us:

Another common term in South Africa used mostly by the Afrikaans is Soutie or Sout Piel. This is from the concept that the Brits have one leg in Britain and one leg in South Africa, leaving the penis hanging in the salt water. Sout Piel means Salt Penis (or rather “dick”). However, this term refers more specifically to British people who have settled in South Africa, as they are more likely to be imagined as having one foot in each country than a Briton who is simply visiting as a tourist.

Is that really the best that you can do?

Let’s look at the logistics of this. The distance from South Africa to the UK is about 6000 miles. Don’t ask me how I know that off the top of my head. It’s just a unique talent I have around memorising numbers.
Thus, in calling me a Soutie, you are inferring that when I stand, my feet are about 9656km apart. A ludicrous suggestion, I know, but this is your mind at work here, not mine.
And then, let’s suppose that in standing firm, one foot in Cape Town – possibly Greenmarket Square, I don’t know – and the other in Sheffield at the top of Fargate (next to the Yorkshire Bank), my legs are each at a sturdy, safe angle of 60° to the ground. In your mind, you now have a massive, massive equilateral triangle.
My legs are each stretching 9656km into the sky.
To put that in perspective, the International Space Station is orbiting around my ankles.

Your mind, remember?

The next bit might not be so nice to imagine – depending on how you like to butter your bread – it’s my “piel” and it is – for geometric purposes you understand – descending directly from the apex of the huge triangle created by my legs and the surface of the earth, which I have conveniently assumed is flat. The eagle-eyed mathematicians among you (those that haven’t fainted at the sheer scale and might of what stands before you) have just realised that we now have a right-angled triangle and we can bring our friend Mr Pythagoras into play, theorem in hand.

I hope that you can all remember that Mr P told us that:

(Piel² + 4828²) = 9656²

Which I will helpfully rearrange and solve for you using just a simple pen, an ordinary sheet of A4 paper and a Casio fx-85WA calculator.

To sum up, what you are telling me when you call me a “Soutie”, what you are saying is that
my member is 8363.341km long.
But, you know what they say: “size isn’t important”.  That’s what they tell you, isn’t it? Hmm?

Hmm?

But that’s not all.

While we’ve had a long, hard (careful now) examination of the “piel” portion of the word, there’s still this issue over where my prodigious organ is dangling and getting salty.
There is no ocean between Cape Town and Sheffield. Your only briny options are the horizontal slivers of the Mediterrenean and the English Channel. And my mighty manhood isn’t landing anywhere near either of them.

In fact, consulting any accurate map or globe will show you that it actually comes to rest somewhere close to the city of Tahoua in sandy, landlocked Niger, where it would probably nestle happily amongst the population of just under 100000 and be used as some religious monument or record-breaking sundial.
The closest you come to any saltiness is the fact that gypsum and phosphates are mined in the area.
It sounds like Brakpan. Not great.

So next time you want to come up with a first class insult to put me firmly in my place, I would steer clear of “Soutie”,  if I were you.

It really doesn’t work.

When Hendo’s met Freddy

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Many of you will remember the DIY Biltong post from a few weeks ago.
Well, since then I have experimented with many different sorts of meat and many different blends of spices in an attempt to create the world’s best raw-meat based snack. And while I was getting there slowly, my efforts received a huge boost on my birthday last week with a gift of 3kg of Freddy Hirsch biltong spices.
That’s enough to make 75kg worth of biltong.
I’m going to be busy.

The only issue is that since anyone can go and buy spices from Freddy, anyone can make first class biltong. But I don’t want to be one of the crowd.
I want my biltong to stand out; I want it to have a personal touch.
And that’s where Henderson’s Relish comes in. This “spicy Yorkshire sauce” has been made in Sheffield (right next door to the hospital I was born in) since the late 19th century.
It is to my home town what biltong is to my adopted country.

And, much like when Harry met Sally, the results of Hendo’s meeting Freddy are mindblowing.
It’s South Yorkshire meets South Africa.
It’s a pint of Magnet with a Klippies chaser in the pub on the corner of Bramall Lane and Voortrekker Road.
It’s bluddy bakgat, dun’t tha’ know, china?

It’s very me.