My friends all have Porsches
Sometimes I look around at the world, and it depresses me. Not so much the world itself, but the nature of the things we do within it. I can walk into a fast food restaurant here and buy exactly the same deep fried chicken that I can in Brighton. Of course, I don’t have to, and I rarely do (it sucks. Yuk). We seem to be slowly trashing the world in our quest for more money, more belongings, more acquisitions as though ownership of things is the be-all and end-all of our existence.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t walk around, like Chicken-licken’, thinking that the sky is going to fall on my head (note the cunning fast food reference!). Most of the time I walk into work with a terrific sense of glee and disbelief that the world could have been made so entertaining for my benefit and I have the freedom to wander through it and think whatever I want to.

But I do wonder why we aren’t happier. A hundred years ago or so, I would have been born, probably into the family of some sort of skilled laboured, a carpenter perhaps. Don’t laugh Marco – this is my imagination. I’m trying to throw myself in at the same kind of social level I’m at now – bear with me. So, I’d have acquired carpentry skills and at the age of twelve or fourteen or so, started work and expected to do that work for the rest of my life. I would have had a lower life expectancy, more siblings, poorer diet, and if I was lucky, I wouldn’t have been sent to fight in the Boer war or either of the two world wars (didn’t we British give Hitler some great tips with those concentration camps, eh?).
But in general, I suspect that I would have been just as happy a chap as I am now. In fact, probably more so, as I wouldn’t have had to worry about:
· how much the mortgage was costing me
· how much I was going to pay to keep the evil, green Daewoo on the road this month
· how far I am from my family and that I only get to see them three times a year on a good year
· that my neighbours have a newer car or bigger TV or DVD player or nicer barbeque (sorry, braai) than me
· whether I have the coolest mobile (okay, I never really did worry about that, or the TV).
· whether I’m going to get that pay rise, or a promotion (never really worried about that either).
· etc.

But why is it, that a hundred years on, with such a better quality of life, no one is particularly happier. There all just more stressed. My feeling is that it has to do with expectations. A hundred years ago, due to the social and political environment, I wouldn’t have expected to be anything other than a carpenter all my life. No matter how good I got at carpentry, I would always be a carpenter and probably be dead by the age of 45. I’d always live in the same house with my family and some of my children would die of the flu of the plague or whatever. I certainly wouldn’t get to 33 and still be single, unless I was hideously ugly or had been born with three legs or something. It would have been the exception that I could have risen above my station.

Now we live in a world where anyone can be anything, if they try hard enough. Look at dyslexic Richard Branson, or the guy who invented the tetra-pack, or even David Beckham, Lordy forbid. We can all get to the top if we try hard enough. The problem with this is that wealth is layered across society like a pyramid. Few rich people, lots of poor people, so the majority of us are always going to be underneath, or at least perceive ourselves as such. We compare ourselves to our peer group and think, “Am I doing as well as them? Do I have a larger house? Have I made the most of myself?”, and if the answers to these questions are no, then we ask, “Why not?” We look at our friend’s Porsche and sing “Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz?” Our perception of our wealth is comparative, hence the unhappiness and the feeling of lack of success. Gotta have this. Gotta have that, Gotta keep up with the Jones’.

Another pressure that has come on society in the last hundred years is the fact that we don’t believe in anything anymore. Most of us used to be fairly religious (I’m referring to the UK mostly here, my Afrikaans friends) and were of the attitude that, what we didn’t have in this world we would be rewarded with in the next and so we were happy. Success was measured in humility and service to God, King and country. Expectations were low and so we all felt as though we were achievers.

Now the opposite is true. Most of us believe that this life is all we get and whatever we are going to do or attain, we have to do it now and on our own merits. We don’t so much ask what we can do for our country (God and Queen), more so, we ask what is it doing for us? Why are taxes so high are services so poor etc? Hence expectations are high and because success is measured in getting to the top of the wealth pyramid, failure faces most of us.

Having said all that, what can we do about it? Are we destined to a life of a niggling feeling of inadequacy? Well yes! We are genetically programmed to feel like that so we keep trying to improve our personal circumstances and those of our offspring. We have innately developed to feel that “we could have done better” (sounds like so many of my school reports). We have developed to feel like failures and so continually strive for success. Take heart, my friends, be happy in your misery!

The ultimate irony would be that we measure our success by how happy we are in comparison to our peer group, and in worrying about that, we deny ourselves the thing we seek most. Heck, I’ve gotta stop thinking about this stuff. It’s irrelevant unless you’re a sociologist.

Myself? I live in a four bedroom house on slope of Table mountain with a swimming pool and I drive a Merc to work. On the downside, it’s not my house, it’s surrounded by razor-wire, and the Merc is 20 years old, but it still beats a Daewoo.

Just another manic Monday
Mondays aren’t the best, for real, but it’s really Thursdays I want to talk about. Since I was a child Thursdays have had it in for me. Irrespective of the school, I've always had double lessons on Thursdays, generally ending with an afternoon of double Chemistry. I always had piano lessons on Thursday with the very instructive, but nicotine stained and aggrivative (is that a word?) Anne Keenlyside. At choir school (yes, I was once a sweet and innocent chorister), after the deceptive lull of Wednesdays when we had no practices, Thursdays had three. One after breakfast before school, one before evensong and one after. We didn't get back until 9pm.

9pm is pretty late for a ten year old, especially when you end up missing Top of the Pops and Cagney and Lacey and the period when you’re supposed to be doing the chemistry homework that Mr Butterworth had given you in the double lesson earlier that day.

Later, Thursdays came the day we had “games” in the afternoon, In winter, we were forced to run around in the snow with playing “Shinty”. Shinty is a game which initially looks similar to hockey, but has had most of the safety rules removed and you can have as many people on each team as you want. If you were lucky, you got injured early in the match and could sit out for most of it. Shinty is very appropriately named, except for some reason they put a superfluous ‘n’ in it. The only good thing about Shinty is that you can ligitimately wave a shinty stick at things. My nose was broken in school by Simon Rake who was playing shinty. In class, with a coke can instead of a ball, on a Thursday, incidentally.

In summer we were coerced into playing cricket on Thursdays, one of the most ridiculous games to have passed out of the mind of humanity. Okay, it’s very enjoyable to watch on the village green on a Sunday afternoon, and I guess to play if you know what you’re doing, but, boy is it weird. Almost on a par with golf? Hahahaha!

Talking about ball games (okay, I’m digressing from my original point, but if you’ve persevered this far well done, and you’ll probably keep reading), I seem to remember playing a game at school called Bastard-ball, in which we’d stand around on the playing fields and one person would be it. That person would have a cricket ball and they’d have to run around and throw the ball at other people. Once they hit someone the new person would be “it”. We played that on Thursdays.

Also, I remember there was a game that involved a cricket ball, a number of large sixth formers in lab coats and a single second or third year and lots of chasing around on the playing field. Sometimes I wonder if school has more to do with natural selection than education. I finished school pleasantly surprised that I was still alive. My last day at school was a Friday, I'd like to point out.

Later in life, Thursday still haunts me. Thursdays are build days. In layman's terms, a build (I think I said in an earlier post), is where all the programmers put all their stuff they’ve done since the last build together, make it fit and hope and pray that it works. Wednesdays are the days where we run around making sure we’ve got everything ready. Thursdays are the days where we run around making sure it all fits and it doesn’t break. Thursdays are stressful. I’m starting to suspect the validity of my decision to suspend the sailing. Heck, I need the money.

It's a dog's life
I’m house sitting with a French girl, rather ironically, named Florence. Her father was Italian though. You do that here, or your house gets knocked off and you come back finding everything gone. We have three dogs to look after.

Eddie is a nine month old golden retriever. He’s a lad about town, very bouncy, licks anything that moves – but thankfully has a dry lick and hence it isn't which isn’t so unpleasant. He hasn’t been chopped and tries to copulate with male dogs only. Which makes a change, because most retrievers will try and mate with anything carbon-based and moving.

Lucy is somewhat older and is a cross between a German shepherd and a Corgie. Don't laugh. She’s a township dog, so she’s a little wary of people, but she’s lovely when she gets to know you. She’s a delight and is probably relieved that Eddie is gay.

Lastly, we have Dexter. He’s a very old beagle. He has severe cataracts in both eyes and is 90% deaf and navigates using his sense of smell which is fine unless you move the furniture. It also means that you have to be careful he doesn’t walk off the edge of a cliff when you’re walking them.

The problem with Dexter, other than his insidious farting ability, is his senility. He’s losing it, poor old beagle. He barks at nothing. I don’t mean things kick him off. No, he just passes the time standing anywhere, or sitting anywhere – in his kennel, on the rug, in the garden – barking. He’s literally barking mad. You stroke him, dextrously, for a couple of minutes, peg on nose and he’s fine. Then five minutes later, he’s off again, woof, woof, woof. I managed to sleep through last night, but Florence animatedly informed me this morning that he'd been barking all night.

Florence and I have plotted and hatched a plan. We are going to try and dose his food with a little rum to see if we can get him to sleep a little better. You never know, he may even get a taste for it and become a pissed old fart.

Afrikaans for the day
smelly - ruik
old - oud
hond – dog
leerstellig – dogmatic
doodmoed – dog-tired

The Three Weeks of Last weekend
The weekend before last was a blast. It just didn’t stop happening. I got into work on the Monday feeling that 3 weeks had passed since the Friday. For purposes of grammatical variation and practice, the rest of this section will be in the present tense. I will also mention random people without explaining who they are, but never mind eh, that’s just your downfall being only the reader.

It’s Friday evening and I go to a Christmas party down at the sailing club with my friend Heather. It is a Christmas party that is held every year in mid-winter because, well it’s mid-winter down here. It’s for ex-pats from Europe. I end up dancing and also get to sit on Mummy Christmas’s knee. When she asks me what I want for Christmas, I answer “sex and bondage”, as dared by my compatriate, Tim. She doesn’t look impressed and notably under-delivers with a coffee cup with some chocolate in. However it is a nice coffee cup. I’m not sure where the chocolate goes. I don’t eat it.

I end up crashing at Glen’s house that night in the early hours. I know this, as it is in his house that I wake to the sound of several dogs pounding the stairs as though they were Scoobly-doo. I finally surface at about 10am, remembering that I’d agreed to sail on Jacqui’s yacht that afternoon at 1pm in a race. I have to leave fairly rapidly to get back home to get my oilies.

So, come the afternoon, I’m sailing round table bay, hungover. We are delayed in the harbour, as there is a waterspout somewhere in the bay! Yay! Can’t see it, but it’s there somewhere. It’s great to be back on a yacht. The sun is shining, I’m lumbering round the foredeck acquiring bruises as though collecting stamps and we see a whale FOUR TIMES, or four whales once, it’s hard to tell! And a penquin, just a-swimmin’ around.

Back in the bar, although rocking up about 8th out of 17 boats, we actually come 3rd due to handicaps and complicated things like that. Rah.

I make my weary way back to Durbanville for a good night’s sleep, but when I get there it transpires that Morne is having a party in the genteel way that Afrikaans families do. We end up watching the DVD of Read Ringers that I bought him for his birthday at 2am. I especially like the impressions of Russel Crowe and the Gandalf and Frodo excerps.

And so now it is Sunday. I am to move into Glen’s house today. Glen is halfway across the Atlantic on a catamaran, lucky chappie. His wife Freddie is German and is going back to Germany for seven weeks starting today. Florence (a French girl) and I am to house sit. Florence is cool, and likes dogs an awful lot, even so much as they may lick her face. Blugh! She is friends with this guy called Gei-gei. As far as I can tell, he owns night-clubs and runs a stretch-limo business. He also has four Russian lapdancers living in his house. I have yet to meet them. I’m intrigued.

So Sunday, I get to bed, dog-tired, no pun intended, and Monday, I am at work and three weeks have passed since Friday.

The heady art of goldfish sexing
I learnt how to sex a goldfish. It’s very technical. There are two ways, neither of which interfere with the fishy, so no acusing me of piscaphilia.

How to sex a goldfish – method 1
Look at your goldfish. If your goldfish has pale spots on it’s gills, then it’s a male and it’s mating season. However, if it is not mating season (i.e. your goldfish is not horny today) then it’s either male and not mating season or it is male or female. Trigger has no white spots on his gills, hence, he is either a female goldfish or he’s a male, but not horny (this is starting to sound a bit like a logic lesson with biology mixed in).

How to sex a goldfish – method 2
All fish have a venting hole (tehnical term that – means the hole they poo through). As with most fish, Trigger’s venting hole lies just forward of his tail. A male goldfish has a slightly concave venting hole, a female, slightly convex. It’s hard to describe, but next time you’re under a fish, have a good look at its little chirping starfish.

Trigger has a slightly convex venting hole, and therefore is a fishette. Yay!

I bought Trigger a friend, Browser, who is much smaller and golden, and quite boring. Trigger bosses him about.

The weekend ahead, the weekend behind
Last weekend I was out on a yacht again. The same yacht. It is called Impact. I jump around on the foredeck most of the time. I am amazed how rusty I am. I need to pick up again or I’m never going to be able to remember anything when I restart the course. I must also go through the theory again.

This weekend (it’s Friday) I’m not on a yacht. However, tomorrow I’m going to a Rugby game in the evening to see the Bulls play Province. Never been to a Rugby game before, not a real one.

The weekend after, I’m flying to Germany for 5 days to see a friend. I’m really quite excited about that. I need to get out of Cape Town for a little while, not only that, I need to get out of South Africa, even Africa.

The thing is, I’m feeling as though SA if very remote, which is odd, because it is a first world country with third world patches, my favourite mix. I’m just feeling very cut off from the rest of the world. South Africans are born to this and they perceive the rest of the world as being very far away (which it is), and mostly irrelevant (which again mostly it is). They grow up with a very strong sense of independence as though everywhere else is a strange place that occassionaly they hear news of and rarely get to go there. Which for them is true. However, for me, it's not hence the great escape next week. Wheeeeee!

German for beginners
Ya – yes
Nein – no
Danke – thanks
Bitte – please
Schneller – faster
Ich bin eine frosche – I am a frog.
Du bist eine frosche – You are a frog.
Ich bin eine Berlinner – I am a silly American sausage
Vorsprung durch technik, ist ubersexy! – Buy BMW, they’re very good.
Achung! – Action!
Arghhh! – “I am German soldier who has just been shot in a comic about WWII and I’m falling over backwards with my arms in the air and a surprised look on my face!”