David Kau's take on the Durban July.
http://www.thetimes.co.za/Columnists/Lifestyle/Article.aspx?id=799996Horses a sideshow at Durban July frolic
Published:Jul 16, 2008
WENT to the Durban July and, like most people, I did not see even one horse, except on a TV monitor in a tent.
There were so many tents at the Greyville racecourse that, at first glance, you would think the xenophobic attacks in Durban were worse than reported.
Of course, as soon as you bump into a white chick wearing only body paint, panties and Elastoplast to cover her nipples you quickly realise that this can’t be a refugee camp because only “African” foreigners were attacked by the “criminal element” involved in the so-called xenophobia attacks.
Nowadays, for most tabloid newspapers, there are more bets placed on everything else at these horse- racing events than on horses.
Who was wearing what, who came with whom, who left with whom, who got kicked out of what tent and, now that singer Kelly Khumalo has moved out of her boyfriend’s place, what’s her hotel room number?
I wonder if a country such as Lesotho has ever thought of hosting either the J&B Met or the Durban July.
The horses are already there.
And I’m sure every citizen of Lesotho has a licence to ride.
All that is needed would be for South Africans to show up dressed in clothes they would have worn at the Samas if they’d been invited, and place bets on anyone who lives in Lesotho that’s going home during peak hour traffic.
The nice thing is that you get to leave the country and tell your friends you went “overseas”, where most black people use to tell us they were going during apartheid.
You don’t even need a visa but, if you’re driving there, it will cost you R5 to enter the kingdom.
Not bad considering it costs the same to go into a club in Port Elizabeth.
A friend of mine said: “Nowadays, two weeks does not go by in this country without some shit happening.”
Well … I was walking on Oxford Road, in Rosebank, Johannesburg, the other day when, all of a sudden, the guy selling paintings on the side of the road disappeared.
I thought to myself: “What now? Even the roads in this town are trying to get rid of foreigners.”
After a few more seconds, I was relieved when I saw that this was not a xenophobic attack because the guy selling newspapers had also disappeared.
Then the blind woman and her a**istant, then the metro cop who was hiding (or rather working) behind the Telkom box.
At least some people were already on the platform waiting for the Gautrain.
