MUSIC AND NARRATIVE

What is it with documentary producers?

They insist on adding crappy musuk to the narrative of a documentary thereby overcrowding the narrative with useless duff duff crap.

I don't have a hearing problem, merely that I have difficulty excluding the musuk from the narrative.

It detracts from the documentary not enhance it.  Most times when I hear the musuk I switch the sound off and watch the documentary sans sound.

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY - (a husband's point of view)

The missus bought a Paperback,

down Shepton Mallet way,

I had a look inside her bag;

... T'was "Fifty Shades of Grey".

Well I just left her to it,

And at ten I went to bed.

An hour later she appeared;

The sight filled me with dread...

In her left she held a rope;

And in her right a whip!

She threw them down upon the floor,

And then began to strip.

Well fifty years or so ago;

I might have had a peek;

But Mabel hasn't weathered well;

She's eighty four next week!!

Watching Mabel bump and grind;

Could not have been much grimmer.

And things then went from bad to worse;

She toppled off her Zimmer!

She struggled back upon her feet;

A couple minutes later;

She put her teeth back in and said

I am a dominater !!

Now if you knew our Mabel,

You'd see just why I spluttered,

I'd spent two months in traction

For the last complaint I'd uttered.

She stood there nude and naked

Bent forward just a bit

I went to hold her, sensual like

and stood on her left tit!

Mabel screamed, her teeth shot out;

My God what had I done!?

She moaned and groaned then shouted out:

"Step on the other one!!

Well readers, I can tell no more;

Of what occurred that day.

Suffice to say my jet black hair,

Turned fifty shades of grey.

Guides should tell tourism where to stick its Cathsseta

John Scott

August 13 2013 at 10:50

Guides should tell tourism where to stick its Cathsseta

A wonderful thing, bureaucracy. It can deprive people of their livelihoods at the stroke of a pen.

That’s what it’s done to hundreds of Cape Town tour guides who completed a three-year national diploma in tourism management at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology and have been working competently in the industry ever since, only to be informed by the Department of Tourism that their accreditation is now invalid.

Apparently they are no longer recognised as “legal guides”. They may not work unless they have a certificate from Cathsseta, which sounds like something you use for urine drainage but actually stands for Culture, Art, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport Education Training Authority.

What a lot of... not urine, the other substance!

Surely three years at a university should be sufficient to teach you how to show visitors the attractions of the Cape.

All you need do is swot up a bit of history, be knowledgeable about the exact state of the Robben Island ferry’s seaworthiness and when its next breakdown is likely, learn the difference between leucadendrons and leucospermums before taking your party to Kirstenbosch, stop them falling over the edge of Table Mountain, be able to expound on the relative after-tastes of Merlot and Pinotage, convince them that Cape Point is southern Africa’s most dramatic headland (even the Cape Agulhas two-ocean fanatics can’t argue with that), and Bob’s your uncle.

So long as they don’t think you’re referring to that Zimbabwean Bob.

Rather tell them you’ve met Nelson Mandela. That will impress them. They are not to know that nearly everybody in South Africa has met Madiba at some stage or other.

The diploma course graduates will be even better informed. But if they now try to impart their knowledge to paying guests, they are likely to be pounced on by the tourist police, or whoever enforces the tourism authority’s absurd edicts.

That wouldn’t have stopped me when, some 25 years ago, I proclaimed myself to be a “mountain walk guide”.

Having lost a parliamentary election as Prog candidate and been reduced to freelance work, I added that to the top of my letterhead, after “writer, editor and after-dinner speaker”, in the hope that I could also augment my income by taking visitors up the mountains I had been climbing as a man and a boy.

Alas, no one ever requested my mountaineering services.

Thank goodness my other abilities were more in demand, or my family would have starved.

I trust that my old friend Nachum Arnoni is not rendered penniless by the tourist licence fiasco. All Israeli tourists to the city know that in Nachum (who prefers to be known as Norman to his friends and whom my wife calls “Stormin’ Norman”) they have a tour guide who speaks fluent Hebrew. Which is not surprising because he was born and bred in Israel.

Another tour guide friend is Hugh Finn, who gained his accreditation after retiring as headmaster of St Joseph’s College. He reminded me that guides were also required to have a diploma in first-aid. I just wondered whether mental assessment fell within the ambit of first-aid, in which case all those guides put out of work might consider asking the tourism bureaucrats whether they wanted their heads read.

 johnvscott@mweb.co.za 

AFRICANISMS

THESE ARE SOME OF THE FUNNY AFRICANISMS I HAVE HEARD

My greatest inspiration is the SABC news who supply me with the whole gamut of Africanisms. Now that there is a new broadcaster – ETv they have a reporter who can really mangle up the language better than all the others put together. He supplies me with the best comments on the manglement of the English language in South Africa.

The new vocabulary

Akudimik edakashon - what you get at a You-no-vessity

Ammy - Old defence force

Appetite - Previous government

Bleck - opposite of white

Cazhoo-uleetees - injured peeples in Lesotho or ka creshes

Collision - Joining of two political parties

Comukabel - contagious

Cupa-seety - full up - No relation to cup a soup

Cussle - Very big building in Cape Town

Cut - you put it behind a donkey

Cut (ii) - Given for birthdays or used in place of money

Debbin - Large city in Kwazulunatal now called Ethikwini

Ditti-mine - Find out - determine

dittiman - Find out - determine

Doe - a hinged device in the wall

Edge - U are now edged to get an akudimik edakashon

Eesh - exclamation of disbelief along with hau or see-ree-us

Elijible - opposite of disqualified

Elegible - children not qualifying for AIDS treatment

Elly - not late

Errors - As in Ebbin errors (built up districts)

Eth - the weld

Extry mists - radicals

far-shit - Mussolini's party

feather (1) - "Sweddin is feather noth then Spen"

feather (2) - "I weesh to feather my studies"

Feenoomeeenel - Somehting of wonder

Fla - I pick a fla from the gaddin

Fot - Pick an argument with fists

Gaaps - Oh (as in radio report 16/5/03)

Gaddin - where you grow kebbi-jess and flas

Gennel - a sort of diary or an ammy officer

get - a hinged device in the fence

Gler - what a light bulb does

Gress - I will mo the gress tomorrow

Gudna - one who works in a gaddin

Hau - Exclamation of disbelief along with eeesh! or see-ree-us

hest - some people merry in hest

indid - sure

is-ten - where the sun rises

itch - as in "to itch his own"

jennel - kind of a diary

jenny - trip – travel from one place to another

Jock - funny story

Jonspek - South Africa’s largest city

Ka - four wheeled conveyance

Kagad - man who weches ka while you shop

Kennel - ammy officer

Kettle - large horned domestic animals

Kipper - e.g. a goal kipper, Gary Bailey

Kleenex - plesses where sick pipple go

Len - I len to read

Lenna - One who lens - old fashioned student

Leks - large patches of wutta

Lugger - A kind of beer

Maz - a planet near the eth

Med (1) - female domestic worker

Med (2) - menyoufekcha

Medda - illegal death at the hands of another

Mek - to manufacture

Mekky - Dirty

Menyoufekcha - mek sumting

Merry - join in matrimony

Messy - mercy

Mick - those who will inherit the eth

Money-sipallity - organization which looks after towns

Muk - to make dirty spot

Nak - nak on the doe to get in

No then - pertaining to the north

Nushnal putty - Now defunct political party

Ox-is - way to go in

Parrot tecksi - fast moving vehicles in dense traffic packed to the brim with 20 or more passengers

Pek - leave the car in a pekking pless

Pent - coat walls with pent and brush

Peppuss - purpose

Peth - To wok on the peth in the bush

Pet-orya - Now called Tshwane

Pisson - one men or wimen

Phlegm - the beginning of a kendel

Piples - lots of men and wimen

Piss on eth - peace on earth

Piss - symbolized by a white dove

Pless - either place or please

Poodle - small bit of wutta

Primma fukkie - legal term – prima facie – with evidence

Putty Sapatas - Those followers of the ruling class

Rayjim - bad ruling party

Ra-shit - don't like other colours

Reevers - flowing bodies of water

Seelee-bra-tees - Famous piple

Seevarettis - very bad

Sekkiterry - one who uses a typewriters

Sekritree - as above

See-reee-us - Exclamation of disbelief along with eeesh! or hau!

Sedgree - What doctors do to patients

Shap - expression of approval

Shucks - Really big fish with sharp teeth or the Natal rugby team

Sinns - what you see in the fillums

Sir-cum-stanses - Circumstances

So then - pertaining to the South

Sowthen - ditto

spikker - one who talks

Spots - Soccer, football, tennis, etc

Sabebs - Parts of a sutty

Strim - Small flowing water

Sutton - as in "are you absolutely sutton about it?"

Sutty - Large town

Tecksi - mini bus with 20 occupants or more

Tibbit - country in the Asian Mountains

Tocks - negotiations

Ut - Pentings, sculpture etc

Utiny - One who practices the lo

Veehackles - form of transport

Vee hi kills - a ka or a track

veh-heh-LI-ih-c-le - vehicle

Vest - as in "he is well vest in the ut of penting"

Wek - I wek in the gaddin

wistin - where the sun sets

woe - long lasting battle

wutta - found in poodles, reevers and leks

You-no-vessity - where one obtains an akudimik edakashon

molybdenum

This morning I had the joy of hearing a White South African Newscaster mispronounce the word Molybdenum as - wait for it:

Molly-bed-num


This person's name is Glenn Lewington of Classic Fm 102.7

It is bad enough that Classic Fm has two super intelligent black women commentators who mispronounce everything they can think of including "Spartial"for  Spatial.  But this is a white man who does the business section for Classic Fm.

If this is the standard of education of South Africans I am not surprised that they cannot get jobs in other English speaking countries.  My biggest peeve is that it is the public hearing these mispronunciations thinks that they are correct.  Another example is A-wry pronounce as awe-ry.

I have a personal collection of Africanisms which are far more fun than the old English Sow-theffrican Inglish of Rawbone Malongs "Ah Big Yaws" published in 1972.

I heard this on the bus, "You must go to You no vessity to git an akudamik edookashon."

Another:  The emmy kennel had a sekketerry who wekked on a compoota."

Again thank you Glenn for cheering up my day.

carrus onsulting

I wonder who does their proofreading.

Weltevreden ward at Krugersdorp hospital

Recently I went to the Netcare Krugersdorp hospital and burst out laughing when I discovered one of the wards was called:

WELTEVREDEN WARD

Weltevreden means well satisfied and those poor patients were anything but.  In the ward I was visiting were 5 beds. In bed A was an elderly man who looked like he was dead, Bed b had a body whose head was covered  by a blanket, Bed C wasn't there, Bed D was empty and appeared to be recently vacated and the man who I was visiting in Bed E had been in a car accident and was in a load of pain.

Well satisfied?  I think not!!