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.
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: 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”.
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.
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.
I’m sure you’ve all heard the expression, “Talking in tongues” and are familiar with the Biblical
story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter X1.
So to those of you, who say, “There is no future in the past” and “History is a pile of Bunkum!”
I’d like to take this opportunity to enlighten you and perhaps change your narrow-minded
opinions.
I would like to debate the following issue:
The Tower of Babel is alive and well, it is living in our cell phones and is copulating and
breeding at an alarming rate!
Throughout my sixty years as a jobbing actor it has never ceased to amaze me how the jargon and Lingo-Franca of my own industry and all other professions changes on an almost yearly basis.
In years gone by I had to cope with several foreign tongues. French, German, Russian, Polish
were, and still are, my “Pigeon-Tongues”.
I can still ask where the loo is because I need to do a number two, in all these languages. I can
introduce myself and ask where I can get a free drink. And if I was involved with a member of the
opposite sex I could always fall back on a tourist phrase book for the translation of the stock
phrase, “Your place or mine?”
The passion of sex is the same in all languages and needs no translation, I think you’ll agree?
But today I have to admit that I am in constant need of a translator, not in the area of sexual exploits as I can’t afford Viagra, but in the area of text messaging. Only the other day I received a message that went as follows, “M U @ / Ho 4 ish!!”
The 4ish is easy enough as I have always been a stickler when it comes to punctuality. But I’m
afraid the rest did tax even my rather bright Thespian’s brain.
Being a cryptic crossword enthusiast does help and it only took me a few minutes to ascertain that someone wanted to meet me at the back of a house or home at 4 o’clock rather urgently. The urgency is apparently being conveyed in the double exclamation mark.
The problem then arose as to who had sent me the message as it has been logged as a “Private
number”. I do know that there are ways and means using the most up to date technology available
and I could have spent half an hour at the local Internet cafe and discovered who was trying to
meet me.
But surely when you think of the amount of time the sender had spent encrypting the message; the
time I had to spend de-encrypting it; and the time spent by the service provider sending it; and
the time I would have had to spend at the Internet cafe; You must agree that it would have been
quicker for the sender to engage the services of the Wells Fargo stage coach mail line.
The other point I would like to raise is that in spite of this global phenomena of instant communication, the powers that be in both government and the private sector can still take days,
sometimes even months and years to solve a simple problem like, “Where’s my pay cheque?”
Enough said.
I think I have proved that the “Tower of Babel” is most certainly alive and is living in our cell
phones. The question still remains though as to whether it is “Well?”
At the turn of the last century, - 19th into the twentieth, - Sir William S. Gilbert of Gilbert
and Sullivan fame said, “We all use language that would make your hair curl.”
Was he maybe alluding or referring to the illnesses that could be caught by the use of bad language?
Should that be the case I feel frightened that we are now rearing future generations of curly-
haired people. Just think of the consequences. Millions of “Perm-Set-and-Wavers” out of a job.
Hair dressing salons with advance bookings of over a year. Hair straightening clinics opening up
on every street corner.
The mind boggles.
Harking back to Genesis, when the dear Lord gave us our languages and dialects, I don’t think he
had planned or envisaged that we would need to invent another that is compiled of asterixes,
exclamation marks, numerals, capital letters and back-slashes.
I do concede that all professions and trades have their own lingo and specialised vocabularies.
My own industry is no exception. “Print the 4th along with the pick-ups on eight and nine and can
the rest.”
This could be a common demand from a movie director to his continuity advisor. He is of course
referring to the “Takes” that have been shot on a particular set-up. He is telling his advisor of
the ones that he wants printed from the negative that will be sent to the film laboratory and the
ones he doesn’t want can stay on the negative in the film canister. Simple enough, but for
someone outside the industry it would probably either not interest them, or they wouldn’t have a
clue what he was talking about
Fifteen years ago in the early days of cell technology, my son, who works in the world of finance
told me, “The upward flotation trend in the present bear market could fold if the C I figures
Stateside weren’t hot.”
I was working in Scunthorpe Rep at the time and was shopping in the high street looking for a
friendly off-license run by an Indian friend of mine. Habbib had told me he had a special on
3-litre chateau cardboard dry red and “Toddie” was empty.
After leaving Habbibs’ wheeling my shopping trolley filled with twenty-five boxes, I kept
glancing at the shop windows to see if I could find an establishment selling bears. And my mind
was occupied as I tried to envisage what type and size of clothes a one-eyed Cyclops living in
America would buy if he was feeling a trifle warm.
I am sure you are aware by now that my imagination does tend to run wild. But I was following my
own rules of translation. “I” in sms-lingo can mean the personal pronoun or it could be an “eye”.
Now most of us humans are graced with two of these organs, one on the right side of our faces and
one on the left side. So I immediately jumped to the conclusion that my son was referring to a
person who had a central eye, a “C I”.
The only person I knew of that fitted that description is a Cyclops from Greek mythology.
Needless to say that same evening after I had finished my performance portraying a brain damaged forty-year old man who had the mind of a three-year old and could only communicate in grunts and gurgles, my head was again catapulted into a state of utter confusion.
I received another text message from my son. “Ur shares 4 OL 2 B off-ld”. Please help me.
Point proved; there is always future in the past! It’s just that nobody bothers to look for it.
Mr Cess Du est Monsieur Foxy
C’est va? Noblesse noblige. Comment allez vous? Bon soir. Bon jour. Je m’appelle Cess Poole. Je t’aime. Qui, qui, madame. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir? Comme ce comme ca. Je ne sais quoi. Je suis un enfant terrible.
The last stock phrase I would live to regret.
I explain.
“Qui”, I thought with a few pigeon phrases in the foreign tongue of French at my disposal, I felt very confident when I was offered a small cameo role in a movie called “Crime de Monsieur Stil, Le”. I was sorely in need of confidence, as I would have to perform the whole role speaking French.
By the end of my four week shoot I had a new understanding and appreciation of the stock French phrase, Honni soit qui mal y pense -Evil be to him who evil thinks.
The movie script was freely adapted from the novel “Crime in the Gabon” by Georges Simenon, the creator of the famous detective of the fifties and sixties, Maigret.
Gabon was a French West African colony till independence came in August of 1960. An enterprising and delightful young lady our director, Ms. Claire Devers had set her heart on making the definitive French film on the political chaos that occurred during the mass exodus of the French colonial masters in the years just before Mr. Leon M’ba assumed the presidential office in 1961. The movie was of the political crime thriller genre and the basic story line was full of promise.
The Gabon was in a stable, if somewhat autocratic state at the time. Africa’s longest serving president, El Hadj Omar Bongo Ondimba was in power and was running a smooth dictatorial African ship. But as a civil war was raging next door in the Congo, the location chosen for this made-for-TV-epic was the Northern Cape of South Africa. Our base camp and lodgings were in the small town of Keimoes and all our set locations were within a two hundred-kilometre radius of the town.
This whole region of Orange River basin and the surrounding area is renowned for the growing of grapes, critus fruits, the delicious yellow clingstone peach and the production of many fine wines.
Some farmers even brewed their own marvelous illicit concoction known to the locals as Mampoer. This is the South African version of Moonshine or Irish Potcheen. The latter two being excellent tasty beverages, I was very eager to taste the local rendition.
Fire-water-extraordinaire is the best description I can give this potent medicinal drink. The medicine is made from the skins and off-cuts of the yellow clingstone peach and was of exceptional quality. So “Toddie” and I were in second heaven.
Forty-one kilometres to the west of Keimoes lies another small town called Kakamas, and to the East another one-horse town by the name of Pofadder. The name Kakamas is shrouded in mystery, with the most likely explanation of the derivation is that it comes from the Koranna Khoe words for "poor grazing".
And that the area certainly is.
The town of Pofadder was named after Klaas Pofadder, a bushman or Koi-Koi Captain of the area. Pofadder again is surrounded by “poor grazing” and is the centre of the local sheep trade, and is well known to geologists and mineralogists because of the many interesting geological deposits found there.
“Kak” or “Kuk” as it is pronounced in Afrikaans means shit. And “Pofadder” or “Puffadder” as I - a rooinek would pronounce it, is one of the deadliest snakes in Africa. I supply all this information so that you will note, to put it mildly, we were barracked in the back of beyond!
Mademoiselle Dever was a fiery lady and the producer from France; George Campana seemed to be on the ball. However as always in our industry, money is always the bottom line. The only reason the movie was being shot in South Africa was not the coup in the Congo, it was because the local English speaking actors, who had been cast in all the supporting roles, would cost less than flying in genuine French thespians.
This as you can imagine, caused problems, strangely enough not on the monetary issues but on the creative issues. Not one us of could string a single sentence together in French!
We all had a smattering of French. We had either studied it at school as one of our foreign languages or had taken it at University. Dialogue coaching from a young French lady was the order of the day. We practiced and practiced but never seemed to improve. We were told that we had to speak in French so as to help the French actors in Paris who would dub, and post-sync, their voices.
Brilliant! I thought.
They are never going to use our voices. All they are interested in is that our lips make the right movements. So I quickly made my character a man of many gesticulations. When he was pensive, he would talk with his hand half covering his mouth. When he wild and angry he would move his hands so erratically that they would cross his face every two seconds. And when I was totally at a loss for words and up-shit-arse-creek without the proverbial paddle I would spin around turning my back to the camera.
My character developed in leaps and bounds. After a few days Ms. Devers had me sussed. “Ah, ah Monsieur Foxy is on the set, bon jour.” was her morning greeting to me.
She had observed my interest in keeping most of my face out of shot during the previous night’s shoot. Scene soixtante neuf ( 69, no pun intended) was four pages long. That’s about three minutes of screen time. All the non-French speaking actors were in it. Some of us had fifteen lines, some only six or seven, I was in seventh heaven, I only had one and it was only six words long.
It was set in the country club bar, a small area of twenty square metres. Ms. Devers wanted to get the whole scene in one traveling hand-held-shot. This would require the greatest skill from all the actors and the camera crew. Shooting the scene in ten takes would have been excellent if we had been speaking in English.
At 4.45 am. the following morning, ten hours after we’d started, we wrapped the scene. It had taken us forty-one takes! This was a record for all of us working on the scene. The French expletive, “Merde!!!!” was ringing in our ears as we crawled off to bed.
As Ms. Devers greeted me at twelve noon the following day, I was full of the, joie de vivre, the joys of life.
I had a day off. “Bon jour, ma pleasure mademoiselle”, I replied handing her “Toddie” so she could have a sip. She knocked back a hefty gulp and went into an immediate seizure, gasping and coughing.
“What is this?” she asked in between bouts of panting convulsions.
“She is the evil Mampoer mademoiselle, the medicine of the fox, the creme de la creme, a gift from enfant terrible.” I replied.
“Honni soit qui mal y pense - Evil be to him who evil thinks Monsieur Foxy”, she answered as she walked away laughing in the African sun.
