I really wanted to write “SA-positive” stuff about the World Cup today but, after enormous pressure was exerted on me, I have agreed to allow Mr Julius Malema, through his newly-appointed public relations officer Hugh Mangazi, to disseminate a press release in the wake of his exoneration by President Jacob Zuma…
From the desk of Hugh Mangazi, press relations officer to Mr Julius Malema, President of the African National Congress Youth League – April 20, 2010:
My dear comrades, my fellow citizens of South Africa and loyal members of the African National Congress, I have been quiet. I have kept a dignified silence since the outrageous attack on my integrity by that boy from the BBC, right there in Luthuli House, the inner sanctum of the ruling party and the heart of our struggle.
My personal struggle continues. But I have lost it. I won’t keep quiet any longer. I have been asked to keep quiet, people have pleaded with me to maintain my dignified and honourable silence. I have been forced to bear witness to further attacks on my person, my very own studio, by an army of agents masquerading as journalists, bastards and cowardly desktop activists.
But now that I have been exhilarated by President Zuma of the nonsensical charges of bringing the party into disrepute, I will be quiet no longer. I have a right, indeed a freedom of speech, to address the concerns of my supporters, my followers, my adoring masses and, indeed, my hangers-on.
No longer shall I lurk in the shadows like a scolded dog while the imperialist agents of the world’s media take turns to whip me on every part of my massive studio. I shall never be silenced in my untiring efforts to return my country to the people. The people who really matter. Like my tailors, my shoemakers, my bodyguards, my chauffeurs and my party planners.
I’ll have you know that, when it comes to studios, I have the most expensively assembled one of them all. The biggest and most powerful equipment. Size matters. And, when I am ready to make my move and grab the biggest microphone of them all, I will father multitudes of children by many wives and an assortment of other women who are just gagging to fall under my spell.
And I will preside over them all. I will be their President. My nation of children. And their tailors, shoemakers etc. They say that power is the best Afrodisiac. Well, when they are given a tour of my studio, some lucky enough to be cast on my couch for potential first ladies, they will know that I am the man.
The only man to take them to the promised land. Land where they can grow their own mielies, fully orgasmic and free of pesticides… and other nasty agents like those Boere who refuse to pay our people for their hard work.
Yes, my people, my adoring masses, the future is bright… and the future is, like, fully Malematic.
Take this World Cup. The media, the agents, the bloody bastards have been saying that the songs I sing, those released from my studio, have been destabilising South Africa just before the World Cup. This is complete kak, the work of the imperialist agenda. I say to them, go and jump in the English Channel, where you belong. The bloody agents must jump. And that Brazilian agent who gets all that money to coach our Bafana Bafana… he must go and jump in the sea near Rio. He doesn’t know our soccer, our culture, our slow foreplay from the defensive back four through midfield before we score.
The boy from Brazil doesn’t even speak our language. How can our players even understand him. Bloody agent. No, I will take over Bafana Bafana for this World Cup. The players will understand me, my tactics. And when they are out on the field, representing South Africa in front of the same number of people that I get at a rally, they will certainly hear me when I shout instructions. “Kill the ball! Play it to feet! Keep it on the grassroots!”
Yes, I will lead South Africa to a glorious victory on our own soil. The soil of my fathers. And I want to wear the No 6 jersey when I lift the World Cup trophy… after we have beaten those bloody agents from England in the final. And then that boy from the BBC must interview me.
I look forward to making him apologise. But now, I must go back into my studio. I have a new song that I am working on. It’s going to be a No 1 hit. I’ve called it “Don’t Shoot the Messenger, Kill the bloody News Agents!”
It’s happened! Who knew this blog had such influence, such power? Last week I suggested that Julius Malema, president of the ANC Youth League, might be well served by appointing a public relations person to improve his image in the media. And he has! He has appointed Hugh Mangazi, former Editor of The Limpopo Larynx and massage therapist to the Springbok netball squad, to this post and, what’s more, Mr Malema has insisted that his press releases be fed to the world’s media through this humble but reputably “SA-positive” blog.
I am thus hugely honoured to publish Mr Malema’s first official press release, written by Mr Mangazi, in the wake of the media feeding frenzy directed at Mr Malema since the unfortunate fracas witnessed at Luthuli House. the headquarters of the African National Congress, in Johannesburg yesterday:
From the desk of Mr Hugh Mangazi, official public relations officer for Mr Julius Malema, president of the African National Congress Youth League. For immediate release on April 9, 2010:
“I am not amused by the way the media have responded to the fact that I had to have that BBC journalist removed from my press briefing at Luthuli House yesterday.
Like most white journalists, and especially the ones from Britain with their imperialist agenda, he clearly came to cause trouble with me. And he had the insolence and colonial arrogance to think that he could come to my place, the home of the ANC steeped in the proud tradition of the struggle, and carry out his mischief. He is just a small boy from Britain, one of those pimply whites who still keeps a train set under his bed.
But this British boy agent comes here and tells me I’m talking “rubbish”. Why should I tolerate this? Did I go to 10 Downing Street and tell Gordon Brown in his home that what he is saying is rubbish? Did I go to 10 Downing Street to ask Gordon Brown where he lives? No. I didn’t. Because I don’t care where he lives… as long as he doesn’t try to steal my people’s land in Africa and grow rhubarb on it and pay my people R20 a week to grow it. And as long as he doesn’t let that Victoria Barkham with no bum come here with her right-wing agent husband to our World Cup and colonise our TV news.
This boy from the BBC, an agent for imperialism and the whites who occupied Zimbabwe and tried to run South Africa… who had the cheek to say I live in Sandton… why did he come to my press conference to do that? Why does he want to know where I live? Does he want work as my garden boy? I’m sure he stays in a nice house in Windsor, or wherever white people like to live when they’re at home, and has a Sony Playstation 4 and his own collection of toy Ferraris… so why does he come here and insult me? No, he had to go. Why didn’t all the media follow him out? Because they need me, they feed off me, they eat up my words. I don’t need them. That BBC boy can work in my garden, if he behaves himself and plants my mielies in a straight row and listens to me in my home. Then I will even give him lunch. He can have samp and rice. And I’ll even pay him his wages on time.
I live in Sandton because I can. I’m not a garden boy. I am a leader. My people want me to live where I like. Because I am an inspiration to them and show them what they can become. The media dig around in my life because I have money to buy a big car and wear good clothes. They think I must ride a bicycle to work in those white shorts with the red piping around the legs like a garden boy. They want to know where I got the money from. They think I am corrupt. They don’t understand how a black man can have these things while they drive around their suburbs in big cars and wear a Rolex. I can do what I like in my country. This is my home, not theirs. I am not their garden boy.
Look at this skeleton that has been dug up in Maropeng. A white boy dug it up. The whites are always digging around in Africa for what they can find. These are the bones of my ancestors. African people. My people. These bones could be my relatives but white people have dug them up… do they want to take my dead family back to London? They must dig around in their own backyard and see what they can find. Maybe they’ll find their Churchill and a few dead kings and queens there. If they want to dig here, they can find their colonial emperor Cyril Rhodes and take him home. He was the worst white gold-digger of them all.
These colonialists have taken enough from Africa. They must leave us alone. A white boy found our bones because he has nothing better to do than dig around in Africa, looking for what does not belong to him. Like that BBC agent yesterday. Why wasn’t it a black boy who dug up this skeleton? Because he has to go to school so that he can get a proper job, not digging around in a white man’s backyard. I have had enough of these whites who come and dig up Africa and make trouble. And I will not apologise for sending that BBC agent home with a big fly in his ear.
No, my friends. My comrades. My fellow Louie Vittons. We must stand up and say enough is enough. As the imperialists’ own William Shakingspear said: “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy! It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock. The meat it feeds on.”
South Africans must let go of the fear that informed the life - and racism - of Eugene Terre'blanche Picture: Antonia Steyn
Fear. Of all of the negative emotions that burden us – resentment, guilt, jealousy, distrust, hate – fear is the most destructive of all. Fear informs all of those negative emotions – and it informs all of us. Fear sows the seed of distrust, which can lead to resentment, hate and then, most destructively of all, violence.
Fear was the driving force behind the life and racism of Eugene Terre’blanche. Racism distills down to fear. But it’s not the fearful life of Terre’blanche which brings about this deliberation on my blog.
It is the fear that has been expressed by the media, through social media and in reaction to the reports of the former AWB leader’s death that scares the hell out of me.
Not because I believe that ET’s murder will have any meaningful impact on South Africa’s slow but steady evolution into the best democracy it can be, whatever that may be. No. The scaremongers in the media and around the braais and in the shebeens of this country are just that – scaremongers. That’s what they do. No, I am much more unsettled by the impact their words might have on the mood of our nation’s people just as we are preparing to embrace the World Cup festival which is about to showcase to the world the very best of who we are. And what a joyous, friendly, generous, damn fine bunch of people we are. I have watched many World Cup finals, I attended the 1990 World Cup in Italy. Great memories. Great fun. But I believe that the South African people, the African people, will make this World Cup tournament the most friendly, the vibiest, the most celebratory of the human spirit in its long history.
You see, we South Africans, in every aspect of our diversity, are a beautiful people. No, really. You had better believe it. Yes, there are those who are corrupt. Yes, there are those who turn to crime – sadly often violent. There are those who rape. There are those who abuse. There are those who murder. But we are often encouraged to overlook the vast majority of South Africans who care, love, help, give, build, support, nurture… and you may add to this list as you see fit. I’ve made my point. The point is that we South Africans who occupy the vast middle-ground in society, who sometimes feel helplessly caught between the extremes of the late Terre’blanche and the very present Malema, who are often frozen in fear by the miscreants who lurk on the fringes of our society, should be heard.
And, in my “SA-positive” opinion, the media and our government should hear us say: “That is enough.” “We have had enough of the political posturing, the egotistical showboating, those who will our democratic South Africa to fail, the politicians who serve themselves at the expense of those who entrusted them with power, the doomsayers who whinge in unison around the braais in affluent suburbs, those who flee to damp and foreign shores and then dump on to the good work of those they left behind. It is enough.”
We demand to be acknowledged for our unwavering belief in what South Africa can become. For our “SA-positivity”. We understand that President Zuma has a very taut political tightrope to tread in order to assuage both the haves and have-nots, to rein in those such as Malema whose populist pontifications only serve to shake the confidence of those – both here and abroad – who wish to follow the rainbow path that will lead to peace and prosperity for all.
I too am fed up. But, I don’t know about you, I’m staying. I will not be moved. Not because I am owed anything by South Africa. On the contrary, I owe it. As a white person born long before the end of apartheid, I was given a privileged education. A greatly advantaged start in life. An easy ride to a successful career. Access to opportunities. I was also given 18 months of being brainwashed to shoot bullets at the “swart gevaar”. I was conditioned to believe that the black man was my servant. And I was pumped full of fear.
It took years to rid myself of this brainwashing, this conditioning, this horrible fear that informed every aspect of my life. But I did. And, when Mr Nelson Mandela and his brave comrades liberated South Africa and forgave their foes, he also freed me. He gave me the best of all possible reasons to turn my back on Britain, my home for 13 years, and join in the creation of the rainbow nation. We clearly still have a long way to go to truly achieve this. But, for me – and the majority of my countrymen – there’s no turning back. And there will be no running away. There must be no fear. Only the truth.
And the truth is that all of the good people who suffered and worked and died for our freedom deserve to be honoured. And the democratic nation for which they strove will be brought about. So let the good – and largely silent – majority stand up and be counted. Forget Terre’blanche and his ilk, ignore Malema and his hysterical henchmen, disregard the doom-mongers. While they talk the language of fear and hate, we must stand up and walk the path to our truth. And we will prevail.
Fasten those seatbelts, Heartpeople. I have to issue a health and safety warning here… The following image may bring on feelings of dizziness and acute disorientation. You may experience extreme giddiness and an uncontainable desire to fall to the floor and writhe around in wanton wondrousness.
OK. Ready? Just roll around in the beauty of this little baby…
There. How was that for you? Did the earth move a little bit? I know. Nice, hey? All the work of a clever little clogs called John Gore who tootles around South Africa’s countryside and sets up his equally as clever camera wherever he pleases. Well, I suppose he hasn’t got to use it on Jacob Zuma’s wives’ residences yet. Not all of them anyway. But that is surely just a matter of time.
Never mind. He did capture the utter awesomeness of Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium, far and away everybody’s fave World Cup 2010 stadium (unless you are a Capetonian and can’t bear the thought of liking anything that exists in Durban or, for that matter, anything outside of The Republic of Cape Town).
Anyway, if you’re an individual with an open mind, why not prepare a picnic and take a stroll over here, and just chill while wallowing in the Moses Mabhida experience with 360 degree sense-a-round.
Out of this world, isn’t it? No. Wrong. Slap-bang in the middle of Durbs, actually!
Whatever. But what is true is that our Heart & Sole Tour – yes, that unicycle ride from Durban to Cape Town to raise awareness of the evil perpetrated by landmines – is now near George. Near George? Yes. George. Western Cape. Where PW Botha lived. Sorry. I don’t know anything else about it. And I’m not finding out because old Heartie, myself and our German hanger-on (Croc Cologne, the guy who left German about 23 years ago and is still trying to get to Cape Agulhas) are in Calitzdorp. I suggest you get out the old map because it’s beyond me. But it’s very nice and warm up here on the edge of the Karoo desert and we’re visiting The Heartman’s parents who are very accommodating and run a wonderful B&B called Spekboom Cottages.
This translates into “Bacon Tree Cottages” in English and if anybody knows why or has seen trees with strips of streaky rashers hanging off them, please do write in and let us all know. In the meantime, we’re enjoying being thoroughly spoilt and, when we start getting shifty glances from the locals, we’ll head back to George and start riding towards Mossel Bay. We think we’re only about 360km or so from Cape Town but we’re too scared to ask anybody in case we’re not.
This has been one long roadtrip. But we’re loving it and now know why a certified madventurer like Kingsley Holgate doesn’t bother with sitting around on a sofa and catching the 7pm news before retiring with a nice milky cocoa after putting the dogs out. This adventuring lark is seriously addictive!
Friends are clambering over each other (well, kind of) to help us achieve our Heart & Sole dream of getting Geoff “Heartman” Brink from Durbs to Cape Town on his unicycle.
Rich McLennan, the Durban 2010 website supremo, can’t do enough to support us. He hurtles around on his mountain bike of a weekend and came up with the tasty challenge of pitting our intrepid unicyclist against the vagaries of the 10km Blue route at The Holla mountain biking trails spot near Ballito on Sunday.
The idea was to get his riding mates to sponsor The Heartman for every kilometre of the track that our man managed to cover. Coolness. And it was cool. Not only cool but rainy, windy and the track was radically wet. Stop. Wait a sec while I push my chest out to Schwarzenegger proportions. Our Heartie unicycled down steep hills on a rutted dirt track, he one-wheeled it up similar inclines. He sploshed his way through small lakes which other people like to call call puddles. He outdid himself. And he finished the course. Ten kilometres of two-wheeled recreational stuff was chewed up his AmaOneTyre. What a boykie!
Check this out…
OK. So some of the hills were seriously tough for a man on one wheel...
... but not tough enough to knock our Heartie off his AmaOneTyre for very long! Above pix: Rich McLennan
Nice work, me Heartie. Tarmac will be a right treat after that muddy little lark! So we will leave from the main car park at Wilson’s Wharf at 9am on Monday (that’s this Monday, be still my palpitative heart!) and we are expecting to be serenaded out by the thumping engines of a good few Harley Davidsons. After that, who knows? We aim to arrive in Cape Town on Valentine’s Day so that Heartman and his “Unveiled Sweetheart” can exchange vows and other romantic gestures on Camps Bay Beach before they get married in May.
Before that, more than 1,700km of unknown adrenaline-fuelled adventure and assorted wildnesses. We are so amped to go, it’s indescribable. Spiritual, babies!
And you will be able to follow the progress of our Heart & Sole Tour at least twice a day on this blog and also on Twitter and facebook, not to mention YouTube and other websites you and me haven’t yet heard about. But more about that later. One more pic, just by way of a big thank-you to our mate Rich for organising 10km of blood, sweat and and a couple of Mickey Mouse plasters for our boy at the weekend…
Bikers in arms... The Heartman and Rich McLennan look grubby but happy at the end of the 10km light training ride at The Holla. Nice one, Rich! And big thanks to Wayne of The Holla for allowing this madness to take place on his property! Pic: Hatman
Check out what’s on offer at the excellent Holla Bike Trails by bombing down this single track and admire Rich McLennan’s work on the official Durban World Cup 2010 website right here.
When intelligence (I think that’s the right word to use) surfaced in Durban this week that Helen Zille, Queen of the Republic of Cape Town, had ordered that Durban’s splendiferous Moses Mabhida Stadium be uprooted, placed gently on an aircraft carrier borrowed from Barack Obama and brought to Green Point to replace the supporating carbuncle her city contrived to construct, there was only one thing for it.
Run and hide. But Obed Mlaba, His Jovial And Corpulent Mayorness of Durban, decided to stand up (slowly) and be counted. So, after restricting his seven-course lunch to just five hours, he stood up (slowly), burped (lengthily) and decreed that all of Durban’s war arsenal be immediately deployed to defend our new stadium, widely considered to be a thing of radical phenomenalness and well worth protecting.
The result is this…
You can laugh all you want, Cape Town, but be warned: this tank has seen off many wannabe invaders since 1922, including a couple of rather large and badly-behaved Aussie rugby players, so don't try anything, OK?
There. I reckon that’s put HM Helen in her place, don’t you? She presided over Cape Town’s building of that “half-sucked Polo Mint” of a World Cup stadium… so she can ruddy well take her tea on her balcony and have to look at it!
* A totally rad doff of the old tin hat to my war correspondent, Jimmy Reynolds, for bravely bringing this pic back from the frontline
Ever since I broke the news on this blog that the grass was struggling to grow at Cape Town’s dodgy new World Cup stadium, city officials have been toiling day and night to, in their local parlance, “maak ‘n plan”.
There was every danger that Green Point Stadium was to be renamed Brown Point Stadium due to the brown patches that were breaking out all over the playing surface.
But a very relieved Capetonian has now sent me a latest picture which shows that the Cape Town organising committee, in a total panic after my startling revelations, clearly got somebody to stitch together 863,294 snooker table baize cloths to place over their fast-deceasing kikuyu grass. Either that or Queen Helen of the Republic of Cape Town decreed that many truckloads of cheap labour be trucked in from the Cape Flats to paint the pitch a deep green shade with Plascon “Pitch and All” Verdant Green No. 2.
So I’m chuffed to say that, despite my worst fears, Cape Town will not let the side down after all come June, 2010. And here is the proof…
It remains one of the world's most boring stadium designs but at least the Capies have managed to put the Green into Green Point!
Unlike Durban’s Moses Mabhida Stadium, an architectural feat of total stunningness, the designers who were let loose on this thing (above) are clearly of the “functionality” genre. Mind you, given the atrocious weather which will descend on the poor World Cup fans who have to support their teams in Cape Town, one imagines that top priority on the brief was to try to keep them dry.
Hence the little hole in the roof and Green Point’s remarkable similarity to a “half-chewed Polo Mint”. I think that footie fans would probably feel less claustrophobic in one of those dingy clubs in Cape Town’s Long St on a Saturday night than in this virtually enclosed shopping mall look-a-like.
Still, the good people of the Republic of Cape Town are trying hard not to embarrass us and for this they should be supported, lauded and, if necessary, even counselled. They might have dropped their aloofness for a couple of hours around the recent World Cup draw but are still clearly out of their depth when trying to keep their end up as a World Cup venue. Poor little babies.
* A Moses Mabhida arch-like doff of the old red hat to Simon Fishley for sending this pic over to me.
This is one of the left-over pics from my shoot at the inaugural game between AmaZulu and Maritzburg United at Durban’s excruciatingly gorgeous new World Cup stadium last Sunday.
I like it. There’s something gloriously incongruous about 22 men in full whites enjoying a Sunday game of cricket in the shadow of one of the world’s great football stadiums. At the same time as a dancing, cavorting, vuvu-blowing mass went bonkers inside the stadium.
Legendary cricket commentator Charles Fortune would have waxed lyrical about this, chatting about the Mynah birds hopping around on the boundary while the willowy thwack of bat against ball caressed his ears and how good the chocolate cake sent in by Mrs Labuschagne of Malvern tasted.
Please allow your eyes to run over this genteel, almost pastoral, scene…
Nice. I can almost see old Jim Wright, my high school cricket master, propped up on his "sitting-stick" on the square-leg boundary... and gargling on his fifth gin and tonic of the day. While muttering darkly about the bowling action of the young whippersnapper running in from the "Paris Hilton's Handbag End" Pic: Hatman
Just thought you might enjoy seeing this on your “SA-positive” blog. While I wait on tenterhooks for “Judge Lucy” (Lucy Balona of Cansa) to reach a decision on whom of Camps Bay blogger Seth Rotherham and Umdloti marathon unicyclist Geoff “Heartman” Brink is the deserving winner of Movember’s “Great Camps Bay vs Umdloti Mo-off” contest. I’ll be back later with the result! Please try to remain calm while “Judge Lucy” works her way through all the criteria which pertains to which of our celeb contestants grew the finest moustache! Rescue Remedy comes highly recommended.
Viva Vuvu! I got my first taste of a crowd vibe at Durban’s uber-glorious Moses Mabhida Stadium at yesterday’s opening match and I was totally blown away.
Blown away by the sheer beauty of being in the shiny-new stadium along with about 22,000 fans… and blown away by about half of them blowing their vuvuzelas like their granny’s life depended on it.
If this is what the atmosphere is like with not even half of the full house that will grace the World Cup 2010 matches, then I’m going to ask to be allowed to flog earplugs outside the ground for our foreign fans unused to the ear-splitting explosion of exuberance that is so part of the South African football experience.
Look. I love football. I love Durban. I love our World Cup 2010 stadium. And I love the pure joy for the beautiful game expressed through a vuvu by our fans. So this post is a celebration of all those. I have got a nit or two to pick with the service offered yesterday… but I’ll set those out later for the authorities to note.
Before I illustrate “The Beautiful Noise”, let us kick off on a quiet note. Looky here…
This little chap turned up with Dad's red vuvu and also clutching a mini version which was being blown lustily by the little people yesterday. With a whole new generation being tutored in the, er, art of one note being performed very loudly and for long periods of time, methinks the vuvu ain't going to be easily banned by Fifa. Sorrrrry for yoooo, Mr Blatter! All pics: Hatman
And these mamas lifted their spirits in the rain by sharing around a vuvu which was parped with mucho enthusiasmness. Nice one, ladies!
This little guy was sat behind me and what he lacked in vuvu verve was overwhelmed (as was I) by his capacity to give it large lungfuls without stopping for breath...
Ooh, what have we here? What we have is a Kaizer Chiefs fan who, despite his team not playing, came along anyway to give his new-fangled and rather more genteel "kuduzela" an airing...
OK. Let’s bring down the decibels a tad. Here’s my summary of how debut day went down at the MMS (Moses Mabhida Stadium). All staff on duty at the stadium were efficient, courteous and very friendly – as you would expect of South Africans – but I have a couple of gripes. Not because I’m the archetypal “Disgruntled of Umdloti” but because, dear People In Charge, if you’re going to have a world-class stadium to show off to the world, then everything about it should be world-class.
Why, then, don’t all the refreshment bars serve all the same food and drinks? Why did I go to one to order coffee to be told that’s it’s only available at the next one? Never mind that I get to “the next one” to be told that there’s no milk. “Not a good start,” I pointed out to the assistant. “Do you think you’ll have milk in time for the World Cup?” She went off and came back with “We’ve only got cold milk, not hot milk.” “Cold milk will be very cool,” I replied. “Could I have a hotdog,” I asked. “No, hotdogs are at the next shop,” she said. I went off in search of the next shop and found en route that my coffee was, in fact, black.”
Now, listen up All Ye In Charge. South Africans are easy come, easy go and pretty much accept what comes their way. Not so many of the foreign fans who will be asking for milk in their coffee and a hotdog to go with it come June 2010. When I finally bought a hotdog it was cold. Please know that in the United States and Germany, they have large government departments dedicated to The Temperature Control of Hotdogs Sold At Football Stadiums. Teams of little men in white coats stick thermometers into hotdogs and anything warmed up to less than 32 deg C leads to shop assistant’s heads being used as spare footballs. OK. Exaggeration overload. But big room for improvement, guys!
Now, let’s wind down with a fun game. The following photograph shows an AmaZulu player swinging a freekick over towards the Maritzburg United goalmouth. But where’s the ball? Ja, this is just like those old “Spot-the-Ball” competitions the newspapers used to run. It took me 37 seconds to find it. Can you beat that? If you can, mail me using the “Contact button on this page” and tell me where the ball is. The person who gets it in the fastest time (use the honesty box for this, please!) wins, er, wins… let me see… OK, they win my vuvuzela!
Coolness. Here you go…
Can you spot that ball? Not that easy, huh? No. Best you be putting on your specs, uncle. Or ask your daughter to help you! Good luck!
I enjoyed that. Ending this off with a little teaser. Oh, in case you missed it, local favourites AmaZulu were beaten 1-0 by Maritzburg United after Byron Hendricks scrambled the ball over the line to score the first goal ever at the Moses Mabhida Stadium. He then kissed the lush green turf to signal this feat but I think we’ll be seeing a truckload of far better goals next June and July. I cannot wait.
* An overhead scissors-doff of the red hat to Karen Lotter of ethekwiniweb.co.za for sorting me out with tickets. Paaaarrrrp!
How do you like that, hey? I can take you into the magnificent football arena that is Durban’s new World Cup 2010 stadium, without you having to even avert your gaze from your computer!
I know. It’s called epic kiffness, bru. And I bring it to you as just the first instalment of my public service campaign to enable you to enjoy the best of what the world has to offer… with no effort required from you, dear Hatpeople, to stray far from your coffee machine or even begin to think about enduring separation anxiety involving your cat, your goldfish, your guinea-pig, your Boa constrictor or whatever it is in the petworld which gives you warm fuzziness.
It’s fine. It’s what I do. For you. Because I love you. I do. You take the trouble to visit my blog every day and, in return, I show my intense loveness for you by giving you nice surprises. It’s good to give. As the saying that came to me the other day goes: “Give and ye shall receive.” I’m quite pleased with that. Use it. Don’t use it. Entirely up to you.
Coolness. So what have I for the ones what I love today? Ah, this just came in this morning. My highly specialised Internet Brains Trust, working out of the garden shed behind Hatman Mansions, popped something on to my lappy (er. that’s my laptop for those of you naughty ones) which, when you press play, takes you on a guided tour of whatever it is you’d like to be guided around.
Paris, a pile-up on the N2, Brad Pitt’s buns, The Great Undiscovered Catacombs Of Umdloti, whatever. Up to you, babies. The world’s your cloister (another saying I dreamt up on the loo on another epiphanic morning). Right now, because the first football match is being played at our (if you are lucky enough to live in Durban) spanking-new and utterly off-the-hook Moses Mabhida Stadium, I thought I’d give you an insider’s preview. With my Fredsynth Stadium Tour Machine. It’s kiffness on an epic scale.
Glory in this… (oh, ja, you might have to download some software for this but, believe me, it’s totally worth it!)
OK. I’m sorry. I’m off to give the hairdryer treatment to Head Boff Algy. Because I explicitly asked him to include some i-marges of the players’ dressing-rooms and the nincompoop left them out. These techie codey stringy thready geeksters are all severely ADD, I tell you!
But, hey, what did you think of that, apart from the dressing-rooms? Words fail you, yes? Don’t worry. I was speechless for at least six seconds after arriving for my first tour of MMS, as we who are close to The Big Mama of World Cup stadiums now refer to her.
And, be still my thumping-out-of-my-chest heart, I’ve been given VIP access to attend AmaZulu vs Maritzburg United there on Sunday afternoon. I can’t sleep I’m so excited. And, don’t worry my Hatpeople, even if I get stuck nibbling canapes and sushi next to Mr Zuma or Mr Mkhize – or even that nice Mr Sutcliffe – I’m going to be blowing my vuvuzela so hard that you might even see The Arch shake from the Berea. Toodlepip!
* A highly theatrical doff, similar to that of the arch at MMS, of the old red hat to Rich McLennan of the official Durban World Cup 2010 website for sending in the raw material for Algy and his team to fine-tune (up to a point).
