Afrika Burns

there are a few things that i cant tolerate ok more than a few but thats another blog, i digress... one of those things is not to be able to shower or bath. i struggle to conceputalise a day going by when cool or warm water doesnt meet my skin with a yummy smelling anti bacterial scrub to cleanse and refresh myself so when a certain someone pops up with an idea like not washing for 4 days cos u are in the middle of a desert and the peeps havent yet got it together to bring in showers i decline the offer to explore distant parts of the interior of the country i inhabit...

thankfully though two explorers went, saw and conquered and have come back to the bloggersphere (review this) to share their experience - even if it is a rather long exploratory tale...
if you arent up for the full exposition that is several surreal paragraphs it is worth scrolling down nonetheless for some of the most pictorially beautifully descriptions of what they were greeted by in tankwa town!

maybe next year...

coming from behind

i am bitterly disappointed that not a single corporate on this continent thought to take up the obvious and ensure a live feed from one of the most riveting and intense gladiator challenges since ancient rome...

with no satellite the only option was to go back to the future to commentary via streaming audio. it has been extremely tense. the live feed is slightly behind the live score board and i have had to resist the urge to keep watching the numbers change on screen and listen to what is reported.

being enormously impatient i have found that i am listening over the commentators to each shot of a ball trying to visualise who hits what and where.

i am insanely jealous of those in the states watching on espn 360 and those in britain watching courtesy of the bbc all of whom are bound to be are gripped as they witness a moment in the history of the gentleman's game as we sit in the final set at two games each after two tie breakers, two rain delays, most people ignoring the endurance of the defending champion in what is set to be the most intense of final games ever witnessed in the history of this sport...

goose, electric or synthetic

i am stuck in a contradiction, insulated by my own hypocricy...

today i made a vain attempt to balance reason with social responsibility and an innate desire to do right by my 'green footprint'.

in an age of electrical crisis and heightened global awareness i fought animal rights activism with a bid to save the environment and i cant deduce who won.

its freezing down here at the edge of civilisation. driven by a fear of robbing the national grid of its already sparce supply of energy or a creature of all its warmth in the worst of months i allowed a sales assistant to assure me that no animal was harmed during the manufacture of my purchase and that the product was gathered in summer resulting in the fluffy being lying as toasty as i am right now.

i could have gone for a synthetic version. i could have chosen the alternate not as warm unnatural byproduct of some factory out in the back end of china but i abated the voices in my subconscious to believe that this would place me as a contributing cog in the manufacture of harmful cfc emissions and possible violent infringements of human rights and certain labour relations that many citizens of this planet are not granted the protection of.

either path today was a hard one. the belief that the little goose, running free range, was painlessly plucked in the summer and lies warm as i in the winter and that the product is proudly manufactured from all material and persons in a free constitutional democracy lulls me into a false sense of security that i put the right foot forward...

here comes the.....

i am standing in the dvd store and on play is another free to be you modern take on the couple movie.

sex in the city is out and singledom everywhere is applauding loudly only to conclude with one day if you are really lucky you too will find the dream soul and sashay down an isle.

its mantage after another of single guys and gals doing it for themselves and striving to break the stereotype of life after 20 and yet in the end they run straight on blissfully into it.

there are heaps of 'i have broken the norm saga's' she says 'i am living free', he says 'i wanna be free' there are hookups and breakups and mishaps and in the end they find each other and everyone ends up happy that they did.

its an odd twist on a very 1920's message. its a really long way round of getting across the very old tale and in the end a happy duo tapp out the generic tune they began opposing...

down the rabbit hole

dealing with an official at the masters office is much the same as trying to get the attention of an inattentive waiter. you can be polite and patient, attempting to draw the unwilling civil servant to attend to your query but all efforst seem as futile as dangling a carrot in the face of an already well fed lion.

with skill normally reserved for only the most experienced waterfront waiter the clerk is able to delay, dismiss and dodge any distraction whether its a constantly ringing phone, a mile long queue of curious citizens or an ever persistent article clerk.

on attending at these offices in an attempt to locate letters of executorship that should have been issued in december of the year before, searching every pigeon hole known to the building, following the official through several offices, he located our clients file on his desk under last weeks lunch and naturally had not had the time to apply his mind to the task at hand.

khoza's k*ff*r comment

once again the world has flipped upside of its head and the media has retracted like an ostrich...

several days ago a massive fuss was kicked as acrobatic queen fonda spread the cunt love on morning television but not to be outdone...

whilst watching a live report of our esteemed panel of loc chairpersons irvin khoza decided to let us all in on his feelings for a certain journo's reporting. his choice of words was 'stop behaving like a kaffir' - sorry like a what? r u kidding? behaving like who?

apparently it is perfectly acceptable to use such 'strong words' as he put it if he asks the media to excuse him before he does it.

last time i checked this word was taboo? so let me get this straight cunt is a nono but kfr is ok?

i clearly missed the memo on whats up and down in the lingo of the powers and the men to his left and right didnt seem to bat an eyelid... still, it doesnt seem to sit right? no one appears to have taken notice and everyone seems to be happy ignoring this blatantly profane word used in relation to another person...

up up and away

or so the saying goes... what must go up must come down... some law or the other

i went up and only came down cos a guy with much more strength and control than myself was able to grap hold of that harness he had let go for a millisecond and reel me back down to ground where my pea sized feat should have been planted.

i have tinges and pangs every now and again when i feel my body subside and slip into the stayed and unused to-a-desk-back-from-one form to get out and throw off the slow and arced shape that it has taken. this also leads to questions, unanswered, filled with the why's and what if's of indiscriminate choices made in the pursuit of life's purposeless goals...

there are people out there who have 'broken' from the shackles and live out there on the fringe. perhaps it is me and other day trippers that live on the fringe and actually these folks who devote a life to folly and energy educing activity that live the life of normallacy?

so 2 weeks yesterday i shall take up another kite and begin the next phase - body dragging!