January 2006

Back to work this morning feeling shattered. What a holiday we had,14 of us and everybody got along really well and managed to survive the weekend without a single injury! I’ll give a run down of events later but right now I have to catch up on a four letter word that starts with a W.

By this time tomorrow I’ll be in Austria sitting at a bar drinking Jagermeister and plotting my downhill carve route the following day. I fly out tomorrow and I’ll be back on Monday. If there is access out there I might be able to upload a few photos of my jumps off some of Austrias biggest kickers! All this depends on one small joint with a silent k, the knee! If that works then I’m smiling all the way down the piste. Enjoy the rest of your working week.

There have been loads of Obituaries placed in the Cape Times for Brendon. I thought I’d post them up here for those that knew him to have a read through. Brendons memorial service will take place on Memorial service on Friday 27th Janaury 2006 at St. Pius X, Catholic Church, Lympleigh Road, Plumstead, Cape Town at 13h00. There is also a London wake being organised more details will follow inthe comments section.

Cape Times today:

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Last night I received the tragic news that Brendon Bennie had died. It happened on Saturday night in a car accident near Wynberg in Cape Town. I stayed over at Kirks on Saturday night and we were still awake when the news came through from Pat at about 2am. Obviously I’m still shocked and being so far away in London it almost feels as if it hasn’t really happened.

This morning when I woke up my mind was racing with memories of Brendon. The memories are endless, the enthusiasm he had for life, the way that he enjoyed life. If it gave him fun he would do it! He was such a real person, so full of life, of the 30 years he was here he lived every moment, more than most people live in a full lifetime. He was always at the heart and soul of the party and he always had the loudest and most contagious laugh.

So tragic that the life of a young, exuberant, successful, thoroughly likeable and generous person must end so unnecessarily.

Brendon, I’ll always remember the time we spent together, so long my friend.

Ummm, I got slated today by Peksta at the Weekly Ale. He reckons he gets verbal from me about traveling the world while he sits on his arse in Durban doing squat. Damn right! Anyway he left South Africa for the first time in his 28 yrs recently on a business trip to Kinshasa. Whilst there he managed to squint past the rubble, smoke and flames to catch a glimpse of the stadium where Ali and Foreman made history battling out the “Rumble in the Jungle!”

Fairplay to him, that is definitely 2 things he has done I haven’t, and make no mistake I would give my Lean Mean Grilling Machine to get a private tour round the stadium, but thats about ALL I’d give.

Peksta my boh, come to England in May and I’ll give you my tickets to see the FA Cup Final, I’m getting bored of going every year and besides, this year I’ll be going to the World Cup!

Brendans finally managed to post something before me . Last night the Albion crew converged from far and wide on an unknown little pub in Battersea previously named the Blue Mango for Brett Butlers farewell. I’m still in contact with most of the guys and girls but it was still great to catch up with everyone again especially the faces I haven’t seen in awhile.

BTW - The whale in the Thames today swam all the way to Albert Bridge pictured below alongside Albion Riverside.

Funny ol’ Butler’s send off 20/1/2006

gonna try beat Fisher to the punch today with a news flash about last night.

My old boss, Brett Butler, has jumped the fence and is now working for the client, Hutchison, from our previous project - Albion Riverside.

So Hema did a great job of laying on a spread and shin dig at what used to be the local pub for the job, Blue Mango (now called Matilda’s). It was like the good old days, standing at the bar watching all the old crew roll in. There was a great turn out, especially considering most of the crew have moved onto different companies and what not.

Rolled in the door around 1.30am this morning a little worse for wear, but not too shabby

Further to my recent post about the alcoholics from Suipers Union I think I need to clarify the line in the sand symbolising the difference between Suipers Union people and the exclusive Brewery Boys.

To obtain a Suipers Union Badge and thus become a member one needs to consume a lot of alcohol. To become a Brewery Boy you would need to exhibit a far higher degree of social worth. Of course you would need to consume vast quantities of alcoholic nectar, that goes without saying, but all Brewery Boys would also need to be legend dancefloor movers, babe slayers, music lovers, sports fanatics, board game junkies, food connoisseur’s, Karaoke baratones and extraordinary raconteurs!

Before the start of my favourite sporting competition I am going to put a stake in the ground and openly swear my allegiance to the greatest rugby team on the planet - The Sharks!

I support the Sharks, always have and always will. In solidarity with other diehard Sharks supporters, I have total confidence that South Africas best performing Super 12 team will prevail in this tournament and give a good account of themselves. I am not saying we’ll win it but we certainly won’t be relegated! We have a weakness at centre and a slightly fragile backline but otherwise the team is solid barring injuries. C’mon the Sharks!

PS: For those of you that want to know, my sisters bf Pierre has kindly provided me the website address for obtaining the photo described below - SignetRugby

I am trying to acquire the panoramic framed print of Ellis Park at the precise moment of the Joel Stransky dropkick that won the world cup for SA. It adorns almost every pub wall or rugby enthusiast’s home bar but do you think I can find it, NO! If anybody knows how to get hold of one then please let me know, my millionaire status means that money is no object really……..OK thats a lie, I am however a hard nosed bargain hunter and I won’t buy it if it costs more ‘an its worf mate!

Splattered saliva on the keyboard laughing hard when I saw this photo. Who needs a geyser or a boiler this is legend! Plumbing from the SA school of home improvements.

PS: Nicked off Ostendo, sorry but had to do it! Nice site BTW, go check it out.

I like to consider myself an intellect, somebody who is well educated and has an opinion about current affairs as well as an extensive knowledge of human history. Maybe that is why I am intolerant towards the stupid, the ignorant and the poorly educated people in 1st world countries.

Anyway, the above may explain why I normally dismiss the Big Brother TV programmes without ever bothering to waste my time watching them. It would be very out of character for me to watch something like that and even more divorced from my image for me to actually admit to watching something like that……

OK, so here it goes, I am enjoying watching Celebrity Big Brother. Every night this week I have watched the highlights of the show and spent an entire hour capsizing with laughter! This is the funniest “reality” show I have ever seen, enough to make me swallow my pseudo-intellectual outlook and admit to watching it. The people in the house are mainly UK celebrities and how they achieved that status I can only but wonder, the stupidity on display is monumentally staggering.

Jodie Marsh has asked on live TV “Is an EGG a vegetable?” shortly after another ditzy dumb essex blonde called Chantelle asked “What is a Gynaecologist?”. The two other highly entertaining sub-humans in the house are the hideous looking transvestite Pete Burns famous for singing “You spin me round” in the 80’s and Dennis Rodman.

Andy “The Viking” Fordham, Ted “Dracula”Hankey, Raymond “Barney” van Barneveld and Phil “The Power” Taylor.

If you thought all the worlds best dart players were fat bastards, you’d be right, until yesterday that is, when a 21 year old Dutchman called Jelle Klaasen at a 100-1 outside shot stepped up to the line and caned the 4 time World Champ Raymond van Barneveld.

This weekends World Champs were fascinating to watch, thats if you’re english. For me it was just darts and all I enjoyed watching was the last twenty minutes when this total unknown knocked the Champ off his perch. This guy is so unknown he doesn’t even have a nickname!

In this wide world there is a South African called Dari who has been living in the USA. It’s true, and I know this without ever having met him because he has thoroughly entertained me with his blog over the past 6 months. Well he has been recalled back to South Africa which has resulted in a dead end for his blog Dari Dawg in the USA. If you want some entertainment there is now no need to head down to the Springfield Ballet at lunch time. All you need to do is flick through some of his old stories. So long and thanks for all the fish!

This was a weekend where I challenged my age by measuring myself against those younger than me at staying power and alcohol tolerance. I went out for Carla’s 23rd birthday to a bar called Red and naturally ended up at Digress practically next door until 3 in the morning. After crashing over in London and getting home at 4 the next afternoon I made the trip back to Simon and Carlas house for Simons braai. I arrived to find a table of 22-24 yr old’s playing the “chaser” version of coinage. Take me back some! OK so I actually enjoyed myself as I recalled the heady days of Brewery Boy indulgement whilst attempting to maintain some respect for my age. Put politely with all due respect to the man, I felt like Mike “The Boat” Vacy-Lyle in 1999!

I realised that I am an experienced party animal and no longer a hard core mofo, that mantle is reserved soley for Bert!

Finally I have a question to ask my fellow Brewery Boys, were we ever as mental as the guys from Suipers Union and how many of these badges have we done inadvertently?

PS: We were able to extract the cottage cheese story from Bert!

I run the risk of alienating all my Muslim readers but I’d lik to ask a rhetoric question. Why is it that every year people get crushed or trampled to death undertaking a pilgrimage to Mecca? Surely this can be avoided? This year, in one day alone, over 300 people where physically trampled to death? A wealthy country like Saudi Arabia easily has the ability to implement public safety measures to prevent this, why does the Islamic community allow this to happen year after year?

There is something faulty with people who trample others to death, once I could understand but not every year. The tragedy of the Hillsborough disaster (96 people crushed to death at a football game 1989) is still very prescient in the minds of the British public and 17 years later the authorities are just as vigilant in their resolve to ensure something similar never happens again!

I am aware that plans are afoot to build a nine storey bridge to accomodate roughly 9 million pilgrims but this does not solve the current crowd control situation.

Jamarat Bridge in Mina where millions of pilgrims carry out the stoning

When I started this post I was going to write a few lines about the Michael Naicker CD my sister and Pierre gave me for my birthday. But then I got sidetracked after taking a photo of the CD cover using my camera phone. You see I discovered a few older photos I never new existed. Take a look the quality isn’t great but you’ll get the picture pun intended…….. Read the rest of this entry »

I can hardly contain myself with excitement, I am furiously bashing the keys on the board to let you have the scoop as soon as possible. My Aussie nemesis and good mate Truman Dare (real name) has started his own blog. Stories of his new life down under and tales of his past life in London are on the menu! Go and check it out!

The guys over at Chumpstyle seem to have taken to snowboarding like foxes have taken to the new anti-hunting laws. The only problem is they live in ZAR (except Dari - for now). Well contrary to common misconception there is a ski resort in South Africa. Heres a little story about it….

Back in May 2002 my house was packed into a removal van and was sent down from Durbs to Cape Town. The van left on Wednesday and was due to arrive at my new house in the Mother City on the Monday. This meant that I had 5 days in which to take myself and my new VR6 down to my new city some 1800 km away. I had planned to drive down in 2 days spending a night in the party town of Grahamstown before spanking it up on the weekend with my new Capetonian brothers!

It didn’t quite work out that way……..

The 8 hour drive down to Grahamstown went off without a hitch but the events of that night were set to radically change the course of the next 5 days. Whilst drinking in a bar called the Rat and Parrot I met 4 loud and lairy Romans who allegedly had driven up from Cape Town to go snowboarding at Tiffindell for 4 days. On route they decided that they’d stop in Grahamstown for a few bevvies to break up the journey. Dumb move because they ended up getting hammered with me and convinced me to turn around and go snowboarding with them for 4 days. Being in a particularly FOMO mood I couldn’t resist and so I turned around and drove 5 hours in the opposite direction to Tiffindell for my first Snowboard experience without any gear and with 4 guys I had never met before in my life.

Don’t go to Tiffindell expecting alpine conditions, don’t go there expecting loads of snow, and don’t go there if you are not in the mood for female company. We were there for the opening weekend of the season when the snow was plentiful, the people at the resort were always up for a monster party and best of all it was relatively cheap. I can honestly recommend it as the best long weekend you can possibly have with your mates in SA. I experienced 4 of the ost enjoyable days of my life there and I was with people I didn’t even know!

PS: If you do go look out for my name on the hall of fame wall inside the pub. I was the first paying guest of 2002 to join the Upside Down club and the Polar Bear club! Upside Down club membership requires you to drink 10 shots consecutively whilst hanging upside down from the roof. Polar Bear club requires you to remove your clothes in the bar, run outside roll in the snow and then in -17 C conditions jump into the pond. Club membership is fairly elite!!

This weekend just passed saw the start of the FA Cup proper. I got back late Friday night and decided to challenge my jetlag to a busy a Saturday watching my local team Watford (Hornets) take on premiership Bolton (Trotters) at Vicarage Road. Contrary to the excitement displayed by Guy about the weekends games, our game was boring and Watford got drilled 3-0 on a miserable cold afternoon in front of about 13,000 people. The crowd was fairly lively and we joined in with the Watford fans retort to the chant of “We want more, We want more” with the sadly witty chant of “We want one, We want one!”

I have decided that before the end of this season I will go to the last few major football stadiums in London I haven’t yet seen. I still have the New Den (Millwall), Boleyn Ground (West Ham) and The Valley (Charlton) to see. So far I’ve been to The Cottage (Fulham), Selhurst Park (Crystal Palace), White Hart Lane (Tottenham), Highbury (Arsenal), Stamford Bridge (Chelsea) and Loftus Road (QPR).

This is my first post of 2006 and we’re already 10 days into it. Got back from my awesome trip to Vietnam this weekend and came straight back to work. I don’t normally get severe jetlag and I seem to have been lucky enough to escape it again this time. I will try and start posting regularly although I have a really busy couple of weeks ahead of me before I head off to the mountains of Austria for a stint of long overdue Snowboarding. I can’t wait!

Actually, I am shitting myself because I am worried about my fitness levels. Snowboarding normally works muscles you didn’t know you had or more specifically in my case I don’t actually have. It is about time I carted this little used temple of a body off to visit its biggest enemy - the gym! People older than me are bloody doing Iron Man competions and I probably couldn’t run 1km without stopping for a beer and a cigarette. Last year Kramer, Kirk and Eugene came snowboarding for the first time and they were completely knackered after the first day, so much so that they were all sound asleep by 7pm and one of them didn’t even make it out the next day!

The surgery and trouble I have had with my knee this year is the cause of most of my concern. If my knee stands up to the rigours of the mountain on a snowboard then the op can be considered a success even though the pain continues! Heres hoping I don’t get stretchered off the mountain!