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Wild Wild
2025 starts off with some wild happenings and wilder ideas…
The Oom at the table just out of sight behind a slim pillar is gaaning aan on the phone about paying his TV licence. I try to tune out but given that I have a high-school learning of Afrikaans, it’s pretty much impossible. His volume doesn’t help either. I catch snippets (all in Afrikaans but translated here because no Afrikaner has ever read this blog. If they did, the first time they saw the words ‘white supremacy’ they immediately had a hissy fit and closed the tab. Ag shame boet — may 2025 bring you that badly needed second brain cell); about how he never opened an account at the state broadcaster, so he can’t owe anything. Also he has no TV and anyway the address they have for him is not where he lives etc. etc. etc. it’s tiring just listening to him. And enough to make me quickly cough up the few hundred South African rands extorted annually from every local for the pleasure of owning a receiving device like a TV or radio.
Having paid my bill first thing on a Monday morning, I grab the quaint wired earphones, open my playlist and soon enough Montserrat Caballé is drowning out the Oom. I spend a moment tuning in when Montserrat declares she will jump off the Ponte Vecchio and wonder if the Oom has ever been to the Ponte in Joburg but that thought only leads to a dark place. I shut it all down and get on with getting this bread. After…
