Ah don'd no ow bud Ah god de flu...

ad ah reellee don'd no ow, cos ah wuz inn de zun de ole wikend pintin de gade. Ride dnow ah god de sniffels, ruddy doze, zore troat ad watry ayez. Ah tink ah'd be bedder off in mah bed bud ah god sum wurk ah huff te fennesh. Mebbe ah'll god te mah bed lader...{ahchoo, shniff}...

For want of something better to write just now...

we had a nice peaceful weekend. In case you're remotely interested...which I doubt, so why am I even going to go into this? Ah fuckit, you're here so you may as well read on... On Friday afternoon I dropped Max off at the Renault dealership to pick up his old wagon with the new gearbox and played my new old-school rock CD all the way back to Makro to buy a bottle of Single Malt scotch. Bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd, Allman Brothers and the like rang loud in my ears all the way down the highway (yes, Bachman Turner Overdrive are on the CD as well) and I pulled up to a strange look from the car guard, something to the effect of "Eish, get some new toons, honkey". I ignored him, then ignored his request to look after my car (I've ignored every one of them since some bastard car guard who wasn't at his post - or had been bought off - caused my car to be stolen a couple of years ago. I only had one payment left on it and it would have been mine, all mine, I tell ya!!) Anyway, into Makro and I found what's turned out to be a pleasant 10yr old Islay Single Malt from the distillery called Finlaggan. It sounds Irish to me, but I'm guaranteed by the splurb on the box that it's 100% Scotch. Tastes good too, not too peaty, and after the first sip, becomes quite smooth. Hell, if it wasn't 10h20am, I might be forced to have a wee dram right now, but then you'd all think I had a drinking problem too, which, without sounding defensive, I haven't...so there. I also picked up my free, inscribed, Johnnie Walker ice bucket compliments of a promotion they had last Christmas. Yes, that's right, it's taken eight months to deliver it, despite my occasional email query to the organisers regarding the whereabouts of said bucket. Now I have it in my possession, the only disappointment to it being the chip in the glass I noticed when I took it out of the box at home. No doubt caused by the inscriber... I tuned into the TV sports channels to see what was happening, in anticipation of the upcoming Sharks game at 19h00. Steph called to say we'd been invited round to friends for a braai to tan some chops on the grid and, no doubt, have a coupla drinks too. So, with Chris being a rugby supporter too, I agreed to the invitation. And a bloody good game it was too. The weather reminded me of the 1995 World Cup game, at the same stadium, between SA and France, where it pissed down for the entire 80mins. This was no different and made for some great running rugby, players passing the soapy ball between them like dirty kids in the mud. In the end, the Sharks ran out 16-6 winners, and the captain of the opposing Western Province applauded the victors on their handling skills in the wet. The braai was good too, there's nothing like a piece of meat off the grid to get the salivary glands drooling. On Saturday morning, the gardener arrived just short of 08h30, about a half hour earlier than usual and I think he thinks that, because I asked him to come a half hour earlier the week before, that he has to come earlier every week. I'm not going to correct him, as it's coming into summer and there's going to be plenty for him to do. This weekend, however, I had him slapping a layer of anti-rust over the front palisade fencing as I ground the old paint off ahead of him. Judging by the progress we made, it's gonna take us a while to do the entire fence as we only managed one side of the driveway. Next week, he's going to start painting over the anti-rust stuff to make the fence look all new again, and I'll carry on scraping the rest of the fence. At 14h30, I sat down to watch the Springboks get another rugby lesson from the All Blacks. I think it's time that the Springbok team was fired. Not the management, as Jake White is perfectly capable of putting together a winning side, but the skills and attitude of some of the players leaves a lot to be desired. After ten minutes, the Boks were ahead on the scoreboard and that's when it became very clear that they were going to lose. South African teams have a bad habit of sitting on their laurels when they go ahead early, thinking that they can now keep the "psychologically demoralised" opponents at bay for the remaining 70 minutes and retain their two point lead. As for attitude, there are a couple of players that should not even be playing club rugby, never mind international. How dumb do you have to be when, at just over five feet in height, you throw a punch at the biggest opposing bloke on the field? And it's every fuckin' game he plays, that he tries it on with the biggest no-necked fucker on the field. I'm speaking of Bolla Conradie, Western Province scrumhalf, luckily not playing this time, but it happens time and time again. Another one, Enrico January, the scrumhalf for the Lions does exactly the same thing. Maybe it's a scrumhalf thing, I don't know, but they shouldn't be on the field. Anyway, another lesson learned for the Boks (how many lessons does it take to learn something, for fuck sakes?). That evening, we went out to dinner and a show, as an early birthday present to me (before you ask, it's the 31st) from Steph. I was a little sceptic about what the show would be like, but it turned out to be a great evening. Two "camp" blokes on two baby grand pianos, tickling the ivories and amusing the audience with their humour, "A Handful of Keys" was well worth the evening out. They had a solid two hours on stage, with only a brief 15min interval in the middle, and played every genre of music you can think of. Their "piece du resistance" was a 15min-long medley of tunes spanning more than 100 years of music, consisting of 117 snippets, all perfectly in time sequence (from what they told us)...absolutely brilliant, with humour thrown into the mix as well. Unfortunately, yesterday was their last show so I can't even recommend it to anyone. I'm not sure if the show is just moving theatres or if it's being closed down, but I hope it's the former. My Sunday was spent sloshing anti-rust onto the main gate across the driveway. It took me a whole six and a half hours!! The gate is perhaps only 4m wide, but it has intricate circle patterns and nooks and crannies that are very difficult to get into with a paintbrush. I decided to do it myself for two main reasons, the first being that I'd ground the old paint off the day before and any more rain would have just brought back the rust. The second reason is the aforementioned gardener. He has a side job painting apartments and houses, but the rate at which he painted the palisade on Saturday made me feel that he was just fucking around and the quality of his work isn't that good. I decided that, as the gate is the centrepiece of the fence and, if needed, the fence can be repaired cheaper than the gate, I would do the gate myself. I might even paint it next weekend too, just to make sure it gets done properly. Anyway, gate done and a couple of small odd jobs done around the house before dark, I showered and had a scotch to celebrate my hard work, followed by another sumptuous dinner by Steph and a TV movie, "Flight of the Phoenix" on satellite. Not a bad movie, but one which can be left to the bottom of the rainy day pile. Basically, it's about a group of American oil-riggers in Mongolia (I didn't know they had oil either) whose well gets shut down by the company, who then pile on board an airplane which crashes into the Gobi desert after flying into a sandstorm, who then build another plane out of the remains of the crashed one, who then manage to fly off into the sunset just as smugglers' bullets fly around their ears. In my book, the only good scene was when the designer of the new plane, who turns out to be a 'plane designer by trade albeit of model airplanes, blows out the brains of one of the smugglers the good guys had captured while the rest of them were squabbling about how he was going to be a drain on their already low water supplies and what were they going to do with him. No emotion, the guy walks over, picks up the army issue revolver off the table and pulls the trigger. Problem solved... After the movie, I watched a bit more telly while Steph toddled off and had a bath then retired to bed, having an early rise. I wandered off to the land of nod at around midnight, arms and head slightly sunburned from the last couple of days out in the sunshine, contented. Hope you guys also had a good weekend...

An interesting blog I found...

that might interest some of you folks especially Stuart and Ross who, I know, do quite a bit of reading. Perhaps you've already been there... Joe wrote a comment on one of JennyMay's postings and, not having seen "Joe" before, I went to look at what he was all about (profile view, blog view, etc). Looks like he's got some really interesting stuff going on his sites about movies and books. Joe's Reviews The Edinburgh SF Bookgroup The Woolamaloo Gazette Judging by his profile, Joe certainly has excellent taste in music, so I'm sure his taste in books (also, seeing as he's a bookseller by trade) is just as good...

Yes, I'm still here...

shivering under the latest cold weather onslaught, but still alive and well. In response to Max's comment recently (and before I get another chunty seat award) I thought I'd better let you know in advance that I'm busy working on another novel-length posting, this time about cultural and religious differences. I think it's going to be a little controversial, but what the fuck, it's my blog and my opinions...coming soon to a posting near you. As for the last week or so, we went down to my folks on Wednesday morning for a few days R&R and, I hoped, some fishing. Salt or fresh water, I wasn't cared. Wednesday had been a public holiday, so we only had to take two days leave to get five off, including the weekend. We took Bonnie down with us, one of our Weimaraners, as she and Duke (the Dobermann) seem to be having a difference of opinions these days. It recently cost us almost R2,000 to have a wound fixed on her side caused by the big brown fuckwit after he had bitten her in some or other altercation. We also took down a couple of lounge couches for my folks, who had said they wanted them as they (the couches) weren't quite fitting in with the rest of our decor. Getting the couches onto the back of the Ranger was another story. I had to take the canopy off after hoping I might be able to get them in without having to lug the 100-odd kilogram weight on my back and onto some trestles. Anyway, it gave us some space to put our gear in between the couches, which I laid one upside down on top of the other. Naturally, the fishing stuff went on first. All this was done at 04h30 in the morning as, if I'd done it the night before, the car would not have gone back in the garage due to the length of the couches sticking over the back of the Ranger. I don't go to gym at the best of times, but doing some serious exercise at 04h30 in the morning was just fuckin' ludicrous. Good riddance to the fuckin' couches, I say. I took out the two large toolbox-thingies that take the place of a backseat in the Ranger and got Bonnie's bed settled in. This is the first time she'd be on such a long trip and, though she loves going in the car, we weren't sure how she'd take the extended time in the cramped space. Huh...she slept the entire fuckin' way, like she was part of the grey carpet. We got on the road at just after 06h00, an hour later than I'd wanted to, but when you have to pack and repack things to get two women into the car (Steph and Bonnie) things can take a little longer than anticipated. The road was nice and quiet, though we'd expected there to be a bit more traffic due to the "lemming run" that usually takes place to the coast on these breaks. We stoppped off about 200km from home to fill up (just in time, as I put 83l into an 85l tank) and let Bonnie have a runabout. A quick toasted sarmie and a coffee later and we're back on the road. We stop off again in the Drakensberg, about half way to the coast, for another "piss parade". From there onward, the weather deteriorated, in typical coastal weather for this time of year. From about fifteen feet inside KwaZulu Natal it started raining. A mist-like sort of rain, not enough to use the wipers, but enough to soak into the couches on the back. Luckily, I'd put a couple of sheets of plastic on the back and I'd covered the gaps as best I could. We stopped at the folks place at just after 2pm, right in the middle of a downpour. Thankfully, there was a carport that I could leave the Ranger, and couches, under until it passed. So it was, that I had my first beer of the trip...lovely and cold, Windhoek Lager. Rheinheitsgebot at its best. We let the weather clear a bit and got the couches and luggage unpacked and settled down for the afternoon as the weather was shite. Cool and rainy, the whole afternoon. I was glad to see the folks were a lot less heavy-hearted after Pandora's burial, and we had been a little hesitant in taking Bonnie so soon after it, but they took care of her like she was their own, not that I'd expected anything less. The folks pampered her, treated her like they'd done with Pandora for the 16-odd years that they'd had her, and they'd done it with gladness in their heart, no sign of their previous sadness. That was, at least, until I showed mum the little obituary I'd written for Pandora. Mum shed a few tears, but then went back to her old self again. On the Thursday morning, we took Bonnie for a run (read "walk") on the beach to see what her reaction to it would be. At first, she was a little hesitant as she had not seen crashing waves and such a huge sandbox before, but she took to it like a fish to water. Running up and down the beach, up to her backwards-facing knees in the water, over and under rock formations, she had an absolute ball. That morning, we walked further along the beach than I had ever gone in all the time my folks had been living there. We must have done a total of about 8km and eventually turned around once we started feeling hungry. The weather that day was blowing a gale and so there was no fishing to be done. On Friday, the weather was nice again, with the wind having dropped overnight. We took Bonnie for another walk along the beach and I bought a fishing licence at the post office (fuckin' ripoff - now we have to pay to amuse ourselves on the beach too). Once back at the house, after breakfast, I got the fishing gear together and took a hike down to the rocks in front of the house to wet some line. There'd been a family of fisherfolk further along the beach earlier, who had had a pickup from a Garrick (large sportfish, just what I was after), so I tied on a large "plug" (a fish-shaped piece of weighted plastic with a couple of treble hooks attached in strategic places, designed especially for catching Garrick) and threw it a few times. On one cast I got a slight tangle and when I eventually got it undone, found that my line was broken. Before I realised what had happened, I'd let go of the loose end and it was "bye bye plug". Pissed off, I tied on a large spoon (a heavy fish-shaped piece of lead with a couple of treble hooks attached in strategic places, designed for catching large gamefish) and threw it in a few times. Same story as the plug, the line tangled and the spoon got snagged on a rock, the line snapped and I thought "fuck this, it's getting expensive" and decided to call it a day. Later I found out that the line was rotten, as it had been on the reel for at least five years...time to replace it, expensive lesson learned. By then, the wind had picked up again and dad and I chilled out for the rest of the day, waiting for their car to be delivered by the fuckwit servicemen who had taken four days to service the BMW (never buy a Beamer, I say). Mum and Steph had gone shopping, for lack of something more interesting to do. When the car eventually arrived, around 4pm, dad signed it off and we had to take it for a test drive along to the new pub for a beer. I hesitate to call it a pub, but it's the best they can do in a small place like the caravan park where it's located. It's more like a big room that someone built a counter in one corner of, stuck a fridge in, put up a few beer advertising posters, and called it a pub for the locals to frequent and the OAP's to hold their bingo on a Thursday morning. Worst of all, it had a couple of the local "boneheads" hanging off the counter, not-my-cuppa-tea-type-folks, but they were interesting enough for a couple of hours of personal amusement. At about 6pm, we staggered off home in the shiny Beamer, to face a Vindaloo curry that Steph had "knocked together". Excellent, as usual, tasty enough to make any good Charo's eyes water and nose run in culinary delight. It was so good that dad got possessive about the leftovers and froze it so that he could have it at a later date. On Saturday, we got up early-ish (about 7am) as I'd wanted to go and throw a fly line in the lagoon to see what lurks there, but the wind had got up again during the night and it wasn't conducive to that sort of fishing. Instead, we took a last walk on the beach, this time in the opposite direction from the previous mornings as the wind was from the other side. Bonnie was now very confident in the new environment and ended up chasing crabs around the rock crevasses while we picked up Cowrie shells off the sand. After breakfast and a shower, we got packed up and the car loaded. We'd decided to come home on the Saturday to have a day at home to chill out and do some things around the house before going back to work on Monday. Our washing machine was in the process of packing up (Steph has had it for about 14yrs) so we brought back my old top-loader that I'd loaned my folks a couple of years earlier and I loaded that on the Ranger. In addition, dad had decided that he didn't want the old freestanding bar counter on the verandah, and "traded" us that and the three chairs for the couches. Dad's strange like that...if you give him something, he has to give you something in return otherwise he feels like he "owes you". So, luggage, washing machine and new bar counter strapped down, we loaded Bonnie into the Ranger again (you should have seen her face when we were packing, you could have sworn she thought she was getting left behind) and we hit the highway just after midday. This time we knew Bonnie didn't want to get out as often as we'd expected her to on the way down, so we journeyed home a whole 90mins less than we'd gone down in, only stopping once for fuel and a second time for Steph to go for a leak. It's always good to get down to the coast, but it's just as good to get home again to settle down into comfortable surroundings. Right now, I'm working on a presentation for a client I'm trying to sell a whole bunch of consulting to, and later (even though it's probably around 10deg outside) I'm off for a bit of night fishing...fly fishing for trout this time. A good social evening out with a bit of fishing, a bit of drinking, but a whole lot of chilling out that happens every third Wednesday of the month. Hope you're all well out there...

Time for a Laugh or two...

might as well, the rest of the world just fuckin' depresses me...

The SA Government is in denial about crime statistics...

so maybe this is a good time to start taking notes, cos it's gonna get ugly...(What's that I hear? Ah yes, it's Aussie saying "Give us the World Cup" again...)... Apologies for the quality of the pic, but click on the image to enlarge it a little...

The Weather all over the world is really fucked up...

ask me, I know. Last night, really unseasonally, it rained. Not just a little shower, but a full-blown Highveld thunderstorm. And it had been raining most of the day too, which is why I got home early to let the dogs in...poor little fuckers were shivering in their pelts. And what do you know, I come out of a client meeting at 11h00 this morning and remembered that I had to go and pick up my new credit card from the Sandton Post Office (incompetence rules, right?) and I pull off the road just outside the client's premises to phone Steph who will know where the PO is. What happens? It starts fuckin' snowing on my car!!!!!! I kid you not!!! Snow, in fuckin' Joburg. I joked about it last night to Steph's sister, but never thought it might actually happen. There wasn't a lot of it, but enough to sit and watch for a few minutes while it flurried about in the wind then landed on the bonnet and windscreen then melted. The radio also reported light snowfalls in other areas, so I wasn't delusional...just in case you might be thinking that.

Remember my recent posting about the hosting of the World Cup in 2010?

Well, here's a pile of even more graphic reasons not to hold it here. Thanks to Max for the link...scary shit, bro... Why south Africa is Crap Death of Johannesburg Farm Murders Get out of SA This stuff really made me sad. A little more scared as well. It feels as if "it's" getting closer all the time, that it's only a matter of time before someone close to me, or myself, gets caught up in all the murder and mayhem. IF there's a God, spare my loved ones and friends. Take some of the bad guys for a change, will you? Leave us peace-loving, law-abiding, lot alone...

So last week the company thought they could teach an old horse...

some new sales tricks. And let's face it, I'm only a cuntsultant, what do I know about sales, so maybe they could. Max is on the same course and I know he's looking forward to the event as much as I am...which is about fuckall. We have lives outside the company and this course is an(other) inconvenience in our lives. I'm actually on the "standby list", which means that if some of the "real" salespeople can't/won't/don't want to make it, I'll get an email that says I'm a valued part of the sales force and the course will reinforce old principles. Aye, awright then... So I get the email and confirm my place and, purely by chance, although one of our shared managers probably had something to do with it, Max and I end up sharing a bungalow. Excellent...someone I know and trust that will flush the loo after he leaves a big chonky in the pan. I arrive at Lesedi Cultural Village (click on the links on the right of the linked page for more views - we had one of the "Xhosa" guestrooms) at about 2h30pm, a half hour later than we're supposed to be there, true to IBM form and fashionably late. We were told to be there by that time so that they could get the sales reviews out of the way at the lodge rather than doing them back at the office which is the norm for a Monday afternoon. I get seated and end up listening to a pitch by our Business Controls people who are basically the internal policemen of the company. In other words, they assist management in making our lives difficult. By about 4pm the talk is over, or at least it ends due to mass boredom by the attendees (only about 12 of us, instead of the 24 that were expected). We have a coffee and settle back in for the reviews. I have no input to any of them, so again I'm wasting my time. Max arrives a little later so we end up chatting about how much of our time is being wasted and by about 5h30pm they're ready for our business unit reviews. The lodge staff are ready to throw us out by then as they want to set up for the following day, so we rush through the opportunities and head off for our "guestrooms" to freshen up. The "guide" who takes us there must have taken the long way round, cos Max and I cut the time in half when we come back down to the bar. Mind you, it was downhill to the bar, so that might be another reason it was shorter. Anyway, we get to the guestroom and discover it's a quaint little rondavel decorated in the traditional sense as you will see by the links on the website, as above. We drop off our unnecessary stuff and head back with camera and jackets, as there's bound to be some photo opportunities and it's still winter here. We order a beer and I discover that I only have R30 on me, which, as we find out is not even enough to buy two Millers Drafts which turn out to be R17.50 apiece. Fuckin' ripoff, and Max starts throwing his toys out the proverbial cot. So would I have if I'd had to pay for it, but he has all the money and graciously not only pays for the beers but loans me a hundred bucks too (which I've only just remembered to go and give back to him...thanks, Max). Once we pick ourselves up off the floor after finding out the price and paying, we hear that our management has opened a tab at the bar. The barman tells us that he'll try and get Max's money back, but to no avail. His manageress tells us it's paid for already and can't be reversed. More likely, it got reversed and ended up in their pockets. We have a couple of beers and stand around the log fire, keeping warm, having a laugh with some new and old acquaintances. Dinner is plain old 3-star hotel kind of fare, nothing great, but set in a Turkish-styled room (in an African cultural village, go figure) complete with hookahs on the tables that, although stoked, remained unsmoked for the night. What made the evening memorable though was the copious amounts of alcohol drunk by the majority of attendees. Max, on the other hand, only had two beers and two dozen cokes due to an old war wound (he can elaborate). By the time we toddled off to bed it was (I think) somewhere after midnight. Needless to say, after the grub and drink, we're ready to blow off some steam...literally. I go for a pee and Max drops a fart, second in impact only to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki A-bombs. Fuckin' hell...imagine a green cloud, sort of like mist, that you walk into like hitting a brick wall at pace and that's what it was like walking back into the room. Not to be outdone, I reciprocate, and drop one of my own...score: one all. We finish up on the ablutions and climb into our respective single beds (just thought I'd make that clear) and crash for the night, tired but content. Not that I slept much that first night, despite the booze. I can tell you that the first airplane left Lanseria Airport (about 20km away) at 05h45am, the traffic from commuters to Joburg started at around 05h00, and the first cockrel started crowing at about 02h00. It's quieter in the middle of Joburg, for fuck sakes. Anyway, the alarm goes off (as if I needed it) at around 06h25 (Max's) and 06h30 (mine) and we laze about a bit, not wanting to brave the cold floor and preferring to stay under warm blankets. Eventually I decide to get up and showered, only to discover there's no hot water in the taps and worse, there's no fuckin' water at all! So it was time for a canned shower, a quick brush of the teeth and off for breakfast. Max looked resplendent in his cap, worried that he would look like he was having a bad hair day. Me, I don't have much hair to write home about, so I didn't care less what it looked like. Turns out there was a broken reservoir on the water system which caused the shortage. Due to water pressure problems, the lodge fills large plastic tanks situated higher than the camp so that gravity pulls the water down to the rooms and so gives pressure to the taps. No rocket science there, but a simple, cheap solution to a problem. Breakfast is the usual buffet, helping yourself to toast, eggs, bacon, sausages, french toast, beans, and so on. The coffee is great so there's a couple of gallons drunk between us. And so, on to the first day of the course. Most of the other attendees have either arrived during the night or early that morning and we now number the expected 24 people. Yaawwwnnnnnn.....A quick lecture and introduction as to how the course will run and there's a short break for another coffee. The course is to be run by making a series of "calls" on hypothetical clients and colleagues, the roles played by a number of managers within various business units. Some do a great job, others who shall remain nameless, don't do as well and make it quite clear that they'll make it difficult for their callers. Lunch is no different to the day before, again typical 3-star fare, meats and salads, though set in a "shebeen" (as Max says, "look it up" - oh, okay, it's an informal and often illegal pub) sort of surrounding. We end the day's work off by preparing for the following day's "calls" and head off to the log fire after dropping our laptops in the rooms. Max has a shower and professes to be "clean again" but I decide to leave it until before I go to bed. Fuckit, they've put up with my stink for the day, they can endure a few more hours of it. Anyway, we're having a "bush braai" for dinner, so there's going to be a bonfire in the middle of the "boma" (look it up) and typically everyone will smell of fire smoke so I'm not going to bother showering just yet. Dinner is tasty enough, like having a braai in the middle of the bush, a bit chilly due to the wind but warm enough around the roaring bonfire. Plenty of drinks flow again and, as per the previous night, the evening ends with a few Scotches (Johnnie Walker Black Label to be exact). Just before Max and I head for bed, Angie (our guest facilitator from England) asks me how long I've been in the country as I still have my accent and, like Jenny May a while back, asks why I stay here. I tell her to come with me and I take her out of the boma into the dark (don't go there...that wasn't the reason). I then tell her to wait a couple of seconds and then look up. Splashed over the sky above us was a million stars and the Milky Way and I tell her there's one of the reasons. The sky, out of the effect Joburg's lights, is second only to the night sky in Mozambique (ask Ross)...brilliant. Angie says the only other time she saw a sky like that was in New Zealand. I don't know much about that, so I'll take her word for it. Max and I head for bed and I have one of the best showers I'd had in a long time. Hot, and with plenty of pressure in the water, they must have sorted out their reservoir problem. Talking of which, the management of the lodge had decided that, to reduce our "discomfort" a little they would be sponsoring R1,500 worth of booze bill that night...good of them, that was. Mind you, at their prices, it probably didn't go far. I was trying to think what we could do to ensure they gave us double that for the following night, but sanity (or was that sanitation) prevailed and I let it go. That night was Max's turn to toss and turn, but I slept like a log waking just before the alarm went off. Up again early for breakfast, same as the previous morning's, and back into the course. Lunch was set under some trees in the compound, meats and salads the same as the day before. Talk about lack of imagination... PHOTO752 At about 6pm we get herded together to go and watch a "Zulu dance". Typical IBMers, we arrive late and miss the start, but it goes on for about another half hour, three drummers giving the leather hell, female dancers doing the jiggly bit, male dancers doing the war dance stuff. Very impressive, even if you have been here 37 years. In the room was also a crowd of kids on tour from Scotland and they loved it. The whole thing ended with the dancers calling everybody into the middle of the room with them and all dancing together. Me, I'm not much of a dancer to begin with (even after a few drinks) so I sat and watched, and took some photos. From there, it was back to the log fire where we had a tasting of traditional "Mahewu", a beer drunk by the blacks and generally thought to be made of anything from maize, to tree bark, dregs from old beer and wine, as well as the occasional dose of battery acid. I thought it was like tasting the dregs of a wine barrel that had been left formenting for about 20 years, pleasant but with a nasty aftertaste. And so it was on to dinner, the usual 3-star stuff, but this time served in the same area as we had had breakfast until now. I sat down, looking at a plate of food in front of me, ready to dive into it right up until after the first mouthful when I suddenly felt very "naar" (nauseous). I waited a couple of seconds to see if it would go away, but it got worse and I ended up leaving and sitting my arse on the toilet for ten or so minutes, unsure which end my lunch was going to come out of. In the end, nothing happened and I went back to the table, but I couldn't face the meal and even the sight of it made me queasy. I explained to the waitress that it had nothing to do with the food, that it was me that was the problem. We had more course work to do that evening and at about 10pm we decided to call it a night. This time though, it wasn't just a short walk to bed. Due to a booking problem (read incompetence by a secretary) we were to spend our last night in a different venue, about 600m away on the main road running past the village. A short drive away, barely enough time for the engine to warm up and we were in our new digs for the night. This time, Max had his own room and just as well as the rooms had double beds and I didn't want to be the one to tell Princess that I'd slept with her hubbie. The new place was in the process of being renovated and the smell of paint hung fresh as hemorrhoids, smelly and pervasive. The sheets on the bed looked like they'd been bought in a garage sale and had little baubles of cotton all over them. The entire place smelled of raw sewage, which didn't endear it any more, but luckily there was the smell of paint to keep that at bay. After a good night's sleep, considering the new bed and bedding, and a shower we were back at Lesedi for breakfast just after 7am. This time I managed to keep a full plate down, though I didn't feel any less nauseous than the previous night. We started the last of the "calls" at 7h45am and I begged off the course after the last one, so I don't know what the eventual outcome was, though Max should have something on his blog. A quick visit to the chemist later and I found out that it was probably a mild form of food poisoning that I had (remember the Mahewu?) coupled with slight dehydration (remember the Johnnie Walker?) so I got some stuff and went home for a couple of hours sleep and recuperation (remember the late nights?). I woke up feeling a bit better, but a little drained. Friday morning, back into the office and the usual drudgery. So...did I learn anything on the course? Let's put it this way, His Royal Black Highness (read manager) phoned me yesterday to discuss an opportunity I've been working on and he asked me if I'd discovered the "client's compelling reason to act" and "key pain points" and "key decision advisors", to which I almost told him to fuckrightoff cos he'd obviously just heard the terms for the first time too, so I guess I did learn something. I also learned that the selling method and tools they use are just more "compelling reasons" to never go into sales in this company...