Jon Elkon

Category: Thoughts

  • Cure for the Common Cold? – Keep it secret!

    Do you have a cold? Yesterday I started one of those blasted demonic possession infections, you know, when all the liquid in the body attempts to exit through the nose, and the throat feels as if sandpapered inside, and the eyes blaze in red haze and the whole world becomes  ugly and threatening, freezing and wet.

    It came on quite quickly. The day before someone said, “Sniffing are we?” and I replied, as I always do, “No no, just clearing!” Other people usually notice I have a cold long before I do. It most often happens on the phone when I get the question, “Do you have a cold?” and blow me down (pun execrable) the next day there I am wrapped up in misery.

    Imagine if there was a cheap, easy, convenient way to cure a cold.

    Are you imagining that?

    Imagine how quickly the whole of Big Pharm would immediately put billions into discrediting it, claiming it causes cancer, buying up the fields where its cultivated, lobbying the government to declare it a Class A illegal substance. Let’s face it, they’ll be miffed.

    Which is why I need you to keep this very secret, hear?

    So here’s the story: Years ago I went to Algeria with a dear friend and colleague, to attend his brother’s wedding. And on my second day, there it was, my old friend the Streamer. I was streaming from every orifice. Well, not every. Coughing, leaking, leaving trails of dank tissues behind me wherever I went.

    And his mum, seeing this, said in Algerian “Don’t panic you leaking man. I will fix” and brought me a steaming infusion in a pot and a towel to wrap around, so that I could inhale the fumes. So I did, for around ten minutes, then another ten minutes, and then another later.

    The next day there were no symptoms of the virus.

    I remembered this on Monday, when the symptoms came on and in my misery I wracked my brains for who, where and above all, what was in that infusion. As I had done before, I asked my friend yet again what this miraculous water had contained and all he could give me was the Arabic word, which was no help. It was something like “Tawbeel” or Tawabil – then I thought of Google Translate.

    After a few tweaks I had the answer and within minutes had driven to Sainsbury’s trailing wet toilet paper after me like a streamer.

    It cost a pound!

    Oregano. A small bottle of the dried stuff from the herbs and spices section.

    I rushed it home. Poured a few tablespoons of the green stuff into a pot of a few inches of water, boiled, placed a towel around my head and sniffed deeply several times.

    Am I cured? Well, that was yesterday. Today I am hardly sniffing at all. There is no sore throat. My eyes are normal. Look, I doubt very much that the cold s gone – but it sure as hell feels like it. Watch this space! Or better still, please try this yourself and let me know how you get on?

    Do a little googling into “Oregano for colds”  – for example

    http://www.livestrong.com/article/495376-oil-of-oregano-vs-colds-flu/

  • Apocalypse Then!

    Image: The Guardian 29/12

    The Four Horsemen are gathering…and one man tries to do something about it!

    Strange thing, this bonfire of the personalities. Whatttt! George Michael and now Carrie Fisher! Followed the next day by her mom Debbie Reynolds…One after the bloody other! The names paraded through Gregor’s mind as he strode up Chiswick High Street. And David Bowie, of course. That one felt like a personal bereavement. Muhammad Ali! A punch to the midriff. Leonard Cohen, growling his way off into the sunset. Prince! Fidel Castro…Gene Wilder…Zsa Zsa Gabor, just the other day Darrrrling…what’s so special about 2016? Or is it so special? Must Google celebrity deaths 2016. And go back in time. Is there a website which compares this year with previous years? Or is it that this year was the year all one’s icons have reached the right age to die? But poor George Michael was only 53.

    But it was Jo Cox’ death that had hurt him the most. Bastards.

    He turned left at Acton Lane and followed the curve of the road to Chiswick Park station. His mobile leapt into his hand. “Hi Siri” he said, “Celebrity deaths 2016”  “Checking” said Siri, then almost immediately “I found this for Celebrity deaths 2016”. Lists, lists.

    Victoria Wood.  Her self-parodying heartfelt comic voice now only digital. All these people. Now digital.

    Oh no, Harper Lee. Killed long after her bird mocked the prejudices and bigotry of the American South.

    The ugly grey stained concrete of the Deco station inserted itself into his life like an unwelcome alien space ship. He pocketed the phone, tapped through the barrier, rushed up the stairs and boarded a waiting District Line train. He sat down, melted into his mobile screen.

    Alan Rickman. A professional baddie.

    John Glenn. Saw the Earth as it should be. Beautiful.

    The tube carriage mounted into the sky.

    Terry Wogan…that’s seriously unfair. Now there is no ironic excuse to watch Eurovision.

    Margaret Forster…gave me my first enthusiastic review back in the eighties.

    “The next station is Earl’s Court” the recorded announcement lied.

    And what about Ronnie Corbett! and Umberto Eco even – too many names. So many and each one what Gregor would call a Good One. Not always good through their lives, true, but each with a strong streak of good running right through. Like a beam of love he would have said, had he been a soppy sort.

    With a sigh he looked up. Everything had gone utterly silent. No rattle, no hum, no roar.

    This is Wrong, he thought. With a capital W.

    He stared through the window at the utter black of vacuum. And gradually he became aware of the passengers seated opposite. A yawning, frowning, huddling gurn of faces in a row like balls set up for a purpose yet to be invented, probably one of those perpetual motion machines – if you tapped one it would tap the next and so on all up the line and then back again. And each time each head would say Hello Mate!

    I must be dead I suppose, he thought. Either that or I’ve gone suddenly deaf. And we’re passing through the blackest of black tunnels.

    He realised that somehow the number of people in the carriage was increasing exponentially. Even the aisle began to fill up with hollow ones, frozen to their phones.

    No, that’s it. I’m dead. I’ll never fulfil my mission now, he thought. Westminster is so far away. He clutched his briefcase tightly to his lap.

    Meanwhile the recorded voice went on lying, station by station, as if there was such a thing as a destination, until, unaccountably, it stopped.

    The doors slid open and there was nothing but light outside. Passengers stared, stunned, confused. “What on earth is happening?” He asked no-one.

    A blowsy woman in green said “I have no idea! This bloody District line just gets worse! I have to get to Debenhams by 4!”

    A youth in a hoodie laughed. “You’ll be lucky!” he said.

    The announcement nevertheless took them quite by surprise. “Ladies and gentlemen and others. You have arrived at your destination. This train terminates here. Kindly abandon this train. I repeat, kindly abandon the train. You must leave all your baggage inside. I repeat, all your baggage.”

    They stood, milled about, then like well-conditioned London commuters, they followed orders.

    “I am the Conductor,” a portly man in a London Underground uniform using a loudhailer, introduced himself to the passengers as they stood in a confused clump along the platform. “I will be leading you to your destination.” A clamour of voices, questions, demands, incomprehension was met by bland reassurance. “I can understand your confusion of course! I will explain. There is nothing to worry about.” He walked to about the middle of the platform and continued.

    “I knew it! The Seventh Day Adventist blurted. “It’s the Day of Judgement! We are the Blessed!”

    “You’re nuts” a hipster giggled. “Religious nut are you?”

    “You may laugh,” the nut said. “I realised yesterday when I was looking at the list of all the great and the good that died this year. It’s the Apocalypse! All of them were Christians who had seen the light! God hath gathered them up unto him.”

    “Uh, no, that’s not true…” the Conductor muttered.

    “Yes it is! The Four Horsemen are gathered. The Trump, the ISIS, the whatsname, Russian President, and Mick Jagger I should think…we predicted it! It’s the End of the World and we have been saved!”

    “Not quite,” the Conductor said. “If only we were that well organised! We have been making rather a lot of cock ups recently. Actually, there are only two thousand three hundred places and we are oversubscribed. And no, we don’t only take Christians. And obviously we have made a mistake with you, young lady. In fact there are far too many of you here.  Some will have to be injured.”

    What! A furious babble of protest erupted. What do you mean injured? This line gets worse!

    “On behalf of the Underground my sincere apologies ladies gentlemen. I will need to divide you into In and Out, Injured and dead. Right! Any volunteers?”

    “I have no intention of being either!” The fat lady spouted. “My daughter is waiting for me in the tea shop at Debenhams and believe me, you wouldn’t want to keep her waiting!”

    “Really madam? And who else has an urgent appointment?”

    “Well me ” Gregor said. “Me.”

    “Really? And what was your appointment if I may ask?”

    “Well,” Gregor said modestly, “apparently I was supposed to save the world.”

    “Really?” The Conductor chortled disbelievingly. Other passengers tittered.

    “Oh yes!” Gregor said. ”You see, I am a Special Advisor to Theresa May, our Prime Minister.”

    “Show off!” The youth said contemptuously.

    “Oh yes,” said the Conductor, “it is perfectly possible. So why was your presence at the meeting so important? Prime Ministers have several Special Advisors. Paid lots of money apparently” He laughed.

    “It was a very special meeting,” Gregor said. ”A very secret meeting.”

    “Ah.” said the Conductor. “Well, we have no secrets here,” he said. “Why don’t you tell us all about it? Well, everybody we’re about to hear a story! So let’s all sit down. Do you want to hear a story?” he asked.

    “Yes yes” the other passengers chorused, and like obedient children, mouths agape, they sat on the dusty platform.

    So Gregor told them all about it. What the hell, now he was dead nothing mattered. He told them how he was supposed to meet with the PM and travel with her to a top secret destination in the countryside where a top secret meeting had been set up. So top secret that only a few people had the slightest idea as to where it would take place and who would attend.

    “But I know who was to attend,” he said.

    “Who, who?” they asked

    “Well, we have had all the great leaders and leaders-to be smuggled into the country in disguise. There’s Vladimir Putin. For example.”

    “Who?” the hoodie boy asked.

    “And Donald Trump of course.”

    “What!” the Conductor gasped.

    “And the deputy leader of ISIS, Abu Muslim al-Turkmani”

    “Not to mention some of the leaders of the right wing in Europe, like Le Pen, Wilders, Hofer, Grillo…”

    “Is this a stupid question,” an elderly gentleman in a striped suit asked, “but – well, why?”

    “Why? Why?” many others clamoured.

    “Yes, the Conductor asked, genuinely bemused. “Why?”

    “Well first I need to explain that this is by no means their first meeting. No. Every couple of years or so the leaders of the world get together in secret to make plans for the next year, work out who will win which wars, organise the distribution of wealth into their bank accounts, and so on.”

    “What!” The old man said.

    “They’ve been meeting secretly since Kruschev first set them up.” he said.

    “I knew that,” the obligatory Rasta smiled. “Obvious!”

    “Third time for Trump of course. Obama refused to join.”

    “Who would have guessed” the Conductor said with a smile.

    “So this time I decided to blow them up.”

    There was silence in that huge place. No breath was breathed.

    Until, eventually: “Blow them up?” the Conductor asked. Aghast.

    “Obviously. I have been an organiser of these meetings for years. But this year the bonfire of the celebrities finally pissed me off. I advised against it! But they never listen to my advice. They just made this decision to delete all people who could possibly suspect what they are up to. All the Good Ones. All the Smart Ones”

    “Tell me something, “the Conductor asked. “What is in your briefcase?”

    “Why,” Gregor answered. “The bomb of course!” He opened the flap and stared inside. It was completely empty.

    “The bomb went off,” the Conductor said sadly. “At Chiswick Park Station. So now we know why.”

    “I guess we do,” Gregor said sadly.

     

    Is there a Great Plan?

    Or is this just cock up

    Of God or Man? 

  • Great Grandfather Grinch

    I am a great-grandfather. All my beautiful friends lined up to pour out good wishes, and I felt blessed. But it’s not my fault! Not my choice! Just my fate…it feels strange people “congratulating” me. What – for having survived this long? If I had been the father at age 67 I would have deserved congratulations- for having successfully bonked a young and beautiful woman, without being as rich as Trump. Or Murdoch. Or even Paul McCartney. If an old and POOR guy snags a young and beautiful woman, don’t just congratulate him, measure his dick. Have the woman’s sanity and intelligence tested, to ensure she is an informed consenting adult.

    Perhaps there is such a thing as a gerontophile. Hah! Spellcheck does not know the word, so there probably isn’t and I’ve just invented it. Definition: a young person who finds geriatrics sexually exciting. Well, there may be one. Or maybe two. If there is and by an incredible chance you are reading this, you know my email address. Don’t bother sending a photograph, I don’t care if you are masculine or feminine, neuter or animal, let’s meet under the clock at Times Square.

    I am of course joking, but let’s face it, for the young the idea of an older person either having sex or even desiring it is quite revolting. This is perfectly natural: we are programmed to seek sex when we are of an age to have children, and to avoid sex with anyone not likely to contribute to that genetic imperative. As far as I’m concerned, I lost my sexual self-confidence ages ago and am always amazed if someone shows an interest. I would as soon chase sex as I would chase the role of Hamlet at the National. It would be nice but, really, no point.

    So how does being a great-grandfather feel? Old. But I felt that yesterday. Proud? Why on earth should I feel proud! Yes, I feel a lot of affection for my son and his son and his daughter, they’re all nice people. I don’t know the grandson’s spouse but I’m sure she’s nice people too. But the fact they can all have sex is of no real consequence to me, it’s part of the genetic imperative.

    Heigh ho. Thanks for all your lovely congratulations and good wishes. Apologies for being such a grinch.

  • Rogue One – a Rogue Review

    Well, frrreeeeyow! Reason they call it a Space Opera? Not telling you, if you haven’t seen it, that’d be a spoiler. Clue: what happens at the end of the opera? The fat lady sings? No, not that stereotype, Though, talking about stereotypes, The heroes of course are 92% white male. Whereas the baddies are 100% white male.

    Of course! But that’s just the whinge of a PC-afflicted viewer, who is also compelled to point out how few of the chorus of aliens have an actual speaking role. Generally their job is to swarm about in crowd scenes with lots of rubber on their heads in costumes out of a medieval market. The exception – put there to cheer up whining pc peeps – being the General. Yes, the General of the whole darn anti-Empire fleet is a frog dressed in a La Scala Pinkerton costume from Madam Butterfly.

    The best news I can give you is the absence of Cute Robots. Hurray! My stomach was saved from the acid attack I get every time I see the ghastly R2-D2 and the worse C-3PO, and cringe at their awful lines. I do not object to the fact that they are gay (thank goodness there is at least one gay couple in Lucasworld) it’s just they are such stereotypes! And I resent the fact they are robots and we are never likely to see them kiss.

    There is a gay robot in Rogue One, but he is a much more adult, more human gay who is even allowed to hit and kill humans, contrary to the holy laws proposed by Isaac Asimov. (see below) And he turns out to be a hero. Of course, his fate is operatic.

    The plot is yet another rerun of the plots we have grown to love from the previous films: brave handsome people versus a huge empire of sinister looking baddies. Darth Vader puts in a guest appearance, of course. As usual, the baddies’ aim with their sinister weapons is terrible, while our heroes’ bullets naturally wipe out acres of white clad badness. And while the Empire has the monster planet-destroying weapon as usual, the goodies have a bigger gun. Or one of them does, confirming the universal trope (or rather the American trope) that bigger guns always win. Which is why 69% of the American population thinks semi-automatic weapons are a good thing, More bangs for your buck. Which is probably also a slogan of the local brothel in Tallahassee.

    The positive side: Better script, better acting. Better CGI! This film definitely grabs at the fundament, almost but not quite as well as the first film did. Well, 50%. Which is much more than the last pathetic rehash of a Star Wars film did, even though poor old Harrison Ford kicks the bucket. Hey, that’s not a spoiler any more, though again, it’s a clue…

    Score: 4 stars.

    For all the Star Trek geekery you will ever need see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars

    Asimov’s 3 Laws of Robotics:(Fom Isaac Asimov’s I Robot)

    • A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
    • A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
    • A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

  • Back in broken Brexit Britain…worse verse

     

    Hurray hurray hurray
    Britain has had its day
    The trains are stuck
    Streets full of muck
    Hurray Theresa May

    Hurray hurray hurray!
    There’s poverty on the way
    With budgets cut
    The poor shut up
    And schools squeezed all the way
    Hurray hurray hurray!
    Our media’s going away
    The Murdoch lies
    And buys the Skies
    The Fox will have his day

    Hurray hurray hurray
    The Brexit any day
    Ten years or so
    What’s sold will go
    And no-one left to play
    With.

  • From Cape Town to London – in conclusion

    From Cape Town to London – in conclusion

    Waiting

    So in an airport lounge again, waiting for a flight. I had been booked Cape Town – Gatwick. I changed it to Heathrow.

    Irony Irony! As a (light green) member of the Green Party; as a resident of Chiswick, right under the flight path from Heathrow; as an insomniac – I have dutifully hated their evil expansion plans ever since ever. But there is this strike, see…Southern Rail ASLEF drivers have come all-out in a strike to protest against driver-only trains. In order to prepare myself, to acclimatise to my return, I tuned in to the Today program on Radio 4 this morning. And there was the John Humphreys vs Union paradigm, and this time it was personal! This time I would have to hitchhike, with all my baggage, from the depths of Surrey to sunny Chiswick, when Heathrow is a mere 20 minutes from home…

    What a hypocrite.

    Is consistency a virus? Are principles as changeable as socks, especially when they start to stink?

    A theme of my visit to South Africa, for sure. This visit has caused me to suspect everybody. Trust no bloody body. Accept that in the end me, you, Mr McGree, their son Mary, their three dogs Cassius Brutus and Julius are entirely untrustworthy and should all be given painless release by that nice vet Dr Crippling.

    Allow me to unpack that.

    Right, so I have been telling you in great detail about the awful corruption here – or rather, I have given you a great hyperlink to a brilliant summary as well as a few choice details. And we have to sadly admit that the ANC, which I idolised and idealised and adored when I was a starry eyed youth putting up anti-government posters in the middle of the night calling for the end of Apartheid blah blah – the ANC has been shown to a good place for bad people to hang out. There are good people in there still, I insist. Ramaphosa is one, but he seems so ineffectual next to the big guns of the big bums, like Zuma, And so like Trump, he has gathered a nest of vipers around him, sharp toothed monsters who sup and slurp and …from the trough like hyperannuated obese piglets with rabies. They will say they’ve been starving for years. Hence the hunger, the overeating, the abandonment of ethics and the principles of the ANC. I say shame.

    Airborne

    The desk attendant with a simpering grin promised me “a whole row! Lots of legroom” when I asked for a window seat.

    So why did he do that.

    Ok so he sees in front of him an old blokie carrying not one but two walking sticks. I dunno. I see a walking stick, I buy it. If t’s not as if I collect them – that would be utterly nerdy. No. I collect Japanese swords, guns, stamps, insults, marbles, but not walking sticks. Very little of the aforegoing is true. See if you can work out what.

    And this blokie doesn’t just want to change flights, he wants – gasp – a window seat. The cheek. And tries to ingratiate himself by saying, ” I want to watch Cape Town receding into my past and weep.”

    “I know,” thinks desk jockey, “I can say anything I like to this old fool, make him happy and I’ll never see him again in my life! It’s make someone happy day!”

    Hypocrite

    So he squishes me onto an aisle right in the middle of cattle class with each and every adjoining seat full of women.

    I have nothing against women, of course, but on a 12 hour flight any gender whatsoever near my space is a space invader. Now I know I am destined to spend twelve hours of my life eyes jammed open with toothpicks watching lots of tiny shitty versions of a screenplay in which a gun wins. Not spread over four seats full of Zopiclone and sweet dreams.

    Back to hypocrisy: South Africa is fantastically overmanned. And womanned. Everywhere there are helpful charming people, usually black, whose entire job seems to consist of smiling and saying nice things. This is rather lovely, to be honest. Some of them even seem to mean it. Others are absolutely bored to death and buried by the endless demands of fools who actually ask them questions, or disrupt in any way their deep cogitations on the futility of it all.

    In the gents toilet at the airport there is a very smiley man. Very very smiley. He greets each pisser with apparent huge love and respect. Points to the wash basin post micturation and says, charmingly, “now wash your hands.” Then, once that task has been performed by the now pissed-out or pissed-off customer, he says “enjoy your flight.”

    Sitting in one of the cubicles musing on this, I began to count the times he said it and assess the differences in tone. Was he just slightly adapting the delivery of his lines for each person? Was this possibly an apprentice actor, putting a subtle emotional emphasis on each delivery (not a pun. That would disturb the flow) to convey, say, distaste at the man’s choice of tie, or amusement at the way the client’s belly protruded out of his shirt, or just lust?

    Actually, no. Each time he said it, it was almost if not exactly like the time before.

    I felt the need to reward him, and examined my wallet. I just wanted somehow to change his world just a little bit, to make a tiny impression on his soul. I stared at a twenty rand note and thought no, that’s just a tip. Not a statement. He needed to be faced with the full realisation of his hypocrisy, and be aware that somebody appreciated his humanity. So, after dutifully flushing, battling with the lock (would he rescue me? No, he continued his recitation) then washing my hands as ordered, I said “Imagine if you had one rand for every time you said that.”

    His shock at being addressed was palpable. He had no idea how to react. “Yes sir” he said. Then, as if in self-defence, “have a good flight”

    “Therefore,” I said, “here’s for a hundred times you’ve said it.” And paid him accordingly. He examined his head for appropriate words and gave up after having made one or two futile attempts.

    I left feeling foolish. I had just rewarded someone for their hypocrisy. But that was how he earned his living!

    So how many more people earn their livings by being entirely insincere?

    I need to watch a movie and think about that. I need to watch Florence Foster Jenkins. That should prop up all my prejudices…

     

    Did that. So apart from the fact that a movie is all deception, a concatenation of pixels swirling about on a tiny computer screen to tell a story which is either all lies or mostly lies, well this particular one had a story all about hypocrisy. You probably know it: fabulously wealthy New York socialite in the war years thinks she can sing opera and really she can’t. She has a voice like a demented Aaargh-aaargh bird (I have just invented this ornithological marvel. It is two thirds ostrich size, has brilliant red and blue striped plumage and two beaks.) we are instructed to feel sorry for her as she has Syphilus, the AIDS of the day. And however horrible the singing everyone has to pretend she’s absolutely marvellous because of that and more important, because of the money she gives to everybody in her vicinity. Apparently based on fact. “Based on” means they took the facts and lied about them.

    It’s a luvvie fest. Hugh Grant as chief male luvvie who loves Florence, played by Meryl Streep who is luvvie in charge. They are both brilliant by the way. Grant manages to make hypocrisy noble, while Streep does the dying fat diva with her whole heart and soul.

    We are surrounded by insincerity. The main purpose of which appears to be to make money, or gain adulation, or feed someone else’s need for adulation in exchange for money.

     

    So in conclusion: I believe South Africa is a nation of beautiful people trying so hard just to be good, to fulfill the spirit of the best Constitution ever written, after the American one. Or just to survive. The problem is that they are ruled by a party which believes it has a moral right to stay in power, and is not ready to tackle the immorality and hypocrisy at the very top.

    Unless the government starts to spend real money on education, on funding small business startups much more, poverty will continue to increase and the gap between rich and poor will widen further. Some sincerity is needed now.

    Zuma must go. And you must go to South Africa, and love it as I do.

    And I must go back to London, to my cosy cold dusty flat in Brexit-bound Britain. Hello. Next – Letters from London.

     

    Love you all.

     

     

     

  • House Shopping

    House Shopping

    This is not a decapitated dog

    Turns out Number 1 Son (who is also Number 2 and 3 son as he is in fact the only son. He is also Number 1 Child as I have no other. I mention this because I will be calling him Sunwun throughout.) needs a new house. Not that the old one in Oranjezicht is falling down or anything, but relocation became necessary when a concatenation of unavoidable events required that Sunwun, from being one of a pair, became a single. This is not something I choose to go into here, though I will certainly fictionalise it at some point in the future, when it has stopped hurting.

    So roped into the process as the indulgent parent, I went, accompanied by Number 1 Daughter of Sunwun, to inspect a house to rent in Hout Bay.

    Hout Bay: Pronounced, dear Brits and Yanks, ‘Hote’ or, if you are in the mood to anglicise it, ‘Howt.’. ‘Bay’ is pronounced Bay. ‘Hout’ means wood. So this place name joins the ranks of the daftest and least original names in the world. For example, ‘Cape Town.’ Being the Town that is situated on the Cape. Great name. In fact the whole province is called ‘The Cape’ which is spectacularly boring. Why ”Table Mountain” – it looks like a table…What was the original Khoi or San name? And the best example, ‘South Africa’, because the country is in the south. Yes, of Africa.

    Uh, wait a minute. ‘Wood Bay?’ Huh?

    Once a precious little fishing village, the town is a few miles south of Cape Town on the M63, a journey of about 40 minutes along one of the most awe-inspiring roads in the world. Once the hump between Table Mountain and Lions Head has been surmounted, the road swings merrily along the Atlantic seaboard on the right, mountains on the left past some of the prettiest beaches you can imagine. It’s the African Cote d’Azur, much more physically grand than the French version, and with cheaper food. Bigger mountains. Bluer ocean, with whales.

    Hout Bay has gone from a period of white middle class expansion to a sudden stop. The expansion halted. Stopped. Started to reverse. Because with a suddenness that threw all the balls into the air, a squatter camp appeared just off a roundabout and right near the main road.. Called Imizamo Yethu which means “through our collective efforts”, this raggedy corrugated-iron and scrap wood township houses around 20,000 mainly black or “Coloured” (mixed race) residents on about 44 acres.

    And so the preening middle-class white residents proceeded to lay eggs and allegations, mainly to do with the increase in the crime rate.

    So yes, there is crime in Hout Bay. Apparently. I wrote about how the ice cream parlour lady faced three gunmen a couple of weeks ago, and all the white smart houses have fences topped with electrified wire. Signs proclaiming ‘Armed Response’ and ’24 Hour Surveillance’ are attached to each gate. The roaring of horribly betoothed hellhounds permeates the air.

    And yet – and yet –

    The house on xxxx street is a typical bourgeois South African bungalow. Spread over a hillside, with a sparkling swimming pool and Khoi Carp pond, surrounded by razor wire and electric fence, “three bedrooms, , and thoroughly modern state-of the art capacious kitchen and dining room, this is a home built for entertainment and luxurious living. Your comfort and safety are assured in this exclusive part of Hout Bay…At only R25,000 per month…” (Estate Agent’s description)

    “Very nice”, said Sunwun daughter.

    “Very nice” I agreed.

    The next day we had another appointment, this time to view a house for sale. Only R2.8 million. “So cheap!” said Sunwun. This time daughter was not present; she had gone off to Summer Camp to be indoctrinated into some arcane religion or other.

    The appointment was rather convenient, as we had been invited to a ‘Braaivleis’ – barbecue – by a dear old flame of Sunwun, an Italian of delightful dottiness and a streak of purest power, who lived in Hout Bay. The viewing was at three, giving us plenty of time for lazing by the pool and doing splashy things, chatting in the 29 degree sun or hiding from it, with a small crowd of adults and kids with a distinctly Italian flavour. Just a bunch of friends by a pool in South Africa, 2016.

    So we did that, and what was going through my head was this: actually what is the difference between 2016 December Cape Town and 1990 December Cape Town? Could I transport this lot back in time to pre-apartheid SA and notice any difference? Apart from the iphones?

    No.

    In 1980 if you’d asked me what the difference might be in 2016, were Apartheid to have been peacefully dismantled (and who would have believed that could have happened?) I would have painted this word picture:

    A beautiful suburb of Madiba City, Tambo Bay, in the world heritage country that is Azania. The sun sits up there like a fat ginger cat on fire. Below, the Townlet is a thriving community, having a Sunday the way a gourmet has each course at a Michelin restaurant. The streets brim with bright-coloured peacockery, friends wander from restaurant to bar to café to home to the swimming pool…

    In this fantasy world the garden would be filled with a jolly chatty crowd of all colours – and none of the individuals in the crowd would think for one moment about the colour of anyone’s skin. Just, as MLK said, “the content of their characters”. There would be all the genders. All the sexualities. The conversation would be about arts, about the Just Society, about how to distribute wealth. The main topic would be how to counter climate change. Not how much everyone hates Mr Zuma. There would be no electrified fence. There would certainly be no squatter camp…

    I said this to Sunwun whose response was, with a tinge of annoyance, “much too soon! You still see everything through the lens of race!” and I guess that’s true. All of us, all who grew up in the Apartheid era, are damaged. Wounded. Our minds are forever tainted. “My daughter, your granddaughter – “ he continued, “she doesn’t see race. She just sees people.”

    “And appreciate, “ he added, “how far we’ve come. All those lovely people at the barbecue hate racism as much as you do. That’s progress, that’s evolution. They are proud to be South African. And their children will take that to the next level…”

    So yes, he’s right. Evolution away from something so perverted, so abnormal as Apartheid has to be slow.

     

    I just wish it would bloody hurry up.

     

    The house for sale was the direct opposite of the rental property of the previous day.. While it had the same space, the (totally algaed) swimming pool, it was grubby and shabby and neglected. There was no electrified fence. “What’s the point?” the lady of the house asked, “We keep windows and doors open. They can see in. They can see we’ve got nothing worth stealing.”

    We asked her why she had no dog. “They just throw poisoned meat over the fence,” she said. “So we don’t bother.”

    Depressed, we went into the shopping area to seek out Perroni beers as requested by our host.

    Suddenly I felt as if I was in Africa. The streets full of all races, all classes. An atmosphere of bustle and business. When smiles erupted on children’s faces, the world lit up. I felt totally safe. My son greets people, any people, with a charming brotherliness that gains instant love from strangers. By the time we track down some Perroni I’m feeling strangely high, stupidly happy.

    I love this place. I love its present, and I love its future.

     

    In my LAST letter, which will probably be tomorrow – depending on jet lag issues, I will sum up…

     

     

  • How to Make Millions by Screwing South Africans!

    How to Make Millions by Screwing South Africans!

    Hipster Hovels in Cape Town’s CBD

    These tips could change your life!

    Part 1: Properteee

     

    Buy that crack house on Buitenkunt Street. Hells bells babe, where have you been! This is the final opportunity to make money from property in Cape Town! Houses here are nearly as expensive as they are in London.

    That house is a Victorian mansion gone not just to seed but to wrack and ruin. First, of course, you have to get rid of the people in there. The best way to do this is to get hold of as much crack as you can afford. I have a special deal on jonelkon.com, a kilo for R750. Ok so it’s really cheap. It’s a case of Buyer Beware and I swear all that Johnson’s Baby Powder, Aspirin and Horse Tranquilliser I bought yesterday was for personal use. Once you have completed this transaction you need to stand outside the house chanting “free crack! Get your crack filled here!” Until all the downandouts have poured out of the house onto the streets. Then you and a bunch of your beefiest buddies pour in, disinfectant at hand, and declare the house a Republic. The police will probably be furious at losing this marvelous source of revenue but once you’re a republic you can claim diplomatic immunity, tart the place up and sell it for R7.2 million.

    Happy?

    If that’s not making you enough, here are some other scams to cheer up your day.

     

    Part 2: Screw the Hipsters.

    Ok so Cape Town is now booming and seething and flourishing and flowering. Hurray!

    The happy hipsters are on the rise

    The beardy boys with perfumed eyes

    With coffeed lips and tofu sighs

    They strut the streets and Waterfront 

    Despising tourists on the hunt

    And lurk around the Waterkant

    And say

    No no darling I’m no way gay

    I was BORN to look this way!

    It’s just so trendy don’t you see

    That EVERYBODY looks just like 

    ME!

     

    With their fat wallets and simple minds hipsters make the perfect victims!

    How to open the wallet of a hipster: Coffeeee

    Buy loads of cheap coffee beans. Let them lie in donkey poo for a month. Spray them daily with Hugo Boss’ “The Scent” (there is an excellent fake version of this scent available for only R552.50 from JonElkon.com); pop into a gay bathhouse and collect some recent sperm, dry it out and sprinkle the powder over the beans. Then make up a load of 50 gram bags (hessian) of the treated beans, get a good designer to make a hipster-friendly label using only Geek Bold Italic and the logo “Tibetan Maung Chaka DMT Hill Coffee”. Dress up as a Tibetan Lama and sell these to the hipsterest outlets on Kloof Street with all the bullshit you can muster. For as many thousands as you can squeeze.

     

    Part 3: Screw Everybodee

    This is the easiest way to make millions in South Africa. As you will see from my previous blogs, there are scams galore! For example if you work for a municipality (a Local Authority as it’s called in the U.K.) all you have to do is award tenders to your friends, who give you a kickback. So for example, the municipality of Fuksdorf needs a shopping centre. Or a shipping centre. Or a public brothel pretending to be a swimming bath. All you have to do is announce the bidding process is secret, and you have the absolute freedom to make your brother-in law a wealthy man. Again. Then you tell the manager of the swimming pool brothel that if he wants the cops to stay away he has to give you a couple of million a month. Then you install cctv at the brothel and film your fellow councilors coming in for some hand relief. And tell them, too, they have to pay you a couple of million a month to keep it out of the press. Naturally, all the contractors including the young ladies and gentleman who give the hand relief are giving you a commission, so it all mounts up. I naturally have a great many of these experts on my books. For explicit pictures, see jonelkon.com. Follow the links and I can promise you your IP address will not be shared with any legal entities whatsoever, providing you pay me R2.2 million.

     

    So there you have it! Several money making scams any fat cat Narcissistic sufferer from psychopathy or sociopathy would love.

     

    Oh shit I forgot. They’ve already done all three.

     

    (Btw see the new cabinet which is being appointed by the Trump if you want to see how a Narcissist can screw everybodeee)

     

    Note: Jonelkon.com takes no responsibility for any of the offers herein contained. They are as bogus as those described above.

  • In a Flash!: 500 words….

    In a Flash!: 500 words….

    My Letter from Cape Town today is a Short Story based on the haircut I had this morning. The worm in my head never lets up – all places and people have mysteries and when I throw some words at these, I end up with a story.

    This one is just under 500 words so I will enter it into the competition!

    Tata

    By her fourth day Belinda had started to gain confidence. The delightful Dorothy, her trainer, had complimented her that morning. “You, darling, are a natural” she had said loudly enough even for Darlene, the other apprentice in the salon, to hear. So when the Tata (“Father” in Xhosa) came in for the Models afternoon, she had no qualms when Dorothy said, “Belinda, would you look after this customer for me?”

    As she had been taught, Belinda approached the man with her brilliant shy smile. “Good afternoon sir” she said, “my name is Belinda and I’ll be doing your hair today. Please follow me?”

    She ushered him to the chair, asked his preferences “Number two,”he said, “and natural at the back.” As she draped him with the protective cloth her hands were steady, sure. She knew what she was doing.

    This should be simple! She took out the clippers and began. Across the salon Dorothy occasionally looked up from her client to check on her. Darlene sat in a corner, annoyed that the first client of Model Afternoon had been given to Belinda.

    This will be a good profession, she thought. One day I will have my own salon. I am going to be so good at this, and what a great place to learn the trade too, at this prestigious salon! Long after Darlene is history I’ll be running my very own beautiful place…

    It was at the word Johannesburg that she tried gently readjusting the Tata’s  head and realised that he was dead.

    There could be no doubt. His head had been cocked to the left and with her attempt to move it had dropped to the right with a floppy finality that could only mean one thing.

    She started back in shock and just managed not to scream. The salon had filled up quickly. Dorothy was deep in conversation with her client, a fat man whose thinning locks were each being given loving care. “My daughter,” the man was saying, “gives me so much pleasure even though she’s a minx!”

    Every employee was busy! No-one could be interrupted without causing alarm.

    Her hands began to shake. Keep in control Belinda, she told herself.

    Dorothy and her client were deep in their ritual one-sided conversation. “So I said to him I don’t care if you are never an accountant as long as you get in the cricket team….”

    “Good boy sir”, Dorothy said.

    At this point Belinda became aware that from across the salon Darlene kept glancing up in her direction as if beginning to notice something was wrong.

    Darn and buggerit! She thought. That girl is not going to get one over on me! And she turned to look at the Tata.

    The old man was sitting there apparently perfectly at ease, head cocked to one side, a picture of the contented client. A dead client. But then, she thought, Darlene wouldn’t know that.

    Right! She thought, turning on the clippers. “Now for the left side!”

  • Letter from Azania 6: So Far So?

    Mid-term Report

    I left South Africa – soon to be Azania I thought, after an extremely bloody revolution in which everybody died – in 1970. And now officially a Brit I am back in the loving arms of my son and family. Both the country and I have been through riveting change – I have almost grown up. And my homeland?

    From an international pariah state run with guns oppression and fear by racist demagogues to – ? That’s what I am here to find out.

    I came burdened by the two stereotypes white South African expats bring with them to London, New York and San Diego, where I have just spent time. Crime, and corruption.

    Yet from the splashes coming from the swimming pool, and the snarks and snorts of the whales and boobies disporting themselves there, most foreign visitors assume that they have plonked themselves in paradise. After all, I have been here a week and while there was some minor shooting between mutatus (the minibuses that operate as taxis all over the place – as they go along, they beep. If you want a ride you wave arms legs and money. Or some of the above) on the road from airport to city. (Actually they are called mutatus in Kenya, not in South Africa. But my son says you won’t know that. Never underestimate the reader!) comma, I have not been subject to any deadly force myself yet.

    True I have seen an injured person waiting two and a half hours for an ambulance, (see previous blogs) but what the hell. If this was Britain they’d wait seven minutes for the ambulance, but another four hours minimum in the casualty department of the hospital to be seen. There are probably fewer germs on the sidewalk than in hospital.

    True, I have heard stories of horrific crimes – in Hout Bay, the delightful Italian mama who owns the ice cream shop told us of the three armed men who arrived one afternoon at 2pm, held her up, emptied the till, had a pecan nut and strawberry gelato and made off to the hills. The whole incident was brilliantly filmed by her very own cctv and shown to the cops. None of the men had bothered to cover their faces or disguise themselves in any way. Why bother? The cops have as much chance of catching them as they have of running the country.

    I forgot. They pretty much do that. And as soon as one reads the local papers or in particular the blogs and online magazines the corruption becomes clear.

    Several police enjoy themselves by arresting other police at any rate. It gives them something to do. For example, in late 2014 they arrested ten of their own for bribery and corruption. Cape drug dealer Salim Dawjee bribed a blokie called Arno Lamoer with R1.6 million to lessen his conviction. Incidentally, it is very rude to say “Jy Moer” to anyone (pronounce it yay muhr) – it’s kind of the equivalent of the playground taunt “your mother”, implying you had sex with that lady. Nice name, Arno.

    Not to mention the national police commissioner Riah Phiyega who tipped off Lamoer. Loads more! From small – in Sea Point’s Ocean View Drive the police lurk in the shadows waiting for a well-heeled SUV driver stumbling from his car pissed as a pike on the end of a pike –pounce, and take him by force to a cash machine where thy virtually empty his account as he begs for leniency. To big –such as the scandal involving the R500 million lease of the new police headquarters in Pretoria.

    Yet there are superb police officers doing their best to enforce the law honestly. A beautiful story (apparently there is a YouTube clip) about a traffic cop issuing a ticket to a motorist in Kayelitsha township. As he’s writing the ticket, a baddie sneaks up on him to try to steal his gun. A gunfight ensues in which traffic cop is wounded and baddie makes his escape. Cop then dusts himself off, “It’s only a flesh wound” and continues to write the ticket. Hero? Fool? Well, I go ‘hero’.

    There are far too many corruption scandals for me to go into, but you can read about the top ten here. I have already mentioned Nkandla, Zuma’s palace. But the others are even more fun. http://buzzsouthafrica.com/here-are-the-top-10-corruption-scandals-in-south-africa/

    I propose to use this blog to tell you about my personal experiences and reactions to this astonishing country, to amuse you with some daft prose and poetry, and above all to give you a picture which will I hope go beyond stereotypes. There’s no point in just rehashing what you can Google yourself…

     

    See you tomorrow – same place maybe same time!

Top