Fidler in the Hood: Life is beautiful

GREETINGS, friends, life is beautiful, don’t you agree? The sun shines, everyone down here is friendly and there is always a smile on their faces. A new era dawns in this land of hope and glory. All the more so when one has been born blessed to become a Manchester City supporter. Glory, glory, hallelujah! The Blues go marching on. Pardon the glee, but we have waited a long time for this – our finest hour. ‘He’s flipped’, your scribe hears people say (again).

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Hall of fame

Loyal readers of these weekly rantings, all 12 of you, will perhaps understand this week’s jubilations. Beloved City has won the lot and after 70 years of following the lads with decades of tears, trials and tribulations, they have reached the pinnacle of success. That’s all on the subject. The season’s now over and no more football for at least 12 weeks. Just the victory parade in Manchester and it’s all over, promise. Then it’s back to Uvongo’s potholes, water leakages and overgrown grass verges.

Mind you, if you think this is ‘football daft’, you should meet Mike Berry of Umtentweni. ‘City mad’ for half a century, he’s been coming round to the house to watch matches for the past two seasons – about 120 games at least! The week before last, he visited to watch the last match of the season and immediately afterwards drove through the night to Kruger National Park for a few days’ game viewing.

And then last Saturday, he left the park at 5am to drive back to the Hibiscus Coast in time to watch the FA Cup final with yours truly, arriving back with an hour to spare and in time for beloved City win the cup.

The main heading should actually read ‘Local resident’s epic marathon drive to get home for football match’.

It was at least a 2 500km round trip! The following morning he went to church to give thanks for City’s all-conquering season in his Manchester City shirt. Surely that qualifies him for mention as a hallowed-be-thy-name member of the Blue Moon Hall of Fame?

Telling whoppers

The monthly SHAFTS (Self Help Association For The Seniors) get-together at the Shelly Beach Ski-boat Club last week had the theme ‘Would I lie to you?’ Members had to guess whether stories were true or whoppers. Colleen Haggard told three outlandish stories and amazingly all three were true.

The second half of the quiz was fathoming out ‘funny’ words and their meanings and again ‘young Haggard’ won hands down. It’s entirely plausible, seeing that Colleen is in the newspaper business. Now we await a local equivalent of Fred Astaire and Jane Powell doing their ‘How could you believe me when you know I’ve been a liar all my life?’ routine. Any volunteers?

Music maestro

Last Saturday saw another successful evening’s entertainment at the packed-out Azalea Hall, a wonderful programme of light classical music by the Durban City Orchestra, conducted by Lykele Temmingh. The selection of music was the popular stuff with compositions by Johann Strauss, Franz Lehar, Leonard Cohen and Leroy Anderson and featured the lovely voice of Cassie Rae.

Maestro Temmingh was in fine form, presenting each number with light humour. No heavy stuff – bringing back fond memories of the ‘Proms by the Sea’ which were a popular feature in Durban a couple of decades ago.

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Unfortunately there was a pressing engagement to attend (like the FA Cup Final), so your scribe couldn’t make it. Deputy Uvongo scribe, the CO went along and returned home to comment on a wonderful evening of music missed out on. Better luck next time.

Hats off again to the indefatigable Liz Curran, who knocked herself out to get the symphony here. At least the bus didn’t break down this time round, as wryly noted by Lykele.

With a song

Twenty-four hours later, Liz was wearing her other hat, the movie one, at Ronnie Baker Hall. The movie club enjoyed watching ‘With A Song In My Heart’ (1952), the story of singer Jane Froman starring Susan Hayward. Great movie, great songs and a great pity that the dvd got stuck right at the end. The good news is that there will be a rerun in the near future since it is one of the best music biographies and bit of a tearjerker that has stood the test of time – easily the best ticket in town.

See you, Rob. 

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