Long-running love story
ALL CAN BE revealed. The tale of seduction and debauchery related at St Clement's this week by raconteur Spyker Koekemoer (aka Pat Smythe) did not involve a busty barmaid or any other such hottie, it was the story of his infatuation over many years with a 1961 Mercedes Benz, whose loving restoration he has now completed.
It was a complicated story involving a fellow named Diktak who keeps having to smash a front window to get back into his house - where the Klipdrift is – when the wind shuts the door with the Yale lock while he's watering the flowers out in the front garden late at night.
It went down a treat at this weekly gathering of aficionados of the arts, who also enjoy a glass or two of vino. Pat has developed an idiom all his own. A gifted mimic, he relates his stories in the form of letters to Oom Schalk Lourens, the narrator in the Herman Charles Bosman stories, set in the Marico district of the western Transvaal. He has the platteland accent to perfection.
Bosman wrote the Afrikaans idiom into English, producing some marvellous stories from the early to mid-19th century. Pat now connects with that idiom. He travels the back roads of South Africa looking for material, picking up hitchhikers where he can and talking to them.
He and his lady are about to set out on an odyssey of over a month in the newly restored Merc. The material is sure to pour in.
Apartheid follies
PAT ALSO related the hilarious story, The Airline That Never Flew. This outlines one of apartheid's more spectacular follies, the international airport built at Bisho, in the Ciskei, 10 minutes' flying time from East London airport.
Ciskei International Airways (Marketing slogan: "The Ciskei's the limit!") bought two decrepit jet liners from a junkyard in America, which landed at Bisho but never took off again.
However the airport otherwise functioned for years. It had a manager and a full staff complement, drawing salaries. But unfortunately the building, which had state of the art glass walls, was systematically wrecked by billygoats that charged at their reflection in the glass.
All this is absolutely true. And if Pat should eventually run out of apartheid follies, post-apartheid follies are catching up fast.
Isicathamiya
ST CLEMENT'S takes a break next week. Then the following Monday there'll be an evening of isicathamiya music, which developed among migrant workers on the mines and elsewhere. Lively stuff.
Maybe I can be persuaded to perform the gumboot dance.
Mitt, Rick and Newt
WE'VE been rather ignoring the rivetting contest in America for the Republican nomination for the presidential election. Sometimes it's difficult for outsiders to fully grasp what is going on. Over to on-the-spot satirist Andy Borowitz:
"Moments after squeaking out a razor-thin victory in Super Tuesday's crucial Ohio primary, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney was in an exuberant mood, telling supporters in Boston: 'I stand before you tonight as the man people hate slightly less than Rick Santorum.'
"Mr Romney said that he hoped to take the momentum of being marginally less despised than Mr Santorum all the way to the Republican convention in Tampa.
"'The voters of Ohio have said that they want the lesser of two evils,' he told the crowd, 'and I am lesser.'
"But in the Santorum camp, the former Pennsylvania senator showed no signs that he is ready to get out of the race: 'In states like Oklahoma and Tennessee, voters spoke loudly and clearly that they can't stand Mitt more than they detest me. That's what I call a recipe for success.'
"Meanwhile, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich vowed to stay in the race, noting that voters in his home state of Georgia hated both Messrs Romney and Santorum more than they loathed him.
"'This race isn't about winning or losing,' he said. 'This is about me standing in front of a microphone and listening to the sound of my own voice for as long as possible.'"
There we have it, a complex situation rendered intelligible.
Tailpiece
BOXING is a lot like ballet. Except, of course, there's no music, no choreography and the dancers punch each other. All in wrestling, however, is exactly like ballet …
Last word
The road to hell is paved with adverbs.
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