Tandem Post: Meeting The Queen

Two steps forward and then one to the right. I stand and wait, watching… guarding… carefully listening to my own heavy breathing…

I try to remain focused completely on the spaces around me, watching for you, zoning out of the chatter and in on any nearby movement that may be about to occur.

This time you will not get by me.

I am ready, alert, prepared for the inevitability of your attack.

One thing in mind, protect my liege, at all costs, even if it means i may have to sacrifice my very life.

And there you are… I finally catch sight of you, caught behind your wall, for now, but I know that will not last

In fact, just one minute later and already I spot a gap in the wall…

Soon, you will be coming…

I take a step to my left, another step forward

And one more.

All the while, watching, waiting, thinking, calculating.

Perhaps if I just keep myself moving, you will eventually make a mistake…

Silence.

It’s as if I can almost smell the deep thought that is resonating in the air just above me.

My horse makes a startled sound.

“Sh, Th’gink, it’s okay lady, easy now,” I quietly whisper into her ear, trying to calm her down.

When the moment comes to strike, I need her to be ready, totally in control.

More silence.

Followed by a gentle tik, tik.

The tell-tale sounds of plastic on wood…

Like a black widow on the prowl, you seek a deathly mating ritual.

And I, I will do everything I can to stop you.

…

…

…

And almost all too easily, there it is. The moment I have been building up to.

In an instantly regrettable moment of distraction, you took your eyes off of me.

I suspect it was the sight of the castle to your left?

As I gallop into view, straight, straight, and then at the last moment pull an audacious slide to the left.

I have your man in my sights…

And you must fall, so that he may make his brief escape…

This post is my first post as part of a tandem blogging exercise with Dave Luis, Mandy Collins and Nick Frost. One title unwrapped by four storytellers. Read Dave’s post over here, Mandy’s post here, and Nick’s post here. Please share your thoughts on our fun exercise in the comments on each post, and remember that with bloggerists, sharing is always caring. 

[To check out the following Tandem Post i did with the title, ‘Revelations at Dawn’, click here]

Poetry with Erik with a K: Lonely Cloud

So sometimes when i’m not myself i become this guy Brad Fish who has a whole series of videos warning people about Dangerous Things You Can Least Expect [DTYCLE] which were either funny or not, depending on whether you found them funny or not.

And then today, i discovered that sometimes when i’m not Brad Fish, i might end up becoming Erik [with a K]

Erik loves poetry and the soothing effect it has on him and so he has decided to share one of his favourite well-known poems in the hopes that hearing it read in a different accent might bring it more alive to you as well.

He does hope you will enjoy:

What are your thoughts? Did Erik [with a K] move you? Or should he be the one being moved? 

[For a Dylan Thomas poem recited beautifully by Erik with a K, click here]

Chasing LOL – part II

You know how this works. We write LOL, but we barely ever really mean it… but Jack Handey is one of the guys who i know have made people LOL best and for real… so take a look at these offerings and see if any of them do it for you:

‘It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.’ [Jack Handey]

‘I guess of all my uncles I liked Uncle Cave Man the best. We called him Uncle Cave Man because he lived in a cave and because sometimes he’d eat one of us. Later on we found out he was a bear.’ [Jack Handey]

‘It’s too bad that whole families have to be torn apart by something as simple as wild dogs.’ [Jack Handey]

‘I bet the main reason the police keep people away from a plane crash is they don’t want anybody walking in and lying down in the crash stuff, then when somebody comes up act like they just woke up and go, “What was THAT?”‘ [Jack Handey]

‘One thing kids like is to be tricked. For instance, I was going to take my little nephew to Disneyland, but instead I drove him to a burnt down warehouse. “Oh no,” I said, “Disneyland burned down.” He cried and cried, but I think that deep down, he thought it was a pretty good joke. I started to drive over to the real Disneyland, but it was getting pretty late.’ [Jack Handey]

Which of those came closest for you? Or do you have a favourite Jack Handey? Share with us in the comments section and we’ll see if it makes it into the next episode of Chasing LOL… 

[For more Jack Handey LOL chasingments, click here]

Chasing LOL – part I

So by now, if you know me, you know that i don’t really believe LOL is a thing.

Apart from someone in my close family who actually thought it meant ‘Lots Of Love’ and actually [true story] sent it to a friend via text who had just lost a family member, as in: i heard your dad died. LOL

But my basic theory is this: If you’re writing LOL [which, family member, stands for Laugh Out Loud] then you’re clearly not LOLing! Because who can type accurately if they are in fact laughing in an out loud kind of manner? [Most people i know shake, do you shake?]

Anyways, one person i know in life who regularly gets me to actually blatantly honestly LOL is my buddy, Dreadlock Mike, and i’m not sure why it is, but when we get together we both become little seven year old gigglers [do seven year olds giggle? whichever age that is, we’re them] which is why i love hanging out with Mike and recently it was Mike and i reading out Jack Handey’s that was bringing out the LOLs.

If you don’t know Jack Handey’s work, then it is my absolute pleasure to share it with you. Different people respond to different thoughts of his and so if you don’t like all of them, that is fine. i am going to post five today and if one of them brings you closer to LOLing than the others, let me know which one it was below…

The tiger can’t just change his spots. No, wait, he did. Good for him. [Jack Handey]

Whenever y read a good book, it’s like the author is right there, in the room, talking to you, which is why I don’t like to read good books. [Jack Handey]

Instead of a trap door, what about a trap window? The guy looks out of it, and if he leans too far, he falls out. Wait. I guess that’s like a regular window. [Jack Handey]

One thing vampire children have to be taught early on is, don’t run with a wooden stake. [Jack Handey]

It’s funny that pirates were always going around searching for treasure, and they never realised that the real treasure was the fond memories they were creating. [Jack Handey]

Which of those came closest for you? Or do you have a favourite Jack Handey? Share with us in the comments section and we’ll see if it makes it into the next episode of Chasing LOL… 

[For more Jack Handey love, check out Chasing LOL part II over here]

the sounds of [book-reading] silence

Three Cape Town launches done and dusted [what does that even mean, why would you dust an event?]

A decent amount of books bought.

Many people uttering phrases like “This kind of book is so important”, “I can’t wait to read this”, and “We really needed this.”

And then…

Crickets… well first there was the actual cricket and that was also a bit of a sad affair…

But even worse, perhaps, now that people are telling me i can actually be called ‘an author’, is the next few days after the launches have finished and the books have been bought and the statements made… and the sound of crickets echoes in this author’s inbox, on the Amazon review page, on the Goodreads question forum…

Actually not even the sound of crickets… just a silence…

Do people read this slowly?

Or even worse, do people not read this slowly?

Because at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much people love you and attend your events, how excited they are about the prospect of this book and what needs to be said, or how many were bought and signed and gushed upon…

It’s like the movies – week one is an indication of anticipation… week two to three to seven tells you if the movie was any good or not.

So i would say we had a pretty decent opening weekend of this movie… and now we wait to hear the reviews and to see if people tell their friends to go and see it and if anyone thinks there is anything significantly significant about this particular one…

In the meantime though, i did get a really fun and creative book launch review, which feels like it is a first…

But for now, i will retreat to my authory cave, and continue with the day to day of all the busyness i currently have to fill my plate, sneaking out every now and then to grab a peek at the internet and see if anyone has gotten to the point of sharing their words on my piece of heart, that lies exposed for everyone [who bought a copy] to see…

Stick your IFs in your BUTs

Another World Cup, another sad day for South Africa.

But a happy day for New Zealand who did outplay us in a tight match and after 8 semi-finals make their first one, so maybe this means a little bit more to them. At least we won’t be labelled with the ‘Choker’ moniker except by shtupidheads who don’t understand the concept.

There are definitely some things i would have loved to have gone differently:

# i would have definitely gone with Abbott over Philander

# i would have liked it not to have rained [which i don’t think helped us with AB and Miller about to hit overdrive]

# i would have loved for those two run-outs and those drops and that other third thing to have gone the way we wanted it

But none of those things caused us to lose. We lost because on the day New Zealand played a better game and well done to them.

If you are throwing IFs and BUTs into today as to why South Africa lost [as the South African public, and maybe every other public? i dunno, it seems like we do it a lot?] then you can also add if the chances QDK and Amla gave in the opening overs of our batting had gone to hand [we would have been even less runs for two] and if they had called for the review that would have given one of our earlier players [forget who?] out LBW with all the boxes red and ticked and if they had made those runouts of AB and Miller and and and…

i am learning [would love to say “‘have learnt’ but i fear i have a long way to go] this lesson from tbV – i love to analyse games, and maybe that’s a guy thing cos i tend to hear this from the dudes, and so when i lose a game of Settlers of Catan [i know? but it happens! ha!] i tend to explain all the reasons why it happened – “The Dice was landing on fours the whole game” or “If i had got to that harbour first” or whatever it is…

Which is great for me. Analyse the game. Know why i lost. Understand how to do better next time.

But is pretty crappy for Val. “Oh, by the way, the only reason you just beat me there is because of something that went wrong, and not because of your skills and brain and strategy or anything like that. i was unlucky.”

Which is really horrible!

i know this cos i have had it done to me – win an amazing strategied game and have someone complain about the dice landing on 8 the whole time [so my excellent strategy of building on 8 worked, then?] or whatever it is.

We do it and it sucks and we need to stop.

Yes we are very very sad that the Proteas lost. But we need to give New Zealand their moment of being really really glad that they won. Especially in a game where there was no obvious sledging or bad sportsmanship or dubious decisions. We lost because we lost early wickets and were too slow in rebuilding. We lost because Mccullum went huge and it came off and he nailed the run rate for them. We lost because having lost to Pakistan and India in the group matches we finished lower than New Zealand and needed a win more than just a draw to get through. We lost because of a great Corey Anderson, Grant Elliott partnership which we desperately needed to break but couldn’t. And more.

Well done New Zealand. Well played and all the best in the final ESPECIALLY if it is against Australia [although it won’t be!]

And let’s keep our IFs and our BUTs at least until their celebration has died down. And then if there are things to learn [like taking Ryan Mclaren along on tour with you] let us learn them and let us bounce back and not lose any ODIs for the next four years to show we are the best.

There almost always has to be a winner and a loser in a team game. And that doesn’t mean we have to throw ridiculous untrue words like ‘Choke’ at our team [they are the first team to achieve a knockout win in a World Cup game after how many attempts?] and it doesn’t mean that the loser is necessarily crap or needing to have a whole lot of IFs or BUTs to cushion it – it could just mean another team did better on the day, and we’ll get them next time!

So proud of the Proteas. You played your hearts out. And doing that and losing is more than okay.

Book launch – ‘i, church’ – one mouthful

So the books have arrived and with one week to go [well three days] until launch number 1 [which is totally FULL UP], i thought i would give a more sizeable taste of what you can expect.

One of the chapters in the book is titled, ‘6 passages the church needs to take more seriously’ and while i do believe the church needs to take the whole bible seriously, these were 6 particular passages that stand out to me, that we REALLY need to start getting more right more frequently.

And this is the first of those:

[#] Matthew 22.34-40:

”Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. One of them, an expert in the law, tested Him
with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’. This is the first and greatest
commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself’. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments”.

This is the whole Bible summed up in four words for me – Love
God, Love people. Whenever it gets confusing or complicated or
whatever, i think it is good to head back to this foundation of the
church and be reminded of what it is all about.

What i’ve noticed about this passage is that it seems like a
contradiction if we approach it mathematically. If you love God
with ALL your heart, soul and mind then you actually have nothing
left to do any more loving with, because you’ve used it all up
already, right? i mean, that’s what ALL means surely?

Unless you realise that the two commandments are not to be taken
separately at all. As we “love your neighbour as yourself” so we are
demonstrating our loving of God with all our heart, soul, mind.

Loving God means doing His will and His will is that we love other
people and so by loving others, we demonstrate our love of God.

So it is more a two part commandment than two different rules
for living. If we love God with everything, then it will naturally
pour out into loving people around us. And as we love the people
around us, so we are demonstrating love for God because we are
obeying His command.

The second thing to note is Jesus’ little p.s., “All the Law and the
Prophets hang on these two commandments”.

What were the Law and the Prophets? It was Jesus’ Bible. It was
the Jewish scripture and if we continue the metaphor on to us
today now that the New Testament has been written we can take it
to mean that the whole of scripture hangs on those two simple
commands. Love God, love people. Simple in understanding but
not so simple when we try and live them out all the time.

If the church could keep on coming back to this passage when
things get tough or complicated, we would cover a multitude of
sins and confusions and unnecessary conflicts. When we have a
denominational issue, when someone in leadership is caught in
sin, when we are deciding how to use the budget, when there is a
public debate on abortion or homosexuality, do we approach it
from the point of view of, “Is this loving God?” and “Is this loving
people?”

This is the foundation – everything hangs on these two ideas.

We need to keep on going back there and holding firmly to
them. And if anything we are doing or saying or getting involved
in is ever contrary to either of them, then we need to really
rethink and replan and do things differently.

As one rabbi said, “Love God, love people, all the rest is
commentary”. If Jesus says this is the most important thing, how
dare we ever make anything else the most important thing?

To find out what the other 5 passages are, you’re just going to have to get the book… [or ask me what the other five passage are – either way.] 

[To see where the venues are for the book launches and to read a little more what it’s about, click here]