Shebeen Social Sports Club

Hey Lads,

Sunday is going to be sunny, lets have a solid session of touchies and then some bevvies afterwards (bring a six pack of your own). There will be some WC footy on the go:

16:00    Bloemfontein     Germany    vs     England
20:30    Johannesburg     Argentina    vs    Mexico

Which leaves an option to watch at the clubhouse or Barristers?? Bring the beers and we can make plans whilst I round all you mofo’s

SHEBEEN

When: 16th JULY 2010 (Friday night)
Where: Villagers Rugby Club and the bar
Time: 19:00 start
Cost: R150 entry with R100 re-buys (unlimited) and R100 add-on (Limited to 1 per person)

Prizes:
1st: R3000
2nd: R2000
3rd: R1000
4th: R500

Call: Warren Sargeant to book your place: 076 774 6463 or email on warren@loudfire.co.za

Dear World Cup visitors,

Now that you are safely in our country you are no doubt happily realising you are not in a war zone. This may be in stark contrast to what you have been bracing yourself for should you have listened to Uli Hoeness or are an avid reader of English tabloids, which as we all know are only good for wrapping fish ‘n chips and advancing the careers of large-chested teens on page three.

As you emerge blinking from your luxury hotel room into our big blue winter skies, you will surely realise you are far more likely to be killed by kindness than by a stray bullet. Remember that most of the media reports you have read, which have informed your views on South Africa, will have been penned by your colleagues. And you know what journos are like, what with their earnest two thousand word opuses on the op-ed pages designed to fix this country’s ills in a heartbeat. Based on exhaustive research over a three-day visit.

Funnily enough, we are well aware of the challenges we face as a nation and you will find that 95% of the population is singing from the same song-sheet in order to ensure we can live up to our own exacting
expectations.

We are also here to look after you and show you a good time. Prepare to have your preconceived notions well and truly shattered.

For instance, you will find precious few rhinos loitering on street corners, we don’t know a guy in Cairo named Dave just because we live in Johannesburg, and our stadiums are magnificent, world-class works of art.

Which is obviously news to the Sky TV sports anchor who this week remarked that Soccer City looked ‘ a bit of a mess’. She didn’t realize the gaps in the calabash exterior are to allow in natural light and for illumination at night, and not the result of vandalism or negligence.

The fact that England, the nation which safely delivered Wembley Stadium two years past its due date, is prepared to offer us South Africans advice on stadium-readiness should not be surprising. The steadiest stream of World Cup misinformation has emanated from our mates the Brits over the past couple of years.

If it’s not man-eating snakes lurking in Rooney’s closet at the team’s
(allegedly half-built) Royal Bafokeng training base, then it’s machete-wielding gangs roaming the suburbs in search of tattooed, overweight Dagenham dole-queuers to ransack and leave gurgling on the pavement.

In fact what you are entering is the world’s most fascinating country, in my opinion. I’m pretty sure you will find that it functions far more
smoothly, is heaps more friendly and offers plenty more diversions than you could possibly have imagined.

In addition to which, the population actually acts like human beings, and not like they are being controlled by sinister forces from above which turns them into bureaucratically-manipulated robots.

Plus we have world’s most beautiful women. The best weather. Eight channels of SuperSport. Food and wine from the gods themselves. Wildlife galore. (Love the Dutch team’s bus slogan: “Don’t fear the Big 5; fear the Orange 11”).

Having said all that, Jo’burg is undoubtedly one of the world’s most
dangerous cities. Just ask those Taiwanese tourists who got out of their hire car to take close-up snaps of tawny beasts at the Lion Park a few years back. Actually, ask what’s left of them. And did you know the chances of being felled by cardiac arrest from devouring a mountain of meat at one of our world class restaurants has been statistically proven to be 33.3% higher in Jozi than in any other major urban centre not built upon a significant waterway? It’s true. I swear. I read it in a British tabloid.

Having recently spent two years comfortably cocooned in small town America, I’m only too aware of how little much of the outside world knows about this country. The American channel I used to work for has a massive battalion of employees descending on World Cup country. It has also apparently issued a recommendation to its staff to stay in their hotels when not working.

Given that said corporation is headquartered in a small town which many say is “best viewed through the rear-view mirror”, I find the recommendation, if it’s true, to be utterly astounding. In fact I don’t believe it is true. Contrary to the global stereotype, the best Americans are some of the sharpest people in the world. The fact they have bought most tickets in this World Cup proves the point.

Of course I have only lived in Johannesburg, city of terror and dread,
virtually all my life, so don’t have the in-depth knowledge of say, an
English broadsheet journalist who has been in the country for the weekend, but nevertheless I will share some of my observations gleaned over the years.

Any foreign tourist or media representative who is worried about his safety in South Africa should have a word with the Lions rugby fans from last year, or the Barmy Army cricket supporters (lilywhite hecklers by day, slurring, lager-fuelled lobsters by night). They managed just fine, just like the hundreds of thousands of fans who have streamed into the country over the past fifteen years for various World Cups, Super 14 matches, TriNations tests and other international events. Negligible crime incidents involving said fans over said period of time.

Trivia question: which country has hosted the most global sporting events over the past decade and a half? You don’t need me to answer that, do you?

In addition. Don’t fret when you see a gaggle of freelance salesmen
converge on your car at the traffic lights (or robots as we like to call
them) festooned with products. You are not about to be hijacked. Here in Mzansi (nickname for SA) we do a lot of our purchasing at robots. Here you can stock up on flags, coat hangers, batteries, roses for the wife you forgot to kiss goodbye this morning and a whole host of useful merchandise.

Similarly, that guy who runs up as you park the rental car outside the pub intends no malice. He’s your car guard. Give him a buck or two and your vehicle will be safe while you refuel for hours on our cheap, splendid beer. Unless someone breaks into it, of course.

We drive on the left in this country. Exercise caution when crossing the road at a jog-trot with 15 kilograms of camera gear on your back. Exercise common sense full stop. Nothing more. Nothing less. If you want to leave wads of cash in your hotel room like our Colombian friends, don’t be surprised if it grows wings.

Bottomline. Get out there and breathe in great lusty lungfuls of this
amazing nation. Tuck into our world-class food and wines. Disprove the
adage that white men can’t dance at our throbbing, vibrant night-clubs.
Learn to say hello in all eleven official languages. Watch at least one
game in a township. You will not be robbed and shot. You will be welcomed like a lost family member and looked after as if you are royalty. Ask those Bulls rugby fans who journeyed to Soweto recently.

With a dollop of the right attitude, this country will change your life.

It’s Africa’s time. Vacate your hotel room. Join the party.

Waka waka eh eh.

The following A-Z offers a rough guide for soccer fans worried about getting lost in South Africa’s linguistic jungle.

A – Ayoba. A made-up word meaning “cool,” and given continent-wide currency after its appropriation as a World Cup slogan by MTN, Africa’s biggest mobile phone company.

B – Braai. Cooking meat on a fire is one of the few things that appeals equally to all South Africans, no matter their colour. Expect to go hungry if you refer to it as a barbecue.

C – China. No, not the country, which failed to qualify for the World Cup despite having 1.3 billion people to choose from. China, as in “Howzit, my old China?,” means “friend,” much as it does in London’s East End, its probable port of origin.

“Chommie” takes “China” to the next level.

D – Dagga. Marijuana. Even though weed grows like a, er, weed in many parts of temperate South Africa, it is still illegal.

That said, expect more than the odd whiff at soccer fan parks, where you will also meet the “diski dance,” a series of township soccer-inspired moves, and the “dumpie,” a squat bottle of beer.

E – Eish! A catch-all expression of surprise or mild annoyance. Not allowed to appear in print without an exclamation mark.

F – Fundi. Every language has to have a word for the armchair soccer know-it-all. In South Africa, the Zulu word for “teacher” fills the void.

G – Gatvol. “Fed up” in Afrikaans. With the ‘v’ pronounced like an ‘f’, it’s very similar to the English “gutful.” As in “Eish! man. I’m gatvol of this fundi. He has no idea what he’s talking about.”

H – Howzit. Guttural shortening of “How is it going?” and the standard South African greeting. Spoken by true exponents with minimal movement of the lips.

Response should simply be another “Howzit” — unless you are an excessively polite and verbose Englishman, in which case you can stick to “I’m fine, thanks. How are you?.”

“Hola” and “Heita” are popular alternatives, especially if you want to be ayoba on the streets of Soweto.

I – Izzit. Another product of the same linguistic mangle as “Howzit,” the abbreviation of “Is it?” signifies vague disbelief or surprise as in: “My girlfriend is something of a soccer fundi.” Reply: “Izzit?”

J - Jol. Afrikaans for “party,” a surprisingly widespread term given the former Dutch settlers’ puritan reputation.

K – “Ke Nako.” Sesotho for “It’s time,” and the expression that helped convince FIFA bosses in 2004 to award Africa its first World Cup.

L – Lekker. Pronounced “lacquer” but has nothing to do with furniture polish and everything to do with “good.” Likely to be heard in conjunction with another L, “Laduma” — Zulu for “He scores” — if the prayers of 50 million South Africans are answered.

M – Moegoe. Idiot. Nothing more to say.

N – Now. A hard one to grasp for English-speakers used to their “nows” in the present or recent past.

“Now” is not “now” but some vague point in the near future. “Just now” is slightly sooner, and “Now now” sooner still, but not soon enough to be “Right now” — an immediacy that appears to have fallen victim to the vagiaries of “Africa time.”

O – Oke. Man. A shortening of “bloke” that can be shortened further to a simple “O.” The latter is a rare example of a South African word unlikely to be shortened any further.

P – Pap. Maize meal. Does for South Africa what the potato does for Ireland.

Q – Quagga. A type of zebra identified by its stripey front end and monochrome, horse-like behind. It’s extinct so you’re unlikely to see one unless you’ve been smoking, in which case it’s probably a dagga quagga.

R – Robot. South Africans have robots, not traffic lights, but don’t expect to see Star Wars droids overseeing major intersections. They’re just traffic lights.

S - Soutpiel. Derogatory but typically colourful Afrikaans term for Englishman. It literally means “salt penis” and comes from the view that early English colonists had one foot in Africa and one back home — hence the proximity of their genitals to sea water.

S- Shebeen – An internal UCT rugby team which kicks ass

T – Tsotsi. Gangster. Not someone you want to run into but unfortunately an all-too-present feature of one of the world’s most crime-ridden countries.

U - Ubuntu. Community spirit. Often invoked as the answer to the myriad social problems left by decades of white-minority rule. Even though apartheid ended 16 years ago, the gap between haves and have-nots in South Africa is among the world’s widest.

V – Voetsek. Slightly stronger than “Get lost” but not an out-and-out obscenity. Still, best not to use it if you meet a tsotsi.

W – Wors. Another shortening, this time for boerewors, the curly, mildly spiced sausage that forms the centrepiece of any braai.

X – Xhosa-nostra. A shadowy, secret organisation inside the ruling African National Congress (ANC) bent on securing national domination for the Xhosa, Nelson Mandela’s tribe. Its existence is attested mainly in political gags.

Y – Yebo – Don’t say Yes, say Yebo.

Z – Zamalek. Strong beer popular in townships. Zamalek derives from a 1990s dance song commemorating a clash between Egyptian soccer side Zamalek and Soweto giants Kaiser Chiefs.

Legend has it Zamalek is hangover-proof. Given that it comes in a 750 ml bottle, that is unlikely.

(Writing by Ed Cropley; Editing by Marius Bosch and Nigel Hunt)

(source: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE6582OF20100609)