Oh rugby, you make me lose my lunch

Rugby season has started, the yell of a neighbour through the walls, “You F%&*ing ref!”. Then I know it has begun. Why aren’t cricket supporters that noisy? I hate sports. I suppose it’s not all sports. It’s probably like generalising about hating drivers of BMW’s. I don’t hate them all, it’s just the rudeness experienced with many encounters with them. Not that I hate playing sport, in fact I quite enjoy a spot of tennis, or a jog around the common, a bit of waterpolo. But professional sport irks me. I can’ quite say what it is. It is possibly the arrogance of sportsmen,  or maybe it’s the yobbish yells of rugby supporters in a normally quiet pub. Or maybe it’s just my own insecurities. Who can say. I just can’t stand people yelling instructions at an object which cannot understand them, nevermind relay such information to a coach, who could then take this into account and go back and reinstruct his players of what to do. It’s all madness really.

Perhaps I am too harsh. After all, I really rather like the way those soccer players move. With such elegance and grace, and no-one can fake an injury quite as well. It’s like ballet and great shakesperean acting mixed into one, but on grass with hairy men. I just can’t understand why people (particularly men but not excluding women) get so worked up about a bunch of other men running about handling each other in more than dubious acts of aggression.It is not only strange, but interesting. Homo-erotic inferences aside, a catharsis of anger seems to me the most likely of reasons why men would want to watch sport. It is the closest they can get to venting their pent up emotions, without actually having to get off the couch.

Of course these are all old wisdoms. I was just curious. One of my favourite scenes in a movie is when the young Amelie is on the roof of a neighbour and keeps unplugging the cable connection to the television everytime a goal is about to be scored. The man reacts with a rage of someone who has just found out his wife has cuckolded him. This, to me, is how I see the love between a man and his sport. I know some men who don’t even show such passion for their girlfriends or wives. How can you feel so much for such an abstract thing? I cannpt grasp the vehement emotion that one man feels for 15 strangers and their one ball.

 Golf too, makes me livid. It is possibly the years of “abuse” I had to endure. My brother taping his golf swing and then replaying it, repeatedly, until he could find the error in swing. Of course, i’m not sure what he thought he’d find, but it seemed to fascinate him. And how he used to make me watch repeats of golf games which were finsihed, completed, done and dusted YEARS before. Watching eight hours of old men walking around on a fancy field is boring. But when it isn’t current, it’s like pulling teeth.

perhaps I will never understand what so many others around me seem to have grasped. A love of something which isn’t a part of you at all. It’s… mystifying… to such an unbeliever as myself. Maybe it will come to me one day, and i will be invoked with the spirit of “die bokke!!!!”. well, maybe not.

I don’t care if its socially unaware: I HATE CAR-GUARDS

For those of you fortunate enough to live in South Africa, there are a few quirks and idiocyncracies which you are never quite  able to get used to, even if you’ve lived here all your life. Just for the sheer audacity or unbelievableness of them. Carguards are one such…and i shudder to use the word here… phenomenon. I am weak-kneed with fear at having to go to my local pick n pay. The danger of being bombarded by the largest number of people per square foot vying for my attention that i have ever experienced is an occasion which without fail gives me butterflies. A trip to the shop is like going to battle. I leave, armed with nothing but my handbag and the strong will to ignore.

It really is the most audacious thing. you’re just popping into the shops to purchase a little snacklet, or a loaf of bread, and you’re threatened by some filthy looking chap who looks like he’s found a high visibility jacket somewhere and thought to himself,”Ooh, now i’ll guard cars”. I’m not sure how it is anywhere else in South Africa, and in fact car guards in Durban seem quite nice, but these capetonians are getting out of hand.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no qualms with paying for car guards. I’m glad of the service. But i have two rather immediate issues with the cape town “system”. For starters, many places are now pay as you park. In other words, as you park some snooty person appears, seeminglyh out of the ground, and informs you that you are required to pay R2.60 for half an hour or R5 for an hour. Which is irritating if you’re parking at different places around the city for less than a few minutes. You have to have just shagged Sol Kerzner to afford to get out your own car these days .

The other issue I have is the car guards who you don’t legally have to pay, but who seem to feel they are rightly deserving of this money. Take my local pick n pay again. There are literally about 30 car guards in a space where there is only 40 or so parking spaces(which doesn’t really seem economically viable for them). Under the covers is pay as you park, and the other area has been left as a “free” area for those who don’t want to pay the ridiculous cost in order to just buy some milk. However. If you park there you are faced with harassment, the kind you just don’t need if you’re really busy or just having a shitty day. I once got told by a very large, rather sour faced old goat that it was R5 to park there? “But…? ” feeling a bit hornswaggled,” it’s a free area?” When I told the lady this she very rudely said, “fine, then pay when you get back.” Will i bugger?! Her audacity made me laugh. With seething venom and hatred. See if you’ll ever get a tip from me! Whilst not quite vindication, I feel better knowing that I will never give her money again. I think a few people have had the same attitude. She’s left. I have been a waitress and i have never thrown people their food and said, “There, now make sure my tip is good.” As much as they are “protecting” my car, it does not take much to be polite. Or slightly grateful if i tip R2 and I was there for a micro second.

On the topic of protecting. An interesting looking fellow the other day yelled from 5 metres away in my general direction, from his drunken stupor against a wall, on crutches, with a broken leg “Ma’am, I’ll look after your car”. Quite. Forgive me if I sound cruel. But how on earth is a man who can barely prop himself up, going to guard my car effectively. He’d have a better chance just asking for the money outright. And i really don’t need to be sworn at, or have some stranger quite literally invading my personal space, when all i want is a few groceries and don’t have any cash on me to tip them.

There should be a car guard ombudsman. Or some kind of regulatory body which designates a certain number of people to one area. I can hear your derisive laughter now. I know. In a country where we can barely regulate our taxi drivers, i think we’re a long way off from regulating and controlling such a fairweather career. So i will just complain bitterly to everybody else i meet. And swear at them from inside my car. The car guards of course, not everybody I meet.