The Universe, John Travolta and the Nia Class

Oh dear, I think have I concussion. I am the type of person the universe has to hit repeatedly over the head with a 2x4 to make a point. By the time the message hits home I have a pounding headache and have to thank said universe for the invention of Myprodol. Tonight the universe must be sighing with relief and saying, “At last! I thought she’d never get it!”

This morning I took myself to a Nia dance class. On the spur of the moment and not at all like I’ve been tripping over Nia dance instructors for months. My colleague’s partner happens to be one. She happens to be friends with a friend of mine who is one. I happened to read my friend’s Nia blog and repost a quote. All of a sudden a Facebook friend who is a journalist about all things cool and amazing in my city happens to mention that she’d like to cover a class. “Oh hell!” said my subconscious, “It’s about time you went back.”

My subconscious was right. I went to a few classes a year ago, but my back was so painful at the slightest movement I didn’t return. Now that I have a new lease on life, it is high time I started thanking my body for healing.

The thing is, after years of nursing back pain I’m not exactly the fittest person out there. Neither am I particularly well co-ordinated. But I do love to dance, usually when the children are asleep and I can pop in my iPod and cavort across the garden in the moonlight like some erratic and slightly mad Wiccan priestess.

I arrived at the class today with some trepidation only to be warmly greeted by Mia, the instructor for the morning. Suddenly, I didn’t feel quite so uneasy. There is something very disarming about a heartfelt welcome by a woman who uncannily resembles Minnie Driver.

The rest of the class was equally as charming, all age groups, all body types and all of us a little too self-aware at the start. And those mirrors? My God, I never realised I have such skinny little toothpick legs – GAH! I looked for all the world like a stick man among real, flesh and blood people. Or an anaemic giraffe, only with less grace.

Periodically my husband quotes Shakespeare at me, with varying degrees of success. One of which he is particularly fond is “My mistresses eyes are nothing like the sun”. For some reason this does not make me feel good about myself at all, but I digress. To quote a line, “My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground”. Nia instructors don’t tread. They glide. They ooze like golden honey over a hot waffle.

With all these hang-ups why did I choose Nia at all? Because it embraces people with hang-ups and instead of competing with terrifying leotard-clad aerobicisers, it’s all about finding your body in your space. I’ve been so hung up on my lower back that I seem to have forgotten I have a body at all. It’s not exhausting, it’s exhilarating. It’s like yoga in movement.

Although we all started cold and very conscious of everyone else, it wasn’t long before we were relaxing into the music and the movement. It was with something approaching envy I watched the other more seasoned veterans embrace the space they were in and they fluid movement of their bodies. Beauty has nothing to do with being thin and everything to do with accepting your body, imperfections and all.

By the time I left John Travolta had nothing on me. I was feeling limber and joyful. I didn’t feel like a great awkward galumph anymore. My body aches, but pleasantly, because it’s all about listening to what your body needs, how it needs to move and when it’s had enough. Admittedly, around mid-afternoon I succumbed to the need for a long nap and in a little while a long, hot bath.

It beats Bootcamp hands down. I am damned if I’m going to pay some muscled lothario in combat gear to yell at me. I am very aware of my fitness shortcomings thank you very much and I don’t need them yelled across the Northern suburbs. Although, my boys seem to thrive on it and by the time I picked them up were on an adrenalin high that has yet to wear off.



Today Nia.
Tomorrow So You Think You Can Dance?
Or maybe Strictly Ballroom?

If you feel like giving it a try, click on this link to Nia Glow.
Come on, it'll do you good to try something new.

The Valkyrie and the Angel

Asleep on my office floor is Small girl aged 5. It is exhausting work colouring in all morning. Sleep can transform a chattering bundle of energy into a somnambulant angel. I have a feeling I went a little heavy on the spice when following the recipe. After all, it isn’t very clear how much spice and how much sugar exactly.

How one small person can contain so much fire constantly amazes me. She does nothing by halves, there is no in-between, and she exists entirely either in black and white or full 3D technicolour.
Wide-awake or dead to the world.
On top of the moon or in the depths of despair.
Furious or ecstatic.
Adoring or vitriolic.
A Valkyrie or an angel.

Being a mother to two small boys and this aforementioned small girl I am reminded often of this quote from Alexandre Dumas (The Three Musketeers?) “It is rare that one can see in a little boy the promise of a man, but one can almost always see in a little girl the threat of a woman.”

I look at my boys and am filled with pre-emptive rage for the girls who will break their hearts. I look at my daughter and feel pity for the boys she will walk all over. I pray my boys find women who will love them unreservedly. I pray for my daughter that she finds a man with enough strength and patience to temper her fire without losing her heat.

It always comes as a surprise to me how a little girl can be so strong and stubborn, and yet so vulnerable and fragile all at once. A fitting metaphor would be a thorny rose bush. She can draw blood and enchant you at the same time.

Her wrath can shake the foundations of the earth
Her tears can make the angels weep
But her laughter can lift you up to the heavens
And her smiles can make the sun burst through the clouds

When she wakes up I’ll take her for ice-cream and she’ll let me give her a hug and not quite understand why I am holding on so tight.

Smiling One and the Crowdsource Challenge

Words have tremendous power and no more so then when spreading a message of hope. Instead of forwarding on another “God loves you, but if you don’t forward this to 1 million of your closest friends you will die a terrible death and spend in eternity burning in hell” message, why not tell someone you know about Smiling One?

What is Smiling One and why am I trying to get you to do something about it?

Well first off, Karina Anderson, the founder of Smiling One, is a remarkable woman who believes in the old adage of teaching a man to fish. She remains a dreamer even when face to face with a seemingly insurmountable challenge. Smiling One will close in under a week unless they can raise enough funds (R122 000) to stay open. For many people that’s pocket change, for the people Smiling One touches it’s akin to a $16 million lotto payout.

Karina’s team goes in to prisons, schools, townships, disadvantaged communities and anywhere they are needed. They activate, what they call, Circles of Change. They train community leaders to become entrepreneurial Responsibility Coaches™ and Community Builders. Smiling One equips them to actively established platforms of responsibility within their own community involving youth, families and schools.

Why should I care?
I care because so many people, children and communities fall through the cracks.
I care because Karina is saving starfish.
I care because it could be me.
I care because the children she helps today will be the leaders of my country tomorrow.

So what can you do?
Well you don’t need to threaten your friends with an eternity as Satan’s pet labradoodle. You don’t even have to raid your piggy bank -although that would be nice. All you have to do is spread the word.

All you need to do is:
• Like this post
• Share it on Facebook
• Link to http://the-smilingone-foundation.blogspot.com from your website, blog, Facebook profile or MySpace, hey even Google+ if you want
• Tweet using #SmilingOne
• Share some ideas on how we can raise enough money to make a difference

A parting thought…
“I have come to understand how important it is to focus on and invest in the human potential, guiding individuals, companies and communities onto a meaningful and successful path. Our thinking, our focus and our actions need to change in order to develop attitudes of heartfelt commitment, trust, loyalty, devotion, motivation, enjoyment, passion, inspiration and enthusiasm!” Rashid Toefy, CEO of the Cape Town International Convention Center on Smiling One

The Bossy Boots, the Labradoodle and the Sippy Cup

I read Small girl aged 5’s school report with great amusement. “Small girl aged 5 is a very independent little girl who knows her own mind.” So, basically she’s a bossy little boots then? Thank goodness for that because with two older brothers she better be able to hold her own.

Small boy aged 9’s is too much of an introvert according to his termly overview. Is that a bad thing? I was of the opinion it just was and not subject to a good or bad judgement. I am an introvert, my father is, my mother is and we all turned out just fine. Introverts judge themselves harshly and are less concerned about what others think than by living up to their own standards, which quite often are set far too high. Yes, there will be challenges, he’ll never be the child who raises his hand and shouts, “Me! Me! Me!” That doesn’t mean he doesn’t know or that he doesn’t have something to share. This is not to say he doesn’t want attention or acknowledgment for his successes, he just doesn’t like to court it overtly.

Small boy aged 9 is still visiting the school psychologist regularly who is one of those amazing people who believes in giving feedback. Small boy aged 9 is about to embark on a Bootcamp Gassuku with his karate sensei. Part of the activities is a paintball game. This is a classic case of me, the parent, thinking I know what’s best and being proved wrong. Small boy aged 9 is in a state over shooting someone and being shot at. Considering I have never played paintball for the same reasons, I shouldn’t be surprised. Although I have told him that he need not take part, he is determined to face his fear. For this he has earned my tremendous respect.

In a similar vein Small boy aged 6 finally said that he loathes karate and want to do gymnastics or horse riding instead. It matters desperately to him that he makes me happy and it is with relief and pride that I am now watching him begin to assert his own needs. It is all very well always sharing and being concerned about other people, but it is also important to make yourself a priority.

The truth of that only occurred to me when I gave birth to second son. I struggled to cope, I had severe PND and a psychologist had to sit me down and read me the riot act. What he said is that instead of putting everyone else at the centre of my universe and revolving around them, I needed to put myself at the centre of my universe instead. It involved a careful reworking of my priorities and is a concept I still struggle with. As a parent you can’t always put yourself first, but one day the chicks will fly the nest and then what? You’ll end up adopting a labradoodle.

What the hell is a labradoodle? Apparently it is a cross between a Labrador and a Poodle. Whoa! Hold the press? No kidding. It’s way more than that though. A labradoodle is the must-have celeb-cessory. It’s better than a BFF. It’s more chic than a Chihuahua. Celeb owners include: Jennifer Aniston (as a gift from Brad), Jeremy Clarkson (Oh no, tell me it’s not true?), Richard Hammond (oh no again), Jeremy Irons and Tiger Woods. Bella, Elle Macpherson’s labradoodle is about to come Australia’s Next Top Model. She is the face of dogside.com, Elle’s doggie fashion brand.

Ask Small boy aged 6 to write a sentence with dog and he’ll produce: “A dog is man’s best friend.” Friend, not fashion accessory or baby substitute. Would you dress your best friend in a pink ballet tutu with sparkles? Not if you want stay friends. It’s a bit like bridesmaids. You can always tell the relationship between a bride and her bridesmaids by what they wear as she launches herself down the aisle.

My bridesmaids were told my colour scheme given strict instructions to dress themselves according to their personal style. They did, they are very beautiful, talented and stylish people, just in radically different ways. There was no way I could force them into matching bubble skirts and expect them to ever speak to me again. When I reciprocated for the first of the two she designed a magnificent skirt and silk top that is gorgeous and, believe it or not, actually wearable past the day. I’ve seen some terrible buttercup yellow monstrosities in wedding photographs that show the bride looking smug and her bridesmaids appalled. No love lost there.

Fashion is one of those fickle things as are the occasions that are the fashionista highlights of the social calendar. The Queen may have Ascot, but down here Southside we have the Durban July. Strangely enough, racing was the bastion of the white elite and despite the anti-colonialist rhetoric of the ruling party, they all flock down to watch the ponies and place a bet.

At this gathering of the rich and famous, our esteemed President happened to walking under a balcony, when an owner above was jostled by the crowd and lost control of his glass of whiskey. The upshot is that some of the golden liquid fell from the balcony narrowly missing the very important person below. It happens to the best of us and while we may suffer some embarrassment and have to foot the bill for some dry cleaning, that would be that. Not for this poor chap. He’s been found guilty of assault. A little bit OTT maybe?

Check it out here: http://www.2oceansvibe.com/2011/07/28/zuma-drink-spiller-guilty-of-assault/.

Next time he’d better get one of those spill-proof sippy cups for toddlers.

The Junkie and Psychopath and my Bathroom

In the news, a psychopath tried to start a revolution in Norway. Hang on, where? Norway. Pause. Why? I have no clue. Of all the places to try and start a revolution Norway has to be the last on my list. Off hand, what do I know about Norway? Fjords and salmon, yup that’s about it. They are a nice people, a quiet people. The last big thing to happen in Norway was the Second World War. You’d have better luck trying to start a revolution in a nunnery.

The psycho posted his manifesto online somewhat like Hitler and Mein Kampf. We covered that volume in school history lessons.

Teacher: “Hitler wrote down his plan for Europe in his manifesto, Mein Kampf.”
Me: “Excuse me, if he wrote it all down why was everyone so surprised when he set it action?”
Teacher: “Go to the library and take out a copy this weekend and then come to me on Monday and tell me what you think.”

Monday
Teacher: “Did you do what I suggested?”
Me: “Yes Ma’am.”
Teacher: “And now do you understand why his actions came as a surprise?”
Me: “Yes Ma’am.”

It’s so awful, turgid and incomprehensible that no-one ever managed to read all of it and so no-one knew about Hitler’s plans for mass genocide. The same could be said of the ramblings of the Norway psycho. His online Mein Kampf makes no sense whatsoever and simply sends out a clear message that this man is need of psychological counselling, some good drugs and a writing course.

The psycho didn’t manage to keep the front-page spot for long though as Amy Winehouse decided to shrug off her mortal coil this weekend and join the infamous 27 club. It seems a bit ironic that she apparently died of natural courses (still to be determined, but her family is convinced she was as clean as a whistle) after a lifetime spent ingesting every pharmaceutical concoction known to man and single-handedly keeping a small South American country in the black.

I cannot idolise the woman, she had an amazing voice and a more amazing talent for making a fool out of herself. To have so much talent and waste it so spectacularly is astounding. Her life and death and music serves to underline the truth of my naming theory. What you name your child can to some extent determine the path of their life. For example: Virginia. A Virginia can go one of two ways, she can be a nun or she can be the opposite. I’m a Wine house? She was going to be an alcoholic since birth. Every time she introduced herself the neuro-linguistic programming kicked in until she lived out the truth of it.

Amy’s ability to kick a mass serial killing off the front page certainly highlights the fickle nature of the reading public. We are all far more interested in the junkie tabloid queen then the death of what is probably half the population of Norway. Her death even put Rupert Murdoch on the back burner and Shrien Dewani? Who the hell is he again?

The ANC Youth League’s website had a bumper day yesterday with the highest number of hits every recorded after the site was hacked. Floyd Shivambu must have the hardest job in the world and my heart goes out to him. He spends every waking moment trying to make Julius Malema seem vaguely sane justifying his crazy words and actions. It’s not like he can resign is it? It came home to me when a Sunday paper asked him for comment on the R16 million mansion with bomb shelter and he was quoted as saying: “I don’t care. Just print whatever you want.” I hope the job comes with excellent benefits, like a slush fund, oh sorry, I meant trust fund.

On the home front, my relaxed journey through the nation's newspaper's was interrupted by a very uncomfortable domestic employment situation. My domestic helper was once married to the gardener’s brother. The gardener is a suave and charming young man. Usually the two don’t meet, but circumstances this weekend meant that we had a full house. I hadn’t seen either of them for a while and thought nothing of it, when I went to my study to check my email. The soundtrack from the en-suite bathroom was x-rated to say the least. The two of them were doing it like they do it on the Discovery Channel. IN MY BATHROOM! The only person allowed to get busy in my bathroom is me. I retreated to the living room and a short while later they strolled out blissfully, said their goodbyes and left.

There are some unpleasant realities here that have far farther reaching consequences than the defiling of my bathroom. There’s an HIV positive status to contend with, two children out of wedlock already and don’t forget the gardener’s brother. To have achieved this amount of complication by the age of 22 is a real feat. By getting busy in my bathroom they have managed to bring all these very real issues to roost well, in my bathroom.

I could handle talking to the domestic helper who spent R20 000 on my telephone, to the one who borrowed my clothing and even the one who stuck a knife in a wall socket. For some reason words desert me when I have to say something about this. Should I start to stock condoms in the bathroom? Should I mention that free contraceptive injections are available at the clinic? This goes beyond normal employer-employee situations for me. But in my bathroom? Hell no!

Office politics seems positively tame after that.

The Boobs, the Businessmen and the Balls

I have come to the conclusion that overt sexism by boorish pigs is preferable to the subtle nuances of discrimination that colour the words and actions of metrosexuals. It’s the unintentional sexism that sticks in my craw.

I’m not talking about a man being sweet enough to open a door for me or offer to pour me a drink. I’m not going to turn down an offer an umbrella in the driving rain either. I appreciate these gestures in the spirit of chivalry in which they are offered. I am humbled and absurdly flattered at these.

What gets me all hot under the collar and ready to get out my bic and set my bra on fire are the men who don’t even realise they are being sexist. They would never define themselves in those terms. They think women are fabulous, of course they deserve equal rights and after all, some of their best friends are women.

So, why do they direct a business conversation at the male party? Why do they assume that my gender makes me somehow less capable or my experience less valuable? When I get up from the table, suddenly they get all business oriented and keen, but my very female presence seems to detract from the professionalism of the environment.

When this company gets off the ground it will start as it means to continue and not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, marital status or existence of children. I know women who have got up and walked out of interviews when asked whether or not they plan to have children. Trust me, if you can handle a child and a career you know more about effective time management and prioritising than anyone.

By the way, as a wife or as a business partner I am in no way inferior because I can fall pregnant. My position in either relationship is of an individual in a team. I am not there to make tea or small talk. I am just as serious and ambitious as any man. I’m not going to cry or explode in a hormonal tsunami, but I will cut you down if you put me down.

There seems to be a feeling that if you are married and in business together you form some of sort of unit, like conjoined twins. Does this mean I can pay a married couple less than two single people? I don’t think this would fly at the CCMA. I don’t think that either partner’s contribution to a company is less simply because they wear matching jewellery.

As for the “Mom and Pop Shop” commentary: Pick ‘n Pay, the Oppenheimers, Ikea... should I go on? What started out as amusing has begun to irritate me immensely. People ask if we can work together. What on earth do they think we’ve doing for the last 14 years? We’ve faced some incredibly tough challenges and surmounted every single one. Not many business partnerships last that long or marriages for that matter.

The most frustrating thing is that I have let it get to me. For the first time in my life and career I am starting to question myself, allowing other people to erode my confidence on the basis of... breasts. They aren’t doing it to me, I’m doing to myself and that is at the core of this tirade. Why do I let it get to me when they smile gently and indulgently at me then turn to my male business partner? I’ve sat through meetings gritting my teeth as I get more and more irate, and not even a blind man could miss the blood dripping from my fangs. I’ve stopped going to many of the meetings, because more seems to happen without me being there and more honestly, my self-esteem has been badly shaken.

How insane is that?
I guess I better grow me some balls!

Dobbie and the Frog Prince

Today was one of those strange and magical mornings where small, unexpected sights gave my spirit wings. A water main had burst on the side of the road and the brightest rainbow I have ever seen, hung suspended against the green grass and the blue sky. Two Rhodesian ridgebacks sat statue still in a patch of sunlight staring in unison out the gate. Both passed so quickly there wasn’t time to grab a camera or soak it in, but both have made me feel good today.

The lift in spirits is necessary, because allergy season has brought with it a reappearance of this bizarre affliction that plagues me. When I am stressed and suffering from allergies, odd spots on my face swell up. It leaves me looking quite peculiar with a swollen, shut eye or a lip that looks like Dr Ray stuck me with a collagen injection in one corner.

I sat through a meeting last night in mounting horror as I felt my lip swell and swell and swell to mammoth proportions. By the end of the hour I was hiding behind my hand and hoping no one had noticed. Thing is, you can’t not notice someone’s lip swelling up like a balloon in front of your eyes. I went home and dosed myself on antihistamines. This morning although I still look lopsided I no longer look like a relative of Dobbie the house elf.

Upon seeing my face last night my children reacted with laughter, concern and repugnance.
Small boy aged 9: “Yuck Mom, your face is all puffy.”
Small boy aged 6: “Is that what happens if you kiss a frog that isn’t a prince?”
Small girl aged 5: “Eww, gross. Mummy kissed a slimy frog, Mummy kissed a slimy frog.”

Thanks chaps. It did wonders for my self esteem. I didn’t mention that what actually happened when you kiss a frog that isn’t a prince is herpes.

Shrien Dewani and the Alsatian

Yes, I am a pampered spoilt little brat. I also pay for the privilege of my water and power, so when they stop I get a little miffed. I am a simple creature. I have simple pleasures, like a hot bath after a long, cold day. I know there are millions of people who live happily without this privilege, for whom a bucket of water comes at the end of a 2-mile hike, I am not one of them. I realise I take it for granted, but then I take switching the light on and having power for granted to – and 24 hour pizza delivery.

This morning I woke to find that I had water gushing happily from the taps once more. What I did not have was the necessary power to heat it up. Apparently Eskom does not like to be outdone in the poor service delivery stakes and decided to cut power to the entire neighbourhood again.

There is a knock-on effect to the nation’s GDP as a result, not to mention the poor people I have to deal with today. A smelly, grumpy, pissed off, sleepy person means pain and suffering for all she comes into connect with. This then leads to poor work performance and general bad attitude, which leads to a lack of income and a high staff turnover. Magnify this by the whole neighbourhood. This translates into a city wide go slow and higher incidents of road rage and office workers going postal. It can cause more damage to the economy then the ongoing fuel shortage.

This strike has some amusing qualities for me, most of which disappear in the reality of having no petrol, but they are there nonetheless. The industry are asking for people not to stockpile or be so selfish as to fill up their whole tanks and only to try and get more petrol when the red light has been on for a day. The thing is if you wait that long you will be going nowhere and if you happen to find a garage with full tanks – by the way Shell seems quite flush – you fill up because only God knows when you will be so lucky again.

Strike season comes at the same time every year and as the birds start their strange mating dances, so do the unions and the Government. The thing is everyone knows what the outcome will be, but they have to go through the ritual of it. Everyone loves a good strike, a good march and a place to go where you can practice your ululation. The unions come in with a totally bizarre demand like 20% increases, the Government offers 7% and then like an Mumbai bazaar they even out to the amount they both know going in they will accept, which is about 10%. They can’t just agree on this at the start and not strike at all, because then everyone would question why they belong to a union anyway if they don’t get to march and stuff.

Unions are a great way to make cash. You get some members who all pay you say 5% of their salary and all you have to do is arrange a strike sometime in the year. Like a party planner. Advertising is not really supported by any unions, we don’t earn enough and there are not enough of us to make it worthwhile. We’re lucky if we get a 5% raise at all each year, also our bosses would just laugh hysterically at us and then give us a pink slip. We’re also used to being in fierce competition with each other and couldn’t all work together if our lives depended on it.

In other news, that idiot Shrien Dewani is too depressed to stand trial. Dumbass. He’s scared of going to jail in the Western Cape. Oops. Maybe he should have thought about that before he hired someone to kill his wife there? Besides as daily reports of his extra-curricular activities filter in, he could be very happy in a jail cell with two large gay men from the Cape Flats. If he’s worried about HIV he needn’t be – prisoners get free condoms. It’s more than Anni got.

If the situations were reversed and a South African was arrested for offing his wife in London, he’d be on the next flight from OR Tambo to Heathrow end of story, bugger his depression. Instead this bastard gets to sit in a 5 star rehab facility, apparently the Prioiry wasn’t good enough for him so he’s gone to another one, and is treated like a Ming bloody vase. My advice is that he should rethink the mental incapacity thing. If he ends up back here with an insane plea and is sent to a State mental facility like Sterkfontein, he is in a for way worse than anything he can imagine in a State jail.

In another bizarre legal case, a dog in Ireland is standing trial for murder after he indulged in apparently consensual sex with a human woman and she died after an acute allergic reaction to the sex. The dog, an Alsatian, has been remanded in custody since 2006. Its owner will stand trial on its behalf. He, the owner, met the dead woman on a bestiality website and arranged the little rendezvous. In my opinion the dog is the victim here. How can raping a dog be termed consensual? My legal wise spouse informs me that this is some strange Roman law thing. Will the dog get the death sentence? Is he covered by basic human rights? It’s all very murky to me. Apparently you can rape a sheep, but not a dog.

Tell that to the Cape Flats guy, Shrien will sharing a cell with, who was arrested yesterday for doing the dirty with a Jack Russell named Stompie.

The Metaphor and the Truth of It

I have a pretty shitty issue, literally, I’m not just swearing for the sake of it. My neighbourhood’s sewerage system was installed sometime in the 1970s when the place was a single farm. Times have changed, but the sewerage hasn’t. About R20 million is currently being spent on upgrading our water system and I blithely assumed this would include the sewerage, but apparently it doesn’t.

I haven’t called 702, but I have done the suburban thing and written letters to my Councillor. During last year’s great Shit Storm she sounded outraged on my behalf but did bloody all about it. In the end my father-in-law broke down the wall between my property and the vacant lot next door so that the sewerage people could get access to the main drain. It was a short lived victory.

We have a new Councillor now. My husband has asked me to draft a letter to him using IT metaphor. Here it is.

Dear Councillor Bergman

Here is the thing. The antiquated sewerage system in Buccleuch cannot handle the current load and is exploding in my backyard.

Simply put, my Local Area Network (LAN) has been reinstalled and is working optimally. However, my LAN’s connection to the WAN is not. All the neighbourhood’s LANs connect together at a single node at the bottom of my garden. Currently packets of data are being shed all over my LAN. Let me put it another way. It is as if when anyone in the vicinity presses Print, their documents come out at my printer. Or how about the spam filter is not working and spam is coming out of the bowels of the earth all over my driveway?

More and more LANS are being added to the wider network all of which bottleneck much like the way that all Internet connections in South Africa end up at Internet Solutions. Only what I need is a solution because the smell is like opening a spam email only to infect your entire hard drive with a putrescent stench.

As our local Councillor, please could you look into a full systems analysis and possible reinstall of the operating system concerned?

Kind regards,

Buccleuch Residents

James Bond and the Chopstick Wars

The Chopsticks Wars. That’s what they’re calling it. Two Chinese mobile network operators are competing in the same market. Both have just had an enormous amount of employees escorted in handcuffs out of the country as illegal immigrants. (Read about it on www.itweb.co.za)

Now Company A wants to sue Company B for shopping them to Home Affairs. Bear with me; perhaps I am the crazy one here. Company A has broken the law (so has Company B but lets not snap chopsticks). Whether or not Company B shopped them, they have still broken the law. Surely, this not being America, they have no grounds for a legal case?

What punishment should be inflicted on the companies concerned? A fine? Pennies. How about rescinding their BEE status?

Around this whole saga I have heard some fascinating stories aka rumours that make for amusing retelling, but I must admit I have no proof of their validity, so don’t hunt me down like a rhino and chop my horn off okay?

So here is a round-up of some of the best:
1. They were evicted from a swanky office park for slaughtering the tame impala and barbequeing them up for dinner as well as using the second floor as a permanent residence.
2. They offer white-collar criminals the opportunity to work off their jail terms here, in my country, as little more than slave labour. Hence, the whole lack of immigration paperwork thing.

The most high profile was the CEO of a top Telco network who owns Company A. The press say he resigned on the same day as the mass deportations for “personal reasons”, but I heard he was set packing back to whatever European country he came from as an illegal immigrant! It’s nice to know Home Affairs don’t only target poor Zimbabwean refugees.

Now this whole saga segues into the UK phone hacking scandal quiet smoothly. Another story is that one of the companies above won a multi billion Pound tender from British Telecom. They installed the entire telecommunications network for Great Britain. In due course another tender came up and they were asked to set up a dummy network as proof of concept. BT then went through the code line by line and lo and behold they found a little programme running on the side.

“Oh no,” said the service provider, “That’s nothing.”

Turns out it was something, a very big something. Every activity on the BT network was being reported straight back to the Chinese government in some demented James Bond parody. So as long as you have the telephone number of the person you want, you can access their Internet records, SMS, phone calls, bank security, you name it. More than that, the Chinese government could shut down the system with the flick of a switch. BT threw them out and now have to reinstall the whole damn thing. So, every network installed throughout the world by the same company has the same little programme. Welcome to world domination.

I am unsure of my reaction to the phone hacking saga. I couldn’t care less about soccer stars, movie stars and TV wanna-bes getting their phones hacked. I don’t think it is in the public interest, but I don’t honestly give a damn. If News of the World had stopped there, it all would’ve blown over.

Taking on the most powerful family in Europe? Not the brightest idea ever.
Hampering a police investigation into a kidnapping of a child? Criminal.
Listening in and cashing in on the grief of victims of terrorism? Beyond the pale.

Regardless, should Rupert Murdoch be held responsible? Does the head of an international conglomerate really micromanage to that extent? Sure he is a difficult man and a difficult boss who placed enormous pressure on his employees to deliver, but wasn’t it the editor who should be to blame, or that terrible woman with the ghastly hair? In their defense they say all the papers do it. Maybe. But they didn’t get caught.

Despite this latest scandal, Murdoch is the last of the great newspapermen. He may own gossip rags, but he also owns the Times, Fox entertainment and a host of others. If he is forced to sell his network, it will be the end of an era. Is that a bad thing? Maybe not, but it is sad to witness nonetheless. He won’t be remembered now as the man who built the world’s biggest media empire. He’ll be remembered as the idiot who hacked the phones of the Royal Family.

I feel like I am living the through the last days of the Roman Empire, powerless to do anything except watch it topple. The rot has spread so far and goes so deep that it has become a cancer that we cannot cut out. Now we have some idiot who claims to live on a R25 000 a month salary, building a R16 million home complete with a luxury bunker. And they say I have illusions of grandeur? Either he is totally off his rocker or he knows something the rest of us don't. When asked for comment his spokesmen, who has probably the hardest job in the entire world, exclaimed: "Oh print whatever you want". Poor Floyd, it can't be easy continuously trying to make Julius says sound like anything less than the ravings of a madman.

The Washerwoman and the Doughnut

Things fall apart. The centre cannot hold. These words have never rung so true. The bloody washing machine has packed up and shipped out. The door lock has some gimpy computerised thing on it that has died and apparently costs more than our annual deficit to replace.

The great white elephant is now lying ass upwards on the kitchen floor exposing its sordid underbelly to the world. I have to say that after 8 odd years of stationery existence the underbelly is pretty sordid. I spent much of the weekend ignoring the situation and promising myself a trip to the Laundromat.

Last night as I sat burning the midnight oil my spouse came down to see me.
(Aside: Oooh, my chair just made a horrible noise and seems to have turned into a Lazyboy.)
My spouse. He walks in very proud of himself:

Spouse: “I have put the laundry in the bath.”
Me: “You’re kidding me, right?”
Spouse: “No.”
Me: “What?”
Spouse: “I poured some shampoo over the lot and stamped around on it.”
Me: “Sorry? You did what?”
Spouse: “Think of the all the time it will save.”
Me: “For whom exactly?”
Spouse: “Bugger, you’re going to blog about this aren’t you?”

My feelings on the matter were underlined this morning when Small girl aged 5 came to me with a puzzled look on her face.
Small girl aged 5: “Mummy. I think Daddy has gone mad.”
Me: “You are only realising this now?”
No, actually, I said: “Why?”
Small girl aged 5: “He’s put all the clothes in the bath water.”
Me: “I know.”
Small girl aged 5: “Maybe he needs to go to the doctor?”

Maybe I need a strait jacket and a padded room. The washing machine, the staple gun air compressor thingie that blew up on my face on Saturday, La Bella Donna going nowhere slowly – what is it with me and appliances? Speaking of my classic car folly, La Bella has petrol, spark, compression and is still not showing signs of resuscitation. What gives? I think I’ll trade her in for the 2012 Ford Mustang, except that the Yanks will only make them in left hand drive. Bastards. Wave a dream in front of me and then cruelly snatch it away. I may well have to move to the home of the chilli dog just so I can have that car – and access to a Chinese Laundromat.

Damn, my cellphone just beeped manically at me to inform me that Small boy aged 9 has a hair and uniform check tomorrow. He currently looks like a Justin Bieber wannabe with bed head. What am I going to do? I offered to buy a clipper set and do it myself, but he reacted with such horror. Actually, I think he’s got my measure pretty well, but it still stings, the lack of trust. I am hoping that some creative combing and discrete concrete gel will disguise his innate scruffidom.

Today I have two reasons for celebration. Firstly, I got a full tank of petrol! Hopefully this means the strike is over. Secondly, I arrived at the Oaklands Seattle Coffee Company for my hot chocolate this morning just as freshly baked chocolate doughnuts came out of the oven. It would take a stronger person than I to ignore the message the universe was quite clearly giving me. It has sprinkles!

The Funny Girl and La Bella Donna

The relationship between man and his car is a complex and multi-faceted thing of beauty. I say man in a totally non-gender specific way, because God knows I love my car, but not in a creepy auto-erotica kind of way.

Someone got me thinking about cars and what they mean this weekend. Mine have occupied a strange mechanical shaped space in my heart. My first car belonged to my Grandpa. It was his pride and joy. No-one, but no-one drove it but him. He was so obsessive about this that he went with his car when it was serviced and stayed throughout the proceedings like an over-protective parent. Upon his death I painted it British racing green, put fur on her dashboard and embraced the road like a long lost lover. I am sure he did more than roll over in his grave. He probably stood straight up and roared.

She had no brakes, no radio (I had a portable tape player under the passenger seat), no air conditioning and certainly no power steering. She was the very essence of freedom and the keys to the city. The AA came to my home most days to start her up and in the afternoons I prowled the varsity parking lot with my jumper cables looking for some hapless first year to get her going again. I never went anywhere without those cables or a 2 litre bottle of water to refill the radiator. Once caught without it, a passing motorist kindly gave me her bottle of Evian.

Eventually I had to concede that I lacked the mechanical knowledge to keep her on the road. This coincided with my Grandmother passing away and my father telling me in no uncertain terms that it was time to get a car that might just on the off-chance pass roadworthy. We went together to the Ford dealership and I spent my inheritance on Funny Girl, named for her number plate FNY. She was a red Ford Fiesta with air conditioning and, oh glory, a cassette and radio built-in! My happiness knew no bounds.

She has served me well for many years, but with three children a two-seater car is not an option and I was sick of listening to old mix tapes. Sadly things came to a head last year in a head on collision that has rendered her into a heap of scrap metal in my back garden. I can’t bear to part with her. She may be unsalvageable, but her spirit will live on in my husband’s Triumph Herald.

She must have known my heart belonged to another. For shortly before the accident I had fallen head over heels in love with La Bella Donna. She is a 1976 3 litre VW Kombi. She’s been repainted, reupholstered and kitted with a sound system that can blast your head off at 20 paces. She has no power steering and no air-conditioning, but she is beautiful. Everyone smiles when I drive past. Arbitrary strangers try to buy her from me for ridiculous amounts of money.

She and I are the same age. This means we are slow to get going in the morning. We are a little creaky around the joints. We go a little slower these days. We can be a little cranky. We do not like to be rushed. We need a lot of tender loving care.

Sadly La Bella Donna is currently going nowhere slowly. Her compression is out and her steering column in shot. She is, like the best women, an artwork in progress. My father regards her as my folly. Then again his first car was the first Mini Cooper and his folly a 1960s Morgan. My older son regards both Bella and me with ill-concealed embarrassment amid the Z5s and SLKs in his parking lot at school. My younger two think she is marvellous.

Why did I fall so on love with her? Well, let me count the ways...

The most important is that she is a symbol of my childhood, my dreams for the future and the naiveté of youth in a design icon of her era. She is instantly recognisable on the road. People wave at me on the school run and daily commute like we are old friends. She doesn’t look like any other car smooched out of a sausage factory production line. She stands out, proud of her heritage, her age and her aging mutant hippiedom. She is a symbol of simpler days, simpler times and maybe happier ones.

Also, she is one of the few cars this week with petrol in her, because she doesn’t use this new fangled unleaded stuff, she’s an LRP girl all the way.

Oh yeah, and she paid back her carbon footprint in 1983. Boo sucks to you Prius.

The Backpacker and the Pearls

Oh to be young, footloose and fancy free. That’s what I think sometimes and then I remember the angst and am desperately glad I’m in my thirties. I like to think I’ve gathered some useful wisdom along the way and periodically fling my pearls at those patient enough to listen to a old wrinkly pontificate.

If you are in your early twenties and want to travel the world spend three months and do a bar keeping cocktail making course, a cookery course, a sewing course, learn to be a massage therapist, a nail technician or a hairdresser. Do a bookkeeping course or something. All over the world there are people who need a drink, a meal, a dress, a massage, a manicure or a haircut.

Sooner or later on your travels you will find yourself running short of the old green stuff and it helps to have some skill you can use to earn a few bucks. Knowing amateur psychology, being able to discuss medieval philosophy or debate theological theory is not going to get you a hot meal on a cold night in outer Mongolia. Having an MBA, being a Cannes winning designer or having a PHD in nuclear physics is not worth anything when you’re on a Contiki tour or backpacking in Venezuela. And for God’s sake do a first aid course before you go.


The fact is that few people are as lucky as my backpacking friend who each time he was down to his last dollar found an ATM spitting out cash on a corner, or a wallet floating in the Red Sea. My cousin ended up running away from a slave labour job in the Scottish Highlands with nothing but a backpack. He snuck away in the dead of night, walked miles in the snow and ended up on my doorstep in London exhausted, broke, pale and starving. He slept for three days waking only to go down to the Indian on the corner for a curry. Yes, it was character building, but most character building experiences are horrible to live through and completely avoidable.

Chatting to a twenty something colleague today I was reminded of the Bible story of the talents. I think the universe is trying to tell me something and I am too obtuse to pick up its meaning. The universe can be way too subtle sometimes. I digress. The point is sometimes you meet someone with a God given innate talent and somehow they are beaten out of believing in it, perhaps because it comes easily to them. Maybe we browbeat the idea that you have to struggle, that it has to be hard too much. Maybe it is really easy.

If you have the ability to rid someone of a migraine with your hands or create art that can make a man weep or laugh, maybe that is what you should do. Maybe it will bring you happiness. I believe that loving what you do and using your talents will serve you better than slogging away at something you don’t really enjoy. They’ve done studies to prove that salary increases bring little joy after a month or two, but that when you do something you are passionate about, the cash seems to take care of itself.

I could be feeling oddly optimistic as a result of the wonderful migraine cocktail courtesy of my pharmacist, but hey, it makes a change from my usual cynicism.

Inner City Rejuvenation and Suburban Decay

Spring is in the air. I know this for a number of reasons. One, I keep sneezing like a cat making everyone around me erupt into gales of laughter. Secondly, I drove to work under a series of beautiful V’s as the geese come home. It was breathtaking.

This morning I travelled into the inner city. I haven’t ventured much past Empire Road in the past few years and had to get out the trusty Garmin to direct me through the maze of one-way streets. I ended up at 70 Juta Street in Braamfontein. This has to be one of the city’s hidden gems. It’s a small, eclectic group of stores and designers from the analogue LP salesman to the t-shirt designer. It also boasts a truly excellent coffee shop where I enjoyed the best hot chocolate I’ve ever had and an excellent breakfast for less than 30 bucks. Check it out here http://70jutastreet.wordpress.com/

I rediscovered my city on this little excursion. Sandton, Midrand, Fourways – these are soulless suburbs filled with identical little houses and sterile office spaces. Braamfontein is coming back to life. It is Africa. The area is being rejuvenated while retaining its character and soul.

The main Joburg Library is undergoing massive restructuring and is destined to become once more a centre for learning and literacy. Back in the day my mother would deposit me there after school and tell me that everything I needed to know was hidden in its books if only I dared seek it out. Now after years of neglect and budget cuts, it is going to offer other children access to a world beyond imagining.

If you are wondering what to do on Mandela Day with your 67 minutes, why not clear out your books and donate them to your public library? Find yours here: http://www.joburg.org.za/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=68

All of this lightened my mood considerably. Especially since yesterday afternoon I was devastated to hear that another friend had become a statistic. If you were at News Café Sandton on Wednesday night you may know something that might help apprehend the gang of thieves responsible.

Stepping outside to make a phone call my friend was approached by a group of five or six well dressed African men. By the time his friend had paid the bill and entered the parking lot in front of News Café he was on the ground being systematically kicked in the face and gut. Both men had their shoes, clothes and wallets stolen. My friend’s car was taken from the scene.

Not a single person intervened to help. The security guards decided to turn their backs as well. My friend is now in hospital in ICU with concussion, possible internal injuries and the looming likelihood of facial reconstruction. Needless to say I doubt he’ll be in South Africa much longer. My guess is he’ll be on a plane back to India as soon as he can. I can’t blame him.

I cannot say how much this saddens me. This is beautiful country filled with beautiful people. Ubuntu doesn’t just live for big sporting events. Crime prevention and prosecution isn’t just a publicity stunt. How someone can willfully destroy the life of another, callously take what is not theirs and damage the reputation of our city and country with utter impunity fills me with ill concealed loathing. At least I can take comfort in the fact that the life span of people in their line of work is not particularly long. Pity I can’t do much about making that shorter.

One thing is sure. No-one will be going anywhere fast. There’s no bloody petrol in the city.

The Man who stole a Picture

We have all been touched by it. We have all experienced it. We all live with it. It is inevitable that as the population increases so does the crime rate. What frightens me is how inured we are to it. We expect it. We accept it. It’s part of life. I used to fall into the camp that believed most crime took place by people unable to feed their families motivated by desperation. Now, I believe the opposite, most crime is organised, it is motivated by greed and envy, and more so by a deep sociopathic love for causing harm and terror. It is not about feeding the poor; it’s about feeling the power.

A work colleague has had her personal tragedy and terror spread across the front pages of national newspapers, not to raise attention to the state of our society, but to sell papers. In fact she would rather it had never been reported. She is scared enough. She’s been through enough and now she has to share that with a nation of people who will lap it up over coffee and cornflakes.

You can read her story here: http://www.iol.co.za/news/crime-courts/family-hostage-drama-1.1098068. What the newspapers didn’t mention was the true extent of her loss. Not only was the home invaded during a vigil for her dying father, but among the all the stuff that was taken were all the photographs of him. You can’t insure that. You can’t replace that. They are gone and the family robbed of more than items, but of its soul.

Today they grieve the death of a family member and try to cope with abject fear that they will targeted again. The gang knows where they work, the phone numbers, their friends, their email addresses, they have the keys to all their homes. Whether they choose to use them or not, the psychological power they wield over this family is shattering.

Ten years ago my husband and I moved to San Francisco to ride the dot.com wave. The move came hot on the heels of three break-ins at our home, a gun battle and the loss of pretty much all we owned. For months I’d wake up sweating and screaming thinking that it was happening again. I had kept it together then, but when the constant fear was lifted from me, I broke.

The state of our country today is not okay. It is not normal. It is not acceptable. Ordinary people should not have to take the law into their own hands to seek justice. The police should be above reproach. Like priests they should be held to a higher standard of morality. They should be heroes and icons not the people we fear. And we fear them. A policeman doesn’t make me feel safe, he makes me feel threatened. I hate that they got to me. I hate that I allowed myself to be bullied and frightened into parting with a bribe. I hate that I pay money every month for a protection racket masquerading as a private security firm. I may as well hire Executive Outcomes.

Sure crime happens everywhere, but in most first-world countries it is aberrant, the exception not the norm. Here in South Africa, we like to extol the virtues of our forward thinking constitution and our democracy and so on. We don’t live in a democracy. We live under a thin veneer of democracy, but in reality we live in tribal anarchy. I’d rather we were just honest about it. The fact is that criminals here are above the law. We watch our government ministers get away with murder, literally. The very people who should be moral leaders instead erode the fabric of our nation. And we wonder why crime is on the rise?

Meanwhile 19 people are trying to make sense of what has happened to their family. Children will remember the fear of imminent death hanging over them. They won’t trust again. Insurance can replace the things that were taken, but nothing will fix the scars, nothing will bring back the day before.

Noddy and the Ninja

Once upon a time I dreamt of being a concert pianist. It was short lived dream. Its short lifespan was largely due to a fierce and terrifying Yugoslavian piano teacher. I was 5 and she spoke little English. We hated each other on sight.

My little fingers wouldn’t stretch to reach the keys and my feet dangled helplessly inches above the pedals. She would yell at me in her home language and swat my icy blue fingers. I did the only thing I thought I could. I stopped going to her lessons.

The charade went on until parent-teacher day when I had hoped my parents would give the witch a miss. They didn’t. I cowered behind the legs of a piano in a rehearsal room dreading the confrontation. Instead my mother emerged in tears, my father looking grim. They didn’t care that I hated piano lessons. They cared that I didn’t tell them how much I hated them or that the teacher terrified me witless. I learnt a valuable lesson that day.

Today I learnt another one. The karate Sensei informed us that our son has not been attending his lessons. This was troubling. Karate has always been a favourite of his and his non-appearance was a matter of concern. Even more so was the fact that when I casually asked him if he went to karate today he answered in the affirmative.

We then began a general conversation about truth and lies.
Me: “Can anyone tell me what a lie is?”
Small boy aged 6: “A lie is when you don’t tell the truth.”
Me: “Great, and are lies good or bad?”
Small girl aged 5: “Bad.”
Me: “Why are they bad?”
Small boy aged 6: “Because you can be found out?”

I guess so. Pretty decent reasoning, if not quite the answer I was going for.

Me: “Why do people lie?”
Small boy aged 9: “Because they want to fit in.”

That’s a pretty insightful answer.

The conversation also garnered other reasons:
• Because they are scared
• Because they don’t want to do something
• Because they don’t want to let someone down
• Because they know they have done something bad

This is when I came in for the kill.

Me: “So, I am going to ask you a question, will you tell me the truth?”
Small boy aged 9: “Yes.”
Me: “Did you go to karate today?”
Small boy aged 9: “Yes.”
Me: “I am going to ask you again. I know the answer; I want you to tell me the truth. Did you go to karate today?”
Small boy aged 9 quietly, “No.”
Me: “Why?”
Small boy aged 9: “I got distracted.”

ARGH! Small boys can get distracted by a bee buzzing past them, but try and distract them from a game of soccer or an episode of Phineas and Ferb and they showed remarkable powers of focus and selective hearing. I once took both of them to have their ears tested, labouring under the fear that both boys were hard of hearing, 800 bucks each later I was informed that their hearing was fine and their selective hearing highly developed. Thanks for that.

At least I managed to ascertain that he still loves karate, but that he needs to carry a loud and annoying alarm clock. He also learnt that parents are strange and sneaky beings who know stuff. Both boys have to go to the Sensei on Monday and apologise. The Sensei will then pronounce his judgement, which may well be exclusion from grading this term... or perhaps 100 push-ups. I love the push-ups as a disciplinary action. I use them often. My boys will be very fit by the time they get to 18.

I am very proud of myself and the way I approached this situation. I think I deserve a Noddy badge. I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t get angry. I engaged and asked them to come to their own conclusion. I think I did pretty well. Of course, the next time he skips karate will be a different story. Them I’m going Ninja on his ass and he’ll see the value in knowing how to protect yourself from one seriously pissed off female. It’s a life lesson.

The Mermaid and the Serial Killer

I have a slightly scruffy angel in my home. Her sweet looks belie a spine of pure steel and a will of iron. At age 5 she is a master of negotiation and emotional blackmail. If they pitted her against Donald Trump I’d put my money on her.

Sadly, this instinct does not translate well into interpersonal relationships. As a parent I have to negotiate this minefield each day and try and establish ground rules on how people are treated.

Small boy aged 6: “Mum, if someone asks me for a sweet and I say no and they say that then they won’t be my friend, is that okay?”
Me: “If someone is only your friend because of what you can give them, then they are not your friend.”

It sounds so obvious, but even as adults we fall so easily into this trap. It cannot be more prevalent than in the current crony culture of our society. It isn’t what you know, it’s who you know. Friends are the people who’d still be there if you lost every penny, weighed the same as a baby hippo and drove a Kia Picanto. There are not a lot of them out there.

This circles back to my daughter because I realised how often I use blackmail to get her to do things like eat her dinner, have a bath or go to bed. I know the adult world revolves around basic logical programming – if this, than that – but the way it translates into life is less clear cut. Small girl aged 5 does not differentiate between, “Eat your peas or you don’t get dessert” and “Give me a sweet or I won’t be your friend.”

As an adult I have a lot more power. I have things. She doesn’t. The only things she has to negotiate with are who comes to her birthday party and who she plays with. As this is distressing and heartbreaking for her best friend in the entire world, she blackmails her into doing stuff she doesn’t want to do by threatening to withhold her friendship.

It is horrible and it is my fault. The ice cold realization of this made me feel sick to my stomach. My daughter is the instigator of peer pressure because I bully her into doing things she doesn’t want to do, but has to, by offering incentives or threatening to withhold rewards. Of course she is copying my behaviour into her life. I have to come up with a new way of parenting. It brings into stark relief how the actions of a parent can shape the child for life. It can happen so quickly, so insidiously that one day you wake up to discover your sweet child is Daisy de Melker because you tore the tail of Mermaid Barbie.

Small girl aged 5 and I had a long chat about friends last night. We spoke about how you love your friends because of who they are. I thought we were making headway and happily gave her a hug.

Me: "So, are you two friends?"
Small girl aged 5: "No."
Me, utterly shocked: "You're not friends?"
Small girl aged 5: "Mom! We are not friends. We are way more than just friends!"

I puzzled over this for a while and then thought about my own life. My best friends are women I sometimes don’t see for years. I am still friends with women I met when I was 5 years old. The girls I was at school with fall into the same category. We may have fought, we may have competed, we may have loathed each other, but aside from the notable exception of the little blond girl in Grade 1 who even the memory of causes waves of pure unadulterated hatred to bubble through me, I know that because of the years we shared, the years that shaped who we became, we will always have each other’s backs.

Perhaps that is what it means to be more than friends? A friend is someone you play with. Friends can come and go. More-than-friends are forever.

Image from: http://www.desktopexchange.com/gallery/Anime-Wallpapers/angel_sanctuary_pictures

Slowpoke the Elf and the Hippie Commune

Words are clever little things. They clothe themselves in layers of meaning and wield a power far greater than an atom bomb. Wars are rarely started by weaponry, far more often the spark that sets off the blaze is as simple or as complex as a word. It is words that brainwash young men and women into taping explosives to their chests and blowing themselves apart. We need not fear the terrorist, we need fear the orator.

Just yesterday I was laughing about it. I was pointing out how language allows us to be excruciatingly polite and yet brutally rude at the same time. It is why I can learn to speak another language, but never truly understand it.

This morning I was given a copy of Dancing Jax by Robin Jarvis. It is a book written for young adults, but exploring post modernist literary theory and the breakdown of modern society. At the core of its horror are words. Perhaps that is why I find it so terribly frightening. I can handle a saw wielding maniac or a hockey mask wearing fiend, but a book? For some reason it kindles a fear inside of me that usually only listening to a speech of Hitler’s or Julius Malema’s can bring.

It is far removed from Fat, Forty and Fired by Nigel Marsh, the book I finished yesterday. This current reading spree has its roots in the lack of Internet access at work and with time on my hands I find myself dipping into the other worlds words have given me keys to. Nigel Marsh is an ad exec, a man after my own heart. He takes a year off to find himself and ends up being CEO of Leo Burnett Down Under.



It is hysterical, but in the subversive manner of the Court Jester of old. He holds up a mirror to the fallacy of work/home balance and the tenuous links that bind families together. It poses the difficult question of how do you judge yourself? By your job, your family, your press clippings, your awards? Once you have that answer you have to ask yourself, is it worth it? Is it real? His blatant honesty at his own learnings, failures and accomplishments is cloaked in self deprecating humour and slightly uncomfortable (like a crumb in the bed sheets) truths. It’s a definite must-read for any wife, husband, parent and advertising drone.

My lack of access to the virtual world or more precisely, my virtual safety net, has raised uncomfortable questions for me. Could I handle being on desert island for 2 weeks with no cellphone or Internet access? I don’t know.

The virtual and the actual have become to intertwined that I doubt students ever have to enter a library. Hell, I could live alone in a cave, never leave my home and never speak face to face with another human being again. You could actually live a fantasy life on one of the many role playing games, earn real money from virtual realities and die believing you are Slowpoke the Elf.

People have been murdered for fantasy samurai swords. Is this crazy or does it just bring to light how bizarre our sense of value is. Does it spell the end of hard currency as value is determined by how many friends you have on Facebook or followers on Twitter? It makes me want to join a hippie commune and grow vegetables. Sadly, my deep revulsion to the campfire kumbaya would mean I’d get evicted within the first day.

The Zombie and the Newspaper Delivery Guy

It’s 11pm on a Sunday night and all is quiet. I wake up suddenly caught in the aftermath of a recurring dream of terror.

Husband: “Are you alright?”
Me: “How do you kill a zombie?”
Husband: “What?”
Me: “Werewolves are silver bullets and vampires are stakes, what about zombies?”
Husband: “Is this a dream thing?”
Me: “Yes.”
Husband: “Hang on I’ll Google it.”

I think that is the most romantic and sweetest thing he has ever done for me. In the middle of the night he Googled how to kill zombies so that I could go back to sleep armed with the knowledge.

It turns out that to kill a zombie you have to kill its brain. So a simple decapitation won’t work. You have to chop off its cranium. Apparently grenade launchers, blunt objects like a baseball bat and fire are also zombie killers. I went back into REM and nuked the childlike little zombie monsters with lighter fluid and Lion matches. Thank God for Google. Although I wished I had had a Bic. I couldn’t get the stupid matches to light. The thing is you can only do so much preparation for a nightmare and obviously my subconscious didn’t think to provide a suitably powerful incendiary device. Perhaps my subconscious is powered by Eskom?

Now there’s a quandary, Eskom. Everybody must have access to electricity. Great. The thing is when you price it so high that the potential to receive power is offset by the reality of a shrinking budget, no-one gets any. If I am struggling then so is the mother living in a shack in Alex.

Once more I am struck with the latent ennui of suburban living. In the locations the communities get together, they form a committee, they write a petition and then they march. Marching involves burning tyres and then setting fire to the elected councilors’ homes. While I don’t advocate this form of vigilantism, the fact this they made on to the front page of the newspaper and now everyone knows how pissed off they are and the power they have to make things happen.

In the suburbs, it doesn’t work like that. In the suburbs we huff and puff about it and say things: “Hah! Somebody should do something.” We might write an email to our local councilor assuming we even know who they are and that’s about it. Bugger all happens, the prices go up and the service goes down and we hire private companies to do what the municipal ones should be doing but don’t. So, we accept it. Perhaps we should burn some tyres? Except that in suburbia its every man for himself and there is no sense of community responsibility.

Why does this all piss me off? It pisses me off because in the last year my electricity bill has gone from R300 a month to over R1 200 despite the geyser on a time switch meaning you can only bath in a 30 minute window at 5am, teeny tiny little lightbulbs, turning plugs off everywhere so I have to reset the alarm clock every night and so on. It’s daylight bloody robbery.

It’s all very well going on about alternative power sources, but I can’t stick up a windmill at the cost of R30 000 in my neighbourhood. There are municipal by laws about this kind of thing. The solar geyser despite the rebate is twice the price of the electric one and still needs power anyway. Our borehole is attached to the Juksei river, that is so polluted it practically glows with radioactivity. There is no online gas and the city ran out of gas canisters about a month ago. Thank heavens we cut down some trees or we’d be freezing our butts off. Sorry global warming, but I’m using the only sustainable fuel source I have right now. Perhaps I can rig up a large hamster wheel and make my children run on it for 2 hours a day to recharge the batteries. That would probably count as child labour.

Child labour always seems a little odd to me. Of course I don’t want little 5 year olds working in factories and so on, but as a kid I had a driving urge to earn some money. After all I needed a Barbie doll and the only way I was going to get one was by earning some cash. I washed cars, picked up dog poo and other unsavoury tasks and was paid substantially less than minimum wage for it, but lapped up those shiny silver 50c pieces like a pirate would a Spanish doubloon. My first real job was at 13 and I worked in the local library every Saturday morning for about R3.50 an hour putting away books. I loved it.

My husband started delivering papers on his bicycle at the age of 9. He took himself off to Europe and bought a motorcycle with his earnings in the end. These experiences were key in shaping our personalities, our ambition and our understanding that you have to work for the things you want in life, they don’t just get delivered in the beaks of storks.

My children don’t get pocket money. They clean my car and I pay them the R35 I pay the car wash. They have a pretty good understanding of value and their sales and negotiation skills are second only to Walmart. Still, I have to very careful about this, if the powers that be found out, they’d cart me off in chains for abusing my children. Considering I just got fleeced R25 for a front tooth, I think that’s pretty rich. At least I pay my lot for doing chores, I don’t expect them to do it for gratis.

I realised this weekend that each day I learn something new and it is inevitably from small children. I think I shall be keeping track of these little gems of insight. I had a chat last night with a 7 year old boy who informed me that school is the worst possible torture. He can read and write already and deeply resents being talked to and treated like a 3 year old by his teacher. He is remarkably bright and finds school unutterably boring. He loves playing music and enjoys sport, but as the only child in his class who can tell the time and tie his shoelaces, spends most of his day watching the clock like a grown up office drone.

I tried to placate him with same pearl of wisdom that other mothers keep giving me, “You just have to suffer through it.” Except, why should he? Why should he be bored to tears? Why should he have to suffer through something that should be inspiring and fun? At age 7 he is having the excitement of learning crushed out of him and forced down to the mediocre standard of national education. It is shocking.

Our conversation continued on to what he would like for Christmas and his birthday.
Small boy aged 7: “It’s very strange, but during the year I think of things I want, but when it comes to my birthday I realise I have everything I really want.”
Me: “Well, what about something you really want to do?”
Small boy aged 7: “Well, I’ve kind of done everything I want right now.”
We concluded with an agreement that he would get his friends to bring a bag of dog food instead of a present so he could take it to the SPCA on his birthday and they could all play with the puppies.

How sweet is that?

The Mermaid and the Rocket

Father forgive me, it has been two days since my last confession. I am a terrible person. I have psychologically scared my daughter for life. I have committed the most dreadful and heinous crime any parent can inflict on a small girl. I inadvertently ripped the tail of Mermaid Barbie. She is now dead in the water. A paraplegic mermaid. I shall have to do penance at Toy R Us.

Tomorrow marks the end of her father’s pre-birthday birthday week. At his age birthdays can’t be contained in a day or a single week, but stretch for a fortnight, maybe longer. He is turning forty tomorrow, which came as a bit of shock because until a few months ago he still firmly believed he was 37.

Wife: “Darling, it is your 40th this year, would you like to do something special for it?”
Husband: “It is not my 40th. I think I would remember that. How can you say that? I’m only turning 38.”
Wife, gently, “Um, no darling, it is definitely 40.”
Husband: “It can’t be. I was born 1971.”
Wife: “Yes. And if you take 2011 and minus 1971 what would you get?”
Husband, shocked: “Good God! How did that happen?”

I have to concur, I feel that way every time my birthday rolls around.

In honour of this birthday and my recession induced bank account I had to come up with a creative present this year. Usually I’d treat myself to a spa day and some online shopping at Victoria Secret, but this year desperate times called for desperate measures. I had to downscale. La Sensa it had to be.

Actually I asked around and a colleague suggested Artjamming. Artjamming is was. Artjamming is awesome. Artjamming (www.artjamming.co.za) is a walk-in art studio based in the Blu Bird Centre in Illovo. Apparently there is one in Lonehill too, but I can’t vouch for that one. My plans were thrown a bit when the husband decided he needed the car on Friday, but I managed some creative scheming and eventually set off with three children in tow.

Secrets to small children are an anathema. As a result I only caved to one child and pinkie swore her to secrecy. You can’t break a pinkie swear. It is a sacred oath. Unfortunately she found a loophole.

Small girl aged 5: “Daddy it is your birthday on Sunday.”
Daddy, unimpressed at the reminder: “Yes.”
Small girl aged 5: “Mummy is taking us somewhere for your birthday now, but you can’t come.”

This conversation served to pique his interest, so when I asked for the car I was met by: “Why?”
Me: “Because I need the car.”
Him: “To go where?”
Me: “Nowhere.”
Him: “Then you don’t need the car?”

ARGH! This irritating conversation continued with his two male offspring once I had them in the car on the way. Testosterone is a bitch.

So, back to Artjamming. Whoever owns it obviously understands the importance of location, location, location. It is beautifully positioned next door to a Col C’acchios. This means you can happily enjoy a pizza while your children paint the town red. However, we were there on a mission. One that did not involve pizza, but a family artistic collaboration in honour of the 40th birthday. We each grabbed a canvas and started painting.

Getting three small children to all paint the same thing is an organisational nightmare. However, we ended up with four parts of a whole, which when placed together create one fantastic space rocket worthy of Captain Kirk. Damn, I should have had a caricature done of him as Captain Kirk. Next year. I managed to persuade Small boys aged 6 and 9 to paint large blocks of colour, but Small girl aged 5 had other ideas and her quarter is wildly striped rainbow. Still, I hope he likes it. I think it’s kind of cool.

It wasn’t the cheapest excursion in the world, but well worth a visit. It isn’t only for small people either, aside from the parents getting cheerfully covered in paint, there were a few serious adults painting great landscapes in swirling oranges. It certainly inspired me. I am no Picasso, as everyone who knows me will attest, actually Picasso’s cubist phase maybe, so no Michelangelo then. Still, I can’t wait to go back and paint some more. It’s very cathartic, although not perhaps with three small children in tow.

I wonder if they’d do an evening party for grown-ups with loads of red wine?
Hey, it’s worth asking.

PS: Just called away from this very important task to mediate blood curdling horror. Small boy aged 9 slipped and inadvertently knocked out Small boy aged 5's front tooth. The tooth was on its way out anyway, but not in a manner this ghastly. Blood is pouring from his mouth and he refuses to let me pluck the offending object from his jaw. I tried bribery. I tried coercion. I'm now going with, Daddy will deal with it when he gets home.

The Schmodel and the Tape Measure

In this politically correct and humourless society there are few at whom we can laugh. However unPC it may be, stupid people are not protected by racial, cultural or medical grounds. We are allowed to laugh them, loudly and without fear of reprisal.

My colleague recently began a course in advanced web design. On the first evening she chose her seat perhaps not wisely and has found herself seated for the duration next to a schmodel. This one could not find her bottom if she was given the GPS coordinates and a Garmin.

Lecturer: “Right, now press F5 on the keyboard.”
Schmodel: “Excuse me, Sir? I have a 5 but my keyboard doesn’t have an F5?”
Colleague: “Look closely, now do you see it?”
Schmodel, running her finger over each key slowly, “No.”
Colleague: “Right here, see?”

That was Lecture 1. Last night was Lecture 2. It went like this.

Lecturer: “Now measure 5 cm.”
Schmodel to colleague: “Um, how do I measure 5 cm. Do I start from the 0 or the 1?”
Colleague: “Ok. Well, if you start from the 1 how many times does you finger jump to reach 5?”
Schmodel: “Only 4 times.”
Colleague: “Ok. Now start from the 0. How many times does your finger jump?”
Schmodel: “Five! Awesome. So I start from 0.”
Colleague breathing sigh of relief: “Yes.”
Schmodel: “One more thing. Does that only work if you’re measuring 5cm, or does it work it you measure, um, say 6 or 7cm too?”

God help her when she starts having to use code. It is an indictment on our educational system that a 21 year old with every opportunity life has to offer (her folks are not exactly shack dwellers) can reach tertiary education and not know how to measure 5cm. My 5 year old can measure 5cm. My 9 year old can search My Documents, attach a file and email it to me at work without a hitch.

Perhaps she was dropped on her head as child? The thing is, we live in a strange culture where looks count for a great deal. This one can thank the good Lord she is pretty, because if she were as ugly as she is stupid she would be in an institution.

It reminds me of another schmodel experience I once had on a shoot.

Director: “Great, can you just move slightly to the left?”
Schmodel: “Um… I can’t.”
Director: “Why not?”
Schmodel: “I’m right handed.”

The owner of a model agency once explained the situation to me. She said the average female model’s career ends at about 25 and starts at 15. Any mother with a passably pretty daughter sends them off to be the next Naomi Campbell or Kate Moss and schooling takes a backseat. After all they are out there to grab a rich husband not get a PHD.

Now, male models have a much longer career span and most of them model as a way to pay for medical school, law school or some sort of tertiary degree. What this means in short is that there are a great deal of pretty stupid 25 year olds vomited out of the modeling industry each year. God help them. They need it.

PS:This is not an indictment against the modeling industry. I am sure many models are very very clever. Just these two aren't.

Phineas and Ferb in Intern Season

One day I’d like to meet the day with a gradual rise out of slumber, somewhat like the rising sun. During term time the shrill screech of the alarm rockets me out of REM in manner somewhat akin to a bullet leaving an AK47. I thought half-term might be different, but instead of the irritating and suspect vowel sounds of some mutant aging DJ or even worse, Britney Spears’ new single, I am awakened by the sounds either of a tsumani in the bathroom or the horrified screams of a small girl whose bed has just been used as a drop zone.

Small boys are interesting prospect and should never be left with time on their hands. One must never take your eyes off them, or leave your back exposed. In many ways I think parents should complete SAS counter terrorism training. In that split second when your attention is diverted small boys use the time to concoct an elaborate plan usually designed either to turn your home into something resembling Chernobyl or make your life a misery in an astounding diversity of creative brilliance.

I live with Phineas and Ferb. The main reason I am now limiting TV time is to halt the myriad of ideas that swarm through the airwaves and take root in my boys’ brains. These inevitably result in ice down my back, horrible mushy things in my shoes and horror of all horrors – potions. Potions are every mother’s worst nightmare. Thank you Harry Potter, I owe you.

Small boy aged 6: “Mom! Mom! Mom!”
I think this is a direct result of Big Bang Theory – every exhortation for my attention comes in threes.
Small boy aged 9 in stage whisper: “Dude. Dude! I have a whole bag of shush right here with your name on it.”
Thank you Austin Powers for that little gem.

I can deal with this notification of disaster in a variety of ways. Due to my inherent desire to protect my own sanity I usually resort to: “I don’t want to know. Clean it up.”

I have this theory that particularly applies when I am in the bath. This precious 20 minutes of me time, which is all too often interrupted. Unless blood is spurting out of a major artery or a bone is broken leave me the hell alone. If someone is dead, they will still be dead when I emerge and I will be calm enough to deal with it.

Small boy aged 6: “Mom! Mom! Mom!”
Mother: “Yes.”
Small boy aged 6: “You have to come now!”
Mother: “Is someone bleeding?”
Small boy aged 6: “No, but…”
Mother: “Has someone lost an eye or other vital body part?”
Small boy aged 6: “No, but…”
Mother: “Has someone got a vital body part stuck in a piece of moving machinery?”
Small boy aged 6: “No, but…”
Mother: “Is someone actively in the process of dying?”
Small boy aged 6: “No, but…”
Mother: “But then I don’t want to know about it. Make sure you clean it up before your father gets home.”

This solves a lot of complications and keeps me from being isolated in a secure mental facility.

Currently, Small girl aged 5 is struggling with a logistical complication that means that Small boys can climb 8 odd feet high on the rafters and leap onto her bed in a bizarre parody of the Navy Seals. Unfortunately, Small girl aged 5 is small and when she is ensconced under the covers it is fairly hard to tell that she is there. This is why she keeps getting jumped on, much to her brothers’ amusement.

Now add another factor to the mix. What happens when you let the father of your children take two small boys and a small girl to the movies? Answer, someone will come home needing medical attention. This time because the male factors decided to run up the down escalator. Small girl aged 5 didn’t quite make it and lost a chunk of flesh from her leg.

This I could deal with, except that Small girl aged 5 believes the only plasters with the power to heal have Disney Princesses on them. This means I have to get in the car in the freezing cold and visit as many late night pharmacies as it takes to buy said plasters, by which time Small girl aged 5 is incoherent and labouring under the belief that her leg is soon to be amputated.

It is day 3 of half-term and I have cancelled my leave and retreated back to work. It is safe here. No-one will put caterpillars in my tea or throw fire crackers in the bathroom door when I answer the call of nature. I am giving a grandparent the privilege of parenting today.

In the meantime I shall recover my equilibrium by being mean to interns. Intern season is like hunting season. It is enormous fun. It is God’s way of rewarding advertising creatives with an amusing diversion. The process is vital in the Darwinian survival of the fittest that is the creative studio. You see each year about six or seven eager young things arrive at the studio to be indoctrinated into the way of the ad. They’ve spent three hours gelling their hair and choosing suitably creative and mostly inappropriate clothing, before arriving at creative boot camp.

In all their years studying why has no-one taught them how to operate the cappuccino machine? This should be part of the curriculum. After all it is basically all they will be doing for the first year of their existence. Another vital missing link in their studies is how to cut out and glue stuff. My 6 year old is better than most of them. Fundamentally it is our job to divest them of the idea that anyone cares what they think that they know anything and that they are going to be the next David Ogilvy.


Welcome to the real world kids. In the real world deadlines are like the Great Wall of China – immovable. Budgets tell you how much money you can spend on you Big Idea. So, no you cannot have a million dollar Big Idea when the budget is 10 dollars. This is mathematics. I’m sorry, did you say you are going to lunch? Lunch? What the hell is lunch? And when I ask for a full bleed layout I do not mean you should slice open an artery with the paper knife and bleed all over it.

This is a picture of what happens to your average intern on Day 1. See, Darwin.

The team that arrives on Day 1 usually whittles down to about 2 or 3 at the end of the season who have proven they can handle life in a big studio. At my last agency we had a point system. 60 points if you made an intern cry. 30 points if you train them to make you coffee perfectly. -20 points if they opened their mouths except to offer you more coffee. 100 points of they left weeping never to return. Ah, the good old days.

I officially declare intern season open.