2009-12-31

[Fwd: Only in South Africa: THEN]

EXPRESSIONS:

- I'm going for a goof this arvy.
- Scopes.
- Flicks.
- What's the "Aggie?"
- Hy het haar uitgeskop, verstaan jy my.
- Check my new jammy!
- We going to Durbs with the car, probably see lots of Vaalies
there, all the ou toppies, tannies and ooms, nie waar nie?
- My ol' lady! My ol' man.
- My broer! My sussie.
- Knobkerrie. Sjambok.
- It's so hot, I'm vrekking off here.
- Baie mooi.
- He lives in the Gamadoeles.
- She lives out in the Bundu.
- The Dingas.
- I dopped my exams and my folks are having a cadenza.
- Chips, here comes the Teacher.
- I'll have a dop of brandy.
- Ops me a pencil.
- Baie Dankie, hoor! Aseblieftog!
- Plaasjapie.
- Ag Shame, man, were you home stokkies aleen??
- Wikkel.
- I've got no TOM, hey? (????)
- Koeksusters.
- Konfyt.
- Tuiswywerheid.
- Biltong.
- Vet-koek.
- Braaivleis.
- Boerevors en Pap.
- Poitjiekos.
- Mielie.
- Rooibos Tea.
- Grondboontjiebotter
- Ouma se Rusks. Fanny Farmers
- "Hau."
- Dorp.
- Pandokkie
- She took me around." Around where?
- And what about "See that ou?? He threw me with (wif) a stone."
- The Spanspek is vrot!
- Takkies.
- Ag, Dame!!!!!!
- Listen, Lady!!!!!!
- They taste so good 'cos they eat so good!

2009-12-28

[Fwd: The good old days of Joburg]

Subject: WONDERFUL - South Africa in our day.
A real blast from the past - brings a tear to one's eye...


Very nostalgic... more memories [with a Jewish touch -ed.]

STATS, INFO AND MEMORY CHECKS

HILLBROW:

The Curzon and Clarendon for 7/6d (later 75c).

And then a Bioscope called the International (owned by Herman and
Maxwell Youngelson) was opened at the top of Pretoria Street, and
there it would cost you between 90c and R1.00, but the seats were so
comfy and the whole bioscope was so plush, that the Yeovillites felt
it was well worth the extra.

Anyone remember The French Hairdressing Salon (a Mrs. Sher was the
manageress), and the OK Bazaars?

FOLKSINGING ERA:

Who remembers the Nite Beat, run by Abe (who ran the tuck shop at the
Yeoville Swimming Pool)?

And the folk-singers Ian & Ritchie ( Ian Lawrence and Ritchie Morris),
Des and Dawn (Lindbergh) ("And the Seagull's name was Nelson" - Dawn
wore her hair in two pigtails then), Dave Marks ("Mountains of Men"),
Cornelia And The Troubador, The College Set (Andy Levy, Hugh Solomon,
Norman Cohen), Keith Blundell and the Baladeers, Aubrey and Beryl
Ellis, Mervyn and Jocelyn Miller (from Potch), Mel, Mel and Julian
(Mel Miller, Mel Green, and Julian Laxton)?

BIKERS and the Hell's Angels, wearing black leather jackets, chains
and the peace sign often around their necks, roaring down Pretoria St
and Kotze St. on Harley Davidsons, making a helluva racket, some of
the Biker girls nervously hanging precariously onto their boyfriend's
back, but "the in-girls" didn't hold on, they held on behind the seat,
looking around, throwing their hair back, with a "don't-sig-with-me"
look, lazer beam eyes and a tattoo here and there. And nobody did
"sig" with them, either.

HILLBROW'S EATERIES AND COFFEE BARS:

Doney's coffee bar for the best cappuccino in town (who remembers
Jeftah and the Duke?), Café Wien (later on, with the most comfortable
seats - it was like sitting in your own lounge), Café Krantzler,
Dunk-a-donut, The Milky Lane, the Florian (where the bus turned to go
down Claim street to Town), Mi Vami, Lucky Luke (Steak House in the
70's), Fontana (open 24 hours a day, famous for their chickens roasted
on a spit), Pikin-a-chicken, Porter House (Frulatto and the best Pink
Sauce in town), not to mention the steaks.

HAIR STYLES:

We dyed our hair black with Palette where you dropped a white tablet
into some black gunky muck and we all had pitch black hair. The
blacker your hair, the more "sharp" you were. We teased it and wore it
in Wings, and the bigger the Wings were, the more "with it" you were.
And remember the stiff petticoats under your flared skirts, and
cat-eye glasses.

Hair was like a Bird's Nest at the back. Boys wore their hair sleeked
back with Brylcream and Vitalis, and all bought their t-shirts from the
Skipper Bar (Arnie, Mervyn, Earl and Barry Sacks). Black t-shirts with a
thin white and red stripes around the neck. And a corresponding white
t-shirt, with black and red stripes.

And then girls started to iron their hair. Moms used to plonk heads
onto the ironing board, and put a brown paper bag on top of it, and
iron away until you had straight hair, but then the minute it rained,
it looked as though someone has plugged you into an electric socket!
Durbs did the same to all those who had out-of-control hair - frizzed
them out in 2 minutes flat, in fact as soon as you got to Van Reenen's
Pass into Natal, you knew you were there because your hair suddenly
was on its own mission!!

GYM:

Bodybuilders, weight-lifters and wannabes came strutting out of Gyms
such as Sam Busa and Monte Osher all fit and glistening with muscles,
and killer smiles - carrying black gym bags. And Reg Park's Gym, not
sure where it was.

MODEL AGENCIES: Stella Grove and Gianna Pizanelli.

DANCING STUDIOS: Mercedes Molina, Jeffrey Nieman and Rhoda Rifkin,
Bernice Hotz and Gitanella (Spanish, Ballet).

Around 1964 came the Beatles, The Rolling Stones, the Mini Skirt era
and Mary Quant and the birth of the Discotheque. Op-Art earings in
gaudy colours and the skirts continued to get shorter. Girls wore
double-breasted pinstripe suits which made a come-back. The Boutiques
were born. The BENATER family had a great boutique at the top of
Rissik Street, or near there. It was, I think, the first shop of its
kind. Very modern, trendy and for the young (20's and 30's).

Remember Twiggy?!!! She was on every magazine cover, often holding her
Teddy Bear, feet pigeon-toed, with beautiful big brown eyes, and a
body so thin she could fit through a crack in the wall. She started a
trend, her and "the Shrimp" (Jean Shrimpton), and Mary Quant.

Op-Art ear-rings in strange shapes and gaudy colours, shorter skirts,
and flattie shoes.

The first DISCO was at the Summit Club, Marrakech (around 1966) with
Go-Go dancers Dixie, Felicity Fouché and Christine, all dancing away
in the micro-est of Mini-Skirts. Johnny Martin (previously known as
Martin Raff) was the owner, and I heard he also owned a club called
007.

Someone called Neville Peacock was the Marrakech DJ and there were
psycadellic and ultra violet lights and if you stood under the latter,
all your klein-goed shone like a beacon for all to see.

And the 505, also in Hillbrow. Eddie Eckstein and Paul Ditchfield -
The Bats - played there on a Sunday, as did the Basemen (Ronnie Cline
on Keyboard, Ralph Simon - Singer, Rodney Caines - Bass Guitar, Leon
Bilewitz - drummer and Irwin Kalis - Lead Guitar). The Basemen also
played at Club-a-go-go and around the countryside at various venues.
And the Diamonds and Gene Rockwell ("Heart"!).

TJ's (town) and The Yellow Submarine (Hillbrow) and the Boat
(Buccleugh) were in the latter part of the Sixties, and the Purple
Marmalade somewhere in Hillbrow. Another Disco was owned by Ray
McCauley, opposite Joubert Park . His Granny worked in the tuckshop
and was always so nice to everyone. And Raffles, a very fancy
disco/restaurant, but that was in the late 70's. Owned by Dave Kerney
(I think).

And who remembers the other BIOSCOPES? The Collosseum with the
twinkling lights. Cliff Richard sang there once, and a few girls from
Barnato Park were expelled for bunking school and going to his
concerts. His Majestys,Monte Carlo (French Movies), The Empire, 20th
Century Fox in Pritchard Street, Cinerama (Claim and Noord). In those
days there was an interval after the News and the Cartoons, and
Usherettes would be standing at each exit with a tray with all the
Munchies and Chocolates, cold-drinks, etc. The Apollo in Doornfontein.
I've already mentioned the Yeoville Bioscopes earlier on. Who
remembers the "Midnight Shows?"

People smoked in the bioscopes ("scopes") then, and when you looked
up, you saw it all swirling around in the projector. Nice and
healthy, but nobody ever noticed it. It was part of life in the
sixties.

Remember when we went to Bioscope on a Saturday night, dressed up in
your A-line dress, or a Box-Pleated skirt, or tiny hound's-tooth
straight skirt in black and your black patent high-heeled shoes, with
a black patent leather bag to match, and your gloves (which you
carried in your hand)? And later you wore your dress with the shorter
hemline, Mini-Skirts, and your "A-line evening coat" (Jackie Kennedy),
just on the knee, and your flattie shoes, the hair teased up to the
high heavens and lacquered so heavily that if it rained, you looked
like glue. (Boys hated teased and lacquered hair.)

And the boys wore jarmins and Elvis Presley hair-styles, with thin
ties made of nylon or similar in a machine-crochet style. Later when
the Beatles came in, boys' hairstyles changed forever, and no boy
would be seen dead with Brylcream or Vitalis plastered on his head.
Boys would never been seen in pastel colours, but the Beatles changed
all those dark shirts for pink, mauve and lemon, with a pin collar
near the tie.

Boys would buy you a 75c box of Black Magic chocolate at interval. If
you put it into your black patent leather handbag and never offered
him one, then your name was mud, and girls judged boys by whether or
they opened the car door for you or not!

And some of the MOVIE STARS: Natalie Wood, Kathryn Hepburn, Rock
Hudson, Doris Day, Steve McQueen, Sohia Loren, Alain Delon (the
heart-throb of the 60's - who remembers him in "Purple Noon?"), Gina
Lollobridgida, Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress, Warren Beatty, Jack
Nicholson (One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest), Shirley MacLaine, Julie
Christie, Michael Caine, Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman, Sal Mineo,
Suzanne Pleshette, Richard Burton, Sean Connery, Omar Sharif, Charlton
Heston, Gregory Peck …

Popular MOVIES AND MUSICALS: West Side Story, King Kong, Gone with the
Wind, Exodus, From Russia with Love, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,
Annie Get your Gun.

And the DRIVE IN's: Old Pretoria Road , JHB Drive-in, The 5-Star
(Eloff St. Ext), The Velskoen. If a girl was seen at the drive-in with
a boy, she got a "bad name," and the same for the Café Bio's. It was
just not for a nice Jewish girl!!

Remember when... there was NO Bioscope on Sunday nights?

THEATRES: Alhambra (Doornfontein), Brian Brooke (Braamfontein), Market
Theatre ( Newtown ), Alexander theater, Jacques Brel, Apollo in
Doornfontein.

Remember the Adverts for all the Cigarettes? Players, Craven "A",
Dunhill (remember the maroon Rolls Royce?), Benson & Hedges (Gold),
Lexington ('That's the one!'), Gunston (remember him on a raft, all
manly, unshaven and rough and ready?), Horseshoe Tobacco, Gold Dollar,
Texan (which the boys would hold between their thumb and middle finger),
Lucky Strike, Gauloise and Peter Stuyvesant (for the fun lovers,
remember the wonderful places they went to and the great clothes they
wore, swimming in lagoons, skiing down snow-capped mountains, all the
beautiful people, having wonderful fun?). I never smoked (well, I have
to say that, in case my family read this article, ha ha), but after I
watched the Peter Stuyvesant adverts, I really felt like buying a
packet, so that I, too, could go to all those magical places, HA HA (the
power of advertising!).

The in-folks in Yeoville, Observatory, Cyrildene in the 60's were
Gerald Fox, Jonny Grossmark, Barry Sacks, Vivian Stillerman, Elaine
Margolis, Charmian Clayton, Sharna and Nadja Isaacs (aka Lerman),
Frances Siegenberg, someone we called Shirley Shtub (but it was probably
Sztab), Jeff Landsman, Rayna Cohen. And also another crowd: Ruth
Margolis (Cyrildene), Yvette, Esther and Naomi Sofer, Heather Garrun.

PARTIES in Observatory, Cyrildene and Dewetshof. We rock 'n rolled to
Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock" & "Don't step on my blue suede shoes"
in our flared skirts with stiff petticoats underneath, the more the
better, and huge belts around our waists, and we wore flat shoes (75c
at Maram's chemist, and 95c for the leopard skin ones). And later we
twisted with Chubby Checker ("Let's Twist Again, like we did last
summer"!!!!)

The Bez Valley Ou's, on a Sat night Jol, and the Lebs would sometimes
gatecrash. Usually a scuffle and the girl's father would have to ask
them to leave. Sometimes, in stubborn cases the police would have to
be called in to skop them all out. And then the party continued on,
Little Richard, Cliff Richard - sometimes a few of the kids would have
a bit of "dagga" (a zol) on the stoep or in the back garden when they
thought nobody was looking, and the only way anyone kopped on was
because they would come back to the party with a manic laugh and red
eyes. (And of course the smell, but if you admitted to knowing the
smell, then it meant you were a dagga smoker yourself!)

SOCIALS at the Vrede Hall, Yeoville Recreation Center, Temple Shalom,
and Bands like "Dinkie and the Deans" - Jake (Gerald) Fox (Z"l)
(rhythm Guitar), Barry Sacks (Lead Guitar), Spencer Hodgson (Bass
guitar) and Errol Sacks on the drums, would play, they also played at
the Club 505 in "the Brow." Peter Lotus well known Jhb Disc Jockey, I
think he sang as well. Lots of singers used to go to Margo's on a
Sunday afternoon, and the crowd would all hot-foot it out there after
them to hear music. There was little else to do on a Sunday, so many
places were closed.

NIGHT CLUBS AND BANDS: Bennie Michaels, Archie Silansky, Diamond
Horseshoe, Ciro's (Kruis Street), The Coconut Grove at the Orange
Grove Hotel, Dan Hill (Ichilchik), The Colony at the Hyde Park Hotel,
Sardi's, The Mediteranean (I Cinque di Roma), The Greek Taverna.

STORES: John Orrs, Belfast , Greatermans, ABC Shoes, Ackermans,
Ansteys, Katz & Lourie, Mr. Man, Man about Town, Deans Man's shop,
Skipper Bar, Barnes Shoes, Cuthberts, Markhams, Millews, K. Marks
(curtains), Juta's,Bothner & Polliack (records), Henri Lidji Gallery,
Derbers Furs, FDF (Fruit & Dried Fruits), Vanité (ladies clothes),
Bradlows, Geen & Richards, Shepherd & Barker (furniture), CAN, Jaffs
(fabrics), Dicks (sweets - Rissik Street).

REMEMBER WHEN we would get all dressed up to go to town to have tea at
Ansteys, sitting alongside ladies in beautiful outfits, white gloves,
smart, elegant, men in suits with white shirts and ties.

MUSIC: Soul music was popular in the 60's, Aretha Franklin, Carla
Thomas, Otis Redding ("Sitting on the Dock of the Bay"), Percy Sledge
("Midnight Hour"), and music from Brazil - Sérgio Mendes, Herb Alpert
and the Tijuana brass.

And of course, Johnny Mathis, Charles Aznavour, Simon and Garfunkel.

And REMEMBER WHEN our Mothers would have a little bell at suppertime,
TRING TRING and the "servant" (THE BOY OR THE GIRL) would come running
in with the next course? And when you had your own "garden-boy" and
the "girl" cooked?

BANKS and Building Societies: Barclays, Allied Building Society, The
UBS (United Building Society), SA Perm , NBS ( Natal Building
Society), Trust Bank.

HOTELS: The Carlton (original Carlton), Moulin Rouge, Casa Mia,
Langham, Gresham, the Jeppe Hotel (Norman's Grill), Victoria (Plein
Street near Station), Criterion, Landrost Hotel (Annabelle's
nightclub), Tollman Towers (next to Jeppe Street Post Office), The
President Hotel (Eloff Street), Anlar Hotel (Hillbrow), Courtleigh
Hotel (Berea), Jocelyn Residential Hotel (Claim Street, Joubert Park),
the Quirinal, Waldorf, and Balalaika which was then way out in the
"country" - Sandown, which is today, a hub of activity.

MOTORTOWN: Remember when all the motor dealerships were in Eloff
Street Ext. Motortown? And names like Rillstone Motors (Agents for the
Simca), Lawson Motors (Agents for Volvo), Lucy's Motors (Agents for
Fiat), Grosvenor Motors (Agents for Ford), Sydney Clow (Agents for
Peugeot), and a dealership in Anderson Street called T.A.K. Motors
(Agents for Lancia and Ferrari)?

And then Main Street became the used car center for Jhb. Austin ,
Chevrolet, Mercury, Buick, Dodge, Morris Minor, Mini Minor, Hillman
Minx, Ford Fairlaine, Vauxhall Victor, Ford Cortina, 20 (Ford)
Zeyphyr, Sunbeam.

PETROL: Shell, BP, Mobil (Engen), Sasol, Trek, Caltex, Total.

Remember when Milk was delivered to the house in proper Milk-bottles
with red tinfoil caps, and the cream would be all at the top of the
bottle?

DOORNFONTEIN: ¬Apollo Cinema near Crystals, Crystals, Beit Street (who
later moved to Yeoville), Wachenheimers and Nussbaums, both in Beit
Street, and Dairy Alahmbra (Zama Levine - opposite the Alhambra
Theatre in Beit Street). Zama Levine had the shop for about 40 years
(according to his daughter Gloria Levine Asch). Gloria's mom was from
the ICHILCHIK family (Dan Hill and Gloria's Mom, Emma Ichilchik
(cellist) Levine were siblings). Cohen's Café. The famous sculptor,
Anton Von Wouw, lived next door to Mr. Ichilchik in Doornfontein.
American Café for ice-cream, Sour Kraut, Hot Dogs, Millers Antiques on
Simert Road .

Doornfontein Streets: Beit Street , Siemert Road , Siveright Avenue .

ROADHOUSES: Dolls House (Highlands North), Casablanca (near the Water
Tower in Yeoville on the way to Berea/Hillbrow), Dakota (Crown Mines),
and Ice CREAM - Papagallo.

And how many South Africans, when they first arrived in
America, England, Australia, Israel, etc. talked about taking their
"costume" or "cozzie" to the beach?

RADIO: LM Radio. Who remembers the signature, "Aqui Portugal
Moçambique, fala-voz do Radio club em Lourenço Marques, transmitindo
ondas curtas e médias"? with Evelyn Martin (Martins). Bob Courtney,
Eric Egen (Springbok Radio), Paddy O'Byrne.

BUILDINGS such as Palace Buildings, Rand Club, Old Arcade, Markhams
Technical College, Manners Mansions, Broadcast House, Essanby House,
Ponte - Harrow Road, Rissik Street Post Office, Union Grounds ¬Twist
and Claim, Joubert Park, the City Hall - Rissik Street. And in Jeppe
Street , the Medical buildings... Jenner Chambers, Lister
Buildings, Drs. Jacobson, Broer and Smith, later "and Barnard," and
later still, "and Kaplan," Pasteur Chambers, Medical Centre.. (Archie
Jacobson, Ivor Broer, ? Smith, Michael Barnard and Neville Kaplan.)

HOSPITALS: the Lady Dudley, Florence Nightingale, Princess, Marymount,
Franklin, Queen Victoria, Garden City Clinic, Parklane Clinic, Fever
Hospital, Jhb Gen. (General Hospital), The Childrens' Hospital,
Baragwanath.

And polio, two major epidemics in 1947 and 1955, when schools were
closed, and public swimming pools, too. Children in iron lungs and leg
braces. Infantile Paralysis, they called it.

Around the late fifties, a movie came out with Danny KAYE and Barbara
Bel GEDDES (Miss Ellie in Dallas), called the "FIVE PENNIES." Story of
Red Nichols and his young daughter who contracted polio Terrible
epidemic, wiped out today, as far as I know. And "Interrupted Melody."
Another polio movie about the opera singer, Eleanor PARKER. And then
they found an immunization against polio.

WHO REMEMBERS Gilooly's farm, Boksburg Lake, Zoo Lake, Florida Lake,
Wemmer Pan, Wembly Stadium ice rink, The Wilds, The Snake Park,
Melville swimming Pool, Hillbrow Indoor Pool (at the Summit Club),
Brixton Swimming Pool, Rand Show/Skou, Milner Park, Tower of Light?

And who REMEMBERS the photographers Maurice and Karklin, when it was
fashionable to stand your wedding photo on a small easel on the floor?
… either carpet or parquet flooring?

ADVERTS: MacPhails - Mac won't phail you.

NEWSPAPERS: Rand Daily Mail, Die Vaderland, Die Beeld, The Star (still
going strong), Sunday Express.

2009-12-25

Santa's made it through South Africa...

http://www.noradsanta.org/en/index.html

2009-12-24

Kersvader

2009-12-18

[Fwd: Summer is here!!]

2009-12-15

[Fwd: Eye surgeon loses sight during "crime"]

[Would anyone please care to explain whether this was in any way
motivated by poverty, hardship, a lack of food and basic nourishment
brought about by the previous apartheid regime, or a simple act of
cruelty, barbarism and greed blanketed by the comfort of knowing the
chances of capture, arrest and conviction are virtually zero? -Ed.]

-------------------------------------------------------

By Shaun Smillie

An ophthalmologist could lose his sight because a robber tried to gouge
his eyes out after the elderly man "looked at him".

Dr Marius Pretorius will possibly only know in January if he will regain
the use of his eyes when a colleague performs a second operation on him
to attach torn muscles to his eyeballs.

The doctor was attacked while leaving his home in Vereeniging on
Wednesday morning.

His daughter Hannelie Warren said that just weeks earlier he had treated
someone whose eyes had been damaged in a house robbery. *A robber had
apparently tried to gouge the patient's eye with a pool cue*.

Three men, one of them armed, forced Pretorius to the ground at the door
to his flat.

"One of the men sat on top of him and basically tried to pull his eyes
out. He had told my Dad, 'Don't look at me,' and had gone straight for
his eyes," said Warren.

One of the robbers then went into the bedroom where Warren's mother,
Lien, 68, was. They forced her to the floor and tied her up and tried to
strangle her.

"He also continually bashed her head against the floor," said Warren.
They threatened Lien with a knife, which, Warren said, they kept to her
throat.

"A robber then sat on my father's back while he lay on the floor, and
smoked a cigarette," said Warren.

The men found the couple's walk-in safe and took money before they
triggered an alarm. The three men, all (dressed in) black, then made
their escape.

Warren said the robber had ripped Pretorius's eyelids off but that his
cornea had not been damaged. His right eye was more damaged than the
left, she said.

Pretorius is a well-known ophthalmologist who, Warren said, had
pioneered a cataract operation. He was president of the International
Southern African Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery for 21
years, said Warren.

Last night police said no arrests had been made.


* This article was originally published on page 3 (!!!) of _The
Star_ <http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5287124> on
December 15, 2009

[Fwd: Hijackers killed in hostage drama]

Two hijackers were shot dead by police snipers following a 20-hour
hostage drama outside Petrusburg in the Free State on Tuesday morning,
paramedics said.

ER24 spokesman Lloyd Krause said the saga started around 10am on Monday
when a farm in the small town of Petrusburg was attacked.

"The farmer whose farm was under attack called his neighbours for
assistance and the Venter neighbours responded."

But the neighbours, a father (in-law) and son, were hijacked by the
attackers on their way to the farmhouse.

"The [...] duo is believed to have had a hunting rifle with them at the
time of the hijacking," said Krause.

The hijackers sped off with them on Abrahamskraal road from Petrusburg
toward Bloemfontein.

"The son managed to escape from the hijacked vehicle and managed to run
to the Bainsvlei police station and summoned help."

A chase ensued when the police became involved and the hijacked vehicle
came to a standstill on the road around 2pm, but the hijackers refused
to hand themselves over.

Krause said at around 7am on Tuesday morning, the two hijackers were
shot dead.

"Both of the hijackers were shot by police task force officers and are
deceased. The sniper unit of the task force just neutralised them," said
Krause.

[Read: swiftly dispatched of, with no further risk of recurrence after a
failed rehabilitation because of an unlikely convinction].

2009-12-14

[Fwd: Terror at wedding receptions (summarised)]

*By Yogas Nair*

Indian women decked in their exquisite gold jewellery at weddings and
places of worship, have become the latest targets for armed robbers who
struck twice in the last week.

The first attack was at a wedding reception in a church in Newlands, on
Saturday, and the second at an ashram in Verulam where Divine Life
Society worshippers were held at gunpoint, on Monday night.

What was supposed to have been a dream wedding for Terance Naicker, 24,
a driver, and his bride Krystal, 22, a home executive, both of
Briardale, turned into an afternoon of terror when six armed robbers
stormed their reception at the Ebenezer Celebration Centre hall, in
Hillgrove Drive, Hillgrove, Newlands West, and demanded guests hand over
their valuables.

Church head, Pastor Tony Captain, said [...] the robbers, who were well
dressed and unmasked, ordered them to be silent before starting to
search the more than 100 guests. "They were meticulous and started from
the back of the hall moving from table to table, ordering the women to
remove their jewellery and the men to hand over cash and cellphones.
They were very specific and only wanted gold jewellery and not any
costume or imitation pieces."

He said the robbers stuffed the loot into their pockets and even
searched under the tables for handbags.

The seven-minute ordeal, which was recorded on closed circuit television
footage, ended when the robbers made their getaway in two vehicles, a
bakkie and taxi, after taking the keys from the owners.

"I never felt so helpless in my life. There were women and children
crying and we could do nothing to help or comfort them. These robbers
have no respect for places of worship and it is sad that we cannot
engage in prayer and other festive activities without looking over our
shoulders."

MEANWHILE, more than 35 Divine Life Society (DLS) devotees faced a
similar fate on Monday night during satsang at their Rosemary Drive,
Brindhaven, ashram.

According to DLS spokesman, Deo Singh, who was at the service, four
armed men entered the ashram at about 7:15pm and robbed devotees of
their valuables. He said they made their getaway in a Mercedes Benz and
Toyota Corolla which belonged to two devotees. The Mercedes was
recovered a few hours later in Ntuzuma, but there has been no trace, as
yet, of the Corolla.


* This article was originally published on page 1 of _The Post_
<http://www.thepost.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=5279619> on
December 09, 2009

[Fwd: Let's not forget the funny side of apartheid]

*By James Clarke*

Jacob Dlamini recently launched his book, Native Nostalgia (Jacana),
which recalls how some black South Africans remember their lives under
apartheid "with fondness".

He says many who grew up under the system say: "I had a happy
childhood." Some even say: "Life was better under apartheid."

Dlamini insists that we should "not dismiss such sentiments simply
because they make us uncomfortable".

There was certainly a bizarrely funny side to apartheid.

Zulu journalist Nat Nakasa said: "I shudder to think what would happen
to us if apartheid did not have some comical aspects."

For much of the apartheid period parliamentary reporter Ben Maclennan,
then of the South African Press Association (Sapa), kept cuttings from
newspapers and extracts from Hansard that illustrated what Nakasa meant.
He published them in a book in 1990 titled The Lighter Side of Apartheid
(Chameleon Press).

One of my favourites was headed "Seeking Clarity". The chairman of the
Group Areas Board, Dr van Rensburg, explained the law on race
classification thus:

The Group Areas Act defined three races - "White (hitherto known as
'Europeans'), Native and Coloured". All those who fell between White and
Native were regarded as Coloured. But the act allowed the Coloured group
to be subdivided into Indian, Chinese, Malays and those commonly known
as Coloured people. The Malays were regarded as Malays only as long as
they lived in their own group area of Schotsche Kloof. If they moved
into another area, even across the road, those Malays became Coloureds,
he explained. (Cape Times, March 2 ,1961).

Eleven-year-old Sandra Laing, who was White, then declared Coloured and
has now been classified White again, does not quite understand what has
happened to her. (Sunday Times, August 6, 1967).

Jan Smuts Airport, in common with the Union's other ports of land, sea
and air, will soon amend its apartheid applications. The words
"European" and "Non-European" will be replaced by the words "Whites" and
"non-Whites" over appropriate entrances. The reason is that foreigners,
particularly Americans, confuse the issue by tending to use doors that
seem to distinguish them from people who originate from Europe. (Cape
Times, February 24, 1959).

A new bus apartheid system of seating will come into force on some
routes on Monday. In the new system the front four rows of seats and the
longitudinal seats over the off-side wheel in the lower saloon are
reserved for Europeans, and the long seats over the near-side wheel for
non-Europeans. The rest of the seats in the lower saloon and all seats
in the upper saloon are for all classes. The system changes slightly on
Sundays when non-Europeans have both of the long seats over the rear
wheels, the Europeans having the first four rows. The trunk route from
Wynberg to Sea Point will be segregated only between the city and Sea
Point, conductors changing the boards before reaching the city stop at
the Waldorf. (Cape Times, August 18, 1959). (In an interview the manager
of City Tramways denied passengers were confused.)

"We have not discussed the matter in Council, but I am certain that
Beaufort West would be only too pleased to throw the municipal bath open
to the Japanese, particularly in view of the government decision that
they be regarded as whites. The value of a visit from a world-class
Japanese swimming team would far outweigh any race prejudice there might
be. Besides, this is a big wool-growing area and the Japanese are very
interested in our wool," said Mr R V de Villiers, mayor of Beaufort
West. (Cape Times, February 1, 1962).

Parliament was, in retrospect, a Muppet show. Today?

* This article was originally published on page 10 of _The Star_
<http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fArticleId=3467749> on
December 07, 2009

2009-12-13

"Out, whitey, out!" - MoneyWeb Article

What's all this bizarre mumbo-jumbo about ousting all things white?
JOHANNESBURG - Stupid people shouldn't breed, especially when they're
sanctimoniously obsessed about always being correct, knowledgeable and
even erudite.
I can't remember who first remarked, "Stupid people shouldn't breed",
or where I first read this. Darting mischievously into the epicentre
of political correctness and spiritual dignity, this statement remains
a favourite truism. It's one to reflect on today with too many
irascible and incorrigible bigots uploading their poorly written and
conceived comments and arguments on to news and opinion websites,
including Moneyweb.
If these idiotic commentators (replete with their profoundly spurious
but paper-thin viewpoints and inarticulate forms of expression) were a
reflection of our nation's health, we'd be terminally ill and bound
for the mother of all doomsday graveyards. Fortunately for most of us,
based on the number of reader impressions generated by Moneyweb and
the nobler qualities of those smarter minds who contribute insightful
counter arguments or helpful alternative viewpoints, these cyber
sickos form a small minority (or so we better hope and pray).
In recent months, a few cyber commentators have made two startlingly
original and insightful reflections about white South Africans: (1)
white people don't have any culture; and (2) black people don't need
white people or anything developed or made by white people, so all
whites should return to their places of origin.
Barring some people of Semitic origin (mostly members of the South
African Jewish and Lebanese communities), it's probably safe to say
most white South Africans originate from Europe. Like it or not, but
this fascinating continent has been the modern world's primary
fountainhead for spawning many new art and architectural forms,
influential philosophical concepts and welcome advances in almost
every field of science, engineering and technology.
Even modern-day Asians, including the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans,
are deeply indebted to Europe's myriad advances in thought and
achievement since the birth of the Renaissance (never mind the earlier
achievements of the Greeks and other older European cultures). This
assertion, of course, doesn't preclude the many significant
contributions by Arabs, Chinese, Japanese and early Egyptians, among
other influential cultures.
From Gothenburg to Grahamstown, and from Seattle to Seoul, most of our
world's modern-day conveniences and comforts have their origins in
Europe or people of European origin. Just pause for a minute or two to
reflect on the development and greater significance (in rough
chronological order) of universities, cartography, printing presses,
steam trains and railways, photography, telephone and radio
communication, internal-combustion engines, aircraft, television, jet
engines, lasers, personal computers and genetic engineering.
What about material sciences and the development of high-tech alloys,
ceramics, plastics and glass? Let's not forget so many humbler
inventions we take for granted like toothbrushes, razors, waterborne
sewers, ballpoint pens and clothes pegs. In the hallowed halls of
invention, how can anyone forget the feats of Alexander Bell, Henry
Bessemer, Thomas Edison, Blaise Pascal, Nikola Tesla and the Wright
brothers, Wilbur and Orville? One can't neglect John Crapper, either!
Blackout with Boere Basher
One brain-bruising expositor, hiding behind the smug anonymity of the
predictably unoriginal "Boere Basher", informed Moneyweb readers a
fortnight ago he wanted nothing white in his life. Well, Boere Basher,
one can only hope you've found some white-free serenity today beneath
the scant shade of a mopani remote from any South African town or
road. Hopefully, you've traded in all your fine clothes, shoes, watch,
cellphone and laptop for a loincloth and a hunting spear handcrafted
by one of your black brothers (a true African).
Should you still be an urban rat, like most of us, one can only assume
you must be deeply fooked, if not skimp and clueless. Assuming you
have a paying job, you can't hope in hell to receive any financial
rewards, never mind hold a bank account and use a debit or credit
card. Perhaps you've developed the finer art of bartering. Perhaps
you're happy to receive indigenous corn, meat and veggies as your
reward, provided a few of your black supremacist brothers raised the
herds and cultivated the crops free of any agrochemicals and
veterinary services.
In all probability, your white-free job must be prosaic and your job
description duller. You can't use pen and paper, a telephone, a
computer or any office automation; nor can you use a desk, a workbench
or any modern tools and machinery.
No doubt, you're happy to walk barefoot across a few strips of rare
virgin veld to get to your job. Because you can't wear shoes and ride
a bicycle or motorcycle; nor can you own a car or catch a taxi or
train. Chances are there are too many tarred roads and concrete
pavements, which you can't use, so perhaps you have evolved your own
aboriginal form of self-propelled flight.
You can't play soccer, rugby or golf, and you can't watch tennis,
cricket or the Olympics. You're prohibited from buying any product
made with glass, steel, aluminium, paper, plastic or foil. Moreover,
you can't use any homeopathic or allopathic remedies, or visit any
clinic or hospital.
Returning home to your mud 'n' thatch rondavel or woven beehive hut,
which happens to be super eco-cool with the Greens, your blackout
fetish gets literal. You can't light a candle or a paraffin lamp; nor
can you connect to the Eskom grid. For entertainment, you'll have to
ban anything approximating a magazine, newspaper, book, gaming
console, television set, radio or compact hi-fi set.
Boere Basher, you can't own or enjoy a vinyl record, CD or DVD, or
almost any form of commercial board game or playing cards. In
addition, with World Aids Day celebrated earlier this week, you'll
have to take a leaf from Jay Zee's Kama Sutra and refuse to condomise
when one of your few entertainment options means stoking your manly
fire. On taking another leaf or two from your ludicrous paperless
world, you'll have to be astute when Mother Nature heralds another
unavoidable bodily function.
You'll also have to ban anything to do with languages like English,
even in the case of some of their words being corrupted and integrated
into your vernacular language (as is the case with the Zulu word for
"money"). In fact, BB, you can't write your own language because it's
based on a combination of the Latin and French alphabets courtesy of
the pioneering linguistic skills of missionaries, educationists and
other white settlers.
Enjoy your freedom today
The dreaded cliché, "Ignorance is bliss", is frighteningly true. Some
folk love to impersonate an ostrich. They delight in not reading books
or following television debates. They derive freedom in having no or
too few moral convictions, spiritual precepts or intelligent political
ideas. They simply exist, almost sloth-like, in a near-vacuous state
of inertia. They hope life will reward them with a medicum of food,
drink, sex, sleep and an untaxing hobby like watching a local game of
soccer.
The likes of Boere Basher and his contemptuous and ungrateful band of
black supremacists, as with the rest of us, were born with free will
and today have all the inherent opportunities made possible by a free
South Africa. How you direct your life choices and pursue South
Africa's innumerable opportunities is up to your free will, judgement,
skills and drive.
More important, around the world, many of us have embraced Marshall
McLuhan's prophesied Global Village. The Village has many tantalising
elements to relish. While we're free to uphold our own languages,
interests and cultures, we can embrace elements of many others. We're
free to savour Thai, Indian, Mexican and Hungarian culinary delights.
We can indulge in American jazz, blues and folk, European symphonies,
and a cornucopia of African and Asian musical idioms.
We're free to watch films made in Iran, Spain, Chile and New Zealand.
We can read award-winning novels written by writers from Columbia,
Sweden, India and Nigeria. We're free to enjoy and admire the best of
everything planet Earth has to offer. These countless and
ever-increasing gifts are worth more than any nation's treasury,
regardless of the original donor's colour or location.
One's free to watch life blur by in tedious black and white, but some
of us thrive on the 7bn shades of colour that form the incomparable
canvas of our common humanity.
*Michael Waddacor is a writer and music critic.

2009-12-12

Invictus

2009-12-02

[Fwd: Pet carcass scandal]

The white Nissan bakkie comes to a halt. A man climbs out, puts on an
apron and a pair of gloves and removes the blanket covering a heap of
dead cats and dogs.


Grabbing them by the legs - straining with the weight of the larger ones
- he throws them to the ground, one on top of the other in a neat pile.
Once the job is done, he drops some leftover rubbish on the animals,
closes the back door of the bakkie and returns to the passenger seat.

The blue cross of the SPCA logo on the vehicle stands out in the grim
Randfontein landfill site west of Joburg - a place where hundreds, if
not thousands, of animal remains are left to rot or be harvested by
human scavengers.

Despite municipal rules which dictate that any animal dumped at the site
should be placed in a trench and buried "immediately" - and the SPCA's
insistence that even "in death animals are treated with dignity" - The
Star can reveal that animals at the site are left out in the open for
weeks, sometimes until they are fully decomposed. This, along with pools
of blood and piles of animal waste discarded by abattoirs, is a major
health hazard to communities in or near the dump, and to the environment.

The revelations come four months after a similar scandal broke out in
Humansdorp, Eastern Cape, after piles of dead animals were discovered at
a dumping site. It also coincides with a massive crackdown by the Green
Scorpions on medical waste after the discovery of a 300-ton stash in the
Free State town of Welkom last week.

She warns that a liquid produced through decomposition of a body is
poisonous to humans and the ecosystem if it finds its way into surface
or ground water.


This article was originally published on page 1 of The Star on December
02, 2009


Images © Independent On-line 2009. All rights reserved.

[Fwd: Mob kills man after murdering 14-year old girl for her phone]

An angry mob of more than 80 people hunted down and assaulted a
22-year-old man before throwing him into his mother's burning shack. He
burnt to death.

On Sunday evening 14-year-old Nkateko Maheso, a pupil at Kondelelani
Secondary School, had gone out to meet friends just before 6pm when she
was fatally stabbed over a cellphone valued at R150.

The suspect, known to the two girls, apparently pulled out a sharp
object, ordering Nkateko to hand over her phone. Witnesses told police
that an argument ensued, resulting in the suspect stabbing Nkateko in
the neck, while the other friend ran for help.

"The suspect left the girl bleeding near a stormwater drain, and fled
the scene with the sharp object and the cellphone. But someone in the
community witnessed the incident and started screaming," said police
spokesman Sello Mangena.

Nkateko was taken to clinic B3 where doctors tried in vain to save her
life.

Meanwhile, angry residents baying for the blood of the suspect went
looking for him at his mother's house.

"Residents were very angry and nothing the police, the CPF or the
councillor said was going to stop them. They wanted this young man
because they were tired of his criminal activities," said community
policing forum chairman Harry Mazibuko.

The suspect's mother allegedly told residents she did not care what had
happened and they could go looking for her son and kill him.

"Residents were very angry with the woman and accused her of not
disciplining her son. They locked her in her home, broke a window and
threw petrol and set the shack alight. The woman and her 16-year-son
were saved by a female police constable who arrived and broke down the
door. Police moved them to a place of safety," said Mangena.

Another part of the mob arrived at the home with the bleeding and badly
bruised suspect who was apparently found hiding about 1km from his home.

"It seems when the mob found him he was badly assaulted. They brought
him to the home where the shack was still burning and threw him there,"
he said. He died in the inferno.


This article was originally published on page 1 of Pretoria News on
December 01, 2009

2009-11-30

[Fwd: Skottel braai se gat...]

Our previous Top 10 inventions in SA include the G5 Cannon, the Addo
elephant-proof fence, the harbour-protecting Dolosse, the Rooi Valk
chopper and, of course, the koeksuster - but all, all these things, pale
completely into insignificance by comparison to what you are about to
behold.

Men, Manne, trust me on this - for the man, vir die man - this is, dit
is- the ultimate thing what you didn't know you needed until you just
saw it and have unbelievably, unbelievably, lived without for so
long...!!

And if you can like to be a proper 4x4 man, well then, this are
definitely the thing for you...!!

Not another second longer... look no further:

2009-11-28

[Fwd: Only in SA]

2009-11-27

Is the Fairest Cape a pretty foul place, too?

By Bianca Coleman

Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

We know this not only because we live in it, but because everyone else
keeps telling us it is so, and urge tourists to visit it before they
die. What they fail to mention is several Capetonians die here every day
through violent crime.

To be fair, this doesn't only happen in Cape Town. Donal MacIntyre has
travelled around the globe seeking out the World's Toughest Towns
(Discovery, Sundays at 11pm). Two weeks ago he went to Paris and this
Sunday it's Naples. It might be a bit of an ostrich attitude along with
a healthy dose of Mother City patriotism, but when picking a South
African city for this show, I'd have expected him to choose
Johannesburg, like Louis Theroux did when he gave his security detail
heart palpitations by insisting on exploring a Hillbrow tenement by night.

Then again, perhaps the point is to highlight cities that are better
known for their beauty and then flip them over and view the seedy
underbelly.

Paris is the city of lights and the city of lovers. There can be few
places more romantic. But outside the city itself, the suburbs are rife
with racism and riots. Second generation immigrants from North Africa
and law enforcement clash regularly; although the extended rioting in
2005 and 2007 were well documented around the world, it's a weekly
occurrence albeit on a slightly smaller scale.

MacIntyre's style is balanced - he tries to get all sides of the story,
from interviewing police and citizens to gangsters and activists who
incite hate crimes. He went to visit Le Bosquet, a suburb about 17km
outside Paris, and although he enlisted the protection of a local named
Zid he was still surprised when he came back to his car to find the
window smashed and the camera stolen. Zid shrugged his shoulders and
said he couldn't understand how anyone would do such a thing.

The opening and subsequent sequences of the Cape Town episode showed
plenty of shots of Camps Bay and the V&A Waterfront, as well as some
lions and Ndebele women. There was a lot of creative licence taken with
the editing, yet viewers will naturally take it at face value. It's a
little disconcerting because you realise that not even documentaries are
true reflections of their topics. It's like watching something with
subtitles while understanding the original language, and seeing the
translations are not entirely accurate.

Cape Town was introduced as one of the most stunning places in the
world, "beautiful and deadly and in the grip of a violent crime wave".
Like Paris, however, this is not taking place at the sleek, glossy
tourist attractions, but on the Cape Flats and in the townships. The
juxtaposition of a luxury yacht in the harbour and corrugated iron
shacks drives home the point.

Included in the programme are self-defence classes for "students united
by their common fear of crime", the thriving private security industry,
the Hout Bay neighbourhood watch, a visit to the morgue where each of
the pathologists are only allowed to perform three autopsies a day or
else they will "lose the plot", a gun shop and shooting range, and
riding along with the flying squad in the townships.

I'm not sure how much of the irony is intended. When MacIntyre tags
along with the cops, they give him a bulletproof jacket with "POLICE"
emblazoned across it. Why they don't just paint a bull's-eye I don't
know. Within minutes they were at the scene of what the police have
nicknamed a "lovers' quarrel" - man shoots woman then self.
Blanket-covered bodies with one sandalled-foot revealed, blood seeping
into the pavement shown in loving close-up. Through reality or clever
editing filmed in gritty night vision, MacIntyre was witness to many
more crimes as they happened.

"Unbelievable," he intoned gravely into the camera. "Unbelievable."

Over in Hout Bay, two ladies of a certain age hopped into a hatchback
and roared off in a cloud of smoke from a protesting gearbox. "Sorry,"
said the driver. "I'll get it right one day." They cruised the leafy
avenues, eyeing out the men loitering under trees. "He's walking very
fast for an African," noted one of them suspiciously. Their big crime of
the day was a stolen cellphone.

In another segment, MacIntyre went to meet some tik addicts. Since the
drug causes paranoid delusions and violent behaviour MacIntyre was
concerned about the potential mood of the addicts. He need not have
worried. After arriving and smoking a quick straw, the spokesman emerged
from the cupboard and declared the heavens were now open, and that he
was feeling light and energetic. He did concede though that once the
straw was finished they would have to get more soon or they would run
around like mad people.

"What's in it," MacIntyre inquired. "You don't want to know," they
answered, waving around a five-litre bottle of industrial bleach. They
then listed a string of ingredients anyway, include Rattex and toilet
cleaner. Yummy.

After interviewing Ellen Pakkies, the woman who murdered her tik addict
son, claiming he had abused her for years, MacIntyre promised that now
he had spoken to the users and the victims, he would investigate those
who pulled the strings of the narcotics industry.

There were hints at the Russian mafia and the Chinese triads, but this
segment fizzled out like a damp squib with an interview with Shane
Harrison of Mavericks and something about Yuri The Russian - who was
gunned down more than two years ago. It was all a little bit outdated
and vague.

It's always interesting to see how foreign journalists portray your own
city.

I'm not saying MacIntyre is off the mark, but noticing the small
liberties that are taken to present a rather sensational programme will
make me think twice before believing everything I watch about Naples
this Sunday.

© Tonight 2009. All rights reserved.

2009-11-26

Sign language

http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2009/03/26/the-1-road-sign-you-do-not-want-to-see/

2009-11-24

The mother of all potholes

Durban: This is why you never drive through puddles on the road...

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