My wife and I visit our beloved homeland - the East Rand

My wife of less than a month tested our marriage by dragging me to the East Rand Mall the other day. She wanted to go to a specific shoe shop. There are only two shops like it in Gauteng. The other was in the South of Joburg. I know many people from the South. They are good folk. But I do not feel safe in the South. We went to the East. A visit to our homeland, where the awful ous roam, where the beer and the alcopops flow. Back to the East, where seldom is heard an encouraging word and the pies are not mouldy all day. I love the East Rand.

The shop did not have any shoes she liked. So, we did the tourist thing and looked at the local wildlife, pointing out famous watering holes that have since dried up, stopping to giggle and take pictures of the unfortunately abbreviated CUM Books store, a Christian shop that one suspects is trying to lure in porn fiends to convert them. At the CNA, I found a game called Toilet Football. It has a felt mat with football field markings, a goal, a net and a little football boot that attaches to a stick.

You play it while seated on the toilet, knocking the ball into the goal with the boot on a stick ... and that’s about it. They only had three sets left. Or perhaps they had only ordered three sets. There are better things to do on the bog than hit a ball with a stick. If CUM Books had been the shop some people thought it was, then they may have had a shelf of books on hitting balls with a boot on a stick.

We did not buy Toilet Football. I have toilet books to read and I have an iPhone. My on-throne entertainment is taken care off. There’s a perverse pleasure in replying to emails, tweets and arse-about-facebook from the bog. In the early days of cellphones the late cricket writer, Peter Robinson, once called Ali Bacher. Ali, thought Robbo, sounded a little strained. “Are you okay, Ali? What’s that strange echo?” asked Robbo. “I’m on the toilet,” answered the Doc. Oh, for the days when CEOs answered their phones immediately no matter what.

They used to put my column up on the wall of the men’s toilet at the Keg and Kingfisher in Benoni. I don’t know if they still do. Men catch up on the news during a pee. I once stood at the urinals next to a man who looked at my picture on the wall, then me, then back again.

“Is that you?” he asked. “Yes,” I sighed. “Shouldn’t they put your column and picture on the back of the toilet doors to help okes suffering from constipation?” I miss the East Rand.

Foxy laddy

Leicester City fan Julian Barnes, the Booker prize winning author, wrote for The Guardian on the joy of winning the Premier League. “I haven’t always been a Leicester supporter: there was a time before I could read, or knew how to tune the Bakelite wireless to the voice of Raymond Glendenning on Sports Report. But from the moment I became sportingly sentient - say, the age of five or six - I have been (as they didn’t much say then) a Fox. So, six and a half decades and counting. I did, initially, support a second team - Partick Thistle, from the grittier end of Glasgow. But that was because my infant mind believed they were called Patrick Thistle, and my middle name is Patrick. I eventually stopped supporting Thistle - such is the strange, irrational adhesiveness of fandom - when I was about 40; though of course I still instinctively check their results in my newspaper. But apart from this dalliance, I have been entirely monogamous: To be a lifelong supporter of Leicester is to have spent decades poised between mild hopefulness and draining disappointment.” Wonderful writing.

Tweet of the week

“Going full John Terry today!! #fullkit #LCFC”. Robert Huth of Leicester City, who didn’t get to play in the coronation match against Everton on Saturday.

Cherise’s happiness

Cherise Stander, former South African champion, Olympian and one of the best cycling talents this land has seen, and fiancee Benno Willeit gave birth to a baby boy this weekend. He will be called Thomas Burry Willeit, with his middle name in honour of Stander’s late husband, who was killed in a motor accident three years ago. Much happiness and love to both of them. - The Star