Saturday, May 30, 2015

Something For Nothing


 
UK Telephone boxes

 Getting something for nothing is desired by us all. The advertising industry across the globe constantly offers us “Freebies”.
 

As a writer I am constantly bombarded with ways I can publish my novel by clicking on a web address that will guide me through to a newly released hard back, or to a free domain and my own web site. I’ve clicked on many of these offers only to realise after many hours of clicking that there is a huge $ sign at the end if I am to fulfill my dream.
 

Genuine “Freebies” are hard to come by and virtually impossible to find, unless of course you are prepared to cross the boundary and enter the world of crime.
 

During my life I have acquired the occasional “Freebie”, usually a drink and a few buffet snacks at some launch or other, either of a book or a theatrical first night party. Very occasionally I have crossed the line into the realm of petty larceny like in Harrods delicatessen counter while working as a night watchman.
 

It was during this latter adventure that I discovered another way that I could get something for nothing.
 

In the late sixties and early seventies I was an avid reader of spy fiction and science fiction and the operations of the CIA, MI5 and 6 fascinated me.
 

Trunk dialing had just reared its head in the UK. From a coin operated telephone kiosk you were able, after inserting coins, to make calls anywhere in England or overseas. The Frederick Street flat were I was staying in Kings Cross London had just had a coin operated telephone installed by the landlord. This was a wise choice on his part as he wouldn’t be left with huge bills after his tenants had scarpered into the London smog. It was a blessing to us as tenants as we could give
our number to friends and receive calls.


 
Frederick Street

 One evening after I’d just finished reading John Le Care’s novel “The spy who came in from the cold”, when Bat, a fellow tenant at the time rushed in clutching a tattered piece of paper with numbers, written with a kid’s crayon scribbled on it. He dived for the phone and punched in six of the numbers. He waited anxiously, about two minutes later he entered another six numbers, another delay, then he said proudly, “You want to talk to my mate in LA?”
 

“Los Angles, in the States?” I enquired.
 

“Yep, and it’s free!”
 

Back in the sixties we were intrigued as to how, and from whom Bat had acquired this marvellous twelve digit number.
 

“From a guy drunk in the Arms who said he’d joined MI6.”
 

“From a pissed spy?”
 

“Yeah, said he’d just been released from the cop-shop opposite, they were holding him because he’d been tailing some professor from Cambridge who had a connection with Philby and Burgess.”
 

“The Cambridge five? They were caught in sixty one, he’s a bit out of touch. How does the number work?”
 

“The first six numbers put you through to a computer, you wait for a dialing tone, then in you put the next six, wait again for a dialing tone and then dial the code and number you want; You’ve just seen it works.”
 

And sure enough it did. For the rest of that night and all of the next day we all dialed our mates up and down the country and in America, Australia, and Europe without having to put a single coin in the machine.  The scam lasted about six months and then suddenly it didn't work.
 

If like me, you don’t believe that spies like their drink and get pissed you may find my explanation a little more credible.
 

I think Bat’s pissed reprobate was a disenchanted Telcom technician who had given him the numbers to get his own back for firing him for being pissed.
 

To this day I still do not know the explanation, but I have just read on the Net even in today’s high tech environment the secret way of making free telephone calls drew the attention of time magazine in 2011when they published the following article.
 

“If you’re willing to go to the trouble of dialing your own number, waiting for the prompt, hitting 2, and then dialing the number you really want, then, yes, you get a free cellphone call. You’ll never be billed for any minutes at all.”
 

This information was released by David Pogue of the NY Times and he details the  legal, not-entirely-secret hack for making free cell phone calls, which involves Google Voice, careful selection of your cell plan’s Friends & Family numbers, and jumping through a few annoying hoops. But the reward for punching in a bunch of extra numbers on your phone is: free calls!
 

The high tech available to today’s hackers certainly beats the method I learnt in childhood from my days as a Boy Scout. Then the technology was almost non-existent and we had to rely on very fine sewing thread, cello-tape and an old penny.
 

You attached the thread by cello-tape to the penny, using the minial ammount possible, and dropped it into the slot. Very carefully you moved it up and down through the mechanism four times, hence you’d paid your four-pence and retrieved your coin. It was a time consuming and often the thread got caught but nine times of ten it worked. And if you were really lucky you could press button B and get the money you hadn’t used back, a reimbursement from the previous caller. 

This was a bonus “Freebie”.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

Petty Larceny & Bar Snacks

My memories of student days are all a bit misty.

This is for several reasons related to both studying and pleasure. 


Days at RADA are easier to remember as they were part of a fixed routine.


RADA

Up early about seven o’clock, a quick shower, some breakfast, usually porridge  or cornflakes,  depending on the season, a boiled egg and then my fifteen walk from my Frederick Street flat in Kings Cross to RADA in Gower St at about eight.

Classes varied from day to day, but voice and movement were always on the itinerary.


Movement was either classical leaning towards restoration, or modern under Ms June Kemp with her cassette recorder, churning out the pop music of the sixties.

Voice and diction then followed, in the latter we mastered standard Queen’s English and various dialects, under the supervision of Ms Pursley who had us pulling faces, stretching our facial muscles and making “Piggies”.


Our voice classes in the first two terms consisted mostly of us lying on our backs viewing the peeling paint on the ceiling, and discovering how to use our inter-costal-diaphragmatic muscles in our lower chests, so that we could count to a hundred on one breath.


After voice, diction and movement, which happened every day, we would then either have classes in mime and improvisation or go into rehearsals for our term production. The day finished between five and six in the afternoon unless we had evening rehearsals.


Marlbourgh Arms

 Then it was time to visit the nearest hostelry which was called The Marbourgh Arms on Torrington Place, a five minute walk or two minute run from RADA’s front door.

This pub was the starting place for many a night of festivities. My three mates, George, Leonard and Bill were regulars for an early evening pint of Courage Best Bitter, but Leonard was soon onto his favourite, a quadruple vodka and lime, leaving us stragglers to catch up on tots of whiskey if we could afford them.


Len, who had already appeared in the movie “Loneliness of a Long-Distance Runner”, was a master con-artist not just in the bar but also at RADA, where he once managed to get a few hundred quid out of the registrar for some new front teeth that never materialized.


The three of us then drifted on our own excursions into the swinging life of London in the sixties. George usually back to his home in Welling-Garden-City where he lived with his wife and two kids, Bill to his wife-shortly-to-be, a nurse Irene, Len to the bars of Soho, and myself to The Carpenter’s Arms, the local pub opposite my flat in Kings Cross.


The Carpenter’s was a pub with a capital “P”, a remnant from the war years.


Carpenter's Arms


 It had all the attributes that I wish drinking hostelries still had today. A Men’s-Only bar, called for some inane reason the public bar, a lounge in which both sexes could frequent, a snug which was for ladies only.

I know all you free thinking liberal readers of today will think that this is archaic and conservative thinking but I think this separation of imbibing areas was highly successful.


There were “rules and regs” in place that prevented bar room brawls, allowed the ladies to gossip unmolested & peacefully, the men to play bar billiards and darts uninterrupted and swear to their hearts content.


The lounge where the sexes met had a very peaceful feel to it, and the drinks were tuppence or threepence more expensive. No swearing was allowed and meals were served, believe it or not on white linen table-clothed tables with sterling silver cutlery and napkins and the beautiful situation of this pub right opposite a police station made after-hours consumption a normal occurrence when the landlord, Paddy made the correct noises to the most senior officer in the bar.



I shared the Frederick Street basement flat with four, sometimes five, fellow students who were studying to become, accountants, scientists and general loafers. During the three years I stayed there the occupants changed, usually by word of mouth. This happened mostly during the summer break when, apart from myself who had a commitment to the NYT, or as in one summer to a company called Securicor, most of my fellow inhabitants returned to their parent’s homes.




In the summer I was a night security guard, I shared my room with a Scots lad called Agnus. It was he who introduced me to his boss at Securicor, and hence I worked all night guarding such institutions such as Harrods and the Metropolitan Police Ticket archive offices. 


All jobs, as I’m sure you know, have what are called their “Perks”. Free lunches, petrol coupons, tickets to football matches, reduced fares on the transport facilities are a few. With Secuicor it was pens, pencils, fresh exotic cheeses, cold meats and free international phone calls.


A night’s work went as follows.


Between five and six in the afternoon you arrived at the place you were to guard. You telephoned in your arrival to the head office and settled yourself into the security cubicle with book and crossword and hoped that you would not have any intruders. You had to patrol all floors of the establishment every hour and clock in to the check points on every floor, then telephone the head office with the password for that night that told them all was OK.


This usually took about twenty minutes leaving you free for the remaining forty minutes to while away the hour either reading, cross-wording or if you were lucky watching an in-house TV.


Some of the office blocks I watched over were international global companies with offices in all parts of the world. These offices also had to be cleaned. To do this the companies hired teams of cleaners who were brought in around seven in the evening. I had to check them in and search them when they left the following morning at six am.

It was these cleaners who taught me the in & outs of my job and taught me how I could avail myself of the hidden “Perks”.


These Perks involved what was called petty larceny, but one justified the taking of things as the only person loosing out was the international conglomerate, and they could easily replace the missing pens, paper, pencils, typewriter ribbons, ashtrays, cups, saucers, cutlery, tea and coffee that disappeared, either in the cleaner’s handbags or my shoulder bag.


A Molly McIntyre, a young lass from Glasgow let me into the secrets.


“Never take new things! Always used-stuff!”


I never worked out how a used tea-bag could be a profitable acquisition but half finished biros, and half worn down pencils made their way back to Frederick Street.


The main switchboard was my favourite place to spend time.


The sixties model of a switchboard looked a bit like the code-breaking Enigma machine named “Christopher” by Alan Turing who made it. Plug in cables and a wind-up ringing handle. 


Centrally placed at the top of the machine was a time or unit counter that made a record of all calls made out. I made a note of this number, let’s say it was 231 units, I would then press a button which would reduce it to zero. I would then begin my overseas and long distance trunk calls to mates in America, Blackpool, Manchester, Liverpool and Australia. I would constantly watch the counter, and when it was close to the used number of 231, I would cease the calls and dial the speaking clock to get it precisely back to 231.

While I was whiling my nightly hours in the office blocks of Shell, BP and Whimpey Construction, Angus had got himself a fantastic place to guard. 


Harrods Store in Knightsbridge and he made a point of recommending me to his supervisor that I join him for full over-time sessions at the weekends. In those days there was no Sunday trading so that meant we were on duty from 2pm on Saturday till 6am on Monday morning.


Of course this lengthy period would not happen today with the restrictive rules laid down by the government and Trade-Unions, but back in the sixties a thirty-six hour shift was not uncommon. It meant we patrolled Harrods unrestricted by cleaners till they arrived on Sunday night and we could cruise the isles of their delicatessen counters searching for prime Scots fillet, partridge pie imported Brie and Camembert Cheeses from France, and imported European salamis and sausages.


After these long sessions we were given a forty-eight hour turn-around of days off. On these days off the regulars in the Carpenter’s Arms Men’s-Only bar and dart’s team enjoyed delectable bar snacks.


Not a word passed our lips especially to the senior detective from across the road, who really enjoyed the Polish Kielbasas, gherkins and Hungarian Korbacz that was on the snack plates.

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Dehli Belly in The Nilgri Hills


The Nilgri Hills
During my illustrious career I have been involved in the making of several documentaries as a presenter, a writer, a voice over artist and even at one time a producer.

This involvement has taken me to several foreign climes, in including Australia, Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Malaysia and India. The latter is the country which is home to the Nilgri Hills, a mountain range that crosses the centre of the sub continent. The range of mountains form a
part of the Western Ghats situated in the western part of Tamil Nadu state.

It is on this range of hills that the Jack fruit grows. This is a remarkable fruit as it is the only fruit that grows directly from the trunk of the tree and not from the branches. It grows to a great size,
some a long as four feet with a girth almost as large.

In the Hindu religion it is held to be food for the Gods.

The reasons for this are threefold. To start with it is not easily accessible; secondly it is covered by very small spikes that are poisonous to touch. Although not fatal they give a nasty prick that
causes a rash on the finger.

It is for this reason that the collectors of this gigantic fruit and those that dissect it to get to the very tasty edible part, coat their hands in cooking oil. This coating gives protection from the spikes also from the gelatinous substance that surrounds the absolutely delicious inner kernel. The flavor is comparable to a combination of apple, pineapple, mango, and banana.





The Jack Fruit

Tea Pickers in The Nilgri Hills
The third reason for the protective oil coating is the gelatinous substance is like super glue when you touch it, and a visit to a local clinic is necessary to part your glued together fingers.

I mention this exotic fruit to give you an idea of the unusual fodder that crossed my lips while on this particular assignment.

I was in India travelling by road from Bombay, or Mumbai as it is now called, filming a doccie called “Behind the African Mask”. We travelled from Mumbai to the southern most tip of the sub-continent ending at the town of Trivandrum.

The premise of this documentary was exploring the theory of a Dr Cyril Hromnik who believes that Dravidian Indians crossed over the Indian Ocean as far back as 8000 BC to mine gold in Southern Africa.

This Cape Town based historian Dr Cyril Hromnik has produced a vast body of research. He paints a compelling picture of an ancient settlement of gold miners in the Eastern Transvaal and Swaziland with roots that go back to the early Dravidian seafarers who had expert navigation skills and a lust for African gold.

So the documentary attempted to answer the question; did ancient Dravidian Seafarers establish the first gold mines in Southern Africa?

Also grown of the lower slope of the Nilgri Hills is tea. Nilgiri tea is generally described as being a dark, intensely aromatic, fragrant and flavoured tea and is grown in the district of Tamil Nadu.


It was whilst I was trekking up the slopes amongst this aromatic tea that I had my first rear end explosion.

It was a low-budget production. The producer stroke writer, director and camera operator, his wife as coordinator and general dogs-body, Dr Hromnik and myself as the on screen presenter and  carrier of what else was needed, made up our full crew.

We had a hired a driver four our four wheel drive jeep as driving in India is a nightmare for anybody brought up in the western world. The driver Habba was also our interpreter and our go-between when any bribes had to be negotiated for entrance to certain historical sites.

We were on a climb through the terraced tea plantation to see an ancient dolmen, also known as a cromlech, a portal tomb or a quoit. I suppose it’s a type of single-chamber megalithic tomb.

All these strange words entered my vocabulary while I was on this shoot. I had already been made familiar with the Yoni stone and the Shivaling or Lingam, which are representations of the male phallus and the female vulva.

In Hindu philosophy the Yoni is the origin of life and an abstract creative force that moves through the entire universe, so during the climb Dr Hromnik had said we were going to see the most enormous Yoni very close to the Dolmen.

To this day I still do not know that the thought of seeing a giant Vulva or Vagina set my bowels in motion, or if it was the curried paste of the Jack fruit I had eaten the previous evening, but set in motion they were.

I quickly had to remember all the advice I’d read in Kathleen Meyer ‘s humourous , environmentally sound and explicit book entitled “How to shit in the woods”.

I borrowed a small trowel from our director, which he’d brought along for leveling the ground for his camera, and dug Kathleen’s suggested six inch hole while I squatted, hidden from the tea picking ladies, between two lines of tea bushes.

The relief was gratifying and as I strode effortlessly on an empty fuel tank up the hill to catch up with the rest of the crew, I wondered how my six inch buried semi-liquid donation would affect the aroma of the Nilgri Tea picked from the nearby bushes.

The Yoni was enormous and the dolmen was as it should be, two vertical stones with a large slab stone lain across the top. Dr Hromnik had dragged us all the way on this four hour climb to see something that we had already seen many times on our travels in the Eastern Transvaal of
Southern Africa, in Zimbawe, and in Swaziland.

His point was that he wanted to show us how the construction of this particular Dolmen and it’s orientation toward the setting sun was very similar to the ones we’d seen in Africa.

Down the hill we trekked back to our waiting vehicle and driver, who told us we had still another four hours drive till we reached our overnight stop-over in the city of Mysore.

We were visiting this city for two reasons.

Firstly our director had to cash in some dollar traveler’s cheques and we were going to see the Holi festivities in the city.

In Hinduism, Holi also called Holaka or Phagwa is an annual festival celebrated on the day after the full moon in the Hindu month of March or Phalguna, as it is known in the local tongue. It celebrates spring, commemorates various events in Hindu mythology and is a time of disregarding social norms and indulging in general merrymaking.

The central ritual of Holi is the throwing and applying of coloured water and powders on friends and family, which gives the holiday its common name "Festival of Colors."

The ritual is said to be based on a story of Krishna and Radha, when Krishna playfully splashes maids with water, but most of all it celebrates the coming of spring with all its beautiful colours and vibrant life.

Dr Hromnik said that similar festivities were also conducted by the Nguni tribes of Southern Africa, thus adding more credence to his theory that The Dravidian Indians had crossed to Africa and left some of their culture.

The following morning after spending over four hours exchanging dockets for wooden discs and then pieces of paper with hand-written instructions and signatures on them, our director finally got his hands on almost a small suitcase of Indian Rupees.


The Indian banking system is archaic and adheres to Nehru’s political doctrine of every man
having a job no mater how menial it may be.

In our hotel too this was highly evident. If I lit up a cigarette, immediately a man would appear with an ashtray. I’d drop my ash into it. Again immediately a boy would rush up and scoop the ash into a bucket. Then another boy would appear from nowhere and take the bucket across the room and empty the contents into a dust bin. Then suddenly I’d be surrounded by two boys and a man with their hands open expecting payment of a few Rupees for disposing of my tobacco ash.

Back in the bustling city, we then weaved and threaded our way through the throngs of people who were in the city for the festival. We were heading for the river where most of the “splashing” would take place.

It is estimated that over 4.5 million people come to Mysore for the Holi festival that lasts for four days. It is amazing to think that we Westerners believe we’re in a crowd at a Rolling Stone’s concert that has sixty thousand people crammed into a stadium and here we were watching close on one hundred and twenty thousand people splash around in the Kabani River.

Negotiating our way through the crowded streets was like moving through a tin of sardines, sweat, splashing water and coloured powders engulfed us and only once or twice would the crowds thin out. This was usually when a “Bloodletting” ceremony was in progress. To my eyes this event was horrific.


In a small clearing we came across a mother, son and father. The young boy was being held by his mother who was deep in a self induced trance. 


The father slowly circled the boy whose right arm was out stretched and tied tightly with a coloured silk scarf above his elbow. The father increased the rhythm of the mantra and moved in closer to his son, suddenly with a downward movement of his hand the cut-throat-razor he carried sliced into the boy’s lower arm. The mother broke her trance and held an enamel cup below the gushing blood.

We could watch no more and squeezed our way back into the thronging mass of people.

We later learnt from Habba that this practice still occurs throughout the country, particularly amongst the Shi’a Muslim community, the practitioners believing that they are ridding the victim of impure blood.

It’s called “Ashura” and is one of several ceremonies marking the death of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson Imam Hussein at the 7th century battle of Kerbala.

That night we stayed in a hotel, the one and only hotel apart from our first night in Mumbai. The budget was restrictive and most of our stops where at hostels that catered for the trade representatives that roamed the country trying to sell their merchandise, These hostels certainly
would not rate a semi-colon let alone a star.

Washing facilities were an enamel bowl and a rather unclean looking face cloth. Latrines were long drops outside, few were a little up-market as they were pig-cleaned. That means a ravenous pig quickly consumed your droppings.

Early the next morning we set of on the final leg of our journey, a drive through the rest of the Western Ghats mountain range and onto the town of Trivandrum.

My bowels were still not in a stable mood although I’d taken some Imodium tablets so I had to request several stops at what I was told were public toilets.

Fortunately we’d learnt to keep several rolls of loo paper in the vehicle as there was never any at these latrines.

All were of the “Stand or Squat” variety and all had a supply of tap water. I was told that this was for the washing of one’s hands, particularly your left hand, as this was the one you should wipe your arse with.
 


I only believed this when I noticed that all the locals, left or right handed, ate their food with the fingers of their right hand.

When I landed back at what was called Jan Smuts airport in Johannesburg the first thing I did was rush to the ablution facility and give the attendant a twenty Rand tip after I’d finished using the first flushing Thomas Crapper I’d used for three weeks.

I wish you continued happy bowel movements & use of the loo.

 A Google search will tell you more about the ducmentary "Behind an African Mask"

http://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.imageworks.co.za%2Findex.php%2Fgallery%2F2%2Fbehind-an-african-mask%2F&ei=2c9iVduZDKOf7ga09oGwAQ&usg=AFQjCNGfUFWZT4Z84FS0-mSim85r0GzPmQ&sig2=Cv0WwE3cttqvAhOfaXLJyQ&bvm=bv.93990622,d.ZGU 

Friday, May 22, 2015

Cabbages, Ripe Tomatoes & Eggs

The title of this post should clearly tell you what actors and politicians have in common.

Both these professional groups have been on the receiving end of all three.

The two professions of course have other things in common. They tell lies or porky pies if you are more familiar with the Cockney rhyming slang.

Ronald Regan, ex-president of the USA and Arnold Schwarzenegger ex-governor of California are two very well known actors who became successful politicians.

The actors that have dabbled in the machinations of governance cover all countries.

Eva Peron from Argentina, Sidney Poitier US ambassador to Japan, Stephen Harper a conservative ex-Prime Minister of Canada, Jaya Bachchan an MP in India, Gina Lollobrigidia an unsuccessful candidate to the European Parliament, Jaroslaw Kaczynski a Prime Minister of Poland, Glenda Jackson a Labour Member of the UK’s Parliament. The list goes on and on and can easily be found by doing a Google search.

In the last few years Nigel Farage leader of UKIP, David Cameron the UK Prime Minister & Ed Miliband leader of the Labour opposition have all been pelted with eggs while campaigning for support, and others have received cabbages and rotten tomatoes.

The one and only time I have been pelted with assorted fruit, vegetables & eggs was when I was in the company of Charles Hawtrey of The Carry-on movies fame, Peter Bowles co-star of the BBC sit-com “To the Manor Born” with Penelope Keith, and John Challis.
  


 
 John was a young actor at the time and was yet to gain fame as Boycie in “Only Fools and Horses” and “The Green Green Grass”, both highly successful BBC comedies.


We were all in Tom Stoppard’s wonderfully satirical play about a Parliamentary Select Committee called “Dirty Linen & New-Found-Land”.

It is actually two separate plays but Stoppard, for some unexplained reason coupled them together.

Dirty Linen is a masterpiece of cynical political comedy. They are a pair of plays that are always performed together and were seen first as an Ambiance Lunch-Hour Theatre Club presentation at Interaction's Almost Free Theatre on April 6, 1976.

New-Found-Land is slipped in between the two halves of Dirty Linen. The curtain falls after the first half of Dirty Linen and then rises again for New-Found-Land in which an older and a younger man, two other Members of Parliament, briefly discuss the naturalization of an American into British citizenship. They laud the American nation as a whole, including every American patriotic cliché they can remember. 




After another fall and rise of the curtain the audience is returned to the Select Committee of Dirty Linen for the closing scene.

The production enjoyed a critical and box office success in South Africa and was invited to what was then Salisbury in the UDI state of Rhodesia.

Thus theatre entered the realm of politics. The whole cast was approached and after much deliberation it was decided that we would go to Salisbury for one week, Bulawayo for one week and have two stops at the towns of  Kwekwe and Gweru, two mining towns in the centre of the country.

At the time Rhodesia was in the state of what can only be described as Marshal-law. Driving between the major cities had to done in convey as both Mugage’s ZANU forces and those of ZAPU under the leadership of Joshua Nkomo, were roaming the country.

The South African producer and the producer from Rhodesia that invited us made a huge mistake.

They assumed that the reaction from the audience in both countries would be the same. The quasi-liberal theatre going audience in South Africa at the time enjoyed the way Stoppard ridiculed the UK parliamentary committee system and the producers expected the same reaction from the Rhodesians.



It was not to be.

Little did they know the Rhodesians were very Pro-British, loved the Queen and were enamoured of the UK Parliament, so anybody who said anything bad about the system would be in for a bad time.

Throughout our opening night in Salisbury we did not get the expected laughs or rounds of applause, just a few gasps, titters, and occasional boos.

When the curtain fell instead of the rapturous applause we received in Cape Town and Joeys, we got boos and were pelted with eggs,cabbages and over-ripe tomatoes.

Charles Hawtrey and Peter Bowles, the stars were quickly whisked away in the producer’s Mercedes back to the hotel, leaving us junior actors to fend for ourselves.

John and I went to the front of house bar and had a couple of drinks before going to the car park to our hired vehicle.

It was here we were confronted by about eight burly soldiers from the Rhodesian Front Army, these were the young white Rhodesians who were conscripted into the local army. The confrontation was what can be described in military terms as “A stand-off”. They hurled insults at us.

“Commie-Bastards!|” seemed to be the most insulting. “Monkey-Lovers!” and “Libby-Limeys!" were another two.

John and I decided to skirt around the group off soldiers and make our way to our car, but we were out-flanked by two enormous young men who blocked our path.

“Toddie” came to our rescue.

“You like a drink?” I said as I offered “Toddie” to the larger of the two.

He grunted a duo-syllabic reply, “What’s it?”

“Good Commie-Polish vodka, you can’t get it here.” I said.

He looked at his mates, and took a huge gulp. The normal coughing spluttering ensued, “You trying to poison us as well?”

“No”, I said, “Trying to make friends.”

His buddy laughed and grabbed “Toddie” and took a sip. He smiled and said, “Kowalski”, offering his hand. I tentatively took it and almost had the blood squeezed out of my palm.

“Please to meet you, Cess Poole,” I said.

The ice was broken and the tension eased, and within the next hour John and I were being introduced to the night life of Salisbury by Dave, Stephen, George and Stephan Kowalski. The latter was of Polish-Jewish extraction and his parents had been moved from Warsaw to Rhodesia during the last years of the Second World War.

During our conversations on that night I learnt a great deal about the Terrorists and the war going on in Rhodesia.

The news filtering through to the world was very one-sided as most liberal European countries were siding with the Africans and supporting the independence stance of ZANU & ZAPU. But I had no idea of the amount of arms that were being smuggled into the country from the communist block.

Hungarian and Czech tanks that were being reconditioned by the South African company Armscor were appearing on the battle front. American small arms and the Russian rifle, the Kalashnikov, were also appearing. The young Rhodesian soldiers where capturing arms from all around the world. They described the situation as “A total shitty mess of money & politics”.

They informed us that Britain, for one, kept on supplying oil to the rebels. Washington was dealing in strategic materials, especially chrome. The Soviets accounted for more than half of Rhodesia's illicit deals. These transactions were arranged through pliant companies in Austria, West Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. Heavy machinery came from the East, usually in shipments brought by Yugoslavs who had no qualms about flying to Salisbury, as long as their passports were not stamped.

My eyes were opened and continued to be on stalks even on the next day, when Dave and Stephan took John and I into the African township called Harare.

It was here that I was introduced to Rape & Mopani worm stew.

These worms are not worms but caterpillars and are found usually on the Mopane tree and known in Zimbawe as Macimbi if your’e from the Ndebele clan, or Madora if you’re from the Shona tribe.

Dave and Stephan said they were an important source of protein and were a common snack for the “Ters” and themselves. The stew was delicious. Cooked on the roadside in an up-turned metal dustbin lid, it slid down our gullets and was washed down with a Carlsberg lager bought from a near-by “shebeen”.

I often wondered why the African name for an illicit drinking abode was stolen from the Irish, but that’s another story.

So the Danes were in on the illicit trading deals!

I digress, sorry.

We learnt that the worms are hand-picked in the wild, often by women and children. In the bush, the caterpillars are not considered to belong to the landowner (if any), but around a house permission should be sought from the resident. When the caterpillar has been picked, it is pinched at the tail end to rupture the innards. Then they squeeze it like a tube of toothpaste to expel the slimy, green contents of the gut.

The traditional method of preserving the worms is to dry them in the sun or smoke them, whereby they gain extra flavour.

The dried worms can be eaten raw as a crisp snack, as Dave and Stephan had told us or they are soaked to rehydrate, then fried until they are crunchy, or cooked with onion, tomatoes, spices and the green spinach like vegetable called Rape.

After our tour of Harare we were returned to the Meikles Hotel where we were billeted, to be told by the rest of the cast, that we were only going to do two more performances in Salisbury before we travelled south to Kwe-kwe , Gweru and Bulawayo for our final week. The producers had cancelled the other mid week performances and we would only be doing the last two shows on Saturday.

John and I were delighted as this meant we had more time to spend with our newly found friends.

We invited them for lunch at the hotel and they told us the whole history of the Meikles Hotel. It was named after the founding family who came to Sothern Africa from Strathaven, Lanarkshire in Scotland in 1915 and they gave us the address of one of the great-great grandchildren who now lived in Bulawayo. A young girl of twenty one called Wendy. John, who unlike me, at the time was unattached, quickly jotted down the name and address for future reference.


 


 The rest of the week was spent visiting the Salisbury Sports Club, which is now the Harare Sports Club and hosts all the international cricket teams that visit the country.

The ground is surrounded by Jacaranda trees and has a beautiful gabled pavilion. It’s in the heart of the city and was an easy walk from Meikles Hotel for John and I to avail ourselves of the cheap alcoholic beverages on offer.

We bade farewell to Salisbury and travelled in convey on Sunday to Kwe-Kwe for two performances on Monday and Tuesday, then another convoy to Gweru on Wednesday for three shows, before we moved onto Bulawayo the following Sunday.

The production was received far more cordially in Kwe-Kwe and Gweru.
 

The audience was composed mostly of ex-Brit-Pats who worked in the chrome and coal mining industry in these towns. They were working class Brits and warmed to Stoppard’s cynical ridicule of the Uk’s parliamentary system, and particularly enjoyed our leading lady’s entrance clad only in her bra and panties.

Our final week in Bulawayo was also better received than Salisbury but even so the early week performances were cancelled and we only performed on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

This gave John time to track down Wendy and discover that she had a younger eighteen year old sister, so John and I had a foursome swimming pool party on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday in Douglasdale. The suburb was named after The Douglas family, descendants of William de Duglas , the leader of late 12th century Scotish clan.

The sisters were fantastic hosts and at a party after our closing night they served omelets to the whole cast with a side salad of fresh tomatoes just to remind us of our reception in Salisbury.

Wednesday, May 20, 2015







Sir Cess would like to welcome all these people in these different countries who have visited his blog page within the last week, and invite them to join his facebook page "Sir Cess Poole's Diary".

Please click on the blog page picture to visit and take a look.

THANX . 
Total viiews of the blog has now risen to 5602 and last week's list of countries was as follows:
South Africa 63 United States 23 France 11 Ireland 9 Russia 9 Australia 3 Ukraine 3 United Kingdom 2 Taiwan 1

He also invites all visiters to make a comment on the stories the visiters have read. Don't be shy you can use the annonymous tag when you make it.

THANX AGAIN.

Saturday, May 16, 2015

Voice Overs




The art of performing in a drama broadcast on the wireless, or steam radio as it was affectionately called in the sixties, is unfortunately gone.

The skills displayed by Sir John Gielgud, Sir Larry, Sir Ralph and many other of my fellow knighted Thespians are possibly lost forever. Our American cousins also contributed to this now dying art.

 The great Orson Welles’ radio production of The War of the worlds in 1938 had thousands of the listening public rushing to their local shops to stock up on baked beans as they believed the Martians were landing.

More recently Robert de Niro, Sam Shepard and Al Pacino have displayed their talent in radio dramas.

But unfortunately today most radio stations across the globe broadcast either music, news or phone-in chat shows around the clock.

The latter – the Talk stations – now bombard our ears with a style similar to the recently created Reality TV channel and the bizarrely popular Jerry Springer show. The highly talented presenters invite the listening public to air their clean and dirty linen on the airwaves twenty four hours a day.

The use of the thespian skills of the jobbing actor in the field of radio have slowly diminished since the mid-seventies. Acting on the radio required the fine tuning of the actor’s most valued asset – his voice. The art of moving on and off the microphone to convey a sense of distance; the half covering of the mouth to create a whispered aside; the close-on-mike purred delivery for the intimate bedroom scene. All these practiced tricks of the trade have been lost.

Or have they?

Nowadays instead of gently delivering the classic romantic line, “But soft what light through yonder window breaks?” many highly trained and versatile actors are asked to croon softly into the mike and utter such wonderful lines of dialogue like, “Zinophay Shampoo gently caresses your hair from root to tip.”

This bastardisation of the art of radio acting is called “Doing a voice over”. Many jobbing actors across the globe have been enticed by the lure of the green backs to hire their voices to advertising agencies. I too fell to the smell of money but being a crafty old sod I endeavored to kill two birds with one stone. I was determined to fill my wallet and my “Toddie” at the same time.

For thirteen years of my life I extolled the almost non-existent virtues of a larger which stood the test of time. It was during this time that I became au fait with the jargon of the advertising agencies.

It was a gradual learning curve as I began to understand the difference between a copywriter and an artistic director, between an executive director and an account executive, between the client and the client’s marketing manager, between a client executive consultant advisor and Tom, Dick, Harry and all.


It was during this period that I managed to keep Toddie full as I requested part payment in Long Tom cans of Castle larger for my mate Coxy. ( Read "Long Days Journey into Friendship")

Unlike working either on film or on the stage, where the actor has to follow the careful guidance of his one and only boss, the director, - in the loneliness of his sound proofed booth the voice artist has to deal with sometimes seven or eight directors. And this number can double if members of the product’s creative brand imaging team are also present in the studio.

Nobody in the world of advertising or product marketing seems to appreciate that in the creative world of theatre or film there is no place for democracy. The director is a dictator. I don’t think that Mr. Speilberg held a four hour meeting with his writer, his cameraman, his actor, his creative technical supervisor and his underarm deodorant supplier before he shouted, “Print that one!” as ET said, “Go-home.”

The legendary Orson Welles had such a confrontational meeting with a team of semi creative minds when he was asked to do a voice over for some frozen peas in 1978.

Orson at this stage of his life was not a small man in mass or temperament and for an over sixteen stone man to be confined in one and a half square metres of space can only be described as uncomfortable.

The line he was asked to deliver was “The New Fresh Frozen Garden Pea.”


He delivered four “takes”, sat back, lit up a cigar and waited.

Through the glass he watched the menagerie of Ad agency and product marketers discuss his readings. “Mr. Welles, could you possibly try a heavier stress on the word new.” Piped up creative brain number one.

“Sure thing”, and he obliged.

 “I’m sorry Mr. Welles, go for the fresh.” Said the marketing manager.

He obliged. 


“I’m really sorry Mr. Welles, could you try the stress on Garden.”, asked the customer services manager.

He obliged. 


“Would you mind if we tried it on Frozen and Fresh.”, asked the bespectacled managing director of the frozen pea company.

He obliged.


“I’m sorry too,” he quickly injected, “but I need to take a pee!”

He walked out of the studio and was never seen again.

Question time for readers

Question time: In 2018

To be or not to be?

This is the probably one of the most famous quotes from Shakespeare.


“If you prick us do we not bleed?” “ If you tickle us do we not laugh?” “ What’s in a name?”

They are numerous and I will not attempt to equal them; but I have a number of questions which I would like you readers to answer. Not just readers but anybody who has viewed this blog page, approximately 14,700 of you.

One word answers will do.

But where a longer answer is required or requested, please take the time and compose an erudite reply.

I know the blog has had over 14,700 views; and I know the number of views that come from certain countries, but for the sake of my possible publishers, I ask you to take your time and answer the following questions.

Please answer in the comment facility at the end of this post & if you wish to remain anonymous please use the anonymous button in the comment section.

Thank you.

What has made you click on your mouse and bring you to this blog?

How many of the posts have you read?

If you have read the blog have you made a comment?

If you answer “no” please explain why?


If you answered "yes" please explain why?

Where do you live, the name of the country will do?

What age are you and what sex?

Are you in any way involved in the entertainment industry? Please state what department.

Do know me, the writer?

I am now going to try and explain why Sir Cess is asking all these questions. 


Because the answers to these questions are what any possible publisher wants to know so that they will be able to market the book possibly entitled “Theatrical  Artichokes” or Sir Cess Poole’s Tales” or “The diary of a Jobbing-Actor”.

Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Tokoloshes & Leprechauns & Finger nails


I'm sure you've all heard of a Leprechaun the mischievous little Irish imp from the mythical tales of Oisin in Tir na nOg and Irish folklore.

Well, the Tokoloshe is the equivalent mystical creature of the Nguni tribes of Southern Africa.

They feature in many of their oral legends but unlike the Irish pranksters, who never harm people, the Tokoloshe is usually far more evil and nearly always brings trouble.

Many maids working in the affluent suburbs of South Africa place the legs of their beds on three or four building bricks. This increases the height of the mattress from the floor and prevents the Tokoloshe from climbing into any of the orifices the maid has on offer. Should a highly superstitious African think that he or she might have been visited by the dreaded Tokoloshe, off they will run to consult the local sangoma or witch doctor hoping to acquire the right medicine or mootie as it is know locally, to banish the offending creature.

We Western Europeans do not have an equivalent malicious creature in our mythologies. So, the closest to my rather limited knowledge, is the leprechaun, who is said to be small, ill-natured and mischievous, and have minds designed for devilish cunning.  The Tokoloshe is also small and mischievous, however when he fights a person he usually kills them, but should he loose the fight, he then will teach the human his magic.

So, bearing all this in mind I openly admit that I have been both a Leprechaun and a Tokoloshe whilst on my travels both in Ireland and Southern Africa. On both these occasions I have been in civilian mode and was not performing on stage or in front of a camera.

The eating habits of both these fabled creatures are bizarre.

The Leprechaun has a great liking for the mystical four-leaf-clover and I am told nibble on a potato or two.

I was instructed on the culinary delights of the Tokoloshe whilst I was on my second pony trek in the Mountain Kingdom of Lesotho with my friendly guide, Johann.

Sour milk and pebbles are two favourites of the Tokoloshe. The milk is an aphrodisiac for him and helps him in his sexual exploits with the fairer sex. The pebble is also a pretty useful tool for him, as by swallowing one he becomes invisible and can creep up on the unsuspecting female. So, who needs Viagra when curdled milk and a stone off the ground will do?

Johann, my guide on the pony trek into the mountains of Lesotho was being educated at the very upmarket school called St Johns College in Johannesburg. He was about to sit his matric exams, spoke excellent English, and was highly knowledgeable about the history of South Africa and in particular Lesotho.

He was the son of a local chief Mojaje. It was his mid term-break and he’d acquired the job as a guide with the Basotho Trekking Company high up on The God-Help-Me pass.

The God Help Me Pass, or Lekhalong-la-Molimo-Nthuse in seSotho, is a mountain pass in western Lesotho. The road ascends steeply from the village of Setibing, and near the summit is the Basotho Pony Trekking Centre, which offers a variety of trekking expeditions.

I had chosen the longest one on offer; a five day with four overnight stops. It was my second visit to the trekking centre so I was aware of what I needed to take. I had amassed, tins of corned beef, sardines, pilchards, a jar of gherkins, a case of beer, an assortment of boiled sweets, currants, peanuts, a full Toddie of good Polish vodka, and some jumpers which would come in handy on the cold nights.

All the heavier items would be packed onto the back of a very sturdy and sure footed pack-mule.

Part of the deal was free accommodation at the overnight stops which were going to be in the local’s huts at carefully selected villages. The final fourth overnight stay was planned at Johann’s father’s kraal.


On our first day out Johann told me it would be a very short thirty kilometer trek to the first stop-over. The shortness of the trek became highly evident after about six ks, when my backside said I should pause, as my privates were being squeezed up my rectum. We made six more stops and each time Johann told me all about how his country had developed and emerged as a single polity under King Moshoeshoe the first in 1822.

Moshoeshoe, was the son of Mokhachane, a minor chief of the Bakoteli lineage, who formed his own clan and became a chief around 1804.

Between 1821 and 1823, he and his followers settled at the Butha-Buthe Mountain, and joined with former adversaries in resistance against the Lifaquane, a tribe which was associated with the reign of infamous Shaka Zulu in the early eighteen hundreds.

The bizarre thing about this was that Johann had learnt all of this whilst studying at St Johns in Johannesburg and not from his early schooling in Lesotho.

He was not too fond of the British and their intervention in the war between Moshoeshoe and the Boers in the Free State. This war was a series of skirmishes, and in 1854 when the British pulled out of the region, there followed a series of wars with the Boers where they lost a great portion of their western lowlands.

The last skirmish was in 1867, when Moshoeshoe appealed to the British Queen Victoria, who agreed to make Basutoland a British protectorate in 1868. In 1869, the British signed a treaty at Aliwal North with the Boers that defined the boundaries of Basutoland, which by ceding the western low lying and fertile territories, thus effectively reduced Moshoeshoe's Kingdom to half its previous size.

British diplomacy at its best!

My head was spinning with all this information and I was very happy when we finally arrived at our first night stop-over.

The chief was in Egoli, Johannesburg, mining gold for Anglo-American Mining house and his first wife Rosie was left in charge of the kraal. I was given my own rondavel which was furnished with a mattress, a small bedside locker, a very large metal wash basin, a small port-a-loo fashioned out of an old bucket and a toilet seat attached to the top with farmers wire.

I carefully unpacked my belongings and unrolled my sleeping bag when Johann entered.

“You will be eating just after sun down with Madame Rosie, she has prepared her celebratory dish of sheep’s offal, including the tail, which is a sign that you are an important visitor. You give her something in return.”

I thanked him and told him I would be outside in a minute and share a sundowner with him.

In the dying light of the evening sun Johann, drinking a beer, and I sat on ridge overlooking a vast valley and continued our chat. The conversation moved as the sun set into the area of the supernatural.


There had recently been a newspaper story about a lady who lived on the South African side of the Lesotho border and it told of her encounter with extraterrestrials. She had claimed that she had been adducted by aliens and had given birth to an alien’s child.

This sparked off our entry into the world of beliefs. I quickly steered the conversation to my time with Gypsy Rose Lee and how she’d taught me that most things mystical and paranormal were purely a trick by a very accomplished con-artist.

By the time the sun had set and we made our way to Madame Rosie’s evening banquet, Johann had mastered the art of “finger-clicking” and had learnt all the ins and outs of Rose Lee’s supernatural trick. His cool somber black African face tended to add more magic to the deception than I’d managed to muster dressed in my Indian turban as a child on Blackpool’s North Pier.

I entered Madame Rosie’s beautifully kept rondavel breathing in the smell of freshly braised tripe and carrying a great deal of pride for my young trainee. The interior was spotless although there was an earthen floor. A fire shouldered in the centre with the smoke gently curling up towards a vent in the thatched roof. Around the fire were scattered Lesotho woven rugs. These were adorned with cushions also covered in the locally made woolen fabric.

The tripe was superb, served on a bed of mealie pap, with a butternut which had been roasted in the coals as a separate veg. I complimented Madame Rosie on her cooking, “As good as what my Grandma made.” She beamed and said. “Not many of you Europeans like the tripe."

“I grew up on it. Pop, my granddad, loved it, although we usually had either beef or pig offal.”

I described how my Grandfather used to slow roast an entire pig’s head for a Sunday lunch once a month. It was his specialty, but I was never allowed to have the brain as he said, “Ya’s clever enough as it is Cessy!” It was many years later, when I tried doing it myself, that I realised what a delicacy my grandfather had deprived me of.

The meal was finished and a young girl came in almost out of thin air and cleared away all the cooking utensils, the wooden carved boards we’d eaten off and generally tidied the place up.

Then she did the most unusual thing.

After she’s taken out all the eating accouterments, she walked back in carrying an old cobbler’s shoe-iron and a chicken under her arm. She gently placed the shoe iron down about half a metre away from the fire. It was only once she had done this that I realized the chicken was attached to the shoe iron by a long piece of string made from hemp fibre.

“Why the chicken?” I asked Johann.

“She peck up the crumbs we dropped. It’s the indigenous Vacum cleaner. Eco friendly.” He said smiling.

And sure enough the little chicken, restricted by the string, started pecking all the eating area around the fire gobbling up, unseen to the human eye, morsels of dropped mealie pap and tripe.

“She also keeps it inside overnight so collect any eggs she lays. Fresh eggs are very scarce in the mountains.”

This amazed me as I’d seen hundreds of chickens running around in all the villages we’d passed through.

Johann explained, “They mostly Cocks, for the eating. Most females run outside, the eggs are fertilised and they get more chickens for the eating. Young layers are sought after for the eggs and they keep them well protected.”

This information reminded of advice given by my Grandpa. He was fond of the expression “Where there’s muck, there’s brass.” And he used many recycling techniques that are now gaining exposure on the internet and on our TV screens. With his pigeons, he followed the same regime as Madame Rosie, he separated the good female racers for breeding, and any unattached males made their way into Grandma’s pigeon pie.

If only this type of information were still passed on to today’s youngsters, what a far better world we would have. Less need to join the supermarket queues for the ready-to-eat salt ridden fodder that is guzzled down by most of the Western world today.

I have to admit that I was wandering down memory’s lane and not really in the here and now. It might have had something to do with the smoke from the pipe that Madame Rosie had lit up. The soft delicate aroma of the dreaded weed, dagga filled the rondavel.

As I pulled myself back into present situation, Madame Rosie smiled sweetly at me. Johann gave me a quick nudge in the side, “She’s waiting for you.”

“To do what?"

“The passing on of the gift.”

It suddenly clicked. She was waiting for my present to her. I waved at her pipe, took out my cigarettes and asked if she’d mind if I smoked. I then handed her Toddie, indicating that she must take a sip.

She took the hip flask and deftly unscrewed the top and took an almighty huge gulp, worthy of Jack Nicholson, of the Polish Vodka.
 

There were none of the usual reactions that people who have not tasted the vodka before exhibit. No coughing, spluttering and shaking of the head, just her gentle smile; and then she took a second slug and handed Toddie back to me saying thank you in SeSotho.

Johann excused himself saying that we would depart at first light tomorrow. He suggested that I did the same as the trek the following day would be over eighty kilometers to the Maletsunyane Falls, one of the magnificent treasures of the mountain kingdom.

I agreed that it was a good idea but Rosie’s actions had me riveted to my cushion. She was carefully rolling small balls of cotton wool and then pushing them up her nose.

Curiosity got the better of me. “Why are you doing that?” I said as I mimicked her motions.

She pointed at my cigarette and said, “That smoke not good!” as she smiled and puffed out a huge inhalation from her dagga pipe, “This good!” she continued.

I can’t remember what time it was when I returned to my rondavel. All I do know was, when I was woken in the morning by an eager Johann that Toddie was empty, and I had a mouth that was as dry as a Nun’s nasty. Fortunately I had packed another bottle of “Wybroka” in one of the pack mule’s satchels.

Dawn light was creeping in over the horizon as I left my rondavel. I had rinsed my face with icy cold water, brushed my teeth and completed my morning’s ablutions. Johann had said we’d breakfast on the trek, so I’d extracted some provita biscuits and a tin of corned beef from the mule’s side pack to put in my personal shoulder bag with a refilled Toddie.

Madame Rosie was there to wave goodbye, “I thank you for a wondrous evening.” She beamed as I handed her the tin of corned beef from my bag. She gave me a huge hug and pulled the ball of cotton wool from her nostrils.

We were on our way.

The trek to the waterfall which is near the town of Semonkong, the site of smoke, was grueling and energy sapping. I do not care to remember the number of times we descended on my pony’s ratcheted knees into a valley, and then climbed to the other side, but the view of the Malesunyane Falls was worth the pain and agony that my backside endured.

Words can not describe the beauty and magnificence of this 192 metre cascading waterfall. The sound also in the valley floor will resonate in my ear drums for years to come. That night we stayed at a back-packer’s hostel. I took the decision as the other alternative of riding another three hours to reach the planned kraal did not appeal to my bruised rear end.

The hostel too was the ideal place to test Johann’s finger clicking skill on the gullible visitors from the UK, Australia and New Zealand. We ensconced ourselves at the bar and awaited our first punter. It was going to be a serious test of Johann’s hearing as the piped rock music was blasting from the speakers. I told him to focus and ignore all other sounds just pick out my clicking finger nails.

Although he did not fail, it was only by the third attempt he was passed with flying colours and I didn’t have to pay for a single drink that night. A smart move, as funds were as always low, and I’d decided to imbibe the very expensive Irish Whisky that was on offer.

Our third day was virtually a return trek along the route we’d followed to the Falls. We took it very slowly as my rear end was in need for a gentle massage by a Thai masseur. For part of the journey I tried riding side-saddle.

Whenever I’ve seen British royalty employ this mode of travel they always seem to be completely relaxed and a hundred percent in control of their horse. I quickly realized that it was not a technique that I would not master on this rocky terrain, and when Johann started laughing at me I reverted to the standard position.

Our third stop-over was uneventful, after another rich stew, this time goat shin, which was delicious, a few beers; I retired again to a rondavel especially reserved for tourists. It was more up-market than Rosies’ with a camp-bed, a small dressing table with a mirror, a modern chemical toilet and a wash basin in an old ornate wooden stand.

As the sun set Johann asked a village boy to find some fresh eggs in exchange for a bag of boiled sweets.

At breakfast in the morning after an early morning cup of tea, Johann said he had a surprise for me at breakfast.

I sauntered out of my rondavel to see a table laid out for one, with a white table cloth, and dressed with the finest silver cutlery. On it were three boiled eggs in silver egg-cups.

“You make the choice?” said Johann who’d dressed himself in the style of an English butler, wearing a bowler hat.

“Avoid the hydrogen sulphide.” he said smiling as he knelt next to the small fire toasting some bread.

I was fully aware of what might happen and held a napkin against my nose as I cracked the top off the first egg. A beautiful yellow yolk cooked to runny perfection greeted me and with Johann's fire-toasted bread it went down a treat.

The opening of the second one rocketed me out of my seat as the smell of an open sewer wafted up from the egg’s blackened innards. It was vile, worse than Crewe railway station in the days off steam trains!

Johann laughed his head off and explained that it was a childhood prank of his to get everyone out of the rondavel so he could steal some biscuits.

He then showed me the secret of testing an egg to find out if it's off.


This involved the use of the Tokoloshe’s favourite tool, a small stone. He showed me that the sound when a good egg is tapped with the stone is totally different to the sound emanating when a bad one is tapped. The difference is only heard by a well trained ear and he said it was his gift to me in exchange for teaching him the finger clicking scam.

“The Tokoloshe and Leprechaun both have good hearing.” He said confirming that the third egg was a good one. And sure enough it was.

He told me that the trek to his father’s kraal would be about eight hours and we’d arrive just before sun set. The chief’s second wife would be in charge of all the cooking and welcoming.

He told me that the first wife, his mother, had died five years ago of TB, a terrible disease that still ravages the rural African villages and townships. It has apparently increased dramatically since the arrival of the anti-viral HIV medications. Because the drugs are slowing down the HIV symptoms, they are making the affected people more prone to TB.

It was for this reason that Johann wanted to become a doctor and was aiming in getting a least six distinctions in his matric-exams. The drive, passion, and determination of this young rural African who was receiving a top class English education, was growing on me. My grouchy self was taking on a pleasant mood, I was hoping that in years to come I would be seeing his name on TV screens across the globe, either extolling the beauty of Lesotho, or performing the most revolutionary transplant surgery.

At about three thirty in the afternoon we arrived at his father’s kraal. We were immediately swapped by the children of the village who swarmed round Johann and took turns in hugging him, their eyes then turned expectantly towards me.

“Feta mpho” said Johann and I remembered the translation he’d given me after I’d given Rosie the tin of corned beef. “Passing the gift”. I moved over to the pack mule and extracted the largest bag of boiled sweets I could find.

“Scatter them,” said Johann, “It gives them a game and they’ll get divided equally.”

With a grand twirling motion reminiscent of the Naido’s action when catching the cray-fish at Disappointment Bay, I scattered the sweets. The children dived in laughing, screaming and thoroughly enjoying them selves picking up Beacon’s finest. Mojaje’s second wife Morwa, watched and applauded. She then guided me towards my quarters.

It wasn’t a rondavel, but a sturdily built oblong stone house, made from the local rocks, a small wooden door, and a window in each wall, a raised concrete floor and a thatched roof.

Inside a bed made from gum-poles, a dresser, a side table, a main table, a wardrobe, an antique basin dresser and what really surprised me, Hi-fi equipment, up to date 1980’s CD player, cassette and radio. It was without power as Eskom did not deliver that far into the mountains, but I discovered behind an old settee six 12volt car batteries.

After a quick wash down I was back outside to watch yet another glorious sun set. Because of the mountains the light vanished quickly on the western valley slopes yet hung like a never descending curtain on the Eastern side. This created a mottled almost surreal effect that transfixed the eye till the sun slid over the western ranges.

As I was sitting outside my stone cottage enjoying I was enjoying an ice cold beer. Yes ice cold. Johann had taught me and trick on our final ride.

“Let the sun cool them.”He said.

“How?”

“Evaporation.”

With my O-level physics I quickly understood, and wished he’d made the suggestion four days ago. We took three beers, and rolled a T-shirt tightly around them, placed them in a plastic bag, then immersed the whole lot in a running mountain stream. We repeated the operation with another three. Tied the two bags together and placed them across my pony’s saddle. Throughout the day we kept the T-shirts wet and let the sun evaporate the moisture. What a wonderful experiment to demonstrate Boyle’s & Charles’s Law of thermo-dymanics.

I was on my second when Johann joined me. He’d been in conference with his father and discussed all the tribal issues and his own future. It had been decided that he should go to university and his younger brother by Mojaje’s second wife would take over all the tribal roles. Johann had also explained to his father that tonight, him and I were going to demonstrate the trick of finger-nail-clicking, but he was not to tell Morwa, his second wife.

So the scene was set.

We had a splendid meal of roasted chicken done over an open fire. It was beautifully crisp and Morwa had spent many hours slowly turning it on the rotisserie, made from and fashioned out of metal coat hangers and carefully positioned stones around the fire. We had mealie cobs that were steamed in sawn off beer cans that had been placed in the hot coals.

After the meal when everything was cleared away Chief Mojaje introduced the game.

“Johann, he tell me he is now a physic. He can read peoples minds.”

“Eeish, no, no. Impossible. They teach him funny things in Egoli.”

“It is true,” I said interrupting, “I noticed it on the trek, we can show you, if you like.”

I emptied my pockets and scattered the contents on the floor, packet of cigarettes, a lighter, a bunch of keys, an assortment of coins. They covered an area of about a square metre.

“Now we tell Johann to go outside and we blindfold him.”

With the Morwa’s headscarf wrapped around his head Johann couldn’t see anything. I guided him out the door.

“Now Morwa I want you to pick any item. Any item on the floor, when you’ve chosen it I don’t want you to tell me what it is. All you have to do is gently touch it with one of your fingers.

She finally touched one of the keys on my key ring. Luckily it was the largest one.

“That’s it, now we call Johann back in.”

Johann entered and I guided to a seated position front of the objects. He hummed gently. A wonderful touch all of his own.

“I need to touch Morwa’s forehead,” he said.

I moved him to face her, lifted his arm and placed his hand on her head. He delicately moved his fingers across her face.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

He leant forward, increased the volume of his humming and slowly swept his hand over the scattered objects. I clicked my finger nails as soon as his open palm moved over the bunch of keys. He ignored it and moved his hand away over other items thus increasing the tension. Back his hand came over the keys. I clicked again. He paused holding his palm about ten centimeters over the keys.

Morwa’s eyes were popping out of her head. His hand moved down and covered the key ring.

“How! Eeeish! No! impossible!” said Morwa.

“Yes well done Johann, but which one?” I said. “Morwa take the keys and take them off the ring, lay them down in a line.”

This she did.

“Now try again Johann, I’ll move your hand to the start off the line and I’ll tell you when you’ve reached the end. OK?”

I didn't say a word and an eerie silence descended. Johann kept the tension building for about another three minutes until he responded to my “clickin ka monoana lipekere” clicking fingernails.

He picked up Morwa’s chosen key and removed his blind fold.


Morwa jumped up and screamed.

“Aih E-Tokoloshe ke ho eena!"  and ran out of the room.

Chief Mojaje laughed uncontrollably and then suggested that Johann go and find Morwa and let her into the secret.

Johann left leaving the two old codgers alone. I offered Mojaje a sip from Toddie and we  sank into a deep conversation about Tokoloshes, Leprechauns, the supernatural, and believe it or not solar power, inverters and how he was going to get his Hi-Fi unit in my cottage up and running.

In the early hours of the morning I explained the whole finger clicking scam to him and told him what a magnificent child he had.

Smiling he told me that Johann had told him about the game but he didn’t tell him what the secret signal was.

“So I knew it had to be a trick! His late mother said he was going to be a bright one! He was up to all the tricks in his childhood. Changing the bad eggs for the good ones. He always said, he enjoyed the smell. chemistry is one of is best subjects.”

I was touched that he’d pulled the prank on me that morning.

We continued to sip the Polish vodka and the conversation turned to his favorite topic. Religion, he had been brought up a Catholic but like myself, his belief had waned. However he was a great reader of the bible and he explained it was full of contradictions and riddles. Genesis he said was full of them.

As the sun lifted its glorious head, we moved outside to watch it rise. In the cascading light, which seemed to light up the whole beautiful panoramic view of Lesotho’s mountain ranges, he asked me to solve the following riddle. He didn’t want answer before we left but asked that I send him a postcard when I’d solved it.

“Give me the name of the man who lived before his farther, died before his father and was buried in his grandmother’s chest?” he asked. “The answer is in Genisis.”

Ten years later whist I was travelling in India I sent the postcard.

A Buddhist monk in the Nilgri Hills of India had helped me.

Saturday, May 2, 2015

Peeping Tom

                  Helen Mirren with NYT director M Croft in rehearsals for Anthony and Cleopatra

Peeping-Tom

Can you remember what you were doing at the tender age of fourteen?

Of course you youngsters can. But for those of my generation who have to deal with the onset of senility, Altzheimers and other age-related medical problems the task is not so easy.

However, in spite of the afore-mentioned ailments, I can remember certain details with great clarity. The more exciting the memory the easier it rises to the surface.

The more mundane get zipped and, stored in the never-able-to-reach area of my aging hard drive. 


Good use of the computer analogy don’t you think?  Keeps the youngsters reading.

Sex is also an excellent tool to keep the younger generations glued to either a book or a screen.

So where was I? Ah, yes, fourteen and sex.

Well at this early stage of puberty, as we called it back then, I used to recite poetry to panels of stony faced adjudicators who sat in on Sir Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Poetry Lovers Fellowship” examinations but I was also training as a “Peeping-Tom”.

I received this never to be lost training whilst I was treading the boards at the Old Vic Theatre in the suburb of Waterloo in London.

I was performing the minor role of Third-spear-carrier-downstage-left in a National Youth Theatre production of Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra.

I’ll give you the standard three guesses as to what I was peeping at.

Right first time.

Young Cleopatra’s ample glandula mammaria.

Mammary glands or bosoms for those of you without the Latin.

None other than the now famous Dame Helen Mirren was playing the role of the voluptuous queen of Egypt, who had all the local politicians of the time sporting permanent hard-ons.

She was a brilliant actress even at the tender age of seventeen and the Youth Theatre’s director, Mr. Michael Croft, had an extremely good eye for casting when it came to getting bums on seats.

There is a famous scene in the play, Act 3 Sc2 I think, when Antony confronts the love of his life about her possible involvement with his political rival, the young and also sexually active, Octavius Ceasar. The director, an astute and clever man with an immense knowledge of the Bard, had worked the scene as if it were a good old marital tiff.

As you may remember, this was the dawning of the “Kitchen-Sink” drama in the UK and Mr. Croft, in an attempt to upstage the famous John Osborne, gave birth to one of the first productions in London to have a good dose of explicit bedroom-drama.

He justified his direction by brandishing his “Stratford-Edition” of the play during the early rehearsals.

 “What does it say, line 138? Look at the stage directions!” We all perused our scripts.

Hands were raised in unison. “He strikes her!” we all yelled. “Good. And line 157?”

Our eyes glued back to the printed page. “He strikes her again!”

Mr. Croft then donned his school-teacher robe and explained.

“Shakespeare may have played this scene the same way we are playing it.” Holding the Stratford-Edition aloft he continued, “This is taken from the 1st folio edition and in several of his plays, in Othello for example, the stage directions clearly state that the leading man strikes his leading lady.”

For male kids of the Teddy-Boy era this was good news, for the young girls a few eyes were raised. You have to remember that this was the start of the Women’s Lib uprising. And I do concede that back in sixteen hundred and two, there were no “Abuse-Against-Women” marches, and as young boys played all the female parts, I’m sure Mr. Shakespeare did not have to deal with any picketing by irate females outside the Globe theatre.

However the early sixties were another ball game. There were mutterings emerging from the Australian Outback from the then naive diva of feminism, Germaine Greer. Bras were about to be burnt. Twiggy was strutting her stuff on the catwalks not needing one anyway. And Marianne Faithful and Mick Jagger were doing things with Mars Bars. Even “Ken-the-Red”, the recent ex- Mayor of London Mr. Ken Livingstone was up in arms, barricading the private garden squares of Notting Hill, so that single mums could wheel their prams.

These were heady times.

The young Ms. Mirren was no slouch either when it came to airing her views and opinions. The rehearsal room was a-buzz with heated discussions on women’s rights, the pill, violence in the home, and banning the bomb. Ms. Mirren and her gallant on stage partner Mr. John Nightengale, who played Anthony explored all the avenues that Mr. Croft opened for them.

Rehearsals continued apace and by opening night the “Strikes” were in! Thank God!

The national press reviews the following morning gave a unanimous thumbs-up for the production and audiences flooded in. Especially after they had read the Sunday review that mentioned Ms. Mirren’s mammary glands, which tended to slip out of the loose toga-like dress she was wearing. Crowds started queuing three hours before the performances so that they could get a chance of being a member of the “Peeping-Tom-Club”.

But unfortunately for these eager punters Ms. Mirren’s glands were never seen again by an audience after the opening night. With the use of her brilliant technical acting skills she had quickly developed a marvelous pirouette movement that ensured she always fell facing up-stage. I take this opportunity to thank Helen.

Two reasons.

Firstly, at a later stage in my career, I used the same twirling motion when I had to prevent my own privates being seen by the audience when I had to urinate on stage. And secondly because she gave the fifteen-or-so spear-carriers, who were standing in the up-stage wings awaiting their next entrance an occasional chance of catching a glimpse of her glandula mammaria, as they tumbled out of her dress.

As those adolescent years passed, the memories of Ms. Mirren’s boobs slowly faded as I focused on the more physically present appendages of the female partners with whom I was cohabiting at the time.

My peeping-tom days were over. Are they returning? Now that’s another story.