Mordor

Mordor 1. My last day as complaint letter writerer Hallelujah! Although I am exceedingly good at writing letters of complaint, I am mortally tired of it and I thank God that I am done with this. The only drawback of my new job is that I’d have to travel from Mordor to Jo’burg every day. I’m sure I’ll get used to it, most people in Jo’burg and Pretoria travel some distance to work and back. The people in Mordor are funny and I think It’ll take time for me to get used to the Jo’burgers. I am soooo looking forward to Monday. As I said before, I won’t be able to write for a few days, but I’m sure by Mid-Late Next week I’ll join cyberspace again. 2. Living in Mordor I think I got sort of used to Mordor, for Lamb and I have been living here for 9 years now. Though now and again something happens which still amazes me. Last week I was overtaken (in a small stretch between two sets of traffic lights) by a roaring three litre Ford Cortina. It is hard to describe the colour of the car. It is sort of metallic bottle green. On it’s sides it had been decal’d with outsized green flames. The flames were also metallic, but as the car passed me, the flames changed from a silver greenish hue to blowfly brilliant as the angle of light on them changed. The words “THE PUNISHER” were decal’d in large white letters on the back of the car. The car was occupied by a burly man (driver) with a mullet hairstyle. Next to him was a woman with an extremely tight perm and in the back two children of unidentifiable gender. You may wonder how I noticed all of that in the few nano seconds it took the powerful Ford to pass my fuel-economic Japanese model. All I can say is that the image had been imprinted on my memory forever. 3. Mordor Status Symbols Each community and segment of society has it’s own unique status symbols. In Mordor it correlates with the East Rand (East of Jo’burg for those who don’t know), Pretoria West, the Towns of Virginia & Welkom and Klerksdorp & Orkney a.o. Status symbols as well as fads & fashions popular in Mordor:

• Souped up Ford Cortinas, VW Golf 1s, Opel Corsas and old Beemers.
• Motorcar accessories to customise your wiele – shiny chrome hub-caps with rotating blades inside, which keeps still while the wheels are turning, but starts spinning as soon as the car slows down or stops; spoilers and fins – especially a fin the size of a Boeing tail-wing on the boot of the car (om die kar se gat op die pad te hou as jy vinnig om ‘n draai sleep)
• Sound – It needn’t be the best quality, so long you have enough reverberating bass to dissolve the kidney stones of those you pass with your car.
• Big Hair – It’s been all the rave since 1985 here in Mordor. Peroxide blondes with hair teased the life out of it still walk around in off-the-shoulder Spanish style frilly blouses with stretch jeans and white high heels. Better still if the heels could be “mother of pearl”.
• Faux Flintstone Finish on Houses. I believe they call it “rock art”. I have seen it tastefully done around pools etc, but over here, they do the whole house. (Plain old 50’s 60’s and 70’s style houses get plastered with cement and painted to look as if it is made from stone. More often than not, the Idiot doing the job doesn’t know what he is doing which contributes to the overall kak look.) If the guy has a little more skill, you’d find images of the Big Five cunningly blended in.
• Gates. As everywhere in SA people’s yards are sealed off by high walls or palisades with motorised gates. Here people have a big thing for gates. Some are so ornate and elaborate that one would expect to find the Forbidden City behind it. But no, once it opens it is just an ordinary house with garden ornaments such as Swan planters, Snow white and all 7 dwarfs and pink flamingos. The pillars built to support the gateposts are usually topped with massive cement eagles (painted dazzling blue) or Egyptian Cats or Chinese Lions.
• Christmas decorations. I’ve seen a trend in the posh suburbs of Jo’burg that people put very tasteful lights and decorations in their gardens over the Christmas period. Here in Mordor the most ordinary and even shabby looking houses gets transformed in Las Vegas meets Christmas. It is something to behold.

I can go on forever. Bye for now