Look good, feel good

A CHICK… actually, she might not be a chick; she could be an old bird, an old layer hen, for all I know. Anyhow, a woman who signs herself “Jacky” (whereas her name is Jacqueline, thus she assumes a familiarity perhaps unwarranted given it was our first communication), sent me an e-mail last week. It was among scores of e-mails that I get weekly from virtual strangers, who take advantage of this effortless means of communication.
Jacky did not claim to be the wife (or the widow, I suppose) of a deceased Nigerian government minister of state, who’d died leaving a trunk of pilfered US dollars at the bottom of his shoe cupboard, and did I want, say, 25% or $7.2-million dollars, simply for providing her, Jacky, with my banking details so that she could move the loot to a foreign country, the assumption being that, as an African, I am as corruptible and greedy as her late husband.

Nor did Jacky claim to represent the United Kingdom Sweepstakes (Pty) Ltd, whose random draw of worldwide e-mail addresses had picked mine, as a result of which I was £1.2-million richer, and that all it now required was that I pay a small administration fee of an arm and a leg, and the money was mine, and, oh yes, sorry, what are your banking details? Why they didn’t simply deduct the administration fee from my winnings was never explained.
Nor did Jacky represent a government department’s media liaison office, all of which have suddenly woken up to the fact that next year there will be a general election. I have recently received numerous press releases from various government departments telling me (and hoping that I will tell you) how wonderful and caring various ministers are, and most of them include what are called “photo opportunities”, which are often pictures of these well-fed ministers trying to look like they give a damn by handing things over to individuals and communities, things, I might add, paid for by us, the taxpayers. We do the work and pay the taxes – they take the credit; amazing!
No, Jacky, wanted to invite me to an event in Durban, and because she doesn’t know me from Adam, she didn’t realise that I would be as interested in her event as I would be in attending the world-wide launch of a new and revolutionary running shoe. It was the Look & Feel Good Expo which was to be held at the Durban Exhibition Centre, and before you get too excited and plan a trip down to the coast, I’d better tell you that it was held from 11-13 October, so it’s already over.

The Look & Feel Good Expo…
When I first read that I thought, Stone me, has the world gone so crazy that we have to be told what will make us look and feel good?
Well, yes, it has. But what Jacky failed to take into account was that I am of the generation that learned what made us look and feel good by living, by experience, by trial and error.
What she also failed to understand when she sent out her e-mail was that by and large (and quite a few of them are large) my generation are of an age when we don’t really care what we look like; it’s too late, we’ve got the wear and tear, the arthritic creaks, the Beta blockers, and it’s very unlikely that any of us would rush down to Durban to a Look & Feel Good Expo to subscribe to a top health magazine or enrol in pole dancing classes, two of the “highlights” itemised by Jacky.
Hell, we wouldn’t even rush up to Cecil Emmett if the Expo was held there. We don’t rush.
Nah, we don’t need colonic irrigation and laughter and happiness workshops (I kid you not). We know already what’s good for us and we know what’s bad. Stone me, I was in the Spoeg & Spittle last week, and there were about 10 blokes there, 10 South African males, and not one of us smoked!
It’s taken us some time to do anything about it, but all the time we knew that smoking was bad for us. We didn’t need an Expo to tell us.

We know we should use sunblok outdoors, drink eight glasses water per day, and eat umpteen serving of vegetables, exercise so many times a week and cut the fat off lamb chops. We don’t necessarily do it but we don’t need an Expo to tell us that we ought to.
And we know what makes us feel good. I was reminded of one of life’s ultimate pleasures just last week.
It was one of the week’s hotter days, with temperatures up in the 30s. During the day I’d been out in Henry Ford, my old Cortina bakkie, a couple of times, and ol’ Henry had been standing in the sun, and 1983 Cortina bakkies didn’t come with an air-con, so I worked up a wholesome pore-opening sweat.
After work, I happened to pop into the Spoeg & Spittle in order to replace lost body fluids. Jimmy, knowing my particular poison, didn’t ask what I wanted, he simply poured me a cold beer, actually a cold Hansa pilsner.
This is one of life’s great pleasures – the first hearty swig of a cold beer at the end of a hot and sweaty day. You gulp and gulp; your eyes water, your throat “burns” from the gaseous cold; it’s a true case of the agony and the ecstasy.
Aarrg! you cry as you put down your glass, and the hair on your arms stands up to salute.
No Expo can show you that, Jacky, not even yours.