Thursday, August 29, 2013

Crisis? What Crisis – Rhodies to the Rescue – Make a Plan.



You think I hung myself up lamenting over love lost.? I would rather have a hangover. (That means the rope is either too long or the stool is too high.)

I didn’t really have to weep and moan in bed, because I have hardly seen the thing. (The bed - not the lost love. No sign of her…except…in my dreams.)

Whipped and tortured by nasty Germans, I freely and without a moan, got up day after day at 3.30 am, to return at 9.00 pm, to construct a modern piece of art in the centre of Munich.

My body aches something terrible. It didn’t help when about 100 kgs of plaster board decided to fall onto my back and kidneys - nearly making me pass a gypsum stone.

Are we tough enough? No. I wept like a baby and called ‘Injuries ‘R’ Us’ , sued the bastards and as a result -  I now live in a cardboard box under a bridge and I can’t claim German dole because I have no fixed abode. I tried to explain that it was their fault that my ‘Living in a box, I’m living in a cardboard box’, was washed away because the council didn’t cough up enough dosh for flood defences; but they rudely denied me any compensation…

Do you want more of this story???? 


Saturday, August 17, 2013

Man, where did I put the sugar?


This morning, after putting a corner of the mozzie net covering my window to one side, I hung my head out and blew cancerous smoke onto the countryside. I noticed that the net in this same spot has gathered some odd looking cigarette burns. That might have to do with the fact I may have forgotten on occasions to lift the corner before attempting to stick my head out.

There, on the embankment of the canal, someone was riding a horse. From the way it was galloping away from this one horse town I live in, it was obvious the rider had accidently entered ‘Tombstone’ instead of ‘Graceland’ into the SatNav. I suppose it is to do with the difference between the German and English keyboards.

Strange that I should see that horse - for last night I awoke screaming and instinctively grabbed the tender skin covering my triceps (known in the trade at our age as ‘Bingo Wings’, thinking that the hay tinted fangs of a four legged devil had had a little nip as I was brushing its haunches.

Luckily – this was just recollections of poor bastards that suffered such fate whilst being recruits in the BSAP. But, man, was it scary hey. I bet it bloody hurt. Old bitch Mrs Smuts, in Afriks lessons, used to tweak me in the same spot. The idea was to make me learn Afrikaans. I have now finally got it – if I meet her (presuming the rotting old cow is still breathing), I will announce in my best Google translate –

‘Dit is vir my, my onthou? Dit is my baseball bat, en ek gaan, stadig, o so stadig, breek elke been in jou liggaam, terwyl die verfilming van dit alles te gaan virale op YouTube (baie van die 'Hou' uit Alan Wilson seuns, een vir elke slag) en dan, voordat jy jou spook om die een wat is verwag dat jy vir dekades - hoofsaaklik dat bakkies met horings te stoot 'n drietandvurk jou ..., en dra 'n kleed soortgelyk aan superman, (of was dat blou?), het ek sal knuppel jou brein uit, meng dit met 'n paar Rex troeteldier kos poeier en gee dit aan my oorlede hond.’

Which of course sounds like complete gibbersih – here it is in sort of Englisch –

‘This is me, remember me? This is my baseball bat, and I am going to, slowly, oh so slowly, break every bone in your body whilst filming it all to go viral  on YouTube (plenty of ‘Likes’ from Alan Wilson lads, one for every blow), and then, before you give up your ghost to the one who has been expecting you for decades – mainly that bloke with horns, a trident to shove up your…, and wears a cloak similar to Superman, (or was that blue?), I will bludgeon your brains out, mix them with some Rex Pet food powder and give it to my late dog.’

Naturally, none of this is true or makes sense, but I will click my own ‘Like’ on the link on Facebook. Well  - at least I get my rocks of that someone likes it…

Meanwhile, back in the town where even horses shit themselves, I contemplate my immediate future. It is Saturday. The rays are streaming. Two choices – get lashed and write or go out, come back and then get lashed and write.

To go out or not to go out - that is the question, because there isn’t anywhere to go. Well there is. Entire Europe actually. I haven’t seen Vienna yet, but I don’t quite fancy riding Die Hard there. Anything further than 30 minutes on that ‘thing’ is more than enough.

Still, I got out the glad rags especially bought for looking cool should I lie sprawled on the main road, covered in blood after being run over by a Mercedes convertible. Okay, an Audi or BMW will do the trick, maybe even an Indian manufactory owned Jaguar XJL; but certainly no American junk or Jap crap. (Besides a Honda NSX, but they are rare.) A Porsche would be nice  - erm I am waffling…

So, I die, (because I didn’t hear any vehicles ‘cos I gotta a mini-mini precious [known in local lingo as an MP3 player], blasting away on ear phones),  with Die Hard lying beneath me, and in my expiring breath give out the PIN for my blog so my fans can cry over my cyber grave.

Huh! Eish. Move on Greenberg…

Yeah, well cool, I wander down on Die Hard to a pad called…erm. Some pad down the drag. Even Que Que was more exciting. One reason only. I have a new bad habit. A new addiction (a legal one for a change). One that is costing a fortune.

There is a shop that sells this. Not cheap mind you. The first load (as usual), special offer. Good price. But - then they know you are hooked. So bad, I was actually willing to risk my life on Die Hard to get the next fix. I could maybe have purchased it for a couple of Euros less on the internet – but I was desperate. I had the shakes, the intensity - not sure how to describe - it is like love - but without the babe farting in the bed in her sleep. Weird really.

There it was. But before that - I had to sort of get myself in a position of strength. It is bad admitting you have addiction problems; so as all addicts know, you sort of dance around the theme – and lie…

‘Oh no, I do not need this, Oh no, I am only here for the beer, Oh all yea know, it is all a lie, and Oh no, if they are sold out - I will not hesitate torching the place.

But, before I let you know what is driving me insane – I tell you what happened next. I still didn’t find some white shorts. (Long story why I am still looking for a pair.) This is not good. In the BSAP we had two pairs and some chalk in the pocket to cover any scuff marks that appeared between the toilet and the parade ground. Oddly, I never did work this out, Inspector Mike Lambourne, Squad Instructor, frightened some of the recruits so much that they had to sit in a bucket of white paint to hide the mistake they made from loose holes. Silly Billys. He was hard core, but fair.

I am maybe a loose cannon, but mighty Mike always had a secret grin when he punished me for being yet again insane. I clocked – I am not daft and had no problem excepting my punishment. But why be frightened of the man? A very good person – I gather time hasn’t been kind for him – but – Eish, he still is one of the finest of Last of the Rhodesians.

I waffle. Sorry. My mind is swinging a lot these past few days, weeks. At least I do not contemplate a ‘Steven Fry’. Eish – a genius that trys to kill himself because of manic depression. If he was that bright he would succeed. (That is cruel. I understand his problems very well.)

Moving on…

So – finally, before you all top yourself from boredom…I will announce, HERE in public, my latest addiction… It is called –

The Game of Thrones

 


Friday, August 16, 2013

Die Hard and Boredom




Today was only half a day. Well, I suppose the day still had 24 hours and a bit which fits into a leap year now and then, but I meant work wise. Just as well as I wasn’t in the mood.

Moods and me are bad news. The work -  wrapping up this ‘thing’ for the museum - an idiot could do. I am not an idiot, despite most people saying the contrary. They are just contrarie fools as far as I am concerned.

So I do the usual stunt and switch from the North and South poles at an alarming rate in my head. I think it is called Bi-Polar. I decided to lament on all the bad things I have done in my life.

After 5 hours, I had covered maybe 5% and wasn’t feeling too good with myself. As the final whistle blew, I didn’t hear a thing as there is no whistle. All I had to do was clock the time on my watch when the little hand meets the big hand and you can see – it means it is daylight and twelve noon. Not high noon because that is always when cowboys arrive and try to shoot you. (Seen it, done it, got the bullet riddled T-shirt.)

Die Hard sat there awaiting his rider. Well it wasn’t exactly sitting. Who has ever heard of a bicycle sitting? Lying down…okay, pulling wheelies (impossible as it weighs close on half a ton), being a pain in the arse; yeah, bicycles can do that, but they do not sit around waiting to be taken for a ride.

I looked at this monster thing with a very nasty scowl on my face. I hate all forms of them. I have kept away from them for decades but my poor miserable existence at this present time dictates that we be bonded through my bum. It has a saddle, otherwise I would now be gaily writing. 

I have had enough with Die Hard’s nonsense. It still will not forgive me for the ‘accident’ with the half bottle of Metaxa, and flatly refuses to use its gears properly. I pointed at a container in the huge loading bay –

‘Listen you devil sperm, see that over there? It is a container for scrap metal. I don’t care that you belong to my boss and hate my guts. Any more nonsense and I will take an angle grinder, slice you up into little tubes, sell your wires to a hangman and turn your gear cogs into Ninja fighting stars.’

Die Hard acknowledged this input by promptly falling over, making its little bell chirp in arrogant defiance.

With the sun blazing gently down, I rode off into the sunset. Are you mad? Sunset was hours away and I didn’t want to be on this thing longer than necessary, so first stop was my local supermarket. It is on the way ‘home’ and I can spend half an hour wandering about wondering why I bothered - but it kills some time.

The flat could do with a bit of clean up. I am not in the mood. Rather sit in the sun with a book and a beer for a bit.

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

When in doubt; call a Rhodie out – The tale of two Mozzies continues as war is declared - This is - The ‘Game of Moans’



Today I got the sack and left work early. I left work early because I didn’t fancy watching plaster dry and no one would pay me to do so. On the way home riding my bicycle ‘Die Hard’, I noticed that people had put out their yellow sacks for recycling. That meant I would do so too, but first I had to solve The Great Mozzie War.

I must. Last night I fought a battle of tactical retreat. I had no choice. I mean, the hole in my right buttock is really sore. At least three of them must have targeted the same spot and the frantic, semi-sleep scratching opened a wound so deep - I thought my pelvis was showing. So, last night, I shut all the windows and nearly asphyxiated on my own intestinal expiring gas (know in local lingo as – farting).  I had to find a solution.

‘Make a Plan’ the most famous of all Rhodesian expressions, one that actually is based around the word entreperunial. Erm – artareypulnary? Hmm. Try again. The spell checker isn’t working. Auntiepruneanal? No - it is still underlining in red. I must have set the word doc onto English UK style. It never had a problem when it was set on ‘Engleesh gibberish – Gokwe Kid style’, but that option (which I uploaded as an app, has sadly, been deleted. Too many complaints.) Such is Art, you either Love it or one star hate it.

Toodling away on Die Hard, really chillaxing, as I had half a day off and another tomorrow as the Barbarians, erm …Bavarians, have a ‘we no go to work because we stay in bed and pray’ day. No other state in Germany has this kind of day off, but …whatever.

So I stopped by the charity shop, but sadly they work very few hours. Only eight a week - which is ridiculous? I do at least three more each month. Such lazy beggars - (referring to myself of course). {You need to have quick mind to spot my mind games.]

But. Luck would have it. A couple of pedal turns down the drag were one of those shops that sell curtains. Ahh HA. I park up Die Hard and wander in. (I didn’t bother putting the lock on as only a suicidal maniac would consider stealing the thing.) The place was packed out with thin air. The proprietor and some side kick give me weird looks. I am tired of weird looks and I just wish this mad hair colour would grow out a little quicker.

I explained my problem. This was war, but not as you know it. When I exposed my hole, she almost swooned. Recovering, she asked me how much cloth of sort of anti-German Stuka bombardment did I need? Good question. I hang my head out the window to smoke; I don’t spend hours measuring it.

 I eyed her body language up.

‘About your tit size multiplied by three horizontally - and your bum size multiplied vertically by four.’
Try saying that in my German! It comes out as – ‘Exactly one meter wide, one, twenty cm at the highest point with a tolerance of 5 millimetres.’

Unfortunately, she had only one off cut from some fancy wedding shite that would only cover one window that she could give me el-cheepo. I was suspicious. Quickly I simply decided to keep the dive bombers out the ‘bedroom’ (which I just use to store dirty washing and empty beer bottles) shut.

Done deal. I was charged Euro 2.50. I reached for my trusty FN assault rifle and riddled the exploiting woman with holes. Then I remembered that was years ago when I use to be judge, jury and executioner in a rather tangled packet – and…I had no longer my trusty FN.

Well miffed, but glad I finally had some form of defence; I wandered on Die Hard a bit further. There I parked up by a German style crap shop and spotted an interesting pair of white shorts on special offer for Euro 1.50.  The size was a little odd, so I asked in perfect German the sales woman –

‘Please be so kind to tell me if I could fit into these. My brain size is three times my hips.’

The answer was not very encouraging (after she looked at me sort of weirdly.)

‘Those are for children. Girls actually. And they happen to be very transparent when worn.’

I mulled over this for a moment and pretended I was mad. (Very easy to do.)

Moving on with Die Hard, the next stop was Netto Supermarket, my local one.  As soon as I rocked up they locked the doors and called the police. (Only kidding, I locked up Die Hard and I am the police…well, I was.)

Now I need to stock up because tomorrow, whilst being another day, means no shops are open, but after I did a bit of entrepreneurship (no red line – amazing), on Die Hard, I had a serious neat bit of baggage kit attached to the back rack. I zip around, load up with essentials like beer and crucially – they had a tin of anti-Stuka spray.

Hah-hah. War – revenge is mine. I have the kit, I have the talent. Victory is MINE. Mine, I tell you. I also bought some lettuce and tomatoes, cucumber, mini peppers and onions. Red onions - if you really need to know – Eish.

Toodling down the drag ‘home’ on Die Hard, which is still giving me the gears, as in – they still do not work very well since I fell off it after my Metaxa  spiked session at the local Greek restaurant after calling them all a bunch of blood sucking leeches of German tax payers (whilst I don’t contribute a cent. Hypocrisy is my middle name…)…erm…let’s move on hey…

I have the weapons, I don’t have many tools. (Sanctions?) But I am prepared. I soon noticed that pinning Lady Diane’s wedding veil could lead to serious consequences. Such as me falling out the window and I am on the second floor and on the fifth beer!

German windows open inwards. There are two reasons for this. It stops cowboy window cleaner firms (who never pay any tax), because you can now clean them yourself and secondly, it prevents you filling the window board with a load of kitsch crap collecting dust or magazines that no one reads. It is German efficiency. A tidy home = a tidy mind = a tidy workplace = a tidy sum at the end of the month = a tidy economy = give it all away to the lazy bastards in the European Union.   

And, it was done. The proof is in the pudding.  I pulled that and took a photo. Not of my pudding- Eish… of the ultimate war weapon-

The book (The Gokwe Kid) is used to weigh down the corner between smokes. It’s a drag but tonight victory is mine. Notice the back up weapon…It is a killer. A tin of insect decimation.

Goodnight. And make sure the mozzies don’t bite. And if they do – don’t call us. We call you.

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Germany V Rhodesia – a true war story




The last few nights have been hell. Again and again, the Luftwaffe attacked me, riddling me with holes whilst their Stuka aircraft, straight out the bad swamps deep in Bavaria they use as a cunning base - announced their arrival in that terrifying noise. Just like a mosquito amplified. Here is an example –


Except, as I slapped my own face, dug my nails into my ankles, wrists and feet till partly bloody - I recalled that compared to the monsters I grappled with during the war – this was tame stuff.

I am definitely getting old and soft.

Yeah, the biggest hammering I ever got still makes me wake up screaming ‘Bastard Mozzies’, in terrible nightmares as I slap the little German versions away. Nah, the Gokwe mozzies of Rhodesia were the size of a freshly hatched and very hungry Pterodactyl.


Now, if you really want to be frightened – have you ever see a video close up and in slow motion of how these bastard mozzies do it. Amazingly, they don’t work like a Woodpecker, banging a drill bit away like some bloke drilling holes in reinforced concrete – oh no, far to simple.

Instead, they have this huge extendible drill bit that is actually very flexible. Holding it in their mouths, they sort of swirl it around in ever decreasing circles until penetration. After that they suck your blood out till you swoon. I know for a fact that some clever-clever, bored out of his box, clocked this and – hey what do you know, he invented ‘fracking’. Promptly patented it and the mozzies haven’t seen a penny besides a bit more DDT sprayed on their homes. Poor mozzies (the bastards).

So whilst German mozzies leave you with self inflicted holes, the Gokwe mozzies pumped so much anticoagulant into you, the hills around the bore holes resembled a mump's victim after digesting several hundred golf balls cut in half.

And the ITCH! Drive you mad.

But, it was on a patrol in the badlands, top of Gokwe TTL, that I met up with these evil things. At least if the gooks had pumped some lead into me I wouldn’t die scratching to death – I would simply be scratched. But no – rainy season is in full swing. Off we go down the escarpment keeping a wary eye out for mozzies, er, I mean gooks, and then, as (yawn) another glorious African sunset (yawn) tinges the horizon with shades of (yawn) whatever… You make your dinner, argue in whispers about who is doing what watch first and who actually has a time piece that doesn’t mysteriously stop between two and four am.

And – then it happens. You try to be prepared. You lie in a thin nylon sleeping bag. Fully clothed in damp and seriously ponging camouflage. Socks humming a good night serenade. The hips and back are lying gently over some rocks that are probing your kidneys to see if they may be swollen from too much alcohol stress relief consumption.

Then, the air armada arrives – in force. You get a warning – the noise is unbelievable. It makes German Stukas sound like little kindergarten babies humming there first nursery rhyme out of tune.

Gokwe mozzies? Well, try a Lancaster bomber or a B52 that some bunch of lazy clowns had forgotten to oil the engines. It is a screech of stressed metal.

But – we Rhodesia’s finest, have a defence. It is in a label less aluminium tube. This was a deterrent cream. What the hell it was to deter was beyond me. I concluded if you pasted about four inches of the stuff on your face, the drilling mozzies would drown. The other problem is that, if unfortunately you were living off ratpacks, you could get confused with the tube of rancid margarine. Not that it made any difference.

You could, as a fighting member of the Rhodesian forces, pop down into town and lash out a month’s pay on some real cool deterrent made by the Germans and imported illegally. Problem was the stuff is loaded with perfume and nasty gooks could smell it. In other words – if the mozzies didn’t get ya - the gooks did. It’s a hard knock life…

But – one night, I will never forget. They came. (The mozzies, not the gooks.) I had no choice. Again and again they attacked my face. I buried it into my sleeping bag, almost suffocating – and then…much to my astonishment…

They actually managed to drill through the sleeping bag, through my ponging socks, and my canvas boots - and sucked away on my anchovies’ heel. (NOT a spelling mistake – my feet smelt rather fishy.)

My FN was fully loaded by my side. It was useless. Even with two hundred rounds of ammunition, there was no way I could defeat them.

I will suffer tonight and for the rest of this week. Today, in this one horse town (less the horse), I searched desperately for some netting either for the windows or, proper style, a real cover over the bed. To no avail. Bloody Bill Gates gives them out for free in Africa, but what about poor ME. The Germans must go to bed in lederhosen. These are so thick, that they can stop a bullet, never mind their baby mozzies.

Oh woe is me… No net and no lederhosen.

Sunday, August 11, 2013

The Tennisscene Waltz




Shocking, arrogant, very anti-PC, Simply the Pest pulls out nearly all the stops to insult the world; all for a laugh – This story I give away for free. It is not in any of my books because I just wrote it -after having another serious big downer of my own doing and needed to cheer my self up…

Very wicked, this is a classic example of taking a simple scenario and turning it into a fiasco.

A rather  confusing, unedited anecdote of lateral thinking – hence it makes more sense sober but more fun pissed…





The Tennisscene Waltz

Not be confused with ‘Tennessee Waltz’ a popular/country music song from the USA. This version is from Rhodesia around about 1971. Actually - it was 1971.

Allan Wilson High School – Simply the Pest is in Form 1B1 (that is the place they place semi-smart, hard working kids and lazy clever-clevers like me.
 
It is HIGH SCHOOL. And we are Men of Men! Hardly - judging by the strange decibel range of most of us, balls were dropping along with hormones arising.

We were forced to play four hours of sport a week. This would turn wankers into warriors. I had to ride my bicycle named ‘Die Swiftly’ (See my book chapter about this machine from hell in Simply the Pest), backwards and forwards to school and, as far as I was concerned, that was sporting enough. I mean, Brokeballs Mountain up to the suburb of Mount Pleasant would scare most participants of ‘Tour the France on drugs’, to the point of confessing their addictions.

Nope. I had to play some sort of sport. Tennis was all the year round, so my tight old man worked out this was the cheapest version rather coughing up for seasonal things like rugby boots or cricket pads. I did have a swimming costume but I hate cold water and threatened to hang myself if I had to join another bloody swimming group.

In the winter season I really wanted to play rugby. Well, not really, but it was the same old stupid equation. Only pansies learn French and play tennis. REAL Men of Men learn Afrikaans and play rugby. That was the plan if you wanted to be Die Hard.

Of course, many decades down the menial drag we now call life, the pansies earn bucket loads for winning things like Wimbledon and the French Open, pose in huge glossy magazines and get paid millions to flash a Rolex or show how cool they are in a free hundred grand Mercedes convertible.

The Afrikaans taught, rugby macho men; tend to retire in complete poverty, strapped to a wheel chair with ears resembling that vegetable we hate to eat and has a small picture of him dribbling out the mouth whilst stuttering some shite about being clever, big and strong - on the back of a box of ProNutro.

Oh well, as I said, Daddy dear decided I was going to take up tennis. So – tennis it was.

You rock up in your whites, complete with Bata tackies  (which is very embarrassing as only the maid wore things like that – or BSAP police recruits) with your brand new stick with a big round head laced with innards from dead cats.

Amazing, all the street cats knew when the new school year started. They all disappeared like – just magic and found themselves disguised as rabbit relish with sadza; less the guts the gardener sold to the local sport shop. The price dropped for the strings as fast as the cats were hung from one. You win some and lose some hey! Me – ow.

So, with this odd contraption, you are placed on a sweltering afternoon on a sandy field about the size of a tennis court.  That is because it is a tennis court. It is cut in half by a thing used to catch fish or naughty gladiators. Known as a net, it sits like on a bit of steel wire, and suspended by couple of Poles. These Polish refugees in World War II were shipped to Rhodesia in 1943. They never left (they never do) and there unemployed offspring get a part time job holding up nets.

(In modern Britain they are accused of either holding up the economy or stealing jobs from the unemployed. Politics – as intricate as a tennis net…tra-la-la).

As you stand there with the other dedicated pansies in the classic pose of thumb up bums and minds in neutral, your coach/supervisor/dedicated tennis fanatic, turns up all sweaty under the armpits carrying a load of English homework to be marked.

Ms Bannister, or Barrister, or something like that, was about my height (two heads taller than a dwarf), sported a lovely head of Ali McGraw hair style from that seriously sick film Love Story, and was aged between 25 and maybe…erm dunno. At my age it was difficult to pin it down; but she was rather sexy and had a nice bum which was sort of pushing out the creases in her skirt something serious.

As she searched for a shady spot to plonk what at my age is now obvious -an ever expanding posterior, she called out –
‘Let the games begin.’
With that she mopped a sweaty brow and started to mark the homework.

Some of us were well prepared. On the adjacent courts, experts ran to the net and made the Poles pull it up and done till it was the height of one funny stick standing up and another with it head sideways on top. This was supposed to be the correct height of the net. This took up at least half an hour as the Poles were wilting in the heat.

With that sorted, I now looked at my partner across the net and had a heated debate who hits the ball first. It seems those that start always win.
Balls – ahh, lets talk about balls. You see, because of the ball less British and their sodding sanctions, we, the Last of the Rhodesians were sort of short of them. Not those that made us Men of Men - we had loads of them to be shot off at a later date, but…so called ‘Tennis balls’.

You all know when you watch a game at Wimbledon, at some point, the umpire calls ‘New Balls,’ and all of a sudden there is a queue of eunuchs begging at his chair.

So…the new balls, are fluffy and cute yellow (about the size and shape of a little born, sweet, chirping happily, baby chickens - with its head stuffed up its arse and the budding wings amputated), duly exchanged. The ‘old’ ones are NOT sent to Rhodesia. Our second hand balls resembled the testicles of a Mexican hairless dog suffering from elephantiasis. ( Ohh… now that is really cleaver-cleaver),

So you now have the dog’s hairless swollen knackers and you pop one in a pocket. This is for the second serve should something go wrong with the first. Unless of course the first serve touches the top of the net which in that case someone says ‘Net’. Not a more accurate redemption such as
‘Oh my goodness, the ball skimmed the top of the net, landed in the white square but sadly this doesn’t count so I will serve the first ball again if you would be so kind as to fetch it for me.’

No, you just say ‘Net and give me back my knacker.’
(Due to sanctions whilst we did have cook boys, garden boys, petrol boys, icecream boys et al - we had no ball boys. Too expensive and as a result the young indigenous lacked jobs as we had enough caddies. So they joined the gooks who promised them a tennis court of their own once the revolution was won and they can plant maize on it.)

The plan of the first serve is to throw one swollen testicle into the air and scream out ‘WHORE’ at the same time you try to hit it with the cat’s innards.
Now comes the waltz (after a flick of a coin or a minor punch to the jaw that has decided who starts), and this opening move composes of delicate foot work, an arm holding a dead cat’s guts attached to a stick with which to hit a dead dog’s ball over a fishing net. Well that is the plan. Should the dead dog’s ball not enter orbit to land in either Alan Wilson’s swimming pool or, if you are serving from the opposite side, in Prince Edward’s swimming pool, with luck it went over the net (now at ground level due to wilting Poles), landed in some white marked square, and you, or him as opponent, attacked it furiously if it was some future gook was trying to kill you.

I kid you not. Next time you watch a match on TV listen carefully. They are actually deliberately trying to gamesmanship the opponent by accusing them of being a whore. I am not sure why the men do it also but I suppose screaming PIMP doesn’t really get the wind out the lungs as well as WHORE.

The first time I actually heard this resulted me looking around in expectation. Sadly there wasn’t one in sight or for that matter a testicle to return because it had taken some serious flight, easily cleared the large fence designed to stop high flyers, soured over the first floor roof and entered low orbit.

Before the WHORE bit you have to stand behind a faded white line, rock backwards and forwards and bounce the swollen testicle on the ground and catch it with the hand that is not holding the stick full of cat’s innards. This you do several times. No one knows why but eventually you miss and it wanders off somewhere.

Some of the cool doods could hit the ball whilst it lay there and it would sort of respond and jump up a bit so as to be scooped up with the cat. I would beat it as much as possible but it just rolled away in the direction of the gutter. Totally gutted I had to pick it up. (OH, before I forget, I actually in anger once jumped on it and landed up on the clay ground nearly breaking my back and ankle. I didn’t try that stunt again.)

Later if you are lucky enough to actually get a knacker to knock back, you reply with -‘YOU WHORE’.

Usually that is the end of the conversation because the returned ball has amazingly just skinned a gliding crow at 10,000 feet, and landed up in the swimming pool of the adjacent Prince Edward School (all wankers), just as they were about to score a paltry goal at water polo against the invincible Mount Pleasant High. The opponent announces with satisfaction that the ball is ‘OUT’ and promptly followed by  - ‘15 LOVE’. Two things are immediately apparent – one - he is a lying, cheating swine as it was only one point and not 15 and secondly; he was a morph trying to chat me up.

This leads to more heated arguments till it is explained that unlike say, waterpolo, the score is rather oddly called. So instead of 1 to 4, you have 15, 30, 40 and if you both have 40 - you go off to get some juice. The ‘LOVE’ bit has nothing to do with a well known Allan Wilson internet troll with the same name, but is some weird tradition and it was agreed before things get worse (especially if it was Thursday), we stick to a macho ‘NIL’ or ‘ZERO’.

Eventually, with much waltzing around the court, just before the two hours are up, one contestant has been declared winner of the game. But, surprisingly he is not. For now another weird rule applies. It appears you need to win bucket loads of games to make a whole set with them and even worse, you need at least two of them 'Set' thingys before, just as the end of the school year arrives, someone is actually declared a winner.

Obviously this is extremely harrowing and raised my stress levels to a dangerous point, especially if I had just had another bad session with Mrs Smuts, my Afrikaans teacher.
This frustration can be taken out on the wall.

The tennis wall.

It was made of bricks skimmed with cement, painted green, with a white stripe at about the height of a tennis fence. A tennis fence is the bloke that flogged the wall really cheap to the school because he had stolen the bricks from somewhere. (My old man’s place I reckon because when he had an extension built, two walls of materials disappeared into thin air.) The wall is not very large, about the size of a garage door and looked like it would fall over at any moment. Hopefully just as mad Bertie West, the carpentry teacher, trundled past on his ancient motorbike.

The idea was to smack the ball against the wall and unlike the real person on the other side of the net, the ball always came back. The harder you whacked, the faster it returned, resulting with me once clutching my lower abdomen whilst rolling on the ground vomiting my own crushed nuts out.

But, as usual – bored and not thinking very clearly, it was during one ‘game’ that I saw something. Looking at some pictures years later of the likes of Boris Becker and Steffi Graf, I noticed something queer. They had their eyes on the ball, not on the part of the court where you wanted it to go! I had it all back to front.

But it wasn’t the court I wanted this particular shot to go into but whiz it just past Ms Bannister at the very moment she had her back to me and bent over sorting through some more homework exercise books. The idea was to ‘accidentally’ rip a knackered knacker past her to bounce against the school wall via the open door of the tennis fence. Then hopefully she would jump up with a little screech of fright, giggle a bit and that would be that. I would have had my laugh - but she who laughs last, laughs best.

I knew it would have to be an extremely accurate shot. With all my strength, the dog’s bullock was smashed against the cat’s guts and went straight as a badly fired arrow - full force with a really erotic arousing, ‘smack’ type sound, on to her tightly stretched right buttock.

She let out a scream alright, shot so high she nearly cleared the fence, and wasn’t exactly laughing when she hit the ground clutching her badly bruised bum. I had also stopped smiling and was thinking that yet again this might be another of my bad ideas.

A few minutes later; I, whilst bent over a chair, had my quivering buttocks, neatly, systematically, cruelly - thoroughly beaten with a long hard piece of bamboo by the school headmaster.

I never was any good at tennis, but I do like watching it. I have had the pleasure of even watching some of the greats live. Becker, Lendl, Conners et-al and even that white bloke called Black from Zimbabwe. But I bet none of them were beaten half to death in the name of their sport.

Thursday, August 01, 2013

Rise Oh Voices of Rhodesia – Join the Black Parade



Rise Oh Voices of Rhodesia – Join the Black Parade
So, I have posted some kind of version of this before but several people never clocked it.
Now with these ‘elections’; I send a simple reminder: Read these lines (with my observant additions), and then click on the song. I make no excuse for what I am…
 "Welcome To The Black Parade"
When I was a young boy,
(I was maybe about 10)
My father took me into the city
(Salisbury)
To see a marching band.
(It was 11.11)

He said, "Son when you grow up,
would you be the saviour of the broken,
the beaten and the damned?"
(That is why I joined the BSAP)


He said "Will you defeat them,
your demons, and all the non-believers,
the plans that they have made?"
(Erm-like, fight terrorists?)

"Because one day I'll leave you,
A phantom to lead you in the summer,
To join The Black Parade."
(Well, most of the parade consisted of black members of our security forces.)

When I was a young boy,
My father took me into the city
To see a marching band.
He said, "Son when you grow up,
would you be the saviour of the broken,
the beaten and the damned?"
(Hardly – I was trying to save up for a car. Daddy, thank the deities, was long dead by then.)

Sometimes I get the feeling she's watching over me.
(Here, if you have read my books, know exactly who this is – my guardian angel)

And other times I feel like I should go.
(Yeah, there were times I think I should split as chinas dropped like flies)


And through it all, the rise and fall, the bodies in the streets.
(More like the bush, but same thing in a way)
And when you're gone we want you all to know.

We'll carry on,
We'll carry on
(Rhodesia)
And though you're dead and gone believe me
Your memory will carry on
(Rhodesia)
We'll carry on
(Rhodesia)

And in my heart I can't contain it
The anthem won't explain it.
(Rise Oh Voices of Rhodesia)

A world that sends you reeling from decimated dreams
(Ian Smith – ‘We had a great, er.. 13 odd years getting our kids killed)
Your misery and hate will kill us all.
So paint it black and take it back
(Zimbabwe)
Let's shout it loud and clear
Defiant to the end we hear the call
(Rhodesia Was Super)

To carry on
We'll carry on
And though you're dead and gone believe me
Your memory will carry on
(On your tombstone – ‘He died for Rhodesia’.)

We'll carry on
And though you're broken and defeated
Your weary widow marches

On and on we carry through the fears
Ooh oh ohhhh
(Let's go on Facebook and slag people off with a different opinion)

Disappointed faces of your peers
(Shit happens when you tell the truth)
Ooh oh ohhhh
Take a look at me cause I could not care at all
(AND that is a fact)

Do or die, you'll never make me
Because the world will never take my heart
Go and try, you'll never break me
We want it all, we wanna play this part
I won't explain or say I'm sorry
I'm unashamed, I'm gonna show my scar
Give a cheer for all the broken
(Many of my chinas)

Listen here, because it's who we are
(The Last of The Rhodesians)
I'm just a man, I'm not a hero
Just a boy, who had to sing this song
I'm just a man, I'm not a hero
I don't! care!

We'll carry on
We'll carry on
(The Last of The Rhodesians)
And though you're dead and gone believe me
Your memory will carry on
(Rhodesia -Because I wrote almost 800 pages about it)

We'll carry on
And though you're broken and defeated
Your weary widow marches on

Do or die, you'll never make me
Because the world will never take my heart
Go and try, you'll never break me
We want it all, we wanna play this part (We'll carry on)

Do or die, you'll never make me (We'll carry on)
Because the world will never take my heart (We'll carry on)
Go and try, you'll never break me (We'll carry)
We want it all, we wanna play this part (We'll carry on)

Last of the Rhodesians – The Gokwe Kid and Simply the Pest

Now available on Amazon. And - the non believers – can kiss my ass.

Here is the video. Oddly, my hair at the moment is the same colour! Just click the link -