Here in Umdloti we are very accustomed to dealing with cheeky monkeys.
There’s Julius Malema, the loudmouthed oke from the ANC Youth League who uses any media forum available to tell all South Africans what to do and not to do, there’s the Manchester United chop at the Bush Tavern who never fails to get on my case when Liverpool FC lose (currently every time they play) and then there’s the local troop of vervet monkeys (see one of them below) which use Hatman Mansions as their local supermarket (well, they would if The Scrapster and Doodlebug, my Jack Russells, weren’t constantly barking up their blue arses).
Yes, the southern African vervet monkey (male gender) have bright blue arses and, wait for it, crimson-red penises. They are colourful characters and I apprehended three in my bedroom the other day just as one was about to chomp into the Hatman Mansions copy of Kama Sutra 365 (Dorling Kindersley, R106).
This is what Juli, I mean the southern African vervet monkey looks like (when it’s not making inroads into my bedtime reading)…
A vervet monkey, not in a book-eating frame of mind
Apologies for not showing you the blue derriere and red “tummy banana” but this is a family blog, OK?
OK. So then there’s something else completely. A monkey that takes taking things to a new level altogether. Allow me to introduce you to, at first glance, a rather charming little monkeyette (a Tamarind I believe, and not indigenous to South Africa) which I stumbled upon on Umdloti beach while cowrie-collecting with The Darj. It managed to nick her ear-ring and, as swift as a Julius Malema insult, deposited it in her pram from whence it never returned.
That’s right. I said “pram”. Patience, please. Watch this most heinous of South African crime stories unfold before your astonished eyes…
Frame One…
Tammy, dressed for the beach in her best pink frock, sucks up to me (and my leg) in order to strike up an instant camaraderie. Please note the ring on her finger... this will become important as we go on...
Frame 2…
Tammy, by frolicking in a most appealing manner on the arm of The Darj, shrewdly engages with her sweet nature and lulls her into a sense of false security...
Frame 3…
All the fun under the sun turns into felony as, suddenly, snatch-bang-wallop, The Darj's right earring disappears into Tam's little pink frock...
Frame 4…
Quick as a thief, Tam's back in her pram, the earring is secreted away deep in her stash and she's already scanning the beach for her next victim...
No pork. This is actually what happened. What do you think of that? I’ll tell you what I think of it. The couple who were sitting next to the pram and to whom Tam intermittently jumped to and fro from her pram, probably receiving logistical instructions, remained silent and stared out to sea while all this was going on. When The Darj exclaimed “Hey, it’s taken my earring” – to which I responded with a loud “What? The monkey STOLE your earring?!” – the couple turned and looked northwards down the beach with deadpan faces.
When I moved in front of them and said, far too politely, “Excuse me, your monkey appears to…” the guy looked at me, smiled and shrugged his shoulders. At the sight of me starting to suck in my stomach so as to increase the size of my chest, The Darj said “Hey, Hatman, they’re cheap earrings, just forget about it.” I stared at the guy and he gave me the laziest of eyes, as if he were from Kakkiesfontein and didn’t understand English.
We continued our search for the ever-elusive cowrie shells while I toyed with various guesstimates of how much jewelry was hidden under “baby” Tam’s pillow in that ridiculous pram.
Yowzerness. Given the tough economic climate and all that, I reckon that couple are on to something there. Catching a tan on the sun-drenched sands while putting your pet Tamarind monkey to work on innocent beachgoers is taking “Living The Holiday” to another stratosphere, isn’t it?
I learned how to rort (fight) at two months old, beat up my younger sister just eight months later (after intensive training), flattened a string of boys in the school quad, saw things in the South African army that would make Chuck Norris’s knees like granny’s Sunday jelly, have been a battle-hardened journo since time began and have stared death in the face a number of times (2. Well, it is a number, isn’t it?).
So I don’t do nice, OK? Nice is a cup of tea and I only drink tequila. Nice is the scent of granny’s perfume when she hugs you as a kid and my granny was too terrified to come near me. Have I made myself clear? What? Speak up. That’s better. Now sit down and shut the chuff up. I have a video to show you.
OK. So don’t get me wrong but I have a thing about Jack Russells. I have two. That doesn’t make me nice, all right? Anybody who owns a Jack Russell knows what I’m saying here. They’re not nice. Well not after they’ve stopped being puppies, that is. They turn into stark raving loony monster dogs. Mine are so bad, I’ve had to stop taking them to Umdloti beach because the locals have ordered a hit on them.
This morning, The Scrapster got hold of one of the troop of vervet monkeys which charge each morning through Hatman Mansions to devastating effect and we nearly had an international incident on our hands. I threatened to take her and her mate Doodlebug into the local petshop and swap them for a pair of hamsters or goldfish but that would be just too nice.
So when I came across this sickeningly nice video of South African songstress Verity teaching some kid to sing and “reach her dream” of becoming a pop singer, I was about to run for the sickbucket. But then I noticed that little Lize’s song “Song for July” was a tribute to her life with a Jack Russell and I instantly felt her pain.
I began to feel some sympathy creep in… and, well, here’s the video…
OK. So I admit that I was moved by this. Not by Verity’s humility and kindness in helping this kid, who is indeed a cutie, but by “July”, her Jack. Schweetness! Beautifulness. I hope you enjoyed this divine little piece of inspirationalness. I did.
So much so, I feel inspired to share a pic of my Scrapster and Doodlebug enjoying a jolly jape on Umdloti south beach at the weekend…
That's Doodlebug trying to rip the ball out of my hand after just having had a piece of his left ear removed by The Scrapster (left), still frothing at the mouth
“They came, they saw, they conquered” is a saying I dreamt up a few years ago while doing the morning crossword on the bog at Hatman Mansions. Yowzerness, you might exclaim in surprise. You didn’t know I do the crossword. Well, what can I say… I’m a man of letters. And you didn’t know that the origins of that popular phrase lay in the head of Fred, did you? There you go. It’s just the way I roll.
So I don’t have to apologise to anyone for corrupting my saying to “They came, they schmoozed, they, like, TOTALLY ROCKED the Smother City!”
Which pretty much nails the vibe that Heart & Sole unicyclist Geoff “Heartman” Brink and moi created in Cape Town as we swept all before us and “AmaOneTyre” (the unicycle)… at the SiliconCape launch (where Helen Zille and I fell in love, serenaded by the delectable Lucy Kenny and aided and abetted by head honchos Vinny Lingham and Justin Stanford) to morning coffee with Seth (yes, Rotherham) at Camps Bay Vida to arvie beers with internet marketing supremo Fred Roed of worldwidecreative.co.za and ideate.co.za fame to dinner with Gen and Lyndall (yes, Morton and Jarvis) at Caprice to a public appearance at Caveau to… hang on, this is turning into a very long sentence… so time for a pic (waffle to be contd.)
Seth (the "sex symbolic blogger" of 2oceansvibe fame) and I strengthen the ties between Camps Bay and Umdloti at the SiliconCape launch. Lest you be confuzzed, SA's sex symbol blogger is the one on the right. Just so you know
OK. Where was I? Oh, yes. (continuing)… to an autograph signing session at the Sky Bar at the Cape Royale (big doff of red hat to Goldfish for providing the tunes) to breakfast at La Bruixa where we shared Barca scrambled eggs with social media oligarch Dave Duarte to a pizza and glass of wine with Channel24 editor Jean Barker to a highly convivial and fruitful meeting with Argus editor-in-chief (and obsessive mountain biker) Chris Whitfield to double espressos and almond croissants with Springbok rugby legend turned commentator and philanthropist Bob Skinstad to.. oh, chuff it, that’s enough name-dropping for now.
