The Bill Ainslie Handbook
from Artist to Ancestor
MO: Yes, morning Jasper, trust you are well. What I am realising now is that in opening and in getting to know Mike Gardiner’s fascinating Bill Ainslie Handbook, subtitled ‘from Artist and Ancestor’, is how careless my living without much connection to Art has been – including that rugby and slogans attracted more of my attention; and hence , more careless care. You should know about such issues too, when you moved sideways to shovel coal into the mouths of steam railway locomotives, and their instant coffee barrels. The remarkable thing is that the handbook is freely available on the internet, as a downloadable PDF and as an e-book. (excluding, for the moment some millions of our countryfolk still cowering behind a digital iron curtain because of jobs and costs). All these are long stories, but what say you, today?
Own It
Ten reasons: privatisation will always fail
MO: Molweni Jasper from Sedgefield. Or was that Sledger from Jaspfield?
JC: Sledger? That is just so not cricket, old chappie!
MO: Just read this article by a Brit movement, outlining ten reasons why privatisation will always fail.
JC: Ten. Should have been a dozen. Oh wait, Britain also decimalised. [Sings the lame old Decimal Dan]. Let me have a look. [pats pocket, looking for specs]
O(H)M
Omry Makgoale
MO: Molo Jasper, and Molweni down there where the waters are rising, and threatening to disappear, near Sedgefield, in the Western Cape. I am reminded of how these days you are a strong advocate of a political party to get rid of all political parties? This could be interesting, come local elections on November 4, 2026; including at your islands of humanity.
JC: You are correct. The only party I have the slightest interest in voting for is the OHM, and then only because their primary aim is to rid us of parties, including their own. I also favour their direct representing, not to mention scrapping the Provinces. Nine parliaments gone means nine blue light gangs off the roads.
Dorp Info Template
MO: MAEDER: Dagsê Jasper. Remember our first stoeptalks when exploring toverview. Our local computer geek, Janco Piek , was already working on his independent Colesberg Information site and all sorts of interesting local is lekker variations?
JC: Yes. Your first web-manifestation arising out of Toverberg Indaba was streamdreams, a site born of “what does JC do marooned in a cabin COVID isolation”, to set down our wide ranging WiWi (Wild Idea) notionism.
MO: MAEDER: Yes! And so just take a full look at what the Colesberg info has grown into, also as a possible economic backbone for any rural place. Colesberg to Madeira? Colesberg to Noupoort? Colesberg to… beyonds. Support one another , or wither and shrink to nowhere? Janco Piek’s independant site is HERE! [JANCO’S LINKS..]. We will keep your town posted,
The Ballad of Pypies P
Seated on the stoep at “1984” (now “Ouma Annna”) in Colesberg, Maeder Osler and Jasper Cook bask in the winter sun. Coffee and biscuits arrive. Maeder, looking toward Toverberg, hands outstretched, and with a little Bollywood bobbing head, intones:
Orpheus with his lute made trees,
And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing:
JC: Willie Wikkelspies. Henry VIII.
MO: Correct. Have you ever seen a lute?
JC: No, only a luta continua. Lute, flute. Seen one, seen ’em all.
The Brakkol AI
MO: Molweni, Jasper. Old EF’s outfit sent me an email. Quite fascinating. All about … what? Food as a weapon. Well, it’s about exploitation, versus nurture.
JC: Ahem. I am now officially at sea, a strange feeling to have on a stoep in the Karoo, false or not. You surely mean the EFF, right? Who else? And how can you forget that extra “F”? I mean, who forgets an F? Especially when it comes to the reds? And with them, weapon is right, boet.
Notes From a Clear Stream
MO: Hi Jasper, here is our winter slow platteland outreach (WSPO) proposed initiative, launched in trying times of local floodings all over the show. This time, from the village Klaarstroom, where I have delightful log-standing friends, Jeremy and Sharon Wits Hewinson, from the Klaarstroom Guest House (www.klaarstroom.co.za).
JC: Ja. Nee [nods]
MO: Over. Thanks, and Out; for the moment; now to you folk Jeremy and Sharon. What a journey it is in these times of inland and coastal floodings, inaugurating our winters, exposing our infrastructures, testing our networks. Please let us know. When suits. how you now might be further seeing the future transport routes in and out of Klaarstroom??!!.
The People's Bus
Maeder Osler writes:
I am talking from Somerset West, which also happens to be the place of the last days of both my mother and my father. Thus, in a spirit of shared praise songs, and names, it is good to feature (in this stoeptalk section of opengates) a sample of the poetry of the Somerset West linguist, Vernon February:
The People’s Bus
Nobody who is an expert
Has ever taken a ride
On a people’s bus
Lines 2 ,7 or 9.
Nobody who is an expert
Of the third world
Has ever had to arch his back
And find his way to half a seat
Nobody who is an expert
Has ever had his ears pierced
By the loud and soulful blare
Of the latest hit.
Nobody who comes with plans
In a briefcase for a better world
From his safe and opulent confines
Of his materialistic world
Has ever seen the dark and muted faces
Of the Creole and the Hindu in a bus.
Lord! Let them take a ride one day!
Nobody who comes in a plane with a briefcase
full of plans for a better world
has ever seen the peoples’ world,
from their air-conditioned rooms
over-looking palm-fronded swimming pools.
Nobody who is an expert on the poor
Has ever seen…
WOETUS
MO: Molo Jasper. How is it going now that autumn is a creeping in, and loud sing those Sedgefield water birds? Can this be said to be an age of reading for meaning? In truth a book costs almost as much as a single zol or a dram of deep south, these days, I am told. In an age which measures coffees in MacDonald or KFC cups or at one of those entrepreneurial coffee kiosks all over, coffee for sure is a luxury and so is a book, but hey the price is not too different, and one is for ever? Successive coffees very soon add up to a single book – and that is an investment surely, more lasting than the coffee spills on my T-shirt? Nothing sounds so bland as coffee for meaning, to my ears. And yours?
Books or e-Reading
The great page-turner debate
There was a sadness in the air when a book club member announced she was leaving us. Her reason being that she no longer buys books because she prefers e-reading. The rest of us rolled our eyes with the same thought in mind – there’s nothing quite like the smell of a good book. I guess that is, unless you’re a Kindle user, in which case, you probably prefer the smell of convenience. In the two-decade-old debate between books and e-readers, each side comes armed with strong opinions - dog-eared preferences, and the occasional smug grin.