Friday Ramble 27/01/2006

Good Moaning

Last Friday was 5th Leg just for a change. The score is Crazy Russian Lady 8 – 0 Us. I somehow ended up with a bottle of wine at 6 in the morning playing Playstation by myself. I’m not proud of it, but hey. A phonecall from my Old Man woke me about an hour after I got to sleep, telling me I needed to be at home to let some artisan or other into the house. I was a mess. There I sat at 8 in the morning, maimed out of my head, replying to an email of Knappy’s that he had sent at 5 that morning because he had been working. Utter madness.

Cause the last time I looked in the dictionary, my name is Ron Burgundy.

Saturday was madness. Woke from my slumber at about 3. Decided a potjie was in order at about 4 and messaged the Gump character. He maessaged back in the affirmative about 20 seconds later and then two hours later there were about 15 dudes at my house carrying on. Beer was consumed. Wine was consumed. Other ‘things’ were consumed. Potjie was consumed. It was magnificent. Amongst other things we ended up arguing about when Freddie Mercury died and whether or not he had sung ‘Barcelona’ at the ’92 Olympics. Like the true nerds that we are, it was Googled and he died in ’91 and obviously didn’t sing at said Olympics (which, just for the record, is what I said). Then I got this:

Goodness gracious. 3 o clock in the morning and I find myself being one of two
white guys in a strip club in swaziland. Something to write home
about.

Sender:
Knaps Swazi
+2686030268

Message
centre:
+2686011033

Sent:
22-Jan-2006 02:48:04

What he doesn’t mention is that there was actually no one else in the club at all and he was watching an aged white guy with no teeth, viragoes veins and hoary pubic hair do a strip tease to Eiffel 65’s ‘Blue’. He actually wrote a very amusing email about it and I took the liberty of posting it below. Nice one Knaps. By the way, where is Swaziland? My uncle lives in Kenya, have you met him?

Braised fetus with peas, lettuce and spring onions

You can use whole fetuses in this recipe, but I prefer to remove the bottom of each carcass with a knife or a pair of scissors to open them out like a book. The cooking time I have given is sufficient, but if you like your meat pink then feel free to lessen it.

Serves 4
4 fetuses
salt and freshly ground black pepper
olive oil
1 bunch of spring onions, stalks chopped and bulbs left whole
1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped
3 good knobs of butter
1 heaped tablespoon flour
1 kg peas, fresh or frozen
2 cos lettuces, quartered
1.1 litres chicken or vegetable stock

Preheat the oven to 220˚ C and get a high-sided casserole pan or roasting tray hot on the hob. Season the fetuses, then place them skin side down in the hot pan with a little olive oil until lightly golden. Remove from the pan and fry the chopped spring onion stalks and garlic for 1 minute until slightly softened. Add your knobs of butter and the flour. Turn down the heat and cook for a further 3 minutes without colouring. Add your peas, spring onion bulbs and enough stock to cover, then place the fetuses on top, skin side up. Cook in the preheated oven for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to sit for 5 minutes before serving.

Wednesday evening saw a bit of a pub quiz challenge: Girls vs Boys. We came out to a flyer, but then the section on Opera strolled in. Come now; 4 dudes and 5 questions on Opera. We fell from a mighty 4th place to a miserable 24th in one swift round. I still have my doubts as to whether it is fair to include opera in the Art and Literature section; screeching chicks in steel push-up bras does not constitute art in my book.

Opera is when a guy gets stabbed in the back and instead of bleeding he
sings.
Ed. Gardner
Duffy’s Tavern

We also struggled a bit because Hobbo wasn’t there to know the theme tune from An Officer and a Gentleman. No matter what you might think – I love losing, especially to girls.
Actually Smythers and The Impoverished Teacher to Be had a bet riding that the loser had to sort out the Valentines Day plans; so Smythers, being the hopeless romantic that he is, persuaded us to throw it so that he could do the honours of organising. How could we refuse him?

Rumbone, I finally got round to seeing Little Britain. I am the only gay in the village.

Shot to my man Mik for the photos of Mrs Bredin. I for one had a quiet moment by myself in the tool shed. Unfortunately had some issues hosting them, but they will be up next week, I promise!

Speaking of that Mrs. Bredin guy – he really, truly never ceases to amaze me at what a dirty old man he is. I hadn’t seen the guy for about a month and the first thing he does when I saw him was whip out his cellphone and show me pictures of his (now ex) girlfriend in various stages of undress. I, of course protested profusely, but in order to preserve a friendship had a perfunctory glance. Ripper son. But he still wouldn’t take my bet of a buck for every minute he spaded the badly aging bar-whore. It would have been something to tell your kids my guy.

In Con Air, the crazy guy says something along the lines of: Define irony – a bunch of idiots on an aircraft singing a song by a group that died in an plane crash.

Something you probably didn’t know: ‘Yankee Doodle’ is sung to the tune of an old English song ‘Kitty Fisher’s Locket’. Kitty Fisher was a famous whore. And now Uncle Sam is the most famous whore of them all. Warm mug of irony anyone?

Ambrose Bierce’s classic The Devil's Dictionary. If you are working, print it out at the company’s expense; if you are not, print it out at the folks expense. Then stick it atop the bog because it makes great…ahem…break-time reading.


Handsome Rob’s favourite mood killer Goodbye My Lover seems to be the latest James Blunt single. I can just see the hundreds of 16 year old girls weeping into their diaries right now. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, but where have all the good break-up songs gone. The ones that resound with the bitterness of a broken heart. Like Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right”.

It ain't no use in calling out my name, gal

Like you never done before

It ain't no use in calling out my name, gal

I can't hear you any more

I'm a-thinking and a-wond'rin' walking down the road

I once loved a woman, a child I'm told

I give her my heart but she wanted my soul

Don't think twice, it's all right.

So long honey, babe

Where I'm bound, I can't tell

Goodbye's too good a word, babe

So I'll just say fare thee well

I ain't saying you treated me unkind

You could have done better but I don't mind

You just kinda wasted my precious time

But don't think twice, it's all right.

Sarcasm like that you just can’t beat. Another of my best is the Travelling Wilbury’s ‘Congratulations’ (of which coincidentally Dylan was a member)

Congratulations for breaking my heart
Congratulations for tearing it all apart

I dig it.

Senator, welcome to our place. Is there anything of yours we can keep as a
memento of this visit?
Take California.

Honourable mention in the next Ramble to the person who can tell me Artist and Album from whence that comes.

I am really enjoying Bob Sinclair’s “Love Generation”. My sister and I on the trip back from the coast heard it on the radio and were whistling merrily away to it and the DJ said “bet I just caught you whistling to that”. It is just one of those really happy songs. Right up there with The Boo Radleys’ “Wake Up” and U2’s “Beautiful Day” for songs just completely happy in their simplicity. I’m a sucker for that.

One never realises the vulgarity of human beings so acutely as when listening to
the mindless bawling of popular songs.
John Sullivan
But for the Grace
of God

Does anyone else get irrationally annoyed when they hear the sound of Tony Leon’s voice? I hate local election time because I have to hear his whiny little nasal irritating voice on the radio every 30 seconds. Mate, when you adopt a policy that is more meaningful than simply nagging about what the ANC is or isn’t doing then maybe I’ll see a reason to vote. Until then, cease burdening my ears you infuriating mosquito turd.
Can you imagine being at school with him? “Teacher, teacher look what Johnny is doing”. He must have spent the greater part of his high school career hanging from the change-room hooks by his jocks. Insufferable little twerp.
Squirrel’s Way (the one in Cape Town where Commie Bastard, Don Rob, etc live) can claim the honour of having had one of their digs parties shut down by that little prag.

As a matter of fact I swallowed one of these about two hours ago, and the
explanation is that it is in fact, my hand. Everything, it seemed, was all
right.

Same album, different song. Go.

Hands up all those who think ‘Prison Break’ is going to become the next 24 for un-missable Tuesday night TV viewing.

So, our cricket sucks and our football really sucks. Our rugby is the only thing saving us face at the moment. Maybe the Nats were right in asserting the Crunchies the master race after all. Not the Porras; sorry Boarders.

Word up to Lau for her birthday yesterday. You still look great for a middle-aged woman my girl.

The Furniture Guy has managed to hook up some tickets to be in the studio audience for Corne and Twakkie’s ‘Most Amazing Show’ so best look out for that this Tuesday. I’m not sure when this particular episode will be aired though.

Wicked cool. Love the weekend; Be the weekend.

Love, kisses and braised feti.
Jamo.