Hoeveel kere het ek dit hoor sê? München, die Beierse hoofstad, is die mees bewoonbare stad in die wêreld volgens baie lyste deur talle mense saamgestel. Die meeste kenmerk hierdie status aan die unieke kombinasie van tradisie en moderniteit in die stad. Beiere het ’n balans getref, en die Beierse mense is baie trots op hul land — en tereg! Müncher weißwurst — bedien met mosterd en ’n krakeling — is my gunsteling wors. (Jammer, boerewors! Jou Duitse neef is tops.)

In elk geval, op die webtuis van Monocle tydskrif, Tyler Brûlé het ‘n blik op München en ondersoek waarom en ondersoek waarom het dit so ‘n goeie reputasie. Kliek hier om te kyk.

It is scandalous that in all my travels I’ve never been to any part of Germany, let alone Bavaria, considering how everyone raves about it unceasingly. Once I finally get myself to the other side of the pond permanently, it’s high up on the list of places to visit pronto (alongside the Netherlands and Finland). All in good time, all in good time…

The drama of sport is being systematically attacked by the bloated American Pro-Sports-Statistical-Media Complex. I can name for you three specific ways that this is happening, but there are doubtless more. First, a universal obsession with statistics. A common criticism of American culture is that it is so technological and empirical that you can’t say anything without backing it with numbers. But I have come to the darker conclusion that most sports broadcasters talk about numbers only because they have nothing else to say. I really don’t care, I really think it is meaningless, that the Chiefs have not succeeded in making a two-point conversion during the third quarter of a post-season game in the last five years. The quintessence of this obsession was illustrated this week by Bob Ley of ESPN, in the halftime analysis during the Argentina-Nigeria World Cup match. “The last time Argentina gave up a halftime lead was in the 1930 World Cup,” he said. “It just doesn’t happen.” This baffled the Spaniard Roberto Martinez, an ESPN commentator and former professional soccer player, who responded: “That was a different team, Bob.” Sports teach us that the possible is greater than the probable; statistics applied to sports is probability’s revenge on possibility.

The second destructive force is the delusion of the Instant Replay. We appeal to the camera when we become afraid of the human element in sport. We think that the precision and justice that the replay can provide for us will defuse the pain that is intrinsic to any competitive sport. In games we see that the best-trained can’t always play their best, and that those with the best eyes don’t always make the right call; the imprecision and the deficiency are also elements in the drama. The Instant Replay is an attempt to quell the drama, as if sports would be better without it. All it actually does is stir confusion about what a game really is, and every time we interrupt a game to watch a video, we strike a blow at the soul that keeps the game moving.

Interruptions, also, are what television commercials are. That basketball and [American] football are structured in such a way as to accommodate for television commercials is a scandal. Who enjoys watching “The Godfather Part II” when it is sliced and diced by ads for sitcoms and acne medication? The interruptions wake us up from the dream of the drama; basketball and football lose something in this constant interruption.

All of this may sound bleak, but the answer to it is flickering in a billion television screens worldwide this month. As we watch the World Cup this summer, we should be conscious that we are witnessing a sport that is resisting. It resists, if nothing else, the tyranny of television commercials. No commercials interrupt the 45 minute flow of a half of soccer—there are no “TV time outs.” The narrative builds and is resolved within continuous time, and it demands that we reclaim the patience and the attention spans most of my generation lost sometime in the late 1990s.

Moreover, even though every now and then somebody within FIFA complains that Instant Replay should be introduced into the game, most fans accept that the game includes injustices. We suffer through them, and we play again the next day. Geoff Hurst scored a “goal” for England in the 1966 Final which actually did not cross the line. Maradona scored a “goal” with his hand against England in the quarterfinals of 1986 (he attributed it to God; five minutes later, he scored the greatest goal in World Cup history). France would not be in the World Cup this year, and Ireland would be, had Thierry Henry not handled the ball during a qualifying match. What can you do? Better to make a sacrifice than to kill the sport.

As for statistics—American soccer broadcasters, too, are beholden to them. But one could always learn Spanish and switch to Univision.

The World Cup this year has its own set of stories which will congeal into the dramatic. The Brazilian squad has betrayed its principles of jogo bonito (beautiful play) and has adopted a pragmatic approach which yields victories without flair. Ironically, the German side looks more playful and creative in attack than Brazil does. Lionel Messi of Argentina will be trying to live up to his reputation of being the greatest Argentine player since Maradona. And there is a tough Paraguayan side you will not want to miss.

Most importantly, there is a drama that you will not want to miss—one that retains certain human elements which are besieged in our hyperactive media age.

’n Groep van Nederlanders in die Kaap het hulle Volkswagen Beetle in die Hollandse patriotiese kleure geverf om hul steun in die Sokkerwêreldbeker te vertoon en hul het hierdie vrolike YouTube video gemaak ook. (Hulle blog, in Nederlands, is 34 graden Zuid).

Watter span steun ek? Ach, baie! Teen Engeland, het ek die Verenigde State gesteun (maar ek haat die “Anyone-But-England” houding van baie in die Britse Eilande buite Engeland). Teen Duitsland, het ek die Aussies gesteun. En natuurlik al die Maties moet BAFANA BAFANA steun!

So vir groepe A-H (onderskeidelik) ons is vir Suid-Afrika, Argentinië, die VSA (of Engeland), Australië, Nederland, Nieu-Seeland, niemand in groep G, en Chili.

It’s Bilderberg season again, which normally has all the conspiracy theorists this side of Roswell up in a flurry. This year, however, the organisers have cheated by having a website and even a press release concerning the proceedings. The Guardian has a photo gallery of the various guests arriving, mostly attired in the tiresome suit-but-no-tie combination which has become all too prevalent of late.

The super-trendy left-wing newspaper, however, demonstrates its typically Euro-centric mindset through its caption for this photo: “Francisco Pinto Balsemão, a former prime minister of Portugal and the CEO of Impresa, says goodbye to an unknown delegate.” An “unknown delegate”?!?!? That’s no less than Dambisa Moyo, the most famous Zambian in the world (referred to as “our girl” in Zambian newspapers), not to mention author of a New York Times bestseller and African star-of-the-hour for over a year now. Honestly, Mr. Guardian!

On June 4, 1943, a murky group of Argentine military officers called the GOU (standing for United Officers’ Group, or Government, Order, Unity) overthrew President Ramon Castillo and ended the Década Infame, or ‘Infamous Decade’ that had begun with the 1930 coup against Hipólito Yrigoyen. The ’43 coup was led by General Arturo Rawson, who served as President of Argentina for a month before being replaced by the more politically minded Gen. Pedro Ramírez.

Ramírez sympathised with the Axis powers in the Second World War, and his inability to successfully maintain Argentina’s neutrality in the face of U.S. pressure led to his resignation and succession by Gen. Edelmiro Farrell, who was viewed by most as the instrument of his charismatic junior, the infamous Col. Juan Perón (with whom we are all too familiar).

This poster produced by the junta incorporates a number of the symbols of Argentine patriotism and nationalism. ‘Liberty’ and ‘Justice’ are proclaimed the principles of the junta, and underneath the date of the coup is announced the ‘Dawn of a Greater Argentina’. The Phrygian cap of liberty, a frequent Argentine emblem, rests atop the scales of justice while the stars of the Southern Cross imply a divine favour over the new regime.

The map of Argentina coloured in yellow includes the British colony of the Falkland Islands and Antártida Argentina, the Argentine Republic’s claimed possession on the Antarctic continent (which overlaps with competing claims by Chile and the United Kingdom). Behind the whole composition, the Argentine Cockade looms ascendant like a rising sun, affirming the text’s proclamation of a new dawn under the nationalist-revolutionary regime.

I hope that one byproduct of the Times of London moving to a new website is that the Times Literary Supplement will finally get one of its own. Other Times spinoffs like Times Higher Education and the Times Education Supplement have them, so why not the jewel in the crown?

Also, I’d hate to see my pedantic letter to the editor of October 1, 2008 available only to paying subscribers (see here, scroll down to ‘Banking’, and ignore erroneous spacing).

Come on, TLS. If the LRB can do it, so can you.

As some of our readers will have already noticed, andrewcusack.com now has a Facebook page you can join.

While innocently playing billiards in a friend’s basement towards the later years of my school days, I was inexplicably forced to endure the latter portion of an episode of the HBO television series “Sex and the City”. The show centers on four middle-aged women who refuse to settle down and lead reasonable, ordered lives but instead involve themselves in ever more flippant affairs and commit ever greater sins against their own dignity. It would be a welcome warning to women were it not for the obvious fact that the show’s intent is to glorify the sad, pitiable existence lived out by the four main characters.

The show originated from a column of the same name in the New York Observer, and after the success of the television series, a cinematic continuation was filmed, followed by a more recent sequel.

Brendan O’Neill, a liberal atheist if ever there was one, has written a superb commentary on the second “Sex and the City” film, claiming that this “execrable” movie “offers an accidentally fascinating insight into the crisis of American values”. Click here to read O’Neill thoughts on the film and its sad reflection of today’s America, and say a little prayer that no-one really leads lives as self-centered, sad, and just plain pitiable as the characters involved.

At Stellenbosch, when the J.S. Gericke Biblioteek is full-up, students must use their ingenuity to find other suitable locations where they can study for their exams.

While the Westminster Parliament has a Speaker, the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh has a “Presiding Officer” — a rather dull title if you ask me. The auld Estaits of Parliament abolished in 1707 were headed by the Lord Chancellor of Scotland, an office which fell into abeyance shortly after the Act of Union.

When the “Scottish Parliament” was refounded in 1997, the first man to hold the new job of Presiding Officer was Sir David Steel (the Rt. Hon. the Lord Steel of Aikwood), the despicable creature who as an MP introduced legal abortion to the United Kingdom in 1967, and who has inexplicably and disgracefully been created a Knight of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, the highest honour in the land (the Scottish equivalent of England’s Garter).

Anyhow, the St Andrews Fund for Scots Heraldry decided to commemorate the hosting of the Heraldic & Genealogical Congress in Scotland by commissioning a ceremonial gown for the Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, who lacked one at the time. This rather handsome creation was presented to George Reid, the holder of the office at that time, during 27th International Congress of Genealogical and Heraldic Sciences held at St Andrews in 2006. Unfortunately I can find no evidence that this well-executed gown has ever been used. (more…)

“My firm conviction is that we of the conservative camp must put ourselves entirely onto a democratic basis. After the collapse of the old conditions nothing else can provide us with a future and a justification except pure democracy. Even if democracy has a dark side it is preferable to the quasi-democratic aristocracy of the representative system.” — Philipp Anton von Segesser, 1866

The Franco-Yorkshireman Jerome di Costanzo has an interesting article at OurKingdom on “You the People” Conservatism, interesting for the most part in that it has introduced me to Philipp Anton von Segesser, whom I had never heard of. I question, however, whether Jerome is correct to imply that Herr von Segesser and Mr. Cameron are quite such birds of a feather. The brilliance of the Swiss model — which Jerome rightly extols — is its democratic localism. But the Prime Minister is now seeking to introduce legislation which would set minimum prices for alcohol to avoid the almighty glut of cheap drink which (along with 24-hour openings) has contributed to the transformation of many British town centres into no-go-zones of public inebriation.

Would not the Swiss solution, instead, have been to merely devolve power either to counties (which barely exist anymore, and whose borders are in a state of permanent revolution) or to local town councils, and to allow them to react to the situation on the ground in a manner they deem appropriate?

Also, as Paul Mallinder points out, the government is attempting to solve a problem with a law, when really the only solution is a virtue. Virtues, though, are society’s responsibility, not the government’s. If people continually look to the government to solve problems by passing legislation instead of transforming society themselves by inculcating and promoting virtue, they deserve the nightmarish state they will end up with.

“Reform movements need an enemy to organize against,” Fr. Thomas Reese, the former editor of America magazine tells TIME (which I stumbled upon at Conservative Blog for Peace). “As most bishops have gotten their acts together on sex abuse, they have looked less like the enemy and more like part of the solution. Enthusiasm for reform declined. With the Pope’s forthright response, it will decline even more.”

Bishops “getting their acts together” is reform! But of course, Fr. Reese is using the word “reform” in an Orwellian manner, meaning not reform, but in fact revolt. His use would be disingenuous, except that I suspect Fr. Reese has actually convinced himself it is appropriate: as the saying goes, “never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by …” well, let’s remain charitable and say “credulity”.

As bishops institute genuine reform, the sympathy — never more than limited — for progressive change-for-change’s sake unsurprisingly disappears except among the old die-hards like Fr. Reese. Enthusiasm for reform — genuine reform that is — only grows, especially in those places where it has been implemented, in accordance with the Pope’s clearly stated desires. If he is anything, Benedict XVI is a pope of reform, of putting the house back in order.

One almost feels a tinge of pity for the Fr. Reeses of this world as their hopes and dreams slip further and further away, but then one remembers it is entirely their own fault. He who marries himself to the Spirit of the Age is soon widowed. Attach yourself to the permanent things and you will never end up like poor Fr. Reese.

Your humble & obedient scribe is hopping across the pond to London on Tuesday, but just for a week. As many of our dear readers already know, I am trying to escape the vile swamp of unemployment, and am attempting to find something productive (and, more importantly, remunerative) to do back over in the United Kingdom (or Ireland), where I hope to spend the rest of my life.

While most of our readers are Stateside, any of you who might have any good ideas, suggestions, or suitable persons to contact are warmly encouraged to email me at andrewcusack@yahoo.com.

Daniel Hannan, the whiggish MEP representing South East England, relays a story about His Excellency Philip Hannan, the 92-year-old former Archbishop of New Orleans:

When Hurricane Katrina wrecked the city, the old prelate went to the diocesan office to help. He found his successor wracked with concern about the fate of a parish priest who was lost in the storm. Seeing that anxiety had left the poor man paralysed, my 92-year-old kinsman called the military authorities.

“This is Phil Hannan. I jumped with the 82nd Airborne at Normandy. I need a helicopter”.

A helicopter duly arrived, and carried the former army padre to the home of the missing cleric, which had been turned to matchwood. Returning to the archiepiscopal residence, Hannan announced without ceremony, “He’s dead, may he rest in peace. Let’s move on to the next problem”.

Readers might notice some recent changes in the design of ‘our little corner of the web’. Or not so much changes as little evolutions which yours truly has deemed worthy and appropriate. I’ll be the first to admit there’s a strong chance we’ve had a few too many evolutions of late. There was a November 2009 redesign and then February 2010, with a new nameplate just a few weeks later, and heck it’s only May now. God willing I’ll find a job soon and won’t have so much free time to fritter away redesigning andrewcusack.com.

There was scurrilous talk in some quarters decrying the loss of our somewhat Germanic-looking wordmark for a more Wall Street Journal-inspired typeface, which I completely ignored. Gradually, however, I began to rather miss it myself, and so it has been duly resurrected, as well as returned to its original home at the center (it had been flush-left). Those who approve may give their thanks to loyal reader Tim Conroy, who was ardently resolute in his centrist rhetoric.

This site functions thanks to the WordPress content management system, and I have designed the WordPress themes (which determine what the site looks like) myself. I had mentioned in November that the new theme was called ‘Goteborg’ (after the Swedish port of Gothenburg), which was replaced in February by ‘Elsenburg’ (a misspelling of Elsenberg, the country house turned agricultural college near Stellenbosch). This new theme, ninety percent of which is the same as Elsenburg, is called ‘Rouwkoop’, after the house I wrote about previously.

Comments and thoughts, whether in favour or against, are cautiously welcome, and of course do please let me know if you notice anything isn’t functioning.

FREDERIK VAN ZYL SLABBERT, former South African parliamentarian, politician, and briefly chancellor of Stellenbosch university, died last week in Cape Town. ‘Van’, as he was known, was convinced after a night of heavy drinking to stand as a parliamentary candidate for the Progressive Party in 1974 and won a surprise victory in the Rondebosch constituency against the United Party incumbent by 1,600 votes. Within three years he became head of the merged Progressive Federal Party, and became Leader of the Opposition in the House of Assembly in 1979.

Koos van der Merwe, currently Chief Whip of the Inkatha Freedom Party, served in parliament alongside the liberal van Zyl Slabbert while the former was still a member of the Conservative Party. “He was a parliamentarian par excellence,” van der Merwe said after Van’s death, “and I remember how once, in a mere three-minute speech, he practically annihilated P. W. Botha.”

Despite wide acclaim as one of the finest debaters in parliament, van Zyl Slabbert shocked the political establishment in 1986 by resigning because he was convinced that parliament had become irrelevant to the running of the country. His resignation nearly ruined the PFP and frayed van Zyl Slabbert’s relationship with his fellow MP, the late Dame Helen Suzman.

Just a year later he organised the first meetings between members of the banned African National Congress and a group of National Party politicians, Afrikaner academics, and businessmen. In later years he co-founded a black investment trust, was appointed chairman of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, sat on the boards of a number of South African corporations, and worked for the Open Society Foundation. Van Zyl Slabbert was appointed Chancellor of the University of Stellenbosch — for whom he had played rugby as an undergraduate — in 2008 but resigned for health reasons a year later, and was succeeded by Johann Rupert.

Mr. van der Merwe continued:

What amazed me about Van Zyl Slabbert was the depth of his political knowledge and his wisdom. He knew and understood the policies of each political party better than they did themselves. On one occasion, at a seminar in Williamsburg in the U.S.A., I represented the Conservative Party and was confronted with questions I could not answer. I asked to be excused for a few minutes and went to van Van Zyl Slabbert and asked him how I, as a Conservative MP, should answer. He immediately gave me the right answers because he fully understood the views and beliefs of the Conservatives. And for that matter, each and every political party. He was in fact a mobile political library.

When the late Dr Treurnicht’s daughter approached Van Zyl Slabbert for assistance to move to the U.S.A. to marry a black man, Van Zyl Slabbert did not use that information against Treurnicht. At that stage, it was unthinkable for a white Conservative to marry a black man. News of Treurnicht’s daughter marrying a black man would have led to the end of Treurnicht’s political career. Van Zyl Slabbert confidentially told me the story but it never made the headlines. What an honourable man!

His part in the struggle for Afrikaans at Stellenbosch was indeed an eye opener. Where were the Verkramptes? The old Conservatives of which I was a member? Nowhere. The fight for Afrikaans was led by the “liberal jingoes” such as Van Zyl Slabbert, Hermann Giliomee, and Breyten Breytenbach. …

I also never once saw him angry.

Mooi loop, Van Zyl. Koos gaan jou mis.

Requiescat in pace.

In this video, the goodly folk of Swellendam demonstrate for us how not to remove a rotted wooden church tower. The little kid is a hoot — “It will get vrot and it will fall off on someone’s head”. The church tower has since been restored to its original iconic profile.

The Greek Orthodox Cathedral of Saint George

If you hear of “St. George’s Cathedral” in Cape Town, you naturally think of the big stone colossus at the bottom end of the Company’s Garden smack dab in the middle of the Mother City. There is, however, another St. George’s Cathedral, the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of St. George on Mountain Road in Woodstock. The Greek Cathedral was built in 1903–04, just a few years after Cape Town received its first Greek Orthodox priest, and expanded in 1983. Liturgies tend to be either in Greek or English, though there is an Afrikaans monastery at Robertson.

The Holy Archdiocese of the Cape of Good Hope was established in 1968 under the (Greek Orthodox) Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa. The archdiocese covers the Western, Northern, and Eastern Cape provinces, the Orange Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Namibia, Lesotho, and Swaziland.

I only ever knew one South African of Greek extraction (Dimitri! Not just a good egg, but a top-notch chef as well), but I assume that folks of Hellenic extraction enjoy the Mediterranean climate of Cape Town and its environs.

Over at Fascination Street, Brent Smith shows us the newly revealed branding for Cape Town’s new integrated rapid transit system: MyCiti. I’m not partlicularly impressed. Most of my fellow uitlanders will be forgiven for lacking an understanding of the stylised freehand letter ‘y’, which is rather tortured into representing an outline of Devil’s Peak, Tafelberg, and Lion’s Head. Mr. Smith diplomatically reserves judgement but I think they could’ve done better, although they could have done much worse.

These photos come from an issue of Architectural Digest from the 1980s that some chap scanned and put online. The article that these pictures accompanied was about the New York apartment of a collector specialising in military items, but unfortunately the scanner did not post any further information. (more…)

Instagram: @andcusack

Most Recent Posts

• A Christmas Gift from the Governor December 24, 2024
• Oude Kerk, Amsterdam December 24, 2024
• Gellner’s Prague December 19, 2024
• Monsieur Bayrou December 18, 2024
• Dempsey Heiner, Art Critic December 17, 2024

Most Recent Comments

• Andrew Cusack on Amsterdam
• Andrew Cusack on Season’s Greetings from the Seventh
• B T Van Nostrand on Season’s Greetings from the Seventh
• Gousset van Heel on Amsterdam
• Andrew Cusack on Amsterdam
• Adam Rhéaume on Le drapeau « Jacques Cartier »
• John Lannigan on No. 82, Eaton Square
• Gousset van Heel on Amsterdam
• Frédéric-Nicolas Gerace on The Last Will and Testament of Louis XVI
• Peter Forster on The Catholic Apostolic Church, Edinburgh

Book Wishlist

Monthly Archives

Categories