Ian Martin's Blog - Posts Tagged "humour"
Her Majesty's A Pretty Nice Girl
My relationship with this woman goes back a long way. Back to around 1955 when I was enrolled at Cecil John Rhodes Junior School in Gwelo, a town about half way between Salisbury and Bulawayo. Every morning at assembly we had to stand at attention and sing God Save The Queen.
God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen!
Even at the age of five I’m sure I found it absurd.
Then, when I was allowed to go to the local bughouse (I think it was called the Royal Theatre, or maybe the Empire, or some other nod to the Imperial masters), I was required to not only stand to attention as the anthem was being played, but I also had to watch Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth II, sitting on a horse in front of Buckingham Palace presiding over Trooping of the Colour and taking the salute.
“Why does she sit on the horse sideways like that?” I asked my brother, who was five years older than me.
“If a lady sits with her legs wide open, it causes men to have unclean thoughts,” my brother told me.
I was only a little kid, and, as Jean Piaget has made it abundantly clear, there was no way I was going to grasp how something as abstract as a thought could be dirty. So I just had to take my boet’s word for it.
I soon grew to resent this ritual every time we went to the flicks, but there were a lot of ex-servicemen in the audience, still fired up with patriotic fervour after defeating the Nazis and saving the world from fascist domination, and it would have been extremely unwise not to conform. Unless you felt like a clip round the ear.
Then, in 1960, the Queen sent her mother out to open Kariba Dam, and I got my first and only glimpse of royalty in the flesh. The Queen Mother stopped off in Gwello for a few gins and in the process did a little walkabout at Selukwe traffic circle. I was part of a whole bunch of school kids required to stand on the pavement and wave Union Jacks and clap politely.
It was a disappointing experience because the old girl looked completely ordinary except for her hat, and after being presented with a huge bouquet of flowers she got back in the car and was whisked off to the nearest hotel for a right royal lunch. How undramatic! I had been hoping for something like the firing of canon, and maybe even a public flogging to inspire fear in the colonial subjects.
“But they’re just ordinary people,” I complained to my brother.
“Yes,” said my brother, scratching his balls thoughtfully. “They’ve also got to take a crap now and again, just like you and me.”
From then on my view of the royal family changed and I began to see them in a more sympathetic light. Especially the Queen. When she started picking up all that shit with her children and it became apparent that she was not only one of the most unopinionated, boring women on the planet, but was severely lacking in parenting skills as well, I saw that her life wasn’t the fairy tale bed of roses some people make it out to be.
And when those parsimonious Labour politicians decided to decommission the royal yacht Britannia, my heart bled for her. No more of those wonderful family cruises with a crew of 240 at her beck and call. That must have been hard to come to terms with.
Sixty years is a long time to have to reign over a nation, and it might not have been an entirely happy and glorious period in English history, but she seems to be coping pretty well, and in no hurry to step aside for her son and go into retirement.
Yes, all in all, Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl and her subjects love her a lot. She has shown them how it is possible for people of meagre intelligence and mediocre physical abilities to hold the very highest rank in British society. And how to disperse the gloomy clouds of austerity by throwing a party of unrivalled extravagance.
God save the Queen.
God save our gracious Queen,
Long live our noble Queen,
God save the Queen!
Send her victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the Queen!
Even at the age of five I’m sure I found it absurd.
Then, when I was allowed to go to the local bughouse (I think it was called the Royal Theatre, or maybe the Empire, or some other nod to the Imperial masters), I was required to not only stand to attention as the anthem was being played, but I also had to watch Her Royal Highness, Queen Elizabeth II, sitting on a horse in front of Buckingham Palace presiding over Trooping of the Colour and taking the salute.
“Why does she sit on the horse sideways like that?” I asked my brother, who was five years older than me.
“If a lady sits with her legs wide open, it causes men to have unclean thoughts,” my brother told me.
I was only a little kid, and, as Jean Piaget has made it abundantly clear, there was no way I was going to grasp how something as abstract as a thought could be dirty. So I just had to take my boet’s word for it.
I soon grew to resent this ritual every time we went to the flicks, but there were a lot of ex-servicemen in the audience, still fired up with patriotic fervour after defeating the Nazis and saving the world from fascist domination, and it would have been extremely unwise not to conform. Unless you felt like a clip round the ear.
Then, in 1960, the Queen sent her mother out to open Kariba Dam, and I got my first and only glimpse of royalty in the flesh. The Queen Mother stopped off in Gwello for a few gins and in the process did a little walkabout at Selukwe traffic circle. I was part of a whole bunch of school kids required to stand on the pavement and wave Union Jacks and clap politely.
It was a disappointing experience because the old girl looked completely ordinary except for her hat, and after being presented with a huge bouquet of flowers she got back in the car and was whisked off to the nearest hotel for a right royal lunch. How undramatic! I had been hoping for something like the firing of canon, and maybe even a public flogging to inspire fear in the colonial subjects.
“But they’re just ordinary people,” I complained to my brother.
“Yes,” said my brother, scratching his balls thoughtfully. “They’ve also got to take a crap now and again, just like you and me.”
From then on my view of the royal family changed and I began to see them in a more sympathetic light. Especially the Queen. When she started picking up all that shit with her children and it became apparent that she was not only one of the most unopinionated, boring women on the planet, but was severely lacking in parenting skills as well, I saw that her life wasn’t the fairy tale bed of roses some people make it out to be.
And when those parsimonious Labour politicians decided to decommission the royal yacht Britannia, my heart bled for her. No more of those wonderful family cruises with a crew of 240 at her beck and call. That must have been hard to come to terms with.
Sixty years is a long time to have to reign over a nation, and it might not have been an entirely happy and glorious period in English history, but she seems to be coping pretty well, and in no hurry to step aside for her son and go into retirement.
Yes, all in all, Her Majesty’s a pretty nice girl and her subjects love her a lot. She has shown them how it is possible for people of meagre intelligence and mediocre physical abilities to hold the very highest rank in British society. And how to disperse the gloomy clouds of austerity by throwing a party of unrivalled extravagance.
God save the Queen.
Baudrillard's Rhinoceros
What has the plight of the rhinoceros got to do with Jean Baudrillard? You may well ask. The famous French philosopher, who died in 2007, is possibly best known for coming up with an idea so bizarre, it makes you wonder what he was smoking besides Gauloises. He called this concept the simulacrum, and it’s so weird, there aren’t many people who can get their heads around it. Let me try and simplify the thing and put it in a nutshell.
The simulacrum is not just an imitation of reality, it becomes reality itself, and the original reality dwindles into the background and becomes meaningless, and people then relate to the simulacrum and not to reality. See what I mean?
Now, just the other morning, me and my buddies were playing pool over at the Sea View. We were discussing the price of rhino horn.
“If you had a pet rhino,” I said, “would you cut its horn off and sell it?”
“For sure,” said Cupcake, straightening up after having sunk his white. “You know what a kilogram of rhino horn fetches nowadays?”
“Same price as cocaine,” said the other guy.
“Which is?” I said, not knowing the price of cocaine.
“Around $50 000 a kilo.”
“Holy shite fuckers!” I said. “That’s like R350 000! Bring me the chain saw.”
“Except you don’t own a chain saw,” said Cupcake.
“And where’s your pet rhino?” asked the other guy, squinting down his cue and dreaming of a 3-in-one ricochet.
“I suppose it’s all about supply and demand,” I said. “All those Orientals wanting a scarce commodity. The fewer the rhino, the more they’ll pay for the horns.”
“Basic economics,” said Cupcake.
The other guy struck his white one helluva shot, which resulted in just about every other ball on the table being displaced but not one of them ended up in a pocket.
“Basic stupidity,” I said. “These Orientals are paying 350 grand for a kilo of powdered keratin – the same stuff as your fingernails are made of.”
“So? It’s not the intrinsic value that counts. It’s the perceived value, my mate.”
“Just another fucking simulacrum,” said the other guy.
“Yeah, like that stupid watch of yours,” said Cupcake, pointing to the other guy’s imitation gold Rolex. “Does that piece of shit even work?”
“Of course it works. But it loses like two days in four hours. Doesn’t worry me, though. I don’t wear a watch to tell the time. Who needs a watch when you got a cell phone? Everybody’s got a cell phone.”
“So why wear the fucking thing?”
“Image, man, image,” said the other guy. “It throws people into a state of mental confusion. They can’t work out if it’s genuine or not; there’s so much fake shit about, you never can be sure of anything.”
“It’s not a watch you’re wearing,” I said. “It’s a signifier of something else. Some kind of hyper reality.”
“Yah, that’s how it works for me. People think it’s probably a fake, but maybe it’s not. Maybe I stole it, and that makes me kind of dangerous. Or maybe this Rolex is the genuine 50 thousand buck thing, and I’ve got millions in the bank, even though I look like a loser, And that makes me super cool, jy weet? Anyway, this watch, which I bought for a hundred buckaroos at a flea market, makes people treat me with more respect than if I wore some nondescript watch, or no watch at all.”
“Yes,” said Cupcake. “But this hyper reality bullshit, this simulacrum, is no good for our rhino population.”
“That’s for sure,” I said. “As long as the Chinese believe in the efficacy of the simulacrum, the demand will far outweigh the supply. We can say goodbye to the rhino.”
“Not so fast,” said the other guy. “We must turn the simulacrum to our advantage, the way I’ve made this stupid watch replace the reality of a genuine Rolex with something that is not an imitation of a Rolex watch, but an imitation of the Rolex brand. The watch itself is no longer of any consequence. We can do the same thing with the rhino – and make some money at the same time.”
“Is this your crazy thought for the day?” I said.
“What we do is this,” said the other guy. “We make ourselves a rhino horn mould. Then we get a whole lot of ground up cattle horn from the abattoir, and a good modern binding agent that sets really hard, and then we go into production churning out hundreds of imitation rhino horns.”
“Aha!” said Cupcake. “I think I know where you’re going with this little brainwave of yours. We make a quick fortune without having to work too hard, and then we flood the market with our imitation horns.”
“That’s it,” said the other guy. “You got the picture just like that.” And he snapped his fingers in the air. “At a critical point the market will collapse and rhino horn, genuine or fake, will acquire junk status.”
“Brilliant!” I said. “Not only will we have made a pile of lovely boodle and saved the rhino from extinction, but we’ll have exploded the simulacrum. “Those idiots in Viet Nam and China will have to find some other worthless commodity to which they can attach the pseudo magical properties they now attribute to rhino horn.”
“It seems,” said Cupcake, “that the human brain is becoming less and less capable of dealing with reality in its raw condition. But hey, we’re supposed to be playing pool! Whose turn is it?”
The simulacrum is not just an imitation of reality, it becomes reality itself, and the original reality dwindles into the background and becomes meaningless, and people then relate to the simulacrum and not to reality. See what I mean?
Now, just the other morning, me and my buddies were playing pool over at the Sea View. We were discussing the price of rhino horn.
“If you had a pet rhino,” I said, “would you cut its horn off and sell it?”
“For sure,” said Cupcake, straightening up after having sunk his white. “You know what a kilogram of rhino horn fetches nowadays?”
“Same price as cocaine,” said the other guy.
“Which is?” I said, not knowing the price of cocaine.
“Around $50 000 a kilo.”
“Holy shite fuckers!” I said. “That’s like R350 000! Bring me the chain saw.”
“Except you don’t own a chain saw,” said Cupcake.
“And where’s your pet rhino?” asked the other guy, squinting down his cue and dreaming of a 3-in-one ricochet.
“I suppose it’s all about supply and demand,” I said. “All those Orientals wanting a scarce commodity. The fewer the rhino, the more they’ll pay for the horns.”
“Basic economics,” said Cupcake.
The other guy struck his white one helluva shot, which resulted in just about every other ball on the table being displaced but not one of them ended up in a pocket.
“Basic stupidity,” I said. “These Orientals are paying 350 grand for a kilo of powdered keratin – the same stuff as your fingernails are made of.”
“So? It’s not the intrinsic value that counts. It’s the perceived value, my mate.”
“Just another fucking simulacrum,” said the other guy.
“Yeah, like that stupid watch of yours,” said Cupcake, pointing to the other guy’s imitation gold Rolex. “Does that piece of shit even work?”
“Of course it works. But it loses like two days in four hours. Doesn’t worry me, though. I don’t wear a watch to tell the time. Who needs a watch when you got a cell phone? Everybody’s got a cell phone.”
“So why wear the fucking thing?”
“Image, man, image,” said the other guy. “It throws people into a state of mental confusion. They can’t work out if it’s genuine or not; there’s so much fake shit about, you never can be sure of anything.”
“It’s not a watch you’re wearing,” I said. “It’s a signifier of something else. Some kind of hyper reality.”
“Yah, that’s how it works for me. People think it’s probably a fake, but maybe it’s not. Maybe I stole it, and that makes me kind of dangerous. Or maybe this Rolex is the genuine 50 thousand buck thing, and I’ve got millions in the bank, even though I look like a loser, And that makes me super cool, jy weet? Anyway, this watch, which I bought for a hundred buckaroos at a flea market, makes people treat me with more respect than if I wore some nondescript watch, or no watch at all.”
“Yes,” said Cupcake. “But this hyper reality bullshit, this simulacrum, is no good for our rhino population.”
“That’s for sure,” I said. “As long as the Chinese believe in the efficacy of the simulacrum, the demand will far outweigh the supply. We can say goodbye to the rhino.”
“Not so fast,” said the other guy. “We must turn the simulacrum to our advantage, the way I’ve made this stupid watch replace the reality of a genuine Rolex with something that is not an imitation of a Rolex watch, but an imitation of the Rolex brand. The watch itself is no longer of any consequence. We can do the same thing with the rhino – and make some money at the same time.”
“Is this your crazy thought for the day?” I said.
“What we do is this,” said the other guy. “We make ourselves a rhino horn mould. Then we get a whole lot of ground up cattle horn from the abattoir, and a good modern binding agent that sets really hard, and then we go into production churning out hundreds of imitation rhino horns.”
“Aha!” said Cupcake. “I think I know where you’re going with this little brainwave of yours. We make a quick fortune without having to work too hard, and then we flood the market with our imitation horns.”
“That’s it,” said the other guy. “You got the picture just like that.” And he snapped his fingers in the air. “At a critical point the market will collapse and rhino horn, genuine or fake, will acquire junk status.”
“Brilliant!” I said. “Not only will we have made a pile of lovely boodle and saved the rhino from extinction, but we’ll have exploded the simulacrum. “Those idiots in Viet Nam and China will have to find some other worthless commodity to which they can attach the pseudo magical properties they now attribute to rhino horn.”
“It seems,” said Cupcake, “that the human brain is becoming less and less capable of dealing with reality in its raw condition. But hey, we’re supposed to be playing pool! Whose turn is it?”
Paradoxical Materialism
“The stinking rich will always be with us,” I said. “It’s in the Bible.”
“I thought it was the poor who will always be with us,” said the other guy. “Jeez, how long is it going to take this idiot to let us in? All he has to do is push a button.”
“Not so easy,” I said. “There must be a hundred buttons to choose from in that digital fortress.”
We were sitting in the other guy’s car looking at the big sliding gate, waiting for Cupcaked to work out the difference between his arse and his elbow.
“It’s in both the New and Old Testicle,” I went on, “So every exploiter of labour, whether Christian or Jew, feels perfectly justified in paying his workers a pittance, while amassing as much personal wealth as he possibly can. God gave him permission. Ah, at last!”
While the gate got out of our way, the other guy started up, engaged gear, and then stalled the engine. We began to roll back towards the street and there was a long blast from a passing vehicle.
“Nice driving,” I said. “You nearly managed to put a dent in the newest and biggest Merc in the country.”
Cupcake met us in the driveway and indicated where we should park. He seemed pleased to see us.
“I need to show you around,” he said, leading the way towards the house. “You see this?” pointing to the big pond with water feature at the centre of the circular drive. “It’s full of koi, 2k apiece. Two thousand rand for one fucking fish!” And he spat on the water in disgust. A fish immediately surfaced and made short work of the insult.
We skirted a bed of dwarf cypresses and followed him across an expanse of meticulously raked gravel.
“This is supposed to be a Zen garden,” he said, dragging his feet and then trampling a bonsai oak. We arrived at the front door and stepped inside the grand residence.
Modern, airy, full of light.
“You see what I mean?” said Cupcake, as if we knew what he had been ranting about in his head. “Marble throughout, even on the terraces. Rosa Aurora imported from Portugal”
“Cold in winter,” said the other guy, trying to be helpful.
“Underfloor heating!” snapped Cupcake. “This is the fucking atrium. His Highness likes to lie here a lot.” There were some very comfortable looking recliners. “Looking out to sea by day, and up at the fiery firmament at night, glass of single malt in hand.”
“Single malt?” I said. “Sounds promising.”
Cupcake gave me a hostile look and said, “This is what I mean. This place starts corrupting you the moment you step inside.”
He led the way to a sitting room with a fireplace.
“You see that mantelpiece and the surround? Granite. Stolen from the Acropolis, or the Parthenon, or somewhere. This is the sound system.” He opened the door of a cabinet to reveal electronic equipment. “Speakers in every room. The place is wired so your remote works anywhere in the house. What do you want to listen to? Graceland?Now let me show you the fucking summer lounge.”
The summer lounge also served as the dining room.
“You see these art works everywhere? Very classy, you think. This guy must be a connoisseur. Such good taste. Like fuck! All this cunt does is sign the cheques. The architect designs the house, the design company furnishes it, down to last detail, and the landscape guru sorts out the garden. This is how it works. And check this thing.”
We were heading for the kitchen and in a corner of some interim space stood an old fashioned jukebox.
“This is a genuine imitation jukebox from the 1950s. Art deco crap. You put your dime in, the mechanical arm selects a 7-single, and you’re listening to Fats Domino or Little Richard, crystal clear because it’s all digital and not really the real thing.”
We breezed through the designer kitchen and out to the breakfast nook, which was a kind of glass-walled rondavel jutting out into the garden.
“Now let me show you the master bedroom and hot tub spa,” said Cupcake.
“Don’t bother,” I said. “We’ve got the picture.”
We went and stood on the main terrace and looked out over about a thousand hectares of lawn to the lagoon and the sea in the distance.
“You see those tall palms next to the swimming pool?” said Cupcake. “They were brought in by helicopter. And the pool is kept heated twelve months of the year, even though he is hardly ever in residence.”
“Very nice,” I said. “Now how about offering us some of that famous whisky?”
We made ourselves comfortable in the atrium and were soon joined by Cupcake bearing a tray loaded with a bottle of single malt, ice, Sparletta and glasses.
“This is the life,’ I said.
“Yah,” said the other guy. “This isn’t work. Only a fool would complain about a job like this.” He was looking at Cupcake. “What’s your problem?”
“Problem?” said Cupcake. “This house is my problem, mate. This house is a beautiful woman without a vagina. You know what I mean?”
We looked out at the distant strip of blue sea, with the line of white breakers in front and the blue sky at the back, and thought about it.
“Sorry, I don’t get it,” said the other guy.
“Not a bad metaphor,” I said, savouring the subtle blend of highland peat and sheep’s piss infused in water from a bonny brook. “To fall in love with the beautiful exterior, only to discover that one can never get at the honey pot inside must leave one feeling desolate, man, desolate.”
“Okay, now I see,” said the other guy. “You’re not content with living in luxury if you don’t also possess the fortune that makes it possible.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” said Cupcake. “That’s not what I mean at all. What I mean is that all this is initially seductive, but it’s superficial and largely worthless. I’ve been housesitting the place for three weeks now, and it’s making me suicidal. It’s like living in an empty waiting room, it’s so impersonal and cold. And it doesn’t make the owner happy, either. You should see him. He’s 50, fat, got an ulcer, and just had a triple bypass. He’s divorced and his kids only contact him when they want more money. And you should see his neighbour up the road. One of the richest men in South Africa and a real miserable looking bastard who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
“Hey,” I said, “That must be the old dude we nearly crashed into. Does he look like a malevolent toad? Like he’s got no chin he’s so obese?’
“That’s him,’ Sid Cupcake.
“So would you prefer to be looking after some poky two-roomed apartment in a dilapidated block in a rundown part of the city?” asked the other guy. “Where the entrance smells of dustbins and broken plumbing, and there’s a screaming baby next door, and dope fiends overhead trying to kill each other?”
“No, I wouldn’t,’ said Cupcake. “But that’s not what I’m getting at. Look, for the first week or so I couldn’t believe my luck and I was beginning to think that this way of life was what one should aspire to. But then I started to feel uneasy and restless. There was something wrong. It took another three days of worrying about it before I suddenly realised what it was about. The materialism paradox.”
“Too much value attached to the goodies money can buy?” I said. “Tell that to a man who lives in a shack.”
“Why is it a paradox?” asked the other guy.
“Because,’ said Cupcake, “I realised that the millionaire who owns this mansion is, on a certain level, far less of a materialist than I am. Or the man in the shack.
“How so?’
“Look,” said Cupcake, “Let’s take my old Corolla, for example. It’s a crappy old car and it gives me a lot of grief, but I can’t afford an upgrade. When it performs, I’m grateful; and when it misbehaves, I curse and threaten it. I have fond memories of having sex in the back seat, and every dent in the bodywork has a story to tell. You see, I have a relationship with that car. Now take the millionaire. He has a sports car and an SUV standing in the garage. They are hardly ever driven and their owner looks upon them with a total lack of sentiment. He sees them for what they are: disposable commodities that come with a price tag. He values them for the advertising hype about performance, craftsmanship and elegant styling, but only because it confers status. And it’s the same with everything else. This house, the contents, the garden, the fish – they have value for him only because he can afford them and put them on display. He doesn’t relate to the material world the way we do.”
“Well,” I said, “I suppose you could be onto something there. It’s a different way of looking at it. But surely you’re not suggesting this millionaire has a superior value system to yours?”
“Of course not,” said Cupcake. “What I’m saying is that he has become detached from the material objects he possesses. What he values most is the prestige associated with conspicuous consumption. He judges his own success not by how much he enjoys the fruits of his wealth but by the respect, admiration and envy his wealth is able to command. That’s why people like him are driven to make more and more money. There’s always someone able to behave more ostentatiously than you, though, so satisfaction is forever fleeting. I can see what it’s about and it fills me with feelings of meaninglessness and futility. I can’t take this sinecure any longer.”
“Hey, take it easy, man,” said the other guy, getting up to fill the glasses. Cupcake was showing signs of psychological distress, and on the point of becoming seriously distraught. “Keep a grip on the here-and-now. Hold on to the reality of genuine materialism, not that other kak. Here, drink this. This thousand-bucks whisky tastes better with lemonade and gives you more of a kick.”
“Yah,’ I said. “Just because this scumbag materialist has lost his soul down the toilet doesn’t mean we can’t try an wake the dead in his marble-floored mausoleum. We could start with a pool party. Tomorrow.”
“A topless pool party sounds cool,’ said the other guy. “With a venue like this a whole new world of possibilities could open up. What sports car did you say this creep has got in the garage?”
The flicker of interest in Cupcake’s eyes was encouraging. It meant that futility and meaninglessness hadn’t gained the upper hand just yet.
“I thought it was the poor who will always be with us,” said the other guy. “Jeez, how long is it going to take this idiot to let us in? All he has to do is push a button.”
“Not so easy,” I said. “There must be a hundred buttons to choose from in that digital fortress.”
We were sitting in the other guy’s car looking at the big sliding gate, waiting for Cupcaked to work out the difference between his arse and his elbow.
“It’s in both the New and Old Testicle,” I went on, “So every exploiter of labour, whether Christian or Jew, feels perfectly justified in paying his workers a pittance, while amassing as much personal wealth as he possibly can. God gave him permission. Ah, at last!”
While the gate got out of our way, the other guy started up, engaged gear, and then stalled the engine. We began to roll back towards the street and there was a long blast from a passing vehicle.
“Nice driving,” I said. “You nearly managed to put a dent in the newest and biggest Merc in the country.”
Cupcake met us in the driveway and indicated where we should park. He seemed pleased to see us.
“I need to show you around,” he said, leading the way towards the house. “You see this?” pointing to the big pond with water feature at the centre of the circular drive. “It’s full of koi, 2k apiece. Two thousand rand for one fucking fish!” And he spat on the water in disgust. A fish immediately surfaced and made short work of the insult.
We skirted a bed of dwarf cypresses and followed him across an expanse of meticulously raked gravel.
“This is supposed to be a Zen garden,” he said, dragging his feet and then trampling a bonsai oak. We arrived at the front door and stepped inside the grand residence.
Modern, airy, full of light.
“You see what I mean?” said Cupcake, as if we knew what he had been ranting about in his head. “Marble throughout, even on the terraces. Rosa Aurora imported from Portugal”
“Cold in winter,” said the other guy, trying to be helpful.
“Underfloor heating!” snapped Cupcake. “This is the fucking atrium. His Highness likes to lie here a lot.” There were some very comfortable looking recliners. “Looking out to sea by day, and up at the fiery firmament at night, glass of single malt in hand.”
“Single malt?” I said. “Sounds promising.”
Cupcake gave me a hostile look and said, “This is what I mean. This place starts corrupting you the moment you step inside.”
He led the way to a sitting room with a fireplace.
“You see that mantelpiece and the surround? Granite. Stolen from the Acropolis, or the Parthenon, or somewhere. This is the sound system.” He opened the door of a cabinet to reveal electronic equipment. “Speakers in every room. The place is wired so your remote works anywhere in the house. What do you want to listen to? Graceland?Now let me show you the fucking summer lounge.”
The summer lounge also served as the dining room.
“You see these art works everywhere? Very classy, you think. This guy must be a connoisseur. Such good taste. Like fuck! All this cunt does is sign the cheques. The architect designs the house, the design company furnishes it, down to last detail, and the landscape guru sorts out the garden. This is how it works. And check this thing.”
We were heading for the kitchen and in a corner of some interim space stood an old fashioned jukebox.
“This is a genuine imitation jukebox from the 1950s. Art deco crap. You put your dime in, the mechanical arm selects a 7-single, and you’re listening to Fats Domino or Little Richard, crystal clear because it’s all digital and not really the real thing.”
We breezed through the designer kitchen and out to the breakfast nook, which was a kind of glass-walled rondavel jutting out into the garden.
“Now let me show you the master bedroom and hot tub spa,” said Cupcake.
“Don’t bother,” I said. “We’ve got the picture.”
We went and stood on the main terrace and looked out over about a thousand hectares of lawn to the lagoon and the sea in the distance.
“You see those tall palms next to the swimming pool?” said Cupcake. “They were brought in by helicopter. And the pool is kept heated twelve months of the year, even though he is hardly ever in residence.”
“Very nice,” I said. “Now how about offering us some of that famous whisky?”
We made ourselves comfortable in the atrium and were soon joined by Cupcake bearing a tray loaded with a bottle of single malt, ice, Sparletta and glasses.
“This is the life,’ I said.
“Yah,” said the other guy. “This isn’t work. Only a fool would complain about a job like this.” He was looking at Cupcake. “What’s your problem?”
“Problem?” said Cupcake. “This house is my problem, mate. This house is a beautiful woman without a vagina. You know what I mean?”
We looked out at the distant strip of blue sea, with the line of white breakers in front and the blue sky at the back, and thought about it.
“Sorry, I don’t get it,” said the other guy.
“Not a bad metaphor,” I said, savouring the subtle blend of highland peat and sheep’s piss infused in water from a bonny brook. “To fall in love with the beautiful exterior, only to discover that one can never get at the honey pot inside must leave one feeling desolate, man, desolate.”
“Okay, now I see,” said the other guy. “You’re not content with living in luxury if you don’t also possess the fortune that makes it possible.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake!” said Cupcake. “That’s not what I mean at all. What I mean is that all this is initially seductive, but it’s superficial and largely worthless. I’ve been housesitting the place for three weeks now, and it’s making me suicidal. It’s like living in an empty waiting room, it’s so impersonal and cold. And it doesn’t make the owner happy, either. You should see him. He’s 50, fat, got an ulcer, and just had a triple bypass. He’s divorced and his kids only contact him when they want more money. And you should see his neighbour up the road. One of the richest men in South Africa and a real miserable looking bastard who wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire.”
“Hey,” I said, “That must be the old dude we nearly crashed into. Does he look like a malevolent toad? Like he’s got no chin he’s so obese?’
“That’s him,’ Sid Cupcake.
“So would you prefer to be looking after some poky two-roomed apartment in a dilapidated block in a rundown part of the city?” asked the other guy. “Where the entrance smells of dustbins and broken plumbing, and there’s a screaming baby next door, and dope fiends overhead trying to kill each other?”
“No, I wouldn’t,’ said Cupcake. “But that’s not what I’m getting at. Look, for the first week or so I couldn’t believe my luck and I was beginning to think that this way of life was what one should aspire to. But then I started to feel uneasy and restless. There was something wrong. It took another three days of worrying about it before I suddenly realised what it was about. The materialism paradox.”
“Too much value attached to the goodies money can buy?” I said. “Tell that to a man who lives in a shack.”
“Why is it a paradox?” asked the other guy.
“Because,’ said Cupcake, “I realised that the millionaire who owns this mansion is, on a certain level, far less of a materialist than I am. Or the man in the shack.
“How so?’
“Look,” said Cupcake, “Let’s take my old Corolla, for example. It’s a crappy old car and it gives me a lot of grief, but I can’t afford an upgrade. When it performs, I’m grateful; and when it misbehaves, I curse and threaten it. I have fond memories of having sex in the back seat, and every dent in the bodywork has a story to tell. You see, I have a relationship with that car. Now take the millionaire. He has a sports car and an SUV standing in the garage. They are hardly ever driven and their owner looks upon them with a total lack of sentiment. He sees them for what they are: disposable commodities that come with a price tag. He values them for the advertising hype about performance, craftsmanship and elegant styling, but only because it confers status. And it’s the same with everything else. This house, the contents, the garden, the fish – they have value for him only because he can afford them and put them on display. He doesn’t relate to the material world the way we do.”
“Well,” I said, “I suppose you could be onto something there. It’s a different way of looking at it. But surely you’re not suggesting this millionaire has a superior value system to yours?”
“Of course not,” said Cupcake. “What I’m saying is that he has become detached from the material objects he possesses. What he values most is the prestige associated with conspicuous consumption. He judges his own success not by how much he enjoys the fruits of his wealth but by the respect, admiration and envy his wealth is able to command. That’s why people like him are driven to make more and more money. There’s always someone able to behave more ostentatiously than you, though, so satisfaction is forever fleeting. I can see what it’s about and it fills me with feelings of meaninglessness and futility. I can’t take this sinecure any longer.”
“Hey, take it easy, man,” said the other guy, getting up to fill the glasses. Cupcake was showing signs of psychological distress, and on the point of becoming seriously distraught. “Keep a grip on the here-and-now. Hold on to the reality of genuine materialism, not that other kak. Here, drink this. This thousand-bucks whisky tastes better with lemonade and gives you more of a kick.”
“Yah,’ I said. “Just because this scumbag materialist has lost his soul down the toilet doesn’t mean we can’t try an wake the dead in his marble-floored mausoleum. We could start with a pool party. Tomorrow.”
“A topless pool party sounds cool,’ said the other guy. “With a venue like this a whole new world of possibilities could open up. What sports car did you say this creep has got in the garage?”
The flicker of interest in Cupcake’s eyes was encouraging. It meant that futility and meaninglessness hadn’t gained the upper hand just yet.
Urn For An Education
It is reported that the new mega rich in China are starting to send their sons to England for their education. They favour the old institutions like Eton, Harrow, Rugby, Winchester, Shrewsbury, St Paul’s and Merchant Taylors. The super affluent in Russia and India have also fallen in love with the English Public School system. However, it’s not academic excellence the nouveau riche have in mind when they pack their boys off to boarding school. No, this is about gaining entry to the club.
What the English public school does so well is to foster an unshakable belief in the importance of tradition, comradeship and loyalty. A sense of superiority and entitlement is engendered and they learn how to comport themselves straight back, direct gaze, firm handshake – and how to recognise one of their own kind. Not to mention how to snub outsiders and exclude them from the inner circle.
In South Africa we have our own versions of Eton, Harrow and Winchester. Boarding schools like Bishops, Hilton and Michaelhouse were cloned from the original English model and have replicated several generations of highly influential men. The success of these schools at producing young men capable of making their way to a position of affluence and influence is undisputed. And it has little to do with individual excellence. On the contrary, it’s all about who you know, not what you know. Even a total moron is guaranteed an easy passage through life as long as he wears the old school tie.
Well, in theory. It didn’t work like that for Cedric
“It was the system that killed him,” I said, as we walked to the car.
“It was his father who killed him,” said Cupcake.
“Kak,” said the other guy. “He killed himself.”
The other guy drove. Cupcake was front passenger and I sat in the back with Cedric. Cedric’s ashes, that is.
“That was fucking depressing,” I said. “Stop at the bottle store in Muizenberg.”
When we got to Sunrise Circle the hopelessness of our situation became apparent. The car park was empty and it felt like we were crossing the Sahara in a sand storm. At the beachfront the other guy didn’t even bother to stop the car. He just did a big U-turn and started back the way we had come.
“If I want my windscreen and paintwork sand blasted, I’ll go to a professional and get it done properly, thank you.”
“Park in the lee of the toilets over there,” said Cupcake.
We cracked open the frosties and sat watching the seagulls trying to land next to us
“You can’t go anywhere in Cape Town without some beggar comes hassling you,” said Cupcake. Why don’t these birds go find a job?”
“Or commit suicide,” said the other guy.
“He tried too hard,” I said. “Took it all too seriously.”
“Too much pressure from his father,” said Cupcake. “That’s what triggered his first breakdown.”
“They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad. Is that it?” said the other guy. “Only a loser blames his parents for his lack of success in life.”
“His father thought he was doing him a favour, sending him to a larney school,” I said. “He would have been alright if he had gone to a crappy, Model C school like the ones we went to.”
“You reckon?”
The first beer had dispelled some of the gloom, so we opened another.
“Hey, Cupcake,” I said. “Did you see how his father was checking out your footwear?”
“Ah, fuck him,” said Cupcake. “I’m wearing a tie, right?”
“:Yah, but Crocs? To a funeral?”
“So why ask us to scatter the ashes if he thinks we got no class? Why didn’t he do it himself?”
“In a wheelchair? How’s he supposed to throw his son’s ashes into the waves if he’s in a wheelchair?”
“Well, there’s no way anybody is going to bbe able to scatter ash in this gale.”
We sat watching the sand forming mini dunes on the expanse of gravel parking.
“You know what they say about the sewage system in Cape Town?”
We waited, wondering where this was going.
“They say that anything you put in the sewers will eventually end up in the sea.”
All three of us turned to look at the international dude marking the entrance to the men’s toilets.
“Not a bad idea,” I said.
“In one of his manic phases,” Cupcake said, “Cedric would have appreciated this.”
“A terrible waste, when you come to think of it,” said the other guy. “All those years of expensive schooling, and then four years at university. Not counting all the medical bills.”
I led the way with the urn and poured roughly equal portions of our friend’s remains into three toilet bowls. We took up our positions, Cupcake imitated a bugler and played the Last Post, and we then ceremoniously and solemnly flushed Cedric on his way.
Back in the car, we opened another beer.
“He’s better off where he is now,” said Cupcake.
“His life was hell on earth,” the other guy said. “He made a wise choice.”
“It just goes to show,” I said.
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Cedric’s story is a lesson to us. He has shown us the danger of succumbing to societal pressure and aspiring to a …”
“Hey, fuck you!” the other guy shouted, interrupting me. He started the engine. A big black backed gull had just come out of nowhere like a stealth bomber and zapped the windscreen with its payload of filth. It was time to go.
What the English public school does so well is to foster an unshakable belief in the importance of tradition, comradeship and loyalty. A sense of superiority and entitlement is engendered and they learn how to comport themselves straight back, direct gaze, firm handshake – and how to recognise one of their own kind. Not to mention how to snub outsiders and exclude them from the inner circle.
In South Africa we have our own versions of Eton, Harrow and Winchester. Boarding schools like Bishops, Hilton and Michaelhouse were cloned from the original English model and have replicated several generations of highly influential men. The success of these schools at producing young men capable of making their way to a position of affluence and influence is undisputed. And it has little to do with individual excellence. On the contrary, it’s all about who you know, not what you know. Even a total moron is guaranteed an easy passage through life as long as he wears the old school tie.
Well, in theory. It didn’t work like that for Cedric
“It was the system that killed him,” I said, as we walked to the car.
“It was his father who killed him,” said Cupcake.
“Kak,” said the other guy. “He killed himself.”
The other guy drove. Cupcake was front passenger and I sat in the back with Cedric. Cedric’s ashes, that is.
“That was fucking depressing,” I said. “Stop at the bottle store in Muizenberg.”
When we got to Sunrise Circle the hopelessness of our situation became apparent. The car park was empty and it felt like we were crossing the Sahara in a sand storm. At the beachfront the other guy didn’t even bother to stop the car. He just did a big U-turn and started back the way we had come.
“If I want my windscreen and paintwork sand blasted, I’ll go to a professional and get it done properly, thank you.”
“Park in the lee of the toilets over there,” said Cupcake.
We cracked open the frosties and sat watching the seagulls trying to land next to us
“You can’t go anywhere in Cape Town without some beggar comes hassling you,” said Cupcake. Why don’t these birds go find a job?”
“Or commit suicide,” said the other guy.
“He tried too hard,” I said. “Took it all too seriously.”
“Too much pressure from his father,” said Cupcake. “That’s what triggered his first breakdown.”
“They fuck you up, your Mum and Dad. Is that it?” said the other guy. “Only a loser blames his parents for his lack of success in life.”
“His father thought he was doing him a favour, sending him to a larney school,” I said. “He would have been alright if he had gone to a crappy, Model C school like the ones we went to.”
“You reckon?”
The first beer had dispelled some of the gloom, so we opened another.
“Hey, Cupcake,” I said. “Did you see how his father was checking out your footwear?”
“Ah, fuck him,” said Cupcake. “I’m wearing a tie, right?”
“:Yah, but Crocs? To a funeral?”
“So why ask us to scatter the ashes if he thinks we got no class? Why didn’t he do it himself?”
“In a wheelchair? How’s he supposed to throw his son’s ashes into the waves if he’s in a wheelchair?”
“Well, there’s no way anybody is going to bbe able to scatter ash in this gale.”
We sat watching the sand forming mini dunes on the expanse of gravel parking.
“You know what they say about the sewage system in Cape Town?”
We waited, wondering where this was going.
“They say that anything you put in the sewers will eventually end up in the sea.”
All three of us turned to look at the international dude marking the entrance to the men’s toilets.
“Not a bad idea,” I said.
“In one of his manic phases,” Cupcake said, “Cedric would have appreciated this.”
“A terrible waste, when you come to think of it,” said the other guy. “All those years of expensive schooling, and then four years at university. Not counting all the medical bills.”
I led the way with the urn and poured roughly equal portions of our friend’s remains into three toilet bowls. We took up our positions, Cupcake imitated a bugler and played the Last Post, and we then ceremoniously and solemnly flushed Cedric on his way.
Back in the car, we opened another beer.
“He’s better off where he is now,” said Cupcake.
“His life was hell on earth,” the other guy said. “He made a wise choice.”
“It just goes to show,” I said.
“Yeah? Like what?”
“Cedric’s story is a lesson to us. He has shown us the danger of succumbing to societal pressure and aspiring to a …”
“Hey, fuck you!” the other guy shouted, interrupting me. He started the engine. A big black backed gull had just come out of nowhere like a stealth bomber and zapped the windscreen with its payload of filth. It was time to go.
