Someone Burst His Eardrum

Hip Hip Hip Hooray

1932

The Witwatersrand College for Very Advanced Education chose a rugby team to play in the inter-college festival down in Durban-by-the-Sea and they didn’t choose me. I can only think the selectors hadn’t had their eyes tested.

So I had to choose myself and find my own way down to the coast on the sparkling blue Indian Ocean so as to be able to add to the fun and laughter and educational and character-building value of such gatherings. And the imbibing contest, which was actually my forté, but – for some reason – they didn’t have a drinking span. Strange.

So we had to compete in our specialist discipline informally, yet enthusiastically. I spose because there were no officials officiating our match – which we were winning – we lost sight of the time and forgot to arrange accommodation n stuff, so when it became very late we looked around and found we were in someone else’s hotel – the salubrious Killarney – and in someone else’s room, like Ray Schoombie’s the flyhalf of a less important span that was only playing rugby. We were trying to scrounge floor space to kip on.

Schoeman and the delightful Fotherby were 100% legal and official and legitimately (if you believe that Slim and Pru knew about this) had a room and so we made merry in it. Perhaps too much. Because suddenly someone marched in and very rudely demanded that we shurrup and also that we leave. I stepped forward to help this rude gentleman right, but would he listen? Blah hotel manager Blah he carried on trying to explain while I was trying to explain. He was like:

Then another man stepped forward. A man of few words – also few clothes. His opening move was a mighty klap on my left eardrum, shattering the peace. Eensklaps, I understood what he was on about and agreed to leave the premises forthwith. He was what you’d call succinct. That klap blocked my ear, but cleared my vision and I now could see he was large and dressed like Shaka Zulu and carried a shield and a knobkierie.

All the way down the stairs this burly and persuasive gent’s lips were moving, so maybe he wasn’t all that succinct? Anyway, I couldn’t hear a word he said. I was deaf as a post.

He was like:

I was like:

Don’t worry, compassionate people, I found a comfy place to sleep (someone took a photo). The next day my empathetic “friends” were singing to me.

Unsympathetic shits. Luckily I couldn’t hear them.

~~oo0oo~~

span – team

klap – flattie; flathand smack

eensklaps – Shakespearean, meaning ‘forthwith,’ or ‘like a thunderbolt’

knobkierie – fearsome weapon used for bigger challenges than simply evicting trespassers