Ferrari Envy

Here's a memory of England that I dredged up tonight...

In late 2004 there was a break in the weather and I though it would be a good time to start the long and painstaking "wash and Zymöl" process on my Ferrari 328 GTS. I washed the car down at my local "jet wash" bay and then drove back to the driveway leading into our complex where I spent a couple of hours polishing the back-right-hand quarter of the car. My wife came out to bring me a cold drink and to check on progress.

While she was there, two guys in an old 5-series BMW drove into the driveway, heading to the apartment complex next door to ours. The two developments share a common driveway, and where the road leaves "our" section and goes into "their" section, it ramps up at a fairly sharp angle. To give you an idea of how steep it is, I would not be able to drive up there with the Ferrari as the car is too low to the ground.

So there I was, leaning over the back of the car polishing the right rear fender, when the 5-series pulls up next to my car. I look up and take in some of the details of the car - full "aero kit", spoilers, big mags, low-profile tyres, drain-pipes for exhausts, "bubbles" on the windows, sound system taking up the entire rear of the car, sub-woofers strong enough to start a tsunami, aero skirts around the sides of the car, tinted glass windows, metallic flake paint job, lowered suspension....the works! You get the picture....a real pair of British Gentlemen in a really "classy" car!

They looked at the Ferrari and looked at me. I looked at them. The driver glared back, the Beemer's RPM started rising dangerously, and the next thing I knew he had dropped the clutch in a cloud of spinning tyres. This kid was determined to show me who had the meanest car in town. The hip-hop blaring from the car's tortured speakers was drowned our by the injured scream of the mutant engine that had apparently escaped quality control at the factory in Bavaria!

The car leaped violently towards the ramp and I watched an incredible scene unfold in front of me, almost in slow motion. The front spoiler and air splitter contacted first, crumpling into the asphalt. It buckled under the car, the glass-fibre ripped under the pressure and the whole nasty contraption broke off and disappeared under the vehicle. The left tyre kicked it up and, as it came out from under the car, it tore off one of the cars side aprons!

The charming occupants didn't stop, didn't look back and sheepishly parked their car. The driver obviously did not want to show his face, and sent his friend back to pick up the ravaged pieces of the once noble BMW! I have seen neither them nor the 5-series again.

Sad but true...

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

Li(fe)bido

Driving my car down a suburban road
I didn't know where I was going.
Looking so far down this well driven track
I thought there's no way of knowing
How my life has got me this far
With luck and with pain and with anguish.
Now with wife, a kid and three cats
My libido I no longer brandish.

Life's only fun was sex and drink
Throughout my wild adolescence.
Wife's only son now pains my butt
I no longer can sow my essence.
"She's a bitch too" I say to myself
How the hell did I get here?
A rich paramour is all that I need
But damn this retrovirus I fear.

Today I suffer through pre-middle age
Battling pyrosis and weight.
I pray and offer psalms to non-Gods
That I will still be able to mate
With the beautiful bimbos sent to torment
The Pavlovian dog that I harbour.
Mythical erection soon dispelled
Oh Harry why can't I get harder?

All said and done at the end of the day
My lifebido is ebbing and waning.
Fall onto manus in wild fantasy
Judah's second stops me insaning
My whole existence and image of self
And pushing it into hiatus.
Fly off resistance I still feel young
In my mind a virtual Priapus.

This was written in Pretoria, South Africa on January 30, March 31, April 19 and July 1, 1993 (a full year before the country's first democratic election) and polished a bit tonight. The writing was on the wall for the Apartheid regime, but the vision for the future was still cloudy. Stressful times. I was not married with children, but was clearly starting to think along those lines...and about what it must be like! So there I was, holding down a relatively new job, projecting myself 15 years into the future (if there was going to be one) and writing pretty crap verse. Best you ignore this one!

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

Monday Mourning Meeting

Looking at you I must declare,
You set my loins a-tremble.
A rounded beauty of rare delight,
The Lord truly did assemble.

Looking at you I must confess,
Your innocent charm moves me.
Your translucent skin and flowing blonde hair,
Laughing and smiling so carefree.

Looking at you I feel myself,
Getting quite weak in the knees.
Your glasses, black hair, and compact form,
Are certainly built to please.

Looking at you I can't decide,
Exactly what you are.
I know you know you're a stunning girl,
But too conceited by far.

Looking at you I clearly see,
You're short and tight and ugly.
But your impish wit and sense of fun,
Definitely do amuse me.

Looking at you I again confirm,
Your toothy buck smile is repulsive.
Your inane laugh and podgy nose,
Make me a depressive compulsive.

Looking at you all I now realise,
We all have distinguishing features.
But at the end of the day, all I can say,
Is that you're just upwardly mobile bitches.

I was in a technical tax meeting back on January 25, 1993...and it was as boring as hell. I just looked around the meeting room (in a hotel in Johannesburg, South Africa) and jotted down these superficial observations. Politically incorrect by 21st century standards, but really just an exercise in rhyming and a footnote on the ruthlessness of corporate survival. Damn - I think I'm a closet gangsta rapper! ;-)

Cheers MAlfaRK ©

WW1 Experiences of an English Soldier

I discovered a great blog today, after seeing a piece on it on Sky News.

It's the war correspondence of William Henry Bonser Lamin. The blog is made up of transcripts of Harry's letters from the first World War, and they are being posted exactly 90 years after they were written.

Note to self: Consider doing something similar with the collections of Austro-Hungarian prisoner of war postcards you have. They have already been transcribed into Czech and translated into English...and just need to be posted!

Cheers, MAlfaRK

Indoctrination Days

7 South African Infantry Battalion - Bourke's Luck (and later Phalaborwa), South Africa.

I searched the internet to find the lyric of the 7 SAI "Unit Song", but it's not out there. I think it needs to be recorded somewhere, so here goes. Scary stuff (but you have to read the language of the racist oppressor to understand!)...

7 SAI MARS

Waar waters van Treur en Blyde kolk
Ontstaan 'n vesting van onse volk
Hard en stewig net soos beton
Die tuiste van ons eie Bataljon

Donker strome waroor kranse toon
Bruis deur klowe waar die Rooikat woon
Soos hy vreesloos waaksaam listig slu
Ons manne van die Sewe SAI

Draers van die Burgerskruis van goud
Bewakers van onse lands behoud
In berg en veld is ons opgelei waar
Ons vir onse volk se toekoms stry

Mortier en granaat sal andwoord gee
Teen bedreigers van ons land se vree
Veg met kruit en vuur en strategie
Stry ons saam as die SA Infanterie

Tenacuter die roep ons luid
Volhardned teen heel die wereld uit
In ons volk en land en God te glo
Ons land Suid-Afrika se credo

To call this dross would be too kind. It reminds me of the kind of nationalistic dogma that flourished behind the Iron Curtain during the Soviet era (and that is still the staple diet in China and North Korea). We conscripts were compelled to sing the Unit Song, the apartheid era National Anthem and other "patriotic" clap-trap.

I apologise...

MAlfaRK

The Commandant's Ghost

The image below is the insignia of the 7th South African Infantry Battalion (7 SAI) where I was conscripted between 1979 and 1981. It depicts a lynx ("rooikat" in Afrikaans) head super-imposed on the gold "Burgers Cross" on a black background.



According to the propaganda we received when we joined the unit, the Burgers Cross refers to the geographical and historical background of the area where our unit was situated, namely Bourke's Luck in the Eastern Transvaal of South Africa. President T.F. Burgers (June 1872 - April 1877) commissioned two crosses to be made in Germany from gold mined in the area. The crosses were awarded to Mrs. Emma McLachlan (nee Shires) and Mrs. Maria Austin (nee Espach). The former for nursing mine workers in the Pilgrim's Rest district in the fight against malaria and black-water fever, and the latter for nursing members of the Boer Kommandos injured in the Sekukuni War. When presenting the crosses, the following words of honour were expressed by President Burgers: "May God reward you for your noble self-denial".

The lynx head relates to the immediate environment, for it is in the Bourke's Luck area that this member of the cat family thrives in its natural habitat. According to our military overlords, "the lynx is well known for its aggressiveness, fearlessness, cunning, watchfulness and preparedness. These characteristics make the lynx a dauntless fighter. These too are the characteristics of a good Infantry man which are developed and promoted in members of 7 SA Infantry Battalion". The indoctrination ended with the words: "Thus the motto of the unit: TENACUTER (Tenacity)".

In the final quarter of 1980 I was casevaced from 53 Bn (Sector 10) in Nam to 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria. During my recuperation (and before returning to the Operational Area) I was applied in an administrative role in the Light Workshop Troop (LWT) in Phalaborwa.

One fine afternoon, Commandant H.J. Schultz's jeep came in for a "preventative maintenance" service. On the front of the "garry" (note: why did they use this stupid name?) was the customary military car plate bearing the unit insignia. I could resist neither the near spotless image mounted on a steel plate nor the opportunity to desecrate the commanding officer's vehicle! I removed the insignia plate from the car and it has been in my possession ever since. I recently found it while digging through some old boxes and took the opportunity to scan it.

I have done a little Photoshopping to clean it up a bit, but this is the real thing in near mint condition - THE original insignia from the front of Commandant Schultz's jeep! Ahhh...that name flashes me back a quarter of a century and reminds me that Commandant still rhymes with "Common C..."!

MAlfaRK