UCT Hockey Article (pre-Varsity slaughter)

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to write an article for the Varsity paper about the UCT Internal Hockey League. I did so and it was eventually published. Somehow someone, between me sending it in to the hockey committee and Varsity newspaper publishing it, cut out half the words of the article. The talented editor took out paragraphs, sentences and random words in the middle of sentences leaving behind an article bearing my name that made almost zero sense and looked like it was written by a 12 year old on acid from the special English class – not unlike your average Youth League press statement. To save a bit of face I’ve decided to go ahead and post my original article pre-slaughter:

Many moons ago, in the time before our father’s fathers, the UCT Internal Hockey League was conceptualised. The vision was to create a platform for the beginner, social and seasoned hockey players alike to spend Sundays otherwise spent watching impressively unimaginative reruns of the blasphemously named ‘Chuck’ or losing internal football matches to Idiot FC.

Years later and the legacy lives on with teams of varying ability, vibe and colour – otherwise it would be hard to tell them apart – continuing to vie for the title. The league in question refers to real hockey played on a surface that doesn’t melt away in half-decent weather, played with a spherical ball and with only one player per side padded to the hilt. Anyone with a tendency to place the word ‘field’ before the name of the sport should:

a)      Practice consistency with the naming of sports – ‘field soccer’ might be a good start -, and

b)      Work on their accent

Apart from the res teams which drift in and out of existence, the honour of the oldest team in the league falls upon the defending champions, Average Joes. Incorporated soon after the release of the movie ‘Dodgeball’ by the exceedingly regular and unexciting Mr Joe, Joes are currently captained by Andrew ‘Grunter’ Grant and play in black and yellow (black and yellow). The team also includes two of Cape Town’s hottest DJ’s Carl Wiesner and James White – both members of the UCT 4^th team that recently took down Stellenbosch 3^rd XI.

Identifying themselves as challengers to the currently unbeaten Joes’ throne is Mavericks, the only other unbeaten side in the league thus far. The Mavericks’ run includes the prize scalp of 26:8 (a Bible verse that is harder to find than one might think – poorly referenced if you ask me) who were last years semi-finalists as well as the runner’s up Smuts House.

The Mavericks were founded three years ago in the memory of the very late Sir Samuel Augustus Maverick (1803 – 1870), the grandfather of U.S. Congressman Maury Maverick, who coined the term ‘gobbledygook’, and the source of the word ‘maverick’ meaning ‘independantly minded’ as well as the name given to his unbranded cattle, also known as ‘Hairy Dicks’ (Wikipedia, 2011). It is also a much-underrated strip-club in Cape Town. A gentleman knows.

In the league of Dolls, Ayoba! Lead the way with an unbeaten start including a 5-3 win over defending champions Tartans. Despite losing their multi-million dollar sponsorship from MTN due to naming rights issues stemming from serious overkill of the word and the fact that the use of the said word died with the advertising campaign in mid-2010 – the year Ayoba! (Apparently the exclamation mark is a necessary addition) were started by current captain Donne Brotherton, who incidentally holds the highly esteemed honour of two Mavericks caps to her name and the ability to hit the ball harder than most of her male contemporaries. The fact that Ayoba! Top the standings despite falling out of the top 4 last year comes as no surprise as their rumoured link to the talented, good-looking and manly Mavericks squad (which boast the likes of Brett ‘Hottest Dummie 2010’ Snyders, Jason ‘Cosmo’ Trautmann and Beki ‘Midnight’ Ngulube, whose name directly translates to: ‘have faith almighty bushpig’) seems to be rubbing off on them. “Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing” (vince Lombardi) – just ask any Lions fan.

The Internal League has split into two leagues in both the Men’s and Ladies section in a move toward a strength-v-strength format. The much awaited finals day will take place in the 3^rd quarter, the men’s final being preceded by what is arguably the highlight of the UCT sporting calendar – closely followed by the Varsity Cup Final): Bushpigs vs Quaggas. The Bushies and Quaggs, the latter of which rhymes uncannily with a word that probably wouldn’t be published if I wrote it, are two social but serious external sides plying their trade in the dregs of the Western Province League against all odds and cheating officials. The opening goal of last years derby was scored by Andrew Smith – painted and dressed as an Avatar – with a guitar,m while this years warm-up match was settled by a fiercely contested game of ‘open gates’ during the half-time interval. No doubt a must-see!

For lack of a quirky phrase to end the article, I’ll do so in a [possibly incorrectly attributed] quote from Bushies captain Tarleton ‘Heartburn’ Hepburn when asked whether he prefers grass or astro: “I son’t know. I’ve never smoked Astroturf”.

I Survived an MRI Scan. Just.

Things I was scared of before having an MRI scan:

·         Knives

·         Needles

·         Waking up as a Bulls fan

·         Knives

Things I’m now scared of:

·         MRI scans

Some pieces I write are simply as an outlet for my thoughts. This one is different; I am now writing to teach. If you have consistent headaches for a couple months; take panados and keep your trap shut!

I was getting along just fine -bar a series of headaches that were more annoying than a Radio Algoa advert break – until my doctor suggested I get X-Rays of my neck in light of significant stiffness since my long jog (“Knysna: I run this city”). As the gay radiologist from Port Alfred – wearing a scarf indoors is a dead giveaway mate – told me to tilt my head back while I was standing against some board for the X-Ray a wave of tiredness hit me before I blacked out –only girls and men who wear scarves indoors ‘faint’ – and found myself being helped onto a chair by the scarf-clad radiologist and another older female radiologist from Kenton who was chatting to me at the reception trying to get me to add her son as a Facebook friend because he was lonely in Kenton. Not the most manly moment of my life.

The result of my black-out was – beside a heavy bout of embarrassment – an appointment with a neurologist – an Afrikaans man whose lack of friendliness suggested he was still smarting from the Sharks’ 19 point drubbing of the Bulls the previous week. The single appointment ballooned into an EEG - (Electro, something I can’t remember or spell that starts with an ‘E’, Graph) where some lady rubbed aqueous cream all over my face like a dry-skinned black man in winter before sticking a host of electrodes on my skull leaving me looking like a science experiment –, a blood test – recall my fear of needles -, and an MRI scan.

Now, in my mind, an MRI scan entailed lying on a bed that moves in and out of a massive metal donut type thing so that machines can take 3-D pictures of the inside of my head, not unlike technology standard to a CSI episode that ends in an annoying ginger with a weird voice putting sunglasses on inside a caravan.

When I walked into the room my first suspicion was confirmed: It was a massive metal donut type thing, though the hole in the middle where the human was inserted was smaller than I initially imagined. The scan itself, however, did not go nearly as I expected.

As I sat on the table in preparation for my scan, I was told that the process would last 45 minutes and that I’d be on a drip that would be laced with ink halfway through to make my veins stick out - weird, I thought, but chilled. I lay down and got a pair of ear plugs thrust into my ears to protect me from the noise I was warned the machine would make. Little pillows were then stuffed either side of my head to further protect me from the noise – a lie – and to keep my head still – dead still. As I was electronically thrust, head first, into the massive machine donut the ladies in charge told me to keep my eyes closed for the duration of the scan. I was told the same thing for my EEG, which lasted 20 minutes, and during which I managed to doze off so I expected much of the same. My inquisitiveness took over as soon as the bed stopped inside the machine and I opened my eyes. I shut them immediately as I realised that the reason the nurses tell patients to keep their eyes closed is not for the purposes of the scan but to keep the patients from realising that they are tightly enclosed in a small bubble. I instantly regained my forgotten fear of small spaces. Thanks largely due to ‘The Postbox’ tunnel at Cango Caves and trips to Tin Roof in the boot of a car I have learnt that I am not the biggest fan of being buried alive, something I tend to forget when asked to list my fears. As my body started breaking out in a panicked sweat I was on the verge of kicking out in a desperate attempt to escape my premature burial. I realised then that I’d have to suck it up because I had no doubt that it was the only way to get rid of my damn headaches and that my Dad would never let me forget the fact that he’d managed an MRI scan just fine and I hadn’t!

The sounds kicked in just in time. I managed to get through the first 5 to 10 minutes of the scan by thinking of ways to describe the sounds in an article – hence me wasting no time in whipping out my laptop on the way home to get cracking on this piece! The sounds were repetitive in a sense, but also varied. My favourite combination made me thing of a very cheeky child playing a brave game of tok-tokkie with a combination of door bells buzzing loudly and incessant wood-on-wood knocking. Along with this was a sound not dissimilar to a razor and other sounds that made me feel like a hobo trying to catch 40 winks on a massive construction site – probably in the underground bunker of Julius Malema’s new 16 mil mansion.

The sounds kept my mind busy and, on one beautiful occasion, put me to sleep. My short slumber was rudely interrupted with a little snore but it was enough to allow me to fool myself into thinking I was almost finished. As I lay in the chamber with my eyes tightly shut I fought the urge to lift my legs. Part of me wanted to know if it was only my head and not my whole body that was enclosed while the other part knew full well that I’d have a comprehensive panic attack if that were actually the case. Every time the platform on which I lay moved I prayed to the Gods of medicine that I was being moved out of my giant metal donut grave, only to open my eyes and realise I was still inside.

Then it came. The bed moved more than it had on its 3 or so previous movements. I opened my eyes to the well-lit white ceiling of the room. My muscles relaxed. The sweating stopped. Angels were singing a Justin Bieber song. My nurse had somehow transformed into Scarlett Johannson. The needle that had been stuck into my arm for the past 40 minutes was far from my mind. Being a Bulls fan was almost comprehensible - almost. My fear of butter knives subsided. The world was a different place. The world was a better place. I had made it!

Now for another life lesson or two:

If you are a nurse or a radiologist; instead of asking whether I’ve had an operation in the last year or if I take any medication often, maybe make a small enquiry as to my fondness for small enclosures. At the very least, a mild warning would have been nice. On top of that, if you had half an entrepreneurial mind, you would offer to add some sedatives to the drip for a small fee and sell T-shirts saying “I survived an MRI”.

If you are for any reason contemplating an MRI scan, before you take the slow plunge;  take a heavy dose of sedatives, get some good songs in your head, psyche up your imagination, keep your eyes tightly shut and brace yourself for a shitty experience.

Therefore, in a conclusion that will shatter any made by Einstein or Hawking before me: If you want to rid yourself of any phobia you find yourself stuck with, get a new one! Have an MRI scan.

Knysna Marathon: I run this city!

It takes a dreamer to think about running a marathon. It takes a compulsive planner to enter a marathon. It takes discipline to train properly for a marathon and it takes an over-competitive and slightly demented minded person to actually run the damn thing. Needless to say I’m not very disciplined and am paying for my sins by feeling like a 95 year old with a walking stick lodged halfway up his arse two days after running the Knysna Forest Marathon.

The desire to run a marathon stems from my life-long competition with my father. Our relationship involves a lot of teasing and whenever I bring up his matric report (“Ed’s final results is going to be a cliff-hanger!”) and my degree versus his absence of tertiary education, it doesn’t take him long to bring up the fact that no matter what I’ve done in my life, it’s not as hard as running 89kms between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. That’s 15 laps of Kenton!

I entered the race after managing the Two Oceans half marathon pretty well on the back of no proper training but a fair bit of fitness built up from a variety of sports I indulge myself in at Varsity to excuse myself from doing Auditing tuts. I figured with a bit of training I’d be able to double my feat. I ran a 1h36 in the half, a good time under the circumstances but attributed completely to the fact that I could not stand the thought of friends of mine beating me! I clung to their coattails the entire race and pipped them with a couple k’s to go. My reward was a medal, a lesson never to eat a rusk after a long run and ligament injury in my foot.

My training period coincided with study leave with exam week being the week leading up to the run. As good as exercise is for studying, it’s pretty hard to get your body in a state of concentration after running 15km’s, so that was about as long as any of the runs lasted.

I signed up to run the race with Jonty, a very good friend of mine from way back when I used to go to Kingswood pre-primary every Thursday.

Wrapped in a blanket and black plastic bag, we left drove from Plett to Knysna and boarded the taxi to take the trip into the Knysna Forest for the start. Despite hoping for a powerful rendition of Chariots of Fire on the trip, we were subjected to some R&B song on triple repeat before a slow love song played to our exit from the bus.

The taxi dropped us off in somewhat of a no-man’s land with the sounds of a bilingual Afrikaans announcer echoing through the woods. A 300m or so walk in the darkness was a bit unnerving as we pictured Fiela se Kind reaching out and grabbing us any second. If I remember correctly she turned out pretty decent looking in the movie so maybe that wouldn’t have been the worst thing after all. I’d just have to teach her a bit of English.

Very unlike the dog show of a start experienced at the two oceans - admittedly I was in the seeded group due to me having run 10 ultra-marathons, being over-50 and called Peter (the name of my girlfriends father) – creeping up to the front of the 1200 runners was hardly challenging, if not bitterly over-optimistic. The mood was relaxed as everyone around us seemed to have done this before, apart from the short podgy coloured lady cracking the same line repeatedly (“is this the seeded section? [laugh at own joke while everyone pretends to chuckle despite having heard it 3 seconds and 6 seconds earlier, finding it funny on neither occasion]”). The average age of the runners must have been over 40, which made me feel a lot younger than I’m going to feel when I become a 25-year-old first year article clerk in 2013.

The starting gun went off somewhere in the dark with no audible countdown. Knowing very little about the route, we figured that we’d treat the first 14 of the 42.9k’s - note the ‘.9’, thank you- as a warm up and figured that we’d be able to run the last 10 on adrenaline in contemplation of the finish. That left us with two sets of 10kms in the middle to negotiate with the combined effort of a little training and a helluva lot of self-motivation, denial and mental stubbornness!

Runners are encouraged to run with their blankets and jackets in the beginning before handing them over to needy locals who “line the streets” waiting for their gifts. This so-called tradition seems to have been oligopolised by a few of the locals who struggled under the weight of jackets thrown at them. I waited for a needy looking human but after 5 or so k’s of running with a blanket over my shoulders like an athletic, manly Mother Theresa I tossed it aside next to the 38km sign signalling distance remaining. Admittedly the traditional needy mobs might not have been so keen on coming out an hour earlier for the fewer mentally deranged marathon runners and waited for the 7000-strong half-marathon brigade.

 Jonty had little desire to run the race with me, knowing full well that I was too competitive to let him, so we split up a couple of kilometres from the start and I was left to my own company for the remainder of the race. The first 12-ish kilometres cruised by pretty easily despite the constant uphill, or in the case of the Knysna marathon, up-mountain. I learnt a fair amount about the demographics of the runners in those early stages as I completely ignored the first guy who spoke to me partly because I thought he was talking to the long-grey haired man on my other side who was most probably Fiela’s husband and partly because I had absolutely nought idea of what he was saying! To understand Afrikaans my brain needs to be tuned in to pick up the few words I do know and slow them down to a reasonable speed in my mind so that I can decipher what has been said to me! After a second Afrikaans man asked me something only to get a sheepish confused English reply from yours truly, I put the two above-mentioned experiences together along with the places the other runners came from – Brackenfell, Durbanville, Paarl, Strand etc - to realise I not only stuck out because of my age, but also because of my home-language, instantly fulfilling my curiosity as what it would feel like being a white guy at a Youth League rally. As far as the black runners were concerned, I saw them at the starting tent, some filling up tog bags of free Pick ‘n Pay treats provided by the race sponsors, but not again until prize-giving where they monopolised (nationalised?) the podium.

My two tactics as far as in-race entertainment was concerned was to name the runners around me - Oom Piet from Paarl and Elsabet from Maties passed me and got passed in return at regular intervals- and to play songs over and over in my head. Unfortunately the first song that came into my head was: “she’ll be coming (running) ‘round the mountain when she comes”.

The first sign of bad things to come was when a marshal atop the first climb pointing us down our first steep descent of four let off an evil Voldemort-worthy laugh. Supporters in the forest were few and far between with volunteers offering coke and water every two-and-a-half k’s doing their best to encourage and console. The halfway mark brought a fair amount of relief and a rather worrying realisation: I had just matched the longest run in my life but I still had another 21 (.45) kilometres to go!

My goal for the race was not to walk at all. After trying to simultaneously run and drink coke from a cup I had to slightly readjust my sights to include a stop and go at the table to down my half-glass of coke. The sugar boost was essential and well worth the next kilometre of burping! At times in the middle stages of the race I would find myself 100m behind the next person and 50m ahead of the followers. With nothing but trees for company and “she’ll be running ‘round the mountain” stuck in my head I yearned for my i-pod and some Creedence Clearwater and Europe ‘treffers’ to keep the mood up and the mind adrift!

And then it came.

There’s little worse when, 25kms into a long run you start a steep and long descent knowing full well that every stride down will require 4 shuffles up to get back to the altitude from which you started! The hill, no, mountain we had to climb was long. It was steep. It was hard. I swear sparingly when I write but there is a time when swearing is necessary. This mountain was not only a mother-fucker; it quite liked to bend over fathers, sons, daughters and grandfathers all the same! My aim of not walking was shattered as after 4km’s of shuffling at a snail’s pace up the mountain with little sign of the summit I had to break into a series of 5 walking strides every 100m to shift the pain from my calves and hamstrings. To rub it all in, there was a camera man ready to indulge in our pain at the top of the mountain followed by a sea of half-marathon runners in which to get lost in!

Despite being over-taken by some people who looked like they were either wheel-chair bound very soon or part of an MTV episode of ‘Made’ there was one significant bright side: all of a sudden there were ‘steeks’ around us! From looking at balding Afrikaans men in a bid to find a suitable name the view just became a lot more bearable! As we met the throngs of runners who were on course for a 2hour plus time in their mild jog we had to negotiate another long, steep decline through the beautiful Simola Golf Estate. While the half-runners around me saved their knees by trodding down carefully, my quads did not have the strength and left me flying down the hill to the detriment of my knees and back!

My joy at seeing the 10km mark pass slowly by was somewhat drenched with anger as people around me started congratulating me for passing halfway! All I had to differentiate myself from the people who I’d run 20kms more than was a black number instead of a red one! I thought the least I should be entitled to was an entourage of photographers and a Greek-style wreath atop my head! Maybe add in a shirt reading ‘Hardcore. Lank Hardcore’ on the back and I reckon that might have been fair.

Nonetheless, as the clay slash gravel roads became brick paving and then tar road the legs began to weaken at quite a rate and I immediately understood the physics behind the energy efficient old-man shuffle-run. Feasting on the oranges, bananas and baked potatoes that got offered to us once we joined the half-marathon route - fair? Fu*k no! –along with the odd slap of the legs was required to inject some life into my body and avoid being over taken by an ageing humpbacked lady. The will to push myself to the finish depleted as I had to climb a set of stairs in a bottleneck of eager runners. My theory of adrenaline had worn off somewhat as I approached the field in the last kilometre of the race. The fact that the half-marathon had been delayed coupled with me not running with a watch had lead me to believe that I had no chance to reach my preliminary goal of a sub 4 hour run. As I rounded the final bend with the race clock in sight – in sight to normal people, not to my ever-weakening eyes – a shout from a spectator of: “Hurry up so you can get there under 4!” generated some residual energy from a hidden location within me prompting a gallop toward the line. I managed to get in 10 seconds under the 4 hour mark, something that was the least of my concerns as the relief of finishing nearly overwhelmed me completely and I searched the area for a grassy patch to collapse!

Collapse I did. Stretch I did not. I tried but I could hardly lift my legs 45 degrees despite help from my friend Bee, mysteriously glowing with delight at my state, or lack thereof! It took a massage in the medical tent, 4 Pick ‘n Pay Powerade clones (horrible things), a Reds Super 15 victory and the discovery that Jonty had also completed the run successfully for the feat to start sinking in. To cap the day off, we hung around for the prize-giving for the sole reason that we found chairs and could not yet contemplate a walk to the car, only for Jonty to win a camera worth a grand-and-a-half at the lucky draw! Our prior plan to celebrate our weeks of sobriety brought on by training and, to a larger extent, exams were cast aside by my very unhappy lower body. Two days later, legs aching and shoulders mysteriously stiff, I know I haven’t done my last long run. Jonty assures me he has! The stiffness and soreness has left parts of my lower body rather inflated – no, unfortunately not that part – leaving me with a valuable lesson: If you want a big boep – dop lank. If you want big guns – gym lank. If you want massive calves – run a marathon.

A Critical Evaluation of the sex-less Neighbour's Complaint Letter

Some way into the second year of my not-so-amicable neighbourship with the previously mentioned KC - whose hatred of me rivalled, if not topped, the ill- feelings I have toward Stellenbosch University (the use of the word ‘University’ is, admittedly, highly debateable), beggars (especially the ones who, after allowing them to do four days of gardening for you and overpaying them in good faith and charity, steal your laptop) and the little ginger UCT mascot (who hasn’t realised that, after four years of running on ahead of the UCT Varsity Cup rugby team, he is no longer cute but is still ginger) – I, along with the rest of the units in my block of apartments, received a strongly worded and grammatically flawed letter bitching about how crap his life was. The letters were addressed: ‘Unit A’, ‘Unit B’, ‘Unit C’, ‘Unit D’, and ‘Unit E – Buster and party animals’. The kind mention made me feel as special as Josie must have felt when they named her band ‘Josie and the Pussycats’.

Everything in italics is a direct quote from the letter I received and hung up on my fridge for the rest of the year for general entertainment purposes. I apologise in advance for the numerous Malema-esque spelling and grammatical errors.

“I write this letter in anger.”  Classic opening line! So concise and direct that you can almost picture the veins popping out of his fat, red neck as he pounds away at the keyboard one key at a time.

“We have lived in our lovely house for 14 years. We are used to living amongst students. We work with students every day. - Noddy Badge.

“How ever – that’s one word KC. Spell check. Get it – we have never lived next to such inconsiderate noisy neighbours/ students. We simply cannot tolerate and accept this ongoing disruption of our peace and our sleep any longer. We have never in 14 years been woken up night after night repeatedly with shouting, screaming, car doors slamming, cars hooting, loud music from the apartment and cars, and gates being slammed. – The screaming I can account for, my digs mate had mad game (no! Not the digs mate dating my sister). One thousand apologies on that front. The strength required to slam an electric gate which, as unlikely as this seems, probably ways more than 4 times your body weight should be commended and possibly rewarded with a medal of sorts. – We have had to call the SAP Rondebosch more than once in two years to bring order to a party that got out of control. We had to call the SAP no less than 6 times in the last 6 months. – I can definitely vouch for the last two times the police came as they interrupted my work the first time and a serious ‘Californication’ session the second time (what I’d give to have the finesse of Hank Moody, my writing inspiration!). Nonetheless, I invited them in for tea and my gran’s health rusks (which taste delightful and are packed with goodness) before escorting them out, straight past the party next door that the police had been notified of, without them batting an eyelid or twitching an ear.

“We have spoken to the management agents to bring this to their attention. We have spoken to the body corporate. In fact, we have been very nice about it, – hahahahahaha! That was a fake laugh by the way! – and we have had a little less noise for a short while. Unfortunately, we are back to the usual ‘stupid’ goings-on. Down downs at 5, – Really? At 5? Would that be in the morning or afternoon? If I was downing drinks at 5 in the morning I would definitely hold my hand and head up very high in claiming it. Talk about dopping lank. – leaving at 11 to take the drunk party somewhere else, - Correct me if I’m mistaken but it seems that even leaving draws a complaint – returning at 2 and 3 and 4 and this morning at 5 as well – Nice! – shouting and screaming and misbehaving. – Now seems a good time to use ‘misbehaving’ and ‘your mom’ in the same sentence but she’s probably well past the cougar stage of her womanhood and it’s just plain mean.

“No-one will tolerate this behaviour – Now would be a good time to note that there had not been a noise complaint from anyone within the complex from the time we moved in – and we are now done with it! We have a daughter – information you should not divulge to single students – that has not been able to homework - really? – in her room due to your parties. In fact, she often has to go to provincial galas – a father brimming with pride - with very little sleep as you kept her up all night. We have to go to work at 7 with almost no sleep the past two weeks. It is just unacceptable.

“We will give a copy of this letter to Sandak-Lewin (the managing agent), - who will probably return it with red scrawls on the page correcting your horrendous English – the body corporate and if they think it necessary, they will get in touch with the owners/ parents.- I’m as scared reading this as I was when I watched Final Destination 1. I was 13. I left the room. It was scary! –We will also discuss the intolerable situation with the Rondebosch Police in how to take matters further. Meadow Close is generating more noise than a nightclub! – I highly doubt that. Either Tin Roof wasn’t around in your day or they played Celine Dion and Shania Twain at the jol.

“We understand that you might be unaware of the noise and how it travels. How ever, you have been informed before and we are informing you again. Sound travels especially in a quiet area as our street.– That sentence makes less sense than the ramblings of the pissed bergie begging, and occasionally passed out, on the corner outside The Pig and Swizzle (what a fine establishment!)– In case you wonder, we have no trouble with the blocks behind us (Ravedis and Querida in Hope Street). Those flats are also occupied by students. – No, I wasn’t wondering, but thank-you for telling me the names of students who either live in one man flats that can’t hold anything in excess of a Flight of The Concords band meeting or have zero social life.

“Would your parents tolerate your behaviour and the noise? Please do not blame it on your friends. You are supposed to take responsibility for them. If they do not want to “obey”, ask them to leave!

“Lack of sleep makes one very crabby. In fact, depriving people of their sleep is considered a form of torture.

“We don’t expect you never to have fun. But do so responsibly and with consideration as one will expect from well educated students at a tertiary institution.”

Lots of love,

KC and his tortured family

Overall it was a decent effort. I was particularly impressed with the way you conveyed your anger and sense of betrayal from your neighbours. However (note how I spelt that), your grammar needs some serious work. I would recommend enrolling at Standard Grade level when you join the big boys at high school! Despite the fact that it helped get your point across, sleep deprivation is not a form of torture. You cannot just make up facts to suit your argument (it will get you in serious trouble at big school). After being used by the British government in the 70s as a means of interrogation, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that sleep deprivation “did not occasion suffering of the particular intensity and cruelty implied by the word ‘torture’”.

 As a reasonable and educated (Bachelor of Business Science (Finance), UCT Alumni 2010) adult, and taking into consideration that you live a mere 50 metres from the two biggest University residences, I see no end to the flow of students and student related noise around your house and neighbourhood and would strongly advise you to PISS OFF!

Love Thy Neighbour...or don't

I’m not one for planning much. This made the arrival of a recommended timetable for GDA (postgrad Accounts) prescribing 5 and a half hours of tut and lecture preparation every weekday and 15 hours extra on weekends and evenings as welcome in my house as Julius Malema at a Maths convention. Despite planning playing a negligent role in the selection, or random appearance, of topics in my series of writing – still trying to find a better word for blog -, I’ve always set out to avoid the slightly controversial topics of politics and religion. There’s definitely a saying full of rhyming – no, I cannot just ‘Bust a rhyme’ on the spot - and alliteration out there that goes on about not talking or commenting on things you know nothing about. Abe Lincoln’s: “It is better to say nothing and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt” works pretty well. However, seeing that a former bodybuilder and ‘star’ of a movie called Kindergarten Cop hailing from The Netherlands who describes the feeling he gets from pumping iron to an orgasm (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iMjG2s6UOaw) can successfully run for governor of a U.S. state and that Julius Malema and Paris Hilton talk at all, I don’t feel completely unqualified about mentioning either of the topics in passing.

Going to Sunday school regularly for a good portion of my childhood has got me through a fair share of 30 Seconds games and, from what I can immediately recall, there are a few biblical guidelines that make bugger-all sense to me. Without delving into the most controversial of these and painting little red horns on my head, I can’t see the sense in not eating bacon, getting slapped twice when you can settle with one, and doing nothing on Sundays. I’d understand if Saturday was the day of rest but I guess that when Sunday was chosen the Jews of the day must have jolled lank on Saturday nights and the majority of sport was probably televised on Sundays.

Another of these inexplicable guidelines is the ‘love thy neighbour’ one. In theory I guess it’s understandable: the post-nap walk of shame is a helluva lot shorter. However, this theory gets put to a serious test when you get served up the variety of neighbours the Southern Suburbs of Cape Town has to offer. After 18 years on a farm and likeable enough res neighbours, the digs I lived in for two years proceeding my comparably quiet 1^st year in Rochester House landed me a reputation as a prized prick and made my presence in the neighbourhood as welcome as a Justin Bieber song at a Metallica concert– although I actually can’t see why anyone wouldn’t love a good JB track!

My arch-nemesis came in the form of an overweight 50-odd-year old man who had the dress sense of a plumber and the apparent hygiene levels of a hippie camping in a tree. The first time my digs mates and I were fortunate enough to meet him we were so under the weather that we couldn’t recall his name. After his umpteenth tirade about his daughter’s disrupted studies – every time he mentioned his beloved daughter I couldn’t focus on the rest of his rant as my mind became utterly perplexed with how any woman bar a pre-fame and makeover Susan Boyle would agree to sleep with him – we gave up completely and labelled him KC – the first word being King and the second rhyming with ‘punt’. KC’s sidekick identified herself when I drove past an elderly woman one particular afternoon and my friendly wave was returned with a middle finger and a mouthing off, the content of which was inaudible from within my car.

My 2 digs mates managed to stay unidentified by the neighbours for the entirety of our two year stay at our digs on the bottom of Woolsack drive. Between my folks owning the house and my Mother writing ‘Buster’ on my doorbell, right in between ‘unit 4’ and ‘unit 6’, it didn’t take long before I was looked at as the spawn of Satan and solely blamed for the noise emanating from any house in the complex – admittedly, in the first year, all of it was coming from our apartment. Being hated is never particularly pleasant unless you’re despised for winning. However, seeing that my school hasn’t won our rugby derby for more than 15 years - I’ve lost count - and UCT are yet to beat the maroon baboons in a Varsity Cup Final -our time will come and it will be glorious- the hatred toward me was most definitely not jealousy-inspired.

A move to a house close to the Rondebosch common managed to halt the flow of hate mail and cops at our front door and offered an insight into the truly diverse specimen that is the neighbour. I was never fortunate enough to meet the neighbours living a mere metre away from my bedroom window but after a year I do know that they have three little children, two of which speak English and really love singing nursery rhymes and another that cries like a chick watching a Hugh Grant movie marathon. The timing of these noisy and highly annoying outbursts couldn’t possibly be more precisely timed to coincide with my attempted study sessions. The children speaking English remains a mystery to me as I never heard a word of English uttered from an adult in the house, despite the fact that masses of adults pass through the place in a fashion that suggests the house is the home to Congolese drug lords, a centre for human trafficking or an employment office for aspiring car guards. Either way, they managed to mask all the dodgy - or not so dodgy if you think I’m being a bit judgemental - stuff that went on inside by cranking up their music to full blast from 7a.m sharp every morning and blessing my bedroom with the same CD of African reggae to make sure I thought twice before ever trying to sleep off a hangover or have a nice late morning lie-in.

Another digs change means another set of neighbours. With GDA requiring work to be a priority, house parties will have to be well planned and allow me to send around carbon copies of the noise warnings I sent to my neighbours from last year. I’ll also be sure not to label my house, retaliate to unnecessary old lady tirades by emptying pot plants on cars, give my father’s contact details to disgruntled neighbours – nothing pisses off a dairy farmer more than being woken up with a complaint about his son  two hours into his sleep, even if it is only 9:30pm – or allegedly force a grade 11 girl into boarding school because she can’t study – it’s a pleasure Grade 11 Girl, I’m sure life away from that miserable piece of wife-dependant waste of space was far more pleasant. Now to think of a good theme for the digs warming...

Writing Relapse

As I said when starting out this 'blogging' business - just an aside, I have an intense dislike for the word, a dislike which shares relative intensity with my dislike for female cricket commentators and inter-spouse Facebook wall posts – I mentioned how I write more when I have pressing issues at hand rather than when I have free time. My absence from the keyboard is due part to a lack of the afore-mentioned pressing issues and part to the fact that my previous laptop keyboard is somewhat stuffed after spilling a carefully calculated combination of coffee and Oros on it on one too many separate occasions. Admittedly, as I sit on my sparkly new laptop keyboard there are waves crashing not 100m behind me with any issues as far from my mind as the hopeless Eskom workers armed with rolls of insulation tape are from restoring electricity to our holiday house for the 4^th time in 3 days. So despite not having a desperate need to write something in order to create a much needed distraction for my ever-wandering mind, there is only so much crap running through my mind and out of my mouth that my family can bare before I have to resort to my computer – yes, that shiny, new one – as my last remaining confidant.

Without a distinct topic in mind, I don’t want to disrupt the momentum gained from the second Castle Lite sliding down my throat, so I’m going to keep smashing away at my keys – brand, spanking new keys – in the hope something legible comes out the other end!

Given that I am in what is arguably my favourite place in the world it seems an all too appropriate point to start from. Haga Haga is a small seaside village in the Eastern Cape situated on the Wild coast, between the old Ciskei and Transkei where land ownership is subject to numerous government restrictions, this according to the owner of the local pub. In the same conversation he spent about 20 minutes verbally illustrating the indispensable life lesson that ‘any hole is a goal’. His example of being blindfolded and lining up 10 naked women was, admittedly, very persuasive. Fortunately, the roads in and to this seaside haven are adequately horrendous to keep the snazzy GP number plates at bay and close enough to East London to scare off a significant portion of the remainder of the country. There are few places remaining in our beautiful country (I say that with complete disregard to the fact that East London, PE and Jo’burg are cities within our borders) that are sufficiently tranquil and undeveloped to attract those in search of a true Eastern Cape style holiday: Haga is definitely one of these few, another being Kasouga .

Kasouga continues to be the farming community’s favourite family getaway and hosts the only New Year’s party worth going to (If you don’t know where Kasouga is, it’s somewhere between Cape Town and Durban). It is truly a tribute to the Eastern Cape way of life, where, for a small entrance fee you gain entrance to an old town hall where the sounds of Creedence Clearwater, Billy Joel and Bryan Adams reverberate around the dry walls and wooden floors upon which pretty ladies are being flung around as part of ‘sokkie’ –we need an English word for this dance - routines that your average Stellenbosch rugby oaf would be proud of! On top of this there is a ‘bring your own booze’ policy and cooler-boxes sit against the walls of the hall like grade 8 boys at their first social: unattended and untouched. I dare you to try that in any place other than the Republic of the Eastern Cape!

There goes the electricity again...

With the beach so close and the view across the road from us consisting of nothing but the bluest blue ocean crashing into the rocks, the television set – provided it’s working, the electricity is on and someone remembered the DSTV card – is barely used apart from airing the bare necessities such as Test Match cricket, English Premiership football and Keeping up with the Kardashians. Time is spent instead playing Ultimate Frisbee on the beach - OK, so the ‘Ultimate’ club at UCT mingle primarily with the chess club but it is the only sport chicks can play without looking like a mentally disabled Paralympic competitor on the one hand or Serena Williams on the other -, reading during the day and playing cards and board games at night. A definite favourite amongst the board games is, and always will be, 30 Seconds.

There are a ton of prescribed compatibility tests to trial the durability of relationships, from long distance driving to weekends spent with the in-laws, but just as potent and a helluva lot quicker is a simple game of 30 Seconds on the same side as your spouse. When the ginger from Mythbusters says you shouldn’t try something at home, he’s teasing. I’m being dead serious when I say don’t try this at home. Girls manage to get through an entire game of 30 Seconds without dropping one line of general knowledge and then shit on you for not knowing Richard Gere’s squeeze in his 52^nd romantic comedy where the funniest part is when the first person in the room is faggish enough to shed a tear.

 My most recent annual road trip from Cape Town through Kenton to Haga Haga served up the most entertaining game I’ve ever been lucky enough to partake in. Rather than simply stating “the capital of Finland”, one of the female crew (OK fine, my sister) decided it would be far easier to describe the city as [said rapidly with loud breathing rendering half the words inaudible]: “It’s a place, opposite of heaven, if you drown, what you wash dishes in, the cute version of that word”. Think about it... Helsinki indeed. This method of explanation – the only one I can think of that may be able to get Paris Hilton off the start block – sometimes gets replaced by your normal general knowledge method with disastrous results:  “Our galaxy? - Earth” and “Capital of Japan?–Korea” were two of the best. Often the talking precedes the thinking in ‘the quick thinking, fast talking game’. “The reason we go onto the internet? – porn!” and in an attempt to describe Eskom: “the thing we never get”, was met by a quiet and equally revealing answer: “action”.

 There are many ways to spend a holiday, a lot of them significantly more sophisticated and exciting than this, but as I write this piece a mere 13 year old girl’s stone throw away from the sea with a candle flickering on the left of my brand new laptop and empty beer bottles grouped together on the right, I can safely say that there is absolutely no place I’d rather be. Beer me!