I won’t lie,I had a proper laugh at this, because looking back on this, the GQ team were clearly doing this for a laugh! It was a a two page spread in the April/May 2003 edition of GQ South Africa. It was entitled “Get the look: GQ transforms two badly drawn boys from the mall into two presentable men about town” Funny.

HIDEOUS!

This guy, Ryan, was previously wearing scuffed white trainers, and a Manchester United shirt. That is fine because then at least you can pass as a chav. But with the style GQ gave him, he could pass as nothing more than a fashion gimp. At least being a chav is quite widespread in Britain, and there are others chavs to hang out with. But there is NO ONE else on the planet who would dress like he did in the above photo, so you are pretty much on your own there, Ryan.

GQ must have been in the early stages of a drug addiction which they have now kicked, that is the only explanation for that horror outfit. I can’t even believe it, with the magazine right in front of me. I don’t want to know what you are thinking right now, without the magazine as proof. You probably think that I am having YOU on. But I’m not. At the time it was GQ editor Daniel Ford and fashion director Amanda Gowing who chose that outfit. Now we have Craig Tyson as editor, and hopefully he never makes this mistake.

It’s funny how over four years later, you look through the news and the same people are still in it. In this particular issue Minki Van Der Westhuizen was on the cover. This was just after she had been awarded the Guess? jeans contract. And now she has just got married this past weekend! It’s crazy. Paris Hilton was also in this issue, and four years later, she looks just as dumb.

I’m lying. She looks a whole lot dumber! Just look at her recently on David Letterman:

I r brick

They also had the “Man of the moment”, who was the dude from the Calvin Klein Crave campaign, Travis Fimmel. The reason I mention this is because I actually don’t know anyone who purchased the “Crave” fragrance. It came in quite a cool plastic bottle with a side trigger, but I distinctly remember trying it and not liking it. And clearly I had the same thoughts as everyone else, because they no longer sell it. I bet you Travis doesn’t care, he probably made a million dollars for doing that. In fact, according to Wikipedia, he was the first male model to sign a six figure deal to represent Calvin Klein exclusively. Shame. So he probably did make a few million dollars.

It’s so good looking back on old times to see how some things have changed, and how some things haven’t.

Sean Lloyd

Editor 

I was just told that I was in fact wrong about the DSTV cards with regards to taking them on holiday. An American individual just told me that all you have to do is sms your card number to some or other number, and then you wait 30 minutes and it works. Is this correct? According to this source, it is.

Oooohhhh I hate it when I’m wrong!

I still win though.

I win.

Sean Lloyd

Editor

Look, this is not surprising, because anything you can think of, there will be a Facebook group for it.

But I thought it is quite amusing that there is already a group on Facebook called “the new shuffling of channels on DSTV suck…..!!!” which I have just been told about via mail. Not normal envelope mail, because that would take a little longer to get to me. If I had been sent a traditional letter, I would only be writing this  on Thursday maybe. But I got an e-mail, so I’m writing it now. Ok whatever.

Search that group though. I just thought I had to tell you that, so it’s not only me that is finding the new channel numbers just a little bit confusing.

Luckily for me I have an IQ of well over Stephen Hawkings, so I should learn them before the hour is up.

Peace, love and… what am I doing?

Sean Lloyd

Editor 

Over the years I have had a fair amount of enjoyment from DSTV, even though they are quite expensive for the amount of channels you actually watch. Let’s be honest, how often have you watched the religious channel, the Dutch channel and all the other foreign stuff that you don’t understand? You do pay for a hell of a lot of stuff that you don’t watch. I know friends who spend about R500 a month on other things, and have crazy amounts of fun. Let’s keep that on the DL though.

Personally I would rather have a system where you pay for the channels that you want to watch, like they do in other parts of the world. DSTV are obviously afraid of this though because they might make less money then. Tisk tisk!

Over time though I have found DSTV’s most notable flaws, and present them to you here today.

1- My DSTV decoder cannot get “married”. It is not human. A while back DSTV, without asking us, decided to “marry” our decoders to our DSTV cards. Did they actually ask whether my card wanted to marry my decoder? I know what happens when marriages are forced, they end in unhappiness and divorce. Unfortunately for me, I can’t just get a divorce for my card and my decoder. What this “marriage” means is that you cannot use your DSTV card in someone elses decoder.

I always used to go on holiday, and before going, my family would ask if the place we were staying at had DSTV. If it did, we would take our card and we could watch important sports events and listen to music if we liked. Now DSTV have cancelled this, and I believe their reason was to stop “fraud”. What fraud has to do with using something we have paid for, is beyond me.

If I am paying a subscription fee of nearly R500 per month, why can I not use my card in another decoder? I am paying for it anyway! If I am not at home, and I leave my card at home, it is going to be sitting there NOT being used. So then I am paying for a service I am NOT using. I tell you what DSTV, here’s an idea: When I go on holiday for two weeks, I want to be able to call you and say “Hello DSTV. Just to let you know I will be away for half of this month, and therefore will not be needing your services. So this month I’m only going to pay half my subscription fee”

Or even better “I will only be watching TV for three hours today, I’m just paying for those three hours”

How would you like that? What is it like when we turn the tables and YOU lose money? I know I can’t do this, but just imagine. You would so go bankrupt!

2) Normally when you take out a DSTV subscription, you are over 18 years old. So how does this explain the fact that the swearing on my movies is ALWAYS off? I have to press that little blue button and scroll down to “English/ Original” to listen to the swearing. Then when I choose to quickly change the channel, and then change back to the movies, I have to once again turn the swearing on. Is this not just a little bit frustrating, considering that I constantly watch movies with vast amounts of foul language?

Considering that everyone who actually owns a DSTV subscription is over 18, or 21 or whatever, why not just leave the swearing on? You will probably say it’s because of the kids. I don’t have kids. And to the people who do, let’s look at it this way. How bleak would you be if every time you bought a bottle of vodka, you needed to add the alcohol to it? Even worse, imagine you had to add the alcohol to every drink you poured. First, pour the “clean” vodka, and then add the alcohol part, from another bottle.

Would this not make us all a little bit mad in the head? But it’s the same vibe with the DSTV swearing. “You have to seperate the alcohol from the vodka, in case THE KIDS get hold of it!”

Come on DSTV, let’s fix this! The joke is getting  a little old now.

3) The new channel numbers are hilarious! I suppose this is for a good reason though, as they are adding more channels so I can’t really complain. But I distinctly heard them say that the channels were just going up by 100. So M-Net used to be on three, and it was supposed to then go to 103. But in actual fact it is on 101. Completely mind bending. To learn the new channels is going to take me forever!

DSTV better put up some sick new channels to make up for this. I don’t want three hundred more Japanese channels, because contrary to popular belief, I don’t speak Japanese. And I’m all for religion, but please don’t give us 50 religious channels and 25 Dutch channels. I know that I have a Dutch passport, and I am then technically “Dutch”, but I don’t speak the language.

So there we go DSTV, the SLXS rules to making my money seem more worthwhile.

Keep the peace.

Sean Lloyd

Editor 

 The (Cave)man. A man of excess.

AKA Sebastien Chabal. I must make a correction here, it is spelled “Sebastien” and not “Sebastian” as I had previously written it in another article.

I opened up the Sunday Times today and turned to the “SoccerLife & Sport” section, where there was a little piece on “The Caveman” as he is being called. To quote The Sunday Times:

“Growing up in Beauvallon, he worked in a chemical factory where the implements he used in his job were so strong it was regarded as impossible to break them. In his time there, Chabal would constantly show up at the owner’s door, apologising for doing exactly that.”

Further in the article:

“…with a beard straight out of the Dark Ages, and long, wild, hair, his face belongs in pre-historic times and has resulted in the nickname “L’Homme des Cavernes”(The Caveman)”

He is further known as “The Anaesthetist” due to the effect of his tackles.

Then there is this pearler in the last paragraph of the article:

“A quirky character, he often zips around in a Smart car. He inexplicably stopped speaking English five months ago as part of his World Cup preparations”

The (Cave)mans car 

Just a question here. How does he fit into a Smart car? And he stopped speaking English, this man is a titan! I would be so scared of him on the rugby field it would be disgusting.
You kind of wonder if working in a chemical factory did not in a slight way alter his genetic make up. I mean, he is 1.87m and 115 kilograms. I suppose this is not unusual being a rugby player, but he is quite beastly. You can imagine him looking at a bag of chemicals, after skipping lunch break and saying “Caveman must eat” before emptying the contents of some crazy chemical into his body. I think this is entirely feasible. The man is extraordinary. I’m just thinking in terms of the movie the Fantastic Four here, and it all makes sense.

His boss never fed him and he took to eating chemicals. These chemicals did the tango with his human DNA, and they tangoed all night. Later on they did the salsa and after many, many drinks, they were fall down drunk. Towards the end of the evening, one last nightcap was had, and the chemicals and his DNA made passionate love(Very descriptive Sean, well done) And the world was introduced to a new breed. CHABAL!

That’s my theory anyway. You know, you can take it. Or you can leave it. Or you can kick me in the teeth.

Either way, we all know why he is like he is.

We do don’t we?

Sean Lloyd

Editor 

I must be honest, it was not a spectacularly excessive weekend, as I was feeling a little bit sick, which did not allow me to do too much in the way of exciting things. Everyone else was at Rocking the Daisies, and I’m sure some were smoking the daisies. Jerry D was planning to take a drive through on Saturday just for the afternoon, but then decided against it. We were so weak this weekend! I’m disappointed. All I managed on Saturday was to take a drive past the beaches.

Cruising through the Sea Point area of Cape Town, I could not help but notice that the ocean was going completely off its head. Seriously, the waves were quite scary. I sat there for about ten minutes as the ocean made a complete mess. The water was all foamy, waves were smashing the rocks and the VR3 was looking over all of this with much amusement.

Sea Point waves getting debauched

The quote of the weekend, from Alain: “I don’t like people who take drugs…customs men for example”

Chapmans Peak seems to be in a spot of bother at the moment, which is not ideal considering that I’m SUPPOSED to be riding the Cape Argus/ Pick ‘n Pay Cycle Tour next year. As you may know, the cycle tour passes over Chapmans Peak. And helmets were not designed to protect riders from thirty ton boulders. Neither are the Swiss catch fences it would seem if you viewed the photos in the Saturday edition of The Weekend Argus.

On Sunday I found myself in a very odd situation. I was kind of skipping around the lounge and listening to the Traveling Wilburys. Then…out of nowhere…I caught myself lighting an incense stick. At that very moment I realised that this goes against everything I live for. This is at the complete opposite of the excess scale!  I’m still not sure why I did it or what I was thinking. I must be honest, at the time I was enjoying myself. I probably should have been riding a motorbike and drinking whiskey, you know, to show readers that I am excessive all the time. It was a very weird experience.

I have no idea what this week brings, we will just have to see.

This week is on. Like Donkey Kong.

Sean Lloyd

Editor