#IssuesAtStake: About macho knitting and clergy tormentation

All suggestions tabled at the illustrious Black Mamba Club – the council of wise men whose world problem-solving prowess are usually totally ignored – are considered fairly and without prejudice.

Readers may recall the unanimous adoption of a member’s Ginger Cookie Bomb Squad concept before and during the Springboks’ World Cup campaign last year – dipping ginger cookies in neat brandy for consumption every time the Boks activated the scoreboard.

The 52-16 scoreline against Wales in that World Cup warm-up Test was particularly intense as the elderly club members took merriment to new, albeit death-defying, heights.

So, when the same member thoughtfully gazed at his third double dose medicinal Captain Morgan at the club’s most recent gathering and said, “I was wondering…”, our ears perked up.

Another radical and pleasurable suggestion may be in the offing.

“What do you think about taking up knitting?”.

Our ears flapped back and we ignored him as he was obviously addressing the women.

He wasn’t.

“It’s a huge trend in the Scandinavian countries. The men knit like blazes,” he declared. “Perhaps we should look into it as a unisex kind of activity, expressing our feminine side so to speak.”

Furtive looks silently shared common agreement among the rest that the poor man was oblivious to the fact that he was placing his short-lived club membership in jeopardy.

Disciplinary action was most likely to follow.

But we are tolerant and forgiving, so we hit Google to test the premise, en ja wragtag, there it was! It is even popular among men in the United States and other European countries.

And listen to this! Unless it is fake news conjured up by the AI merchants, macho actors George Clooney and Ryan Gosling, among others, have confessed to an affinity for wielding sharp needles.

Our friend rested his case.

We did not. While one can pardon the men in tights in the freezing climes knitting their own jerseys, it won’t fly in our subtropical greenhouse environment.

The sight of the Ballito Bikers Club, the Dolphins rugby squad and Boks Supporters Association going head-to-head in a brutal knitting contest at the pub, is anyway just too ghastly to contemplate.

Suggestion dismissed and a letter of warning issued.

But talk of knitting frocks did trigger a call-back moment of me causing the NG Kerk’s elderly leadership to recoil from sinful thoughts.

Faced with a dreaded “doorwatch” interview situation at the church’s opulant amphitheatre-style conference centre in Pretoria where the “broeder” leadership discussed some contentious politicised issue – politics and religion were seriously intertwined in the 80s – journalists were not allowed inside.

As we were wont to do, we began fooling around to bide the time.

A sexy young colleague in a very short knitted number was giving me stick and I threatened to throw her over my shoulder and spank her bottom.

She dared me. I threw her over my shoulder.

And just as I stood there like Thor with my conquest’s pert butt clad in Veronica Secret’s finest facing the hall’s huge wooden doors, they flung open. Meeting adjourned..

Up to today I cannot say whether the brothers’ collective expressions and wide eyes reflected approval of a bonus delight, or instant mass recitals of the Ten Commandments, the adulterous thoughts bit.

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