What’s the 4711?

I was paging through the February 2012 issue of Good Housekeeping Magazine and came across a promotion for 4711 Eau de Cologne. Now for those of you who are too young to remember or know this, 4711 was a popular cologne from yesteryear. It was first launched in Köln, Germany (Cologne in English) in 1792, as a unisex scent, by perfumer Wilhelm Mülhens. The full name on the original bottle says “Echt Kölnish Wasser” (real water from Cologne).

4711 FRONT OF BOTTLE

My grandmother used it as smelling salts though, and I grew up thinking that it was only used to help revive you when you felt faint. I had a bout of panic attacks during my first year of university, and having 4711 in my handbag was de rigueur.

Flash-forward to 2012 and 4711 seems to be making a comeback. The smell is refreshing in the same vein as all the “eau” colognes, and the fact that it costs a mere R60 for 25 ml makes it a real bargain. The citrus smell reminds one of a burst of lemonade on a hot summer’s day.

4711 BACK OF BOTTLE MADE IN WEST GERMANY

Attached is a picture of the original bottle owned by my late grandmother, Audrey Roman (whose 83rd birthday it would have been today, by the way). Proof that it is authentically from the seventies or eighties, is the fact that it says “Made in WEST Germany” on the back label. And it still smells divine, after all of these years.

Frankies vs Woolies: score one to the little guy

Frankies vs Woolies: score one to the little guy.

I’m in an Edgar Allan Poe mood today.

I first heard this poem as a teenager, with an existential crisis, circa 1990. I thought about it today for some reason, and so here is Edgar Allan Poe’s “Annabel Lee” – a poem which is both beautiful and sad.

Annabel Lee – by Edgar Allan Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

Vintage Lipsticks

My grandmother loved red lipstick, in fact, she always said that red was the only colour she ever wore. But she lied. After her passing, I dug around in her chest of drawers and found some vintage lipsticks…and I do mean vintage, circa 1950’s or 1960’s. (see picture).

Granny's Lipsticks circa 1960

The casing seems to be almost antique looking, brass-like, and very sturdy. Gosh, these lipsticks are older than I am! I also love the side push up lever, a device from yesteryear that is no longer in vogue.

If one were to compare these antiquated lipsticks to the ones of today, of course, the technology inside today’s “lippies” is 100% better and improved, with collagen, SPF and brilliant colour and shine, but I think that the packaging most of the time, leaves a lot do be desired.

In my opinion, a lipstick, which is designed to make a woman look and feel beautiful, should also have stunning packaging, so much so, that you will consider it a work of art, much like perfume bottles. Once it is finished, you won’t want to throw the lipstick case away.

What memories do you have of your mother and grandmother’s lipsticks? Did they also multi-task and use some of it as blush? Do you remember the smell? Thank goodness technology has marched on, and the sometimes horrible lipstick smells have been replaced by fruity flavours or none at all.

WILLIAM & KATE – ROYAL WEDDING FEVER

It was on the 29th of July 1981, when the 19 year old Lady Diana Spencer and the 32 year old Prince Charles, walked down the aisle in St Paul’s Cathedral London, in what was claimed to be the wedding of the 20th century. But as we all know, that fairytale crumbled in divorce. Diana produced two male heirs, Princes William and Harry, and the former takes his walk down the aisle to marry Kate Middleton in two days’ time.

These are my memories of those eventful 1981 nuptials. I was 7 years old and in Grade 2 at the time, or Sub B, as we older generation South Africans used to call it. Good gracious, that was 30 years ago! I was royally mad, a complete royalist, even at that young age. Every picture of Diana that I could find was pasted in my royal scrap book. Sometimes, my mother couldn’t afford to buy me Pritt, so I used grape flavoured bubblegum to stick the pictures down. Come to think of it, every time I opened that scrap book, it reeked of grapes. What a pity that with all the moving I’ve done in my life that my beloved royal scrap book went missing.

Back to that 1981 afternoon… my granny, mother and I gathered around our black and white television to watch a worldwide event that was coming to us live. The anticipation of seeing Diana’s wedding dress was so huge and the gasps of amazement when her elongated train was revealed, as she stepped out of the carriage, could be heard by women globally.

The Emmanuel designed wedding dress was the most beautiful gown I had ever seen in my 7 years of existence. The layers of organza, the frills, the poofy sleeves… Diana really did look like the personification of a fairytale princess.

Diana's wedding dress with long train

Later in the day, the royal public kiss on the balcony concluded what I imagined to be the most watched wedding in history. That is surely to be surpassed on Friday, 29 April 2011, when Kate and William say “I do.” And my now 37 year old self, will be watching just as enthusiastically as I did when I was 7 years old!

Congratulations William and Kate!

ATLAS POEM – LOVE IS A VERB.

I found this poem in a magazine recently. It describes perfectly my notion of “grown-up love.” You show that you love someone, not only by romantic gestures of gift giving (if you are lucky enough to even receive anything). Rather, it is the everyday, mundane things, like taking out the trash, having short showers so that there is enough hot water left for your partner, washing up the dishes or washing clothes – it’s the simple stuff that counts. After all, love is a verb. This poem sums it up nicely, so enjoy, and remember it when your partner seems to be unromantic. His / her idea of caring may just be remembering how you like to take your tea, with 3 spoons of sugar.

The Inbetweeners

My latest television fix is a British sitcom called “The Inbetweeners” (BBC Entertainment channel 120 on DSTV on Tuesday nights at 21h30.) It chronicles the lives of four 16 year olds at a British comprehensive school, and as the name suggests, the group of friends are not exactly what is considered to be “cool” but they are not too nerdy either.

I find it hilarious due to its sometime “toilet humour” but then my sense of humour falls into that department. The show’s writers, Damon Beesley and Iain Morris, have the wonderful ability to take the mundane everyday high school shenanigans of teenage boys and turn it into something outrageously funny. The delivery of each line is done in perfect comic timing, thanks to the acting skills of the main cast, Will (Simon Bird), Simon (Joe Thomas), Jay (James Buckley) and Neil (Blake Harrison).

More importantly, it brings back all of those high school memories circa 1989 and 1990 especially. I was in Standard 8 and Standard 9 in those years (that’s Grade 10 and 11 to all those older than 35 like me!). My friends and I definitely fell into the nerdy category (do fellow scholars copying your homework fall into the geek compartment?) Despite this fact, I always had aspirations of being on the arm of the hottest combination of athlete and student, for the matric farewell. Sadly, that did not happen (a blog down memory lane for another day), but it was in the style of a true Hollywood teenage movie. No, not “Carrie”.

Anyway, thought you should see some clips of “The Inbetweeners” to tickle your funny bone, and to bring back some of YOUR high school memories. What a pity that they only made 6 episodes in series 1 and 2. Hopefully, we will get to see series 3 shortly (hint, hint DSTV/ BBC Entertainment).

PAST, “GIFT” AND FUTURE

PAST, “GIFT” AND FUTURE

There is a new series on M-Net Action called “Life on Mars.” It’s about a cop who goes back in time to 1973, to solve a crime. This got me thinking about time travel, time warps, time machines and the time space continuum. What would it be like to go back in time and meet your 5 or 10 year old self? What advice would you give yourself? What road map would you devise to steer yourself clear of life’s potholes? Mine would be, do a Bachelor of Commerce degree majoring in Marketing and Accounting, instead of a Bachelor of Social Science degree, have more fun and remember to smile.

And what about technology… would I be able to exist without the technological comforts of GPS, cell phones, contact lenses, laptops, and more importantly, the Internet. Can you imagine having to resort back to circular dial landline phones, going to the library to do school projects, or opening an Encyclopedia Britannica to find out something? The mind boggles to think that humans actually existed just fine and dandy without these inventions. There was mystery and excitement when the telephone rang, “Oh, I wonder who that could be?”

I also remember a science-fiction show that was broadcast circa 1985, but was actually produced in 1975 and was dubbed into Afrikaans. It was called “Space:1999” – see below for a quick reminder.

For some reason, it made me afraid of what the future may hold. Would we have the ability to morph into another person, use our supposedly innate telepathy and move objects with our minds, like some of the characters in the show. What distant planets had life on it and when would it be discovered?

Then along came Y2K, which proved nothing more than our human, deep-seated fear of change. Next up, 2012, specifically 21 December 2012, the date the Mayans apparently have foretold would be the end of the world, or “Armageddon”. Others say that it will merely be the end of one age and the start of another, but what age? For better or for worse? That is the million dollar question.
See “2012” movie trailer below.

What did you envisage as the future? What was 2010 supposed to be like? I had imagined that by now, we would have invented “energizing” like in Star Trek. That would eliminate traffic jams for starters. But then again, perhaps there would be “energizing” jams, where one’s molecules collided with another person’s, causing “molecular accidents” and then only two thirds of you would appear at your destination! Not very practical, having to find the rest of yourself anywhere in time and space, is it?

I imagined at the very least, that we would be hovering around town in space crafts, like the ones in “The Fifth Element” sans the bad costumes and fashion sense, though.

But I guess that the best thing to do, as the many self-help books I’ve read indicate, is to live in the here and now. It is a gift and that is why it is called ‘the present.’ Corny as it many sound, it is true. There is not much you can do about the past, and it’s no use worrying about the future, so best to live in the moment.

EERIE PICTURES IN HAMBURG

I watched the movie called “Shutter” on M-Net the other day. It’s about ghostly images that appear in photographs. Now, I know the movie was your run-of-the-mill ghost flick, as only the Japanese can perfect and then the Americans do a second class job of the re-make, but it was eerie. Then some of the images I saw in film, reminded me of something…they seemed familiar. I had seen those images in some of my own photographs.

What do you think this smoke is?

The photographs were taken when I visited Hamburg in Germany in 1995. One of them was taken at the lake in the middle of the city called the Alster, and the other was in a forest type area. Nobody was smoking when the photographs were taken, so it could not have been that. The other photographs on the spool of film came out perfectly, so it could not have been a spoiled spool either. The images are non-descriptive, no faces can be seen, and it does look like a cloud, but how could it get there?

Ghost at the Alster Lake in Hamburg?

I was alone at the Alster lake and it was already dark, and the other picture was also taken after night fall, but there were other people around.

I once went to an angel workshop, where you were supposed to get in touch with your guardian angel. I didn’t reach mine, but they passed around some interesting photographs. These also had that smoke-like effect or ghost-like images, and they were taken at someone’s wedding. The angel workshop people said that it indicated the presence of angels. Of course they would, and I felt better when they said this, considering the alternative.

If these images appear in various other people’s photographs, then could they be real? Makes you think, doesn’t it?

MICHAEL JACKSON’S “THRILLER” IN 3D VIEW-MASTER

It’s been almost two months since Michael Jackson’s death, and the globe is still in mourning. After hearing “Bad” and “Black and White” for the umpteenth time on MTV and VH1, I found myself rummaging through a draw, and found my prized 1984 3D View-Master of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller”.

I’m always filled with excitement at finding long lost items of fun from my childhood. The 3D View-Master was the equivalent of the Nintendo Wii back in 1984. Okay, well, Atari was more like the Wii’s 80’s counterpart, but the View-Master was the Cape Flats equivalent.

Now for all out there who don’t know what I am talking about, take a look at the pictures below. I got mine for my 10th birthday, and it was one of my best gifts ever! Thanks Mom!

My 3D View-Master, circa 1984

Slide for the 3D View-Master

Basically, the 3D View-Master consisted of the viewing device and three disks, each containing 7 slides. It told a story, in this case, “Thriller” and you had to push the handle down on the side, to get to the next slide, whilst looking through the viewfinder. Describing it in this manner, makes it sound so archaic, and indeed it is, but to my 10 year old mind, it was the height of technology. Of course, the actual “Thriller” video was exceptional, compared to these slides, but it did have a magical quality to it.

Anyway, I wonder how much it would fetch on ebay, being in good condition and all. I also have a View-Master of an episode of “Knight Rider” to boot. David Hasselhoff was hot back in the day, “toight” pants and big hair rocked for both men and women in the 80’s.

A NEW DAY

I’ve always thought that going to the theatre is such a treat. To actually see real people performing and singing right in front of you, compared to seeing a movie, has always been moving for me.
I remember that the very first time I ever went to a theatrical production was when I was 5 years old, and it was during my ballet phase, which lasted all of Sub A (Grade 1). I either saw “The Nut Cracker” or “Cinderella” – it was in 1980, so please forgive my rusty memory. My ballet teacher, Terry Gillard, took the whole lot of us to what is now called Artscape.

The other landmark performance was that of “District Six – The Musical” in 1986 or 1987 at the Baxter Theatre. It was the first show that I saw with my mother. Like most Coloured people on the Cape Flats, this show was the epitome of all musicals, because it reflected our roots and brought back so much memories of our beloved neighbourhood.

I now leave “memory lane” and get on the “highway” that is present day Johannesburg…

I recently had the privilege of watching a musical spectacular called “A New Day” at Carnival City. Not knowing what to expect, added to the excitement of the evening, which started with a buffet finger dinner and refreshments. We entered the Mardi Gras Theatre and were seated at round tables, and then the curtains lifted and the show began, after a few words of thanks from the show’s Producer and Director, Tyrone Watkins.

The show is a mixture of old and new songs, ranging from Michael Bublé to Elton John, Celine Dion to Randy Crawford, and I was blown away by the vocal range of the performers. I’d even go as far as saying that Joseph Clark, Sury Boltman, Desiré Hennings, Jamali and the Ekurhuleni Youth Choir, sang the cover versions better than the original artists.

The theme of the show, as the name indicates, is that of “A New Day” – each new day is a chance to start afresh, with a clean slate.
Herein lies the inspirational part of the show, and some of the songs brought a knob to my throat and I had to hold back the tears, especially when Desiré Hennings sang “The Climb” by Miley Cyrus, which is currently enjoying major radio airplay.

As the program states, “A NEW DAY celebrates new beginnings and has been conceptualized to embrace positive change in all spheres of our lives with a compelling and motivational message through music: where inspiration is the goal, rather than entertainment.”

The 70 minute show also incorporates some local flavour with a medley of Kurt Darren songs, and I found myself singing along to “Meisie Meisie” and “Loslappie” when the crowds got up from their seats and started to dance and clap along to Sury Boltman’s energetic performance.

It was also amazing to actually see the Electric Pops Orchestra on stage, as orchestras always seem to be “caged” at the bottom of the stage out of everyone’s view, and yet they play a pivotal role in any theatrical production.

Well done to Tyrone Watkins (Producer and Director of the show) and his production team. It was an elegant evening of song and dance that I haven’t experienced in a while. It makes you realize the amazing talent that our South African artists have, and I wonder why many of them are forced to pursue their entertainment careers in hotels in places like Dubai and on cruise ships.

A NEW DAY is currently on at the Mardi Gras theatre at Carnival City until the 8th of August 2009.

You can purchase your tickets from Computicket and they range from R65.00 to R90.00, so it’s not too heavy on one’s pocket.

PENPALS & RICK ASTLEY WERE “KIEF” IN 1988

Back in 1988, having a pen-friend was the latest trend at my school. My friends and I would search the pages of UK music magazines like “SMASH HITS” and the German “BRAVO,” to find interesting people to correspond with. These were the days before emails and internet, instant messaging, smses, cell phones and social networking sites. Can you believe that, nowadays, actually putting pen to paper is considered archaic?

When our penpals eventually wrote back, it was so exciting. We had a hand-written letter from someone who was “overseas”. Now this may seem mundane to some, but having access to someone other than your small, and usually Coloured only community, was a big thing in 1988 Apartheid South Africa.

We brought the letters to school and allowed our friends to read them, ever so proud at receiving personal correspondence from abroad. These were the days at the height of the Rick Astley phenomenon, circa 1988.
We used words like “kief” meaning cool and “larney” meaning posh. We danced to songs like “Never gonna give you up” and were ecstatic when we read that our penpals were listening to the same LP. Yes, LPs or records were what we listened to in the 80’s.

The content of these letters were much the same as what we were going through as teenagers, but somehow, theirs always seemed cooler. I guess because, they took annual holidays to places like Majorca, and it was so natural and the done thing. My friends and I were lucky if we saw Durban!

I still have some of those letters. I kept the funniest and longest ones, mostly from my penpal from Norfolk in the UK. I read with delight her escapades with her boyfriends, her holidays and her family life. In some ways, it was everything “normal and nuclear” that I yearned for in my own so-called dysfunctional family. Years later, she came to visit me and vice versa, and that was when it dawned on me that her life was far from perfect.

THE DIANA CHRONICLES

I am reading Tina Brown’s “Diana Chronicles” at the moment. It jumps out at you from the bookshelf, with its pretty pink cover, much like Diana did while she was alive.

I’ve always been a royalist, ever since I was 6 years old. I vividly remember staying home from school when I was in Sub B (Grade 2) to watch the royal wedding of Charles and Diana in 1981. The spectacle and pageantry was beyond belief, and the dress had the longest train I’d ever seen.

Since that Royal Wedding, I kept a scrap book of each and every picture of Diana that I could find. As I was 6 and didn’t yet know about Pritt or Bostick, I used my ingenuity to glue the pictures to the page, in the form of grape flavoured bubblegum! Each time I opened the book, the smell of grapes filled the room. Sadly, this royal scrap book got lost with all the house moves I’ve made.

Like most little girls, I wanted to marry a prince. When I was 9, I had visions of marrying Prince William. He was a baby at the time, and one of my teachers heard about my dream. She dismissed it as ridiculous immediately. Why do teachers crush your dreams with stiletto heels? She must be eating her words now, if she’s still alive, because a South African swimmer is engaged to Prince Albert of Monaco, and Prince Harry is dating Chelsey Davy, the daughter of a wealthy Zimbabwean (is that an oxymoron or what!) and she studied at my Alma Mater, the University of Cape Town.

The moral of this little anecdote? Anything and everything is possible, so dream big and live large.

DAVID NEWTON – “POLITICALLY INCORRECT” COMEDY SHOW

I went to see David Newton’s new comedy show “Politically Incorrect” at the Jo’burg Civic Theatre last week. Now the only comedian that usually makes me laugh till my tummy hurts and my mascara runs, is Marc Lottering. Enter David Newton, who has taken a close second after Marc Lottering in my books. Now I have to be honest, I’ve not actually heard of David Newton before, so I was not sure what to expect on the funny front. However, I was pleasantly surprised, in fact, my funny bones got a real exercise!

Aptly named “Politically Incorrect” it runs the gamut from farting on escalators, to bulimia and anorexia, to picking up hitch-hikers and free range chickens!

There was also a serious note to the show. The idea is to use comedy as a vehicle to get across the message of Colorectal Cancer, a.k.a bum or bowel cancer, as David has made this his Corporate Social Responsibility project. Some you may have read that Farrah Fawcett, one of the original “Charlie’s Angels” from the 1970’s, has this form of cancer.

So expect to laugh and learn at the same time. The lesson? Brace yourself for a poke in the rear, that my just save your life! So get your Oncologist on the phone now.

David’s show is on at the Johannesburg Civic Theatre till Saturday, 30 May 2009 – tickets at Computicket.

Check out his website – www.davidnewton.co.za

MY FIRST EVER COSMOPOLITAN

The Nov. 1990 issue of SA Cosmopolitan cost just R3.60

My first ever Cosmopolitan was bought when I was 15 years old. No, I’m not talking about the cocktail ala Carrie Bradshaw et al from “Sex and the City”. I’m referring to the magazine. It was November 1990, I was in Standard 9 and had lost my mom earlier in that year. I had never met my father, so this left me technically orphaned.

I needed something to give me hope, courage and inspiration, and oddly enough, I found all this is Cosmopolitan. Why? I’d read the articles, see the fashion spreads, read the editorial and even the advertisements made me want to be the quintessential Cosmopolitan woman. ie. Young, successful, smart, happy, good-looking and grounded. I remember that one of the advertorials to subscribe to the magazine read “This woman has the secret to success” and had a picture of a beautiful woman with an equally good-looking man hanging on her shoulders.
This implied that because she read Cosmo, she is successful. In my 15 year old mind, I honestly believed that. I could be whoever I wanted to be, despite coming from an impoverished background on the Cape Flats. (more about this in a future blog).

With my mother’s death, things looked dire and my future uncertain. I had two choices – either surround myself with self-pity and sadness or milk my orphaned status for all that it was worth. I chose the latter, which resulted in me obtaining a bursary to study at UCT.

I still have that advertorial in one of my many adolescent journals. In fact, I still have that November 1990 copy of Cosmo (see picture) with Christina Estrada as the cover girl (Sol Kerzner’s one-time girlfriend) and the free Diamonds supplement. Both are still in pristine condition and have no dog ears! Can you believe that a quality magazine cost just R3.60 in 1990?

My stash of magazines (around 200 or so) have moved with me from place to place, from Cape Town to Johannesburg, and from one flat to the next. Only the very special ones are kept for posterity.

I also have a copy of the banned December 1992 copy of Cosmopolitan. It was deemed too risqué by the Publications Board, as it contained semi nude pictures of Madonna and friends from her book “SEX.”

This was the Dec. 1992 Cosmo cover (SA edition)

I was able to get a copy just before it was pulled from the shelves. I bought mine from the then Paperbacks store in Mowbray. I asked for it by name and the surly woman behind the counter yelled back at me “It’s banned!” in a tone of absolute disgust, that I (now an 18 year Coloured old girl) could be asking for such tasteless reading matter. Since it was right behind her and technically still for sale, she had no choice but to sell it to me. I felt satisfied and excited at my “dirty” little purchase.

My point is that Cosmopolitan (and many other glossies that have sprung up in the last 20 odd years) has acted as some sort of guiding light and mentor, if you like, on my path to adulthood and becoming the woman I am today. I’d like to believe that I am all that I hoped I’d be, looking over the pages of my journals, and Cosmo, from 20 years ago.