Lobes make the man: distinguishing features

We were checking out Sophie Ndaba's teeth on Generations the other day, when we realised that was exactly the thing that made us like her. We've been carrying a torch for uQueen for decades, and never been able to put our finger on why. Meanwhile it's her massive teeth! It's like she realigned her incisors in the Nineties while opening a SparLetta. And now that's precisely what makes her sexy.

In fact, in a lot of cases, it's people's distinctive physical characteristics that make them sexy. Here then, a tribute to those unique aesthetic proclivities that make our stars to special...

Simphiwe Dana's scar

It's a mark on her right cheek, sustained in a car crash in 2005 while on the way to a performance in Vereeniging. This distinctive feature helps to make the jazz queen's regal power even more unique, confirming her status as one of the true beauties of our age. Don't get into a twitter squabble with her, though.

Msholozi's cranium

Our esteemed president has a head with two prominent cranial lobes, front and back, the rear one apparently functions as a plumbing fixture for Zapiro to attach a shower to. Such disrespect!

Anele's gap

Smile it wide, and smile it proud, girl. The most defiant gap in South African show business is to be found blazing from the vivacious face of radio DJ and TV show host Anele Ndoda, as well as every event she chooses to attend. That gap cannot be stopped! You get the impression if she tried to keep that gap hidden there would be a disruption of the time-space continuum.

Loyiso Gola's tallness

Some tall okes get this gangly, awkward thing going that makes them kind of charming. Other dudes play it in an intimidating way. Not so much Loyiso. He just happens to be tall. You get the impression it exasperates him sometimes, like when he has to stand at the back at a hip-hop show, so he doesn't obstruct anyone's view. You don't notice it on TV, but first time you see him in person, you'll be like, "Dude! You a tall motherfucker!"

Helen Zille's face

We're not sure what she did to it, but that face of hers looks way tight. Maybe somewhere behind her left ear there's a screw she tightens before she goes out in the morning. Perhaps it's next to the "Insensitivity Boost" button. Ag, she means well.

Mpumelelo Mbangwa's afro

A ratel, ready to rawl

He's one of our greatest cricket personalities. Great insight into the game, excellent opinions and a soothing tenor voice that would lull rawling ratels to sleep. Since he cut his dreads, his hair has been like an unchained lion. It's just reaching for the sky! It will not be tamed by man, nor beast, no grooming products. Well done on the afro, sir.

Gaps in our understanding:

Why, guys? We loved those gaps!

Not Ringo

Ringo Madlingozi

Once the most recognisable bit of dentistry, or the lack thereof, in the entire afro-pop canon, has now been tidied up to the point where if Ringo appears without his headband, he is almost indistinguishable from post-meltdown Tiger Woods.

Joelle's gap

Eish, sister. We loved that thing. Clearly an international supermodel needs to be accessible to all potential clients. But Joelle Kayembe's gap had us hypnotised for days. Sure, she's about to go on to even greater fame and fortune as a presenter for Trace TV, but for those of us who knew the gap, it'll be sorely missed.

This is more like it!

When it comes to dystopian sci-fi depictions of alienated youth, Hagen's House would just like to say, Jennifer Lawrence is more the kind of thing one looks for in a prospective sex symbol. The sight of Kirsten Stewart – and Rob Pattinson, for that matter – had us seriously worried. Having sat through a couple of Twilights and having observed those two nursing their doomed, vampiry love for each other while looking paler than someone who's about to faint in a queue did absolutely nothing for us.

Jennifer Lawrence: Proper

If that's sexy, clearly someone's been feeding us skelm valium, because we don't feel it. Timberlake obviously didn't bring enough sexy back with him in 2003, 'cos those two are the lamest heartthrobs since Tom Cruise and that one who looks like she's been hypnotised. Bollocks to them, and indeed the entire teen sci-fi genre, if that's the best they can do. We're marginally more interested in the recently disbanded Harry Potter cast, because you know the ginger dude is probably doing rails with Jude Law and Prince Harry. That Emma Watson's turning out okay, as she matures, but she could do with a night out on the lash with Charlotte Church. Maybe a girls' weekend in Ibiza culminating in some lesbian tongue-fencing in the hotel pool.

No, the best of the lot is really the new girl, lovely Jennifer Lawrence, soon to grace our streetpoles on posters advertising the movie The Hunger Games. It's apparently about babes who have to hunt and kill each other in some kind of life-and-death reality show that happens in the future. Sort of like Wipeout with landmines, we imagine. But even if The Hunger Games turns out kak, it will always have on its CV that it introduced to us a lady so nice to look at it's like she's giving each of your eyes a wristie. She's Jennifer Lawrence! She's blonde, she's 21 and she's from Kentucky. Gents, this is what a sex symbol is supposed to look like!

Demon hand-off!

This is Waratah's lock Dean Mumm's monster fend against Marcel Coetzee in the 'Tahs' 34-30 Super Rugby win against the Sharks. At one stage the Sharks opened up an 11-point lead over the Waratahs, but they let the home team back into it, as they scored three quick tries, for a four-point win. To their credit, the Tahs showed a fair amount of heart in fighting back, nowhere better exemplified than this colossal hand-off of Sharks flank Marcel Coetzee, as the blue wave surged upfield for the winning try. Coetzee only has himself to blame, for coming in so high. But with the way players are offloading in the tackle these days, particularly on line-breaks like this, it's a bit of a no-win situation. One hopes the big man didn't do himself a mischief, but he's apparently okay, and has been named in this weekend's Sharks team to face the Brumbies in Canberra.

Travels with my ballbag

I would've inspected myself for lumps, but my right ball was too painful too touch. It was pretty obvious that I was dying of testicular cancer.

I reported to my doctor on the Monday and gave him the bad news. He wasn't quite so sure. "It's probably epididymitis," he yawned, before giving my delicate bollock a squeeze and confirming it.

Just another day when I thought I was going to die. Another day in the life of a person preparing for the Comrades marathon. Yusses, boet. You know how they say ultra-marathons aren't good for you? Well they not lying.

When I started training this year for my second Comrades marathon, I was ready for shin splints, back pain, torn muscles, plantar fasciaitis, joint pains and transcendental levels of chafe. But what I was completely unprepared for was the toll the running would take on my ballbag.

They call this condition epididymitis and it's an inflammation of the epididymis, the reservoir at the back of the testicle, in which sperm is stored. The epididymis is linked to the deferent tubes, the cables that link one's bollocks to the penis proper.

How does that apply to ultra-distance running? Well think about it. In training, you're running two, three, four hours with your testicles bouncing up and down inside your ballbag the entire way like a couple of fleshy karaoke prompts. By the time you run the race itself, you could be doing that for 12 hours! Twelve hours, where your two lychee-sized scrotum globes, suspended on their tiny sperm wires, are being bounced up and down repeatedly all morning and afternoon.

Your traditional nylon running shorts, besides being shorter than something Corne and Twakkie might wear on Eighties-tribute night, also contain a nylon gauze lining, which is supposed to support your undercarriage. In my case, this is simply not good enough.

This year, the early part of my training went as well as can be expected, but my first marathon of the season was where the problems started. (The Comrades is in early June, and most runners spend the first half of the year in training, the second half drinking beer.)

Anyway, I came out of that first training marathon feeling like a rabid weasel had been gnawing on my right gonad all morning. I could barely walk, and by the time I got home from Pretoria, it was all I could do to lie spreadeagled on the couch with my legs akimbo like someone about to have their piles taken care of – all the while becoming more and more convinced that I was dying of ballbag AIDS.

Luckily – and hallelujah to you, Dr Du Plessis – my doc was able to put my mind at rest, and prescribe some meds that had me pretty much sorted within a week.

But for the next time out on the road, I would require a lot more crotch support. So for my illustrious return, I donned my cotton under-rods beneath my running shorts. I got through the magnificent downtown Nike #runjozi 10km race without damaging my testicles, but here's the thing: nylon doesn't give you a rash; cotton does.

So by the end of my sprint through downtown Jozi, I had given myself the worst penis chafe you can imagine. The end of my helmet was rubbed raw! I tell you, it looked like I'd been using my eleventh digit as brake shoes on a go-kart.

As any man will tell you, this is quite serious. One's helmet is, how shall we say, the business end of the penis. You don't want to be grinding that thing too hard. But I had to keep running. I've committed to running the Comrades. I've gotta have extra support for my ballbag, but not at the expense of my helmet.

So on my next run, I stuck a plaster over the end of my penis, right where the friction burns were occurring. This was a masterstroke, and I completed a massive, four-hour training run without incident.

Well, until I had my first visit to the men's room upon my return. Having taped my pee-hole shut and then completely forgotten about it, I was in for quite a surprise. A little jaded from the run, I stumbled off to the toilet, relaxed my bladder valve and proceeded to experience a full-body pain-gasm, during which the stream of urine backed up all the way from the tip of my penis, through my bladder and into the kidneys. It felt like a Russian hotel maid was cleaning my pipes with a toilet brush!

So look, my genitals present a rather beleaguered prospect at the moment. Suffice to say I'm not going to be doing any crotch modelling soon.

But I might just about be able to give a decent account of myself in the Comrades come June 3. Wish us luck. Me, and my ballbag.

Worst rap video ever

A combination of the worthy message, utter absence of any talent and the fact that everyone is wearing the same T-shirts makes this abomination the worst video I can ever remember seeing. I may have seen worse, but at the moment I choose not to dwell on that. It'll take me down a dark path. This looks like the kind of video the staff of a printer repair outlet put together for their end-of-year function. Pissed. Dire beyond dire. As for the Captain Planet theme, was he supposed to make this hipper? Slightly redeemed by the fact that most "band" members look sheepishly embarrassed to be in the thing.

Degrees of Wikipedia

It's a simple game. The idea is to get from a particular Wikipedia page, to another, seemingly unrelated one, in as few clicks as possible. So, for instance, let's start on the Wikipedia page for DJ Premier, which I happen to be on right now. And then we need to get to custard, which I'm feeling like having for lunch. Now how quickly can we get from DJ Premier to custard, only clicking on the live, blue links? You're not allowed to use the search bar (pretend you have no keyboard, only a clickable mouse). You can use the Featured Content sidebar on the right, but that's more of a random wild card. The idea is to plan your path using your own knowledge of popular culture links and you intuition of what's likely to be on those Wikipedia pages. So let's start!

Well, DJ Premier is related to the rapper DJ Cheese at the bottom. That's 1 click. He's from a place called Oak Hill (2 Clicks) Country singer Hank Williams was found dead there. (3 Clicks) One of Hank's songs was Jambalaya (On The Bayou). (4 Clicks) We're getting warm now. Jambalaya is part of Cajun cuisine (5 Clicks), which is part of the Cuisine of the United States (6 clicks). That cuisine is part of the food industry (7 clicks). I hit a bit of a dead end there. I'm going back to American cuisine... (8 clicks) Let's try apples... (9 clicks) A particular apple dish is a crumble. (10 clicks) And... ta-dah! "The dessert variety is often served with custard!"

Behold, how to get from DJ Premier to custard in 11 degrees of Wikipedia! If you can do it any quicker than I can, you win. And I'll owe you an apple crumble with custard. We can eat it while we listen to some Gang Starr, featuring DJ Premier.

"Been up for six days, smellin' like a moose!" It's Dondada, freestyling on his stoop in the hood on a version of "Married To These Streets", complete with melodic hooks and all.

 

Here's Eminem in his freestyle rhyme mode. "you wanna mess with a mother who skydives out of a plane to give the statue of liberty high-fives..." And this one: "Whoa Nelly, tell Angelina Jolie I'm ready with petroleum jelly to smear it all over me belly..."

  And here comes Hova in another legendary Rape City freestyle. "Wanksters want beef or their name on the street, most times they end up with their brain where their feet should be!"

And the creative flow of Lil Wayne... A rare tight one, as Weezy generally ignores his beats and goes to some other groove happening in his head. "Ya rolling with a Don, come through nice, ice bucket on my arm..."

 

 Here's one off The Cypher, sublime funk beats courtesy of DJ Premier from Gang Starr. This one a battle/freestyle with Em, Mos Def and Black Thought out of The Roots "doin' it self, doin' it again for Illadelph". Who else could get away with a rhyme like "I'm like Martin Luther King, you like Rodney. The difference is I give it everything inside me..." Just when you think thought has laid waste to the game, Em comes back to "hit you as hard as barbiturates in the ribs and stitch you at the same time before you can flinch to it." Whoah! This man's gotta be king of the freestyle game.

 

So now Shady gets to curate cyphers of his own, like this one with Joe Budden, Yellawolf and some homies. Budden's flow, especially, contrasts with the hyperactive delivery of most freestyle pieces. Royce Da 5'9" comes with "young rappers, I tell you this, ya don't kill but ya father will, like Jaden Smith"... before Em comes in at the end to reestablish his supremacy, complete with cliche-ridden false start. Then he hits his glorious stride... "Superman and his kryptonite won't do, it gives me more power. I bump the bat poison, eat rat poison, take meteor showers..." while the rest of the rappers shake their heads in disbelief.

 

With my broken face across the Drakensberg

In a recent soccer match, I kicked the ball at exactly the same instant as an opponent, then found myself pitched forward into his shoulder, breaking my face.

I believe I cracked my left cheekbone. There was a week of exquisite pain, and a blue-ish, off-green bruise that gradually abated. But today, about a month later, I still have a sore face.

Not only that, but my face looks different. And not only that, but because I look different, people treat me differently. Superficial society that we live in, I attribute all of this to my cracked face.

Since I broke my face, I have not fielded a single glance of glad-eye in a public space. Not at the mall, at the gym or any place of business. Not that I would have acted on the glad-eye. Fact is, I'm generally dispensing generous doses of glad-eye everywhere I go, so to have it reciprocated is more of a pleasant surprise than anything else.

But there will apparently be none for the likes of me, with my broken face. I'm not blessed with a medical aid at the moment, so there was little chance of me ever getting my face seen to. But I went and had a look online, just in case. Here's what they prescribe for a fractured cheekbone on surgerydoor.co.uk: "However, if there is a deformity of the face, surgical correction my be needed. This involves incisions inside the mouth or under the lower eyelid, and then application of a titanium plate and screws to stabilise the bone."

No thank you! I'd rather go through life like this.

But I'm so ugly! My face has lost its symmetry. I can see it in the mirror. When I can bring myself to look! I've got a broken face!

But you know, I let go of my modelling career a long time ago. The days when women would give me glad-eye have been consigned to the bank of pleasant memories, along with my round-the-world surfing tour and the time I played pool with Rodriguez.

So in some ways, breaking my face was a symbolic fracture, marking the end of youth. My response to it too. When I was the biggest swordsman in Port Elizabeth, I might have gone running to the plastic surgeon to repair my precious visage. Now, not so much.

Back in the days of my intact face, I was lucky enough to pique the interest of a lovely young lady in the events industry. In a moment where she wasn't quite concentrating, I proposed marriage, and she accepted, little suspecting what deformed horror she was letting herself in for.

So now I have her in my clutches. And life is good.

My assymetrical bonce, my broken face, has not so much freed me of the burden of handsomeness, as blown the last shavings of youth from the woodpile of pride we towed behind us on our wagon of self-regard during our trek across the Drakensberg of young manhood.

Today I stand naked. Shaven headed, greying, droopy-eyed and with one cheek three millimetres lower than the other. My only weapons are my intellect, my skills, my humanity and the love of a beautiful woman.

I may not be much to look at, but I'm confident that those weapons will be all I require for the next leg of my journey, across the undulating highveld of middle age.

Well, those weapons, and some beer money.

Things I learnt about white guys by marrying a black girl

By Hagen Engler

There I was thinking I was the Derek Hanekom of Saxonwold Extension. Turns out I’m exactly as white as I look, and no closer to transforming myself into an honorary black person than when I was a sandboy at Boet Erasmus in the Eighties. But marrying my lovely black wife did give me some interesting insights into the white man’s condition, as gleaned from the wisdom of her gimlet eye. As a a final and ultimate follow-up to Marrying Black Girls For Guys Who Aren't Black, here are some sweeping generalisations about white guys.

We’re learning Xhosa

The problem is, we’ve been learning it for ten years and all we can really do in vernac is buy weed and ask bhuti to fill up our car with 93. Probably at the same place. On the reverse side, her family speaks English, but no more than necessary. There certainly won’t be any family squabbles with the white dude, because no one can be bothered to speak that much English.

Maxhabis’abelungu

...or "white people's prices". Us white people get ripped off everywhere we go. Because if we see a price on something, we just pay it. That counts for everything from haircuts to buying Persian carpets to getting weed at the petrol station. When it comes to bribing traffic cops, black people get away with twenty bucks. White guys, it’s two hundred. Entry level!

We don’t eat enough meat

Cucumber salad, soya tacos, baked eggplant with rice in it… It is a worry. At a black people’s umsebenzi, you’ll be given a plate full of meat with two lettuce leaves and a quarter of a tomato. It’s like white people want to turn every meal into a salad! For black people, it also appears to be deemed a waste of resources not to chew your bones into pink mush and leave them on a little pile on the side.

It’s true. We really cannot dance

Except me, of course. I’m the only white oke on the planet who can dance like Zakes Bantwini. But somehow, bring me to a black wedding and I’ll stumble onto the dancefloor the minute people start doing the bus, lose my place, start going against the flow and wreck the whole bus.

White people are having it!

Even the middle class ones are rich. More than the richest black diamond. The first time you bring your wife to your parents’ house, she’ll almost be offended at the opulence. It’ll be all she can do to stop herself from starting a toyi-toyi and demanding her land back. And meanwhile you're like, "This old place? Opulent?"

We’re all mommy’s boys

No one loves their kids like white parents do. If a white dude decides to run for body corporate, his mom will rally her whole golf club behind him, start a “Friends of Keegan” Facebook campaign, pay for posters and tell everyone he’s the next president. It’s the same with young white kids. They all get taken dead serious, even if they are four years old. If a black child speaks during a grown-up conversation, he gets a klap upside the head and told to fetch tea.

We dress like bums

You can tell how rich a white guy is because he can get away with dressing down. A white dude won’t look poor, even in rugby shorts, flip-flops and a T-shirt he got for free. In fact, the downer they’re dressed, the surer you can be that they’re stinking affluent, live at the Michelangelo and drive a bulletproof Merc.

Most white guys feel no need to front

Despite all our piles of riches, and our platinum bog brushes, a lot of us white guys are embarrassed to show it off. There’s little inclination to floss that shit. A guy on a million bucks a year can quite easily choose to drive a Toyota Corolla. He’ll probably pay that thing off in six months and then start settling his home loan.

Even the ugly ones are handsome

If a black woman starts going out with a white guy, no one seems to look at him properly. Even if her man looks like Happy Sindane, if he can pass for white, her aunts will halala like she’s hooked up with RJ Benjamin. “Yuh! Ujola nomlungu!” Her dad will still be asking for bottles of lobola whisky four years after the wedding.

We all want to be Johnny Clegg

We’re all on a quest to find our inner African. Bring us to a Xhosa clan function and we’ll willingly don a bead headband, smear imbola all over our face and force down six tots of brandy, as long as you tell us, “it is part of our custom”.

We all vote DA

Sure, you will never catch us wearing a DA T-shirt. But Helen and the guys didn’t get 19% of the vote without every single white person on the roll dutifully ticking the blue box. It’s got something to do with potholes and Cape Town.

We can braai

We do get props here. White okes can braai a chop. We will lovingly monitor every minute that our meat spends on the grill, poking and flipping those suckers like precious, meaty little playing cards in a game of braaivleis solitaire. Black guys will burn the chicken black as a brake pad and declare it ready.

So ladies, you feel inclined to sample the joys of the piglet (the other white meat)? prepare yourself for delicious but scruffy braais at your mother-in-law’s palace, people dancing to Johnny Clegg like they are cutting a hedge, and a large side salad to go with that.

Like this? You'll love these!

Marrying Black Girls For Guys Who Aren't White

Comrade Baby And The Gateway To Hell

Buying Umbhaco For Baby 

White Boy Things

Surely they will open soon

Water. I work with water. Water engineer. And now I miss the meeting this morning. The whole reason I come to South Africa. I come to meet with State water authority, what you call, Howteng? Gowteng?

            Swiss. I’m from Switzerland.

I wait two weeks for this meeting and now today. On this morning of my meeting I am here. They say they let us out first thing this morning. When you think they come? Seven? You think they let us out eight? I must be in Pretoria nine thirty. You think I’m gonna make it?

If it wasn’t for those girls I wouldn’t be here. Ah.

I just come down for one drink in the hotel bar. Where? You know Balalaika? Balalaika. So I come down for one drink, and I meet the girls there in the hotel bar. And you know, they are nice girls, so I buy them some drinks and we talk.

No thank you. I don’t need to sit. I can stand.

In the end they close the bar and the girls say no, we can go to some other place. They know another place that is open later.

So I say we can take my car. We take the Toyota. Ah.

Then we come there. It must be only two kilometre. I see these blue lights and the girls say no, it’s okay, we can go. But it’s not okay.

We come there and it’s the police. They say I must blow. I say to the girls can I talk with this guys? Can you talk with this guys? We try to talk, but they say my number is too high and I must come to the bus.

They just put me in the bus and take me for the blood. You? They take the blood? Also.

And the girls! The girls, they still ask me for money. Can you believe it! I’m sitting there in the bus, ready to come to take the blood and they come to the window and ask me, “Baby, baby, can you give me money for taxi fare? Give me your keys, I will take care of your car. I will drive it to your hotel for you.”

I tell them  no, leave it. The police will bring my car.

No, I don’t give them money. I buy them enough drinks at the hotel.

I just worry now about my room key. I have here my car keys, but I don’t find my access card. You think maybe they find my access card. You think they can get into my room?

Ah. Kannst du das glauben!

You think so I need a lawyer? I can get one?

So we just wait! Ah.

But surely they come open up for us soon, nah? The son comes up. It must be, what, It’s seven thirty. Surely they make open by 8am? Eight, I can be out by eight thirty. And then I make it easy by nine thirty.

Ah, here they come now!

What? Not for me?

Next one!

How long you think? One hour? No, no, no, no, no. That’s too long. I have to be in Pretoria nine thirty. I must be next. Forty minutes! You come back forty minutes? Excuse me sir! Sir! You come back? You do me next? I must be release after this man. I must be in Pretoria nine thirty.

Ah. Ich kann es nicht glauben. Das ist lächerlich, aber!

I must be in Pretoria nine thirty. I must phone my company. Hallo! Sir! Sir! Excuse me, sir! I must phone my company. This is important.

Was machen die Leute, die da draussen?Es macht keinen Sinn! Sie wissen ich muss in Pretoria sein…

Hallo! Hallo! Kann ich bitte der nächste sein? Hallo!

Ich muss in Pretoria um halb zehn sein…

I work with water…