An interesting... macon experience

Sorry, just a short post.

Today is the first time I have ever eaten macon.

It must be the most god-awful tasting stuff that has ever been invented.

I would recommend that you never ever touch this toxic crap with any part of your body.

This utterly diabolical assault on the senses is something I would not wish on Robert Mugabe.

When I was a child I bit the dog's tongue. It was one of them slobbery dogs which licked it's own arse. That memory was recalled when the macon came within three feet of my face.

It can't be that gross, I thought. Lots of people eat it. Well, when I put it in my mouth, my body heaved with the suddenness of a bear trap, wrenching itself away from the macon. I convulsed so heavily that I pulled a tendon in my leg and dislocated my jaw which snapped my teeth together and cut my tongue off

I could have been sad about my tongueless future. But instead I am relieved that there is no possibility of me ever having to taste macon again.

An interesting... vuvuzela

Dear Europeans, Cristiano Ronaldo and whingy white South Africans,

For the last few days, I hear you have been complaining about the noise of the vuvuzelas at games. As we've been blowing them consistently since Thursday night we haven't been able to hear you whining until now.

Well, quite frankly, I don't give two fucks. This is a South African World Cup. South Africans blow vuvuzelas when they watch football. Therefore, ipso facto vuvuzelas will be blown-o during World Cup matches. Surprisingly, people who regularly attend SA football matches (for example fans and players who have been attending matches for so many years that one without a vuvuzela would be ridiculous) have all their hearing faculties and have managed to play and communicate in this atmosphere.

Do you not think it is quite odd for visitors and non-SA-football fans to go into someone else's environment and tell them what to do?

Because you are going to your first or second game ever in SA, you think you have some kind of right to dictate the atmosphere, as if it doesn't apply to people who have been watching football here for 10+ years? How would you like it if they slipped into your w(h)ine club and told you how to run it?

When I watched football in London, some chap kept calling the referee a cunt... in front of what looked to be a 5/6 year old boy. So trust me, it's not as if football culture is better in other parts of the world. There's loads of shit not to like, and if you want to obsessively hate cultural aspects of our national game, then I suggest you stay at home and watch it on the SABC with the volume off.

We will continue blowing our vuvuzelas for these reasons:

1) The noise of 60 000 of them being blown at once is fucking fantastic.

2) It makes it harder for European teams. This is what we call HOME GROUND ADVANTAGE.

3) It is as much part of Mzansi as the Nelson Mandela is.

4) It annoys British people and Aussies. Two birds, one stone.

They're here to stay. Even if you whingy gits kick them out the stadiums, we will blow them on the outside. While you're having dinner. While you're trying to sleep. In fact, as soon as we can see you getting annoyed we'll blow them again.

Because you came and dictated what we can and can't do.

And you know how well South Africans react to that.

The vuvuzela is here to stay.

Love Simon.

:====================<()

(image is not to scale)

An interesting... stereotype breakage

I follow a smart man called Kojo Bafoe on twitter. This morning he tweeted this: "The day people don't freak out when I speak Sesotho to them is day I reckon some of the racial stereotypes will be fading in SA".

So I asked him what he meant. And he said this: "light-skinned 'coloured' looking guy is not expected to speak Sesotho. Number of times I get spoken to in Afrikaans."

This immediately reflected in my own life. I have had plenty of people be surprised at the fact that I know sport so well. Gays aren't supposed to know anything about football outside how wide Cristiano Ronaldo's butt-cheeks are, let alone stand up in an argument about sport.

Do we REALLY still get surprised when things out of the ordinary happen to us?

Is it still surprising when a white folk can speak Zulu, a woman can fix cars, or a domestic worker is a vegetarian? Is it REALLY unheard of for a homo to like cricket, parking attendant to be a white folk, or a female boss to have a male PA?

Can girls not go fishing?
Can straight men not be hairdressers or dancers?
Can coloured folks speak languages that are not English or Afrikaans?
Can black folks play cricket?
Can men knit?

Are these still SO surprising, in this day and age of blended society?

(Can white men jump?)

An interesting... yet shitty issue

I am sure you've all heard about the chaos going on in Khayelitsha regarding the toilets. If you've had your head beneath a rock, here's it in a nutshell. The DA "agreed" to build toilets for people living in a section of Khayelitsha at 1 per 5 families. This was amended to build 1 per family with the added cost being offset by the families building their own enclosures of the loos. A fair percentage managed to but some families couldn't/didn't/chose not to and had to take a crap in the outdoors in full view of anyone walking past. The ANC jumped on top of this and the ANC Youth League jumped harder on top of it. After they (ANCYL and friends) protested, the DA build corrugated iron (as far as I can tell) enclusores around the bogs. The ANCYL (who have never built toilets for anyone, by the way) went and protested and tore the enclosures down. So the DA went in and took all the toilets out with a statement to the effect of "ok people can't use the bogs outdoors so we're going to take them away until we've built proper enclosures."

Well well.

To me, this was an occasion where the DA could have provided constructive leadership. I think that their latest reaction smacks of a purely reactionary and angry fox terrier. This was an incredible opportunity, in the wake of snatching a Gugulethu by-election out of the ANC hands nogal, for the DA to show what they're all about, and drop the angry-white-people-party brand they have been associated with for so long amongst people who aren't predisposed to vote for them.

Had the DA stood up and said "Yes, admittedly the negotiation with Khayelitsha residents had an unsatisfactory outcome, and we will build toilet walls for the people of the township" and then done so, they would have shown that they give a shit about the (black) poor of South Africa, and not just the middle to upper class people who vote for them. Had they gone in and fixed a problem that the poor of South Africa face, many people would have felt better about the "white" party. It would have been superb marketing. Basic facilities would have been requested and basic facilities would have been granted - something that the ANC hasn't done to a higher than expected extent.

Instead, they've behaved like someone with a cricket set who invites all his friends to pay and takes the bat away after they are out for a duck.

The priority in this situation is people who need to use the toilet. NOT the ANCYL, NOR political points scoring.The DA had the power to fix this, and they chose to be whiny - exactly what people have accused them of for years.

The fact remains that people need to use the toilet, and it boggles my mind that any politican could forget that. For any reason whatsoever.

My disappointment with the DA since last year's election continues.

And I live in Cape Town. So it's not as thought I am outside the DA realm of influence.

Helen Zille knows better than this.

An interesting... ode to the Ecco Chocolate Muffin

You arrive to warm and brown,
Chocolate covers your crown,
Melted, running down your side,
I lick it up, there's more inside.

Packaged neatly, there you sit,
Rested upon that Ecco packet,
I pick you up toward my teeth,
after removing you from your paper sheath.

Your crunchy top glistens white,
with bits of chocolate right in sight,
Into them I keenly bite,
and eat and eat with all my might.

Every morning, here I wait,
They run you across the road, and through the gate,
At my desk, impatiently I sit,
Willing you to hurry up a bit.

And then you come, bearing joy for me,
I never share you with he nor she,
Covered in Lindt, you are my friend,
and my happiness will never end.
(you, unfortunately, get eaten).