"But I Digress ..." (11 page)

An ordinary man who had done extraordinary things

SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, 26 MAY 2002

I
T IS EASY
to be dismissive of television. In fact it is so easy that generally it is the people who watch it least who feel most qualified to dismiss it. “Oh, I never turn on the TV,” they will say, with a tone of voice and cast of head and gleam of eye that suggests a certain pride in accomplishment, as though not watching television made them somehow smarter and more interesting than the rest of us who do. It is as though they feel that not watching television makes them better conversationalists, witty and thoughtful and more knowledgeable about Abstract Expressionism, say, or the causes of the failure of the Weimar republic.

I am not sure why they think this. It is not as if they use their non-television-watching time to read an improving book or learn a new language or solve Fermat's last theorem. If not watching television were a marker of great cultural or intellectual attainment, we might expect more Nobel prizes or contract bridge champions to emerge from the painted tribes of the Brazilian rainforests. Tibetan yakherds would be more in demand as guests at cocktail parties around the world. People who do not watch television are like people who live in Cape Town: they are irrationally proud of something which involves not doing anything in particular. The rest of us, poor slobs, have to try to be proud of the things we actually do.

It annoys me, frankly. People who can extract no value from a medium reveal more about themselves than about the medium. There are joys that television has brought into my life that I could have experienced nowhere else. An example was the chance encounter I had on Discovery Channel last week.

Aimlessly flipping through the channels, as I do of an evening while waiting for the drink to take effect, I landed midway through a show called
War Heroes
. The series is dedicated to remembering, and if possible interviewing, the men and women who in times of conflict have distinguished themselves by the kind of unthinking, reflexive selflessness that makes for heroism. It is the kind of selflessness – otherwise called bravery – that we all hope we have, but can never know until the moment comes when it is called upon.

I missed the name of the man being interviewed, which was somehow appropriate. He was known during the war as the Wheelbarrow VC. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for, among other things, running through the crossfire of no-man's-land to collect a wounded comrade, then braving the shells and shrapnel of an enemy mortar barrage to bring him back in, of all things, a captured German wheelbarrow. He is very old now, a slim man with fragile hands and Brylcreem in his immaculate hair, but his features are recognisably those of the impossibly handsome young man in the fading photographs. He sat beside his wife on a chintz sofa in the Essex countryside, frowning uncomfortably at his fingernails.

The Wheelbarrow VC refused to talk about his heroism. He refused to discuss or even describe what happened. After more than 50 years of living quietly in his country cottage, married to the woman who was his wartime sweetheart, he was embarrassed that someone should be making a fuss all over again.

In a private interview, his wife confided: “He doesn't like to be thought of as a hero. He always says that he did what he did because it had to be done, not because it was a heroic thing to do. That's why he won't speak about it.”

I caught my breath. In the age of Oprah, that makes him a hero all over again.

In the sight of the man, sitting gently in an old darned cardigan, occasionally turning to gaze fondly through the window at a garden lovingly tended, a vegetable patch neat with marrows and watercress and beans, a small corner of a world he helped keep safe for a little while longer, there was something that moved me unutterably. He was a quiet, ordinary man, living a quiet, ordinary life, desiring nothing more than to continue in quietness and ordinariness and privacy, who had once done extraordinary things.

There was nothing staged in his reticence. In his awkward, fidgeting, dignified silence there was a glimpse of all that I find wonderful in human beings. I felt honoured to have seen it. And only television – of all the media that have ever existed – could have offered me precisely that glimpse.

The Wheelbarrow VC refused to contribute, so the show was pieced together with newsreels and clippings and the memories of the surviving members of his unit. One of his former comrades remembered how, every day for two weeks, the Wheelbarrow VC would leopard crawl across no-man's-land with a pocket of hand grenades to eliminate the Germans manning a forward machine-gun post. He was wounded in the shoulder by a German sniper, but he returned, again and again. The interviewer raised this with the Wheelbarrow VC. For the first time the Wheelbarrow VC ceased to look uncomfortable. He looked up, and in his faded blue eyes there was the fierce light of sudden emotion, and an expression of something like wonder.

“Every day they were killed,” he said, “and every day there were new soldiers there. They knew they would die, but they kept manning the post.”

He shook his head, and his eyes became moist and something caught at his voice. Unobtrusively, his wife lowered her eyes and pressed her knee against his. In the silence a clock ticked.

“The Germans,” he said at last, still shaking his head in wonder and sorrow and something deeper that we who have not been to war can never understand, “those Germans were so brave.”

Heinz Meanz Has-Beenz

CAPE TIMES, 5 JULY 2002

I
DON
'
T LIKE HEINZ WINKLER
. I'm sorry, but I don't. There is something about that smirking face and smug hairdo that makes me want to seize him by the lapels of his pizza-delivery-boy-moonlighting-as-a-male-stripper outfit and strike him firmly with both sides of my hand. In fact, the more I think about Heinz Winkler, the less I like him. He is young, allegedly attractive to women and on the brink of making more money than me. What's to like? He is the Jamie Oliver of South African pop music.

There are many things I dislike about Heinz Winkler, not least his name. What kind of a name is Heinz Winkler for a pop idol? Not since Engelbert Humperdinck has there been a name so unlikely to have me heaving my boxer shorts on stage. I don't know precisely what a heinz is, but I don't think I'd care to see one winkled in my presence. (Although, to be fair, he does have this over Engelbert Humperdinck: Heinz Winkler is in fact his real name. Unbelievably, Engelbert Humperdinck is a stage name. What could Engelbert's real name have been to have driven him to such a sobriquet? Jim Scrotum? Ben Dover? Adolph Hitler?)

Do you join me in spurning Heinz Winkler? Probably not. Chances are you are one of the squillions of local viewers spending your evenings and your monthly salary calling the Heinz Winkler vote line at cellphone rates. Gee, you must really like him. I have close friends and family members for whom I wouldn't pay cellphone rates.

At any rate, there is no real doubt that Heinz Winkler will win
Idols
. My man at M-Net first tipped me off three weeks ago that the sheer volume of calls suggests that the Winklemeister has a fan-base roughly the size of North Korea. Is there space in Stellenbosch to hide the population of North Korea? my man at M-Net asked me. Because all the calls seem to come from Stellenbosch.

This is causing some discontent in Johannesburg. Northerners take their Reality TV shows very seriously. These are the people, remember, who staked out the
Big Brother
house and threw messages over the wall hidden inside potatoes. That would not have happened in Cape Town, and not just because Capetonians do not go out of their way to greet new neighbours. People in Gauteng invest themselves deeply in the contestants, and they are beginning to suspect a conspiracy.

There was disapproval at that chucklehead Ferdinand winning the first
Big Brother
, but nothing was said because there was no one else that anyone especially liked.
Idols
is different. Not only have there been candidates clearly stronger and less annoying than the Winkster, but for the next few months we are not going to be able to switch on the radio without hearing the winner's rendition of “Islands in the Stream” or “Nelly the Elephant” or whatever fresh horror lies in store for us.

There is much at stake here. Johannesburgers are becoming suspicious of the rural areas of the Cape. “What goes on down there?” they say, narrowing their eyes. “Are there betting syndicates in Stellenbosch with automatic dialling machines? Are there units of Cape patriots with telephones funded by Jürgen Harksen and a brief to win at all costs?” Then they say: “If this goes on much longer, we'll just stop making Reality TV shows. Then what will they do?”

Good citizens of Cape Town, I know these people. They are not joking. It is too late for
Idols
, but
Big Brother 2
starts soon. Take my advice: let the northerner win.

I can't bare the Naked Chef

SUNDAY INDEPENDENT, 28 JULY 2002

I
F YOU ARE
a regular reader of this organ, you will know that I am no fan of the Naked Chef. It would be fair to say that between the Naked Chef and me, a great deal of love is not lost. We have never come to blows or anything, no matter what you may read in the tabloid pages of the yellow press, but relations between us are not cordial. Let's just say we do not speak to each other, and leave it at that.

There are many things I do not like about the Naked Chef. I do not, for one thing, like his lips. He has lips like the inside of a giant clam. I am afraid of standing too close to those lips in case they snap shut around my ankle and hold me immobile while the tide rises and slowly drowns me. Fortunately, I have devised a technique for neutralising the threat of those lips. Remember this simple manoeuvre if ever you find yourself in close proximity to Jamie Oliver and the rising waters of the seashore: place your right hand behind his head and press, with a firm and steady motion, his face against the nearest wall. A squelching sound will tell you when maximum suction has been attained between lips and wall. A few gentle backward tugs by the hair should ascertain firmness of bond. Congratulations! Jamie Oliver and his lips are now immobilised. You are safe! Plus, you won't have to hear a grown man use the words “Tucker” or “Yeh?” or say “Wicked” as an expression of approval.

It has been suggested that my principal complaint against Jamie Oliver is not his lips or his David-Beckham-meets-Keith-Floyd hairdo, or the fact that he has a vocabulary of fewer words than Marlee Matlin's mynah bird, or even that cutesy scooter that makes the ladies go “Awww”. (Just wait until someone arrives to fetch you for a date on a scooter, girls. Then you'll really say “Awww”.)

It has been suggested that my principal complaint has something to do with the fact that each year he sells more copies of his rotten cookbooks than you can shake a stick at. (And believe me, I have shaken many a stick at those books.) This allegation, while uncharitable, is regrettably true. Jamie Oliver is young, slim, attractive to the public and sells lots of books. His very existence is abhorrent to me.

But my better self sometimes asserts itself. “Perhaps he is not so bad when he is not mugging it up in the kitchen,” says my better self. At which point I throw my better self in a headlock and shove my thumb into one of its eyes. So it was something of a relief to discover this week that the little swine is even more of a dunderhead when he's not mashing potatoes or jellying eels or whatever.

Jamie Oliver was a guest on
Parkinson
(BBC Prime, Monday, 10.30pm). He's a lovely old duffer, is Michael Parkinson. He brings to me the same comfort as Graeme Hart the weather guy, or a cricket test on a summery Saturday afternoon: it feels as though nothing can go too terribly wrong with the world as long as Parky is having a good old chuckle with his guests. “Ho, ho, ho, ho, hooo, dear me,” says Parky during the course of a good old chuckle. When he is merely chuckling politely, he goes: “Ho, ho, ho. Yes.” To a veteran Parky watcher, these variations are all important.

You could tell that Parkinson was slightly bemused at finding himself interviewing a chef in his early twenties with absolutely no life experience. “The secret of my success is that I am really passionate,” said Jamie Oliver.

“Oh really?” said Parkinson, perking up at the scent of a conversation. “Passionate about what, exactly?”

This was a question Jamie Oliver had not asked his press manager. “Um, uh, well, everything, mate. Everything, yeh?”

Parky pondered. He didn't want to belabour the point, but there was really nothing else to talk about. “Presumably you're especially passionate about food?” he offered.

“Oh, mate,” said Jamie Oliver, his eyes shining like a pair of faucets, “food is brilliant. Because you know, flavours are, well, they're a real experience, aren't they? Lovely. Wicked.”

Soon Parky was stretching for something to ask. “Culinary fashions change so quickly,” he ventured. “What do you think we will be eating in 20 years?”

Jamie Oliver's new vertical hairstyle quivered slightly in the gentle breeze of his deep thought.

“You know,” he said at last, “the secret of my success is that I am very passionate …”

“Is it true that you have never read a book?” asked Parky.

“That's true, yep,” said Jamie Oliver with a proud smile. At least, I think it was a smile – it is hard to tell with those lips. It was a shocking admission. Even the person I always believed to be the biggest cretin on television – Margaret from
Big Brother 1
– has read a book. If you will recall, she couldn't remember precisely the title of the book, “but I know it was by Danielle Steele”. Think about that – Margaret with her suntan-lotion-stained paperback Danielle Steele is better read than one of the best-selling authors on the market today.

Thoughtfully, Parky had invited Elle McPherson on the show to make Jamie look better. “So, Elle,” said Parky happily, “do you mind it when people call you The Body?”

Elle was ready for this question. “No, no,” she said. “Bodies are good, because they have everything inside them, like, you know, a soul, and a spirit and … uh …” Polyps? Duodenal ulcers? Tapeworms? Sometimes, if you're lucky, selected bits of other people's bodies? We don't know. She never finished the thought.

“Anyway,” said Elle, “it could have been worse. I could be called … uh … The Brain.”

Parky chuckled. “Ho, ho, ho,” he said. “Yes.”