Identification parade
HOW PLEASING it is to revisit a place you haven't been to in a very long time and find that not only is it intact and up to scratch but, if anything, improved. Such was my experience last week with the Thistle Hotel, in Maritzburg.
The Thistle is down that end of town where things are zoned light industrial and where blokes earn a living hammering things, welding things, sawing things, fixing things. The Thistle has always catered for the blue-collar types who make things tick by providing slap-up lunches at very reasonable prices. No frills, great value.
It has also always catered for we hangers-on, who wouldn't know how to strip a diesel but know a great curry and a good price.
Last week I found myself back there after a very long time. The changes are slight. A jocular sign announces it as the "Boshoff Street Country Club". Inside there now are television screens. A small one near the door had Wimbledon but hardly anyone was watching. A huge one behind the bar had the History Channel and the okes were glued as General Patton set about capturing Metz, the start of the Battle of the Bulge.
I took a seat the bar and waited. Not yet, I told the food waitress, I was waiting for somebody. It was a cold day and round me people were being fed huge plates of the most delicious-smelling oxtail with mash, spinach and squash.
It was puzzling. My host, a retired deputy attorney-general of Natal, had not pitched. It was most unlike him. Ian Slabbert had conducted some big trials in his day, but my contact with him had been through cricket. In days of yore he used to organise matches between the attorney-general's office and the Durban Press XI, for which I bowled deadly legbreaks.
We had recently re-established contact and I had his cell number. I phoned but got that condescending jangle that says: "No dice, sucker!" (This was the day the Vodacom network collapsed, but I was not to know it at the time).It was troubling. Ian was now half an hour late. Why had he not phoned me? Were the retired deputy attorney-general and his cellphone floating in the Duzi somewhere?
Then somebody told me there was another bar/dining room adjoining. I checked. But it was almost empty. A family group had one table; a fellow with a shock of white hair and a white beard was in voluble conversation with his companion at another. No go.
I returned. Patton's forces were closing in on the Nazis but at heavy cost. I ordered the oxtail, asking for a small portion.
"Plates all same size," said the waitress.
"I'll never finish this," I said when she brought it.
"You will."
She was right. I did. I mopped up the last bit of gravy with bread. Patton's advance forces were just chasing the last of the Nazis out of Metz when I left. On an impulse I took a last look at the other dining room, this time from a different doorway, a different angle.
The white-haired, white-bearded fellow was still eloquently holding forth. Listening in total bemusement was Ian Slabbert. I marched up and introduced myself. Slabbert's expression became one of total bewilderment. "But this is Graham Linscott," he said, indicating his companion.
"No I'm not, I'm John Marsh from the SABC."
Slabbert's waking nightmare began to lift. He'd thought he was losing his marbles. Marsh recognised him from his courtroom days and had greeted him with: "Hello, Mr Slabbert!" Taking him to a table, Slabbert wondered at the formality of the greeting but mainly at my changed appearance. A short, stocky, thinly-thatched individual – ruggedly handsome, as so many describe it – had become, over the 20-odd years since we'd last met, lanky and possessed of a shock of white hair and a white beard. Not only that. Marsh did not lack for conversation, and none of it connected with what Slabbert knew of me or what we had been discussing on the phone only days before.
Ian Slabbert has been marshalling facts and assessing them all his career. His courtroom presence is formidable. He gets to the nub of things. He decided he definitely had gone barmy.
His relief was great at discovery of the error. We will do lunch again. Maybe we'll ask John Marsh to join us.
Meanwhile, I can recommend the grub at the Thistle. Play your cards right and you can get guys from the attorney-general's office to pay.
Tailpiece
TWO FELLOWS were found at the foot of a cliff, each seriously injured with broken limbs and other multiple injuries. What puzzled the rescue team was that one had a lot of live budgies attached to his shoulders by strong thread. The other had much the same, except the birds were fewer and they were parrots. They were put into adjoining beds in the accident ward.
First patient: "No more budgie jumping for me!"
Second patient: "I'm with you there. No more parrot-chuting!"
Last word
Spare no expense to save money on this one.
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