Review of Spy by Breakaway Reviewers

Spy – Uncovering Craig Williamson by Jonathan Ancer

5 stars

South Africa’s infamous “Super Spy”

When Jonathan Ancer was a studying journalism at Rhodes University, he was asked to write an article (to be published) about what he saw as the most momentous day in South African History. He chose 17 August 1982. The day that Ruth First, wife of Joe Slovo, mother of Gillian, Robyn and Shawn, was assassinated by a letter bomb.

He chose to write about Ruth First not because of who she married or her children, but her contribution to the struggle against apartheid. She was known as a brilliant, brave journalist and a political activist who refused to shut up about the National Party government who ruled South Africa at the time. She had fled South Africa and at the time of her assassination was working as the of director of research at the Centre of African Studies (Centro de Estudos Africanos) in Maputo, Mozambique. Craig Williamson’s form of execution was a letter bomb.

Jonathan Ancer was with a fellow journalist driving along the Ruth First Freeway in Durban when he asked his companion what he thought Craig Williamson thought when he drove along this highway, or came across streets and buildings named after her. His companion gave him a blank look and asked, “Who is Craig Williamson?” This reaction convinced him to start investigating Craig Williamson to ensure that this man’s deeds were never forgotten by South Africans. How could this man, educated at a prestigious private boys’ school in Johannesburg, have turned into a psychopathic killer working for the Security Service’s Special Branch? It appears that Williamson was known as an arrogant bully at school and when Ancer interviewed boys who had attended school with him, none showed surprise what career path he’d taken after leaving school. In South Africa during the late 60s, 70s and 80s and early 90s all boys finishing school were forced to enlist in the army. It meant nine months training and a month’s service for the next ten years – or alternatively, you could join the police force and work for four years. This is the what Craig Williamson chose. He was spotted as a potential member of the Special Branch quite soon after joining the police and, once offered the role to be a member of this secret police force, he had absolutely no hesitation in agreeing to work for them. Once his training was over, he was asked to enrol in a degree course at the University of the Witwatersrand to infiltrate the left-wing student movement at Wits.

He very quickly managed to get elected to Wits University’s NUSAS (National Students Union) committee and later the national committee of the organisation. In 1975 while in London on NUSAS business, he met Lars-Gunnar Eriksson, the head of IUEF (International University Exchange Fund). Williamson managed to persuade Eriksson to employ him and it was through this organisation that Williamson met members of the ANC, Pan African Congress’s military members (APLA) and uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) the military wing of the ANC) He used funds from this organisation to help people flee South Africa (obviously making him look like their friend!) However, it was all a ruse. Many of the people he helped flee the country found themselves facing treason charges with Craig Williamson as the main witness for the prosecution. I could write more about this treacherous, psychopathic man who even persuaded his wife Ingrid to spy for him when she worked at the World Health Organisation. However, I’d rather you read the book. Jonathan Ancer has done an excellent job of researching Williamson’s “career”.

Was there ever justice for his victims’ families? NO! He was granted amnesty during the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He claimed that he was ordered to carry out the killings, torture and spying by his bosses; the Special Branch. Like many liberal South Africans, I was shocked when he was exposed as a spy by the Sunday Times in 1980. Members of my family fought hard to have the yoke of apartheid lifted. Reading this book and discovering that he’d declared himself bankrupt so that he didn’t have to pay damages to Jenny Schoor’s son, Fritz, was to me the lowest of the low. He lives in one of the most prestigious estates in Kyalami, South Africa; is a regular at all the top show-jumping events (his daughter being a show jumper).

His wife Ingrid, who seemed to get off without ever having to appear for being complicit in his spying developed “friendships” with many of his victims. She is still a practicing psychiatrist in Johannesburg. I want to ask one last question: This is for you Craig Williamson: How do you sleep at night? Treebeard Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review.

Review by Rony Campbell Breakaway Reviewers http://www.breakawayreviewers.co.uk/

A review of Spy by Charles Leonard in Die Burger

Die heldeontvangs van ’n ‘superspioen’
Deur Charles Leonard 15 Mei 2017 10:21
Spy: Uncovering Craig Wil­liamson
Jonathan Ancer
JACANA, R260

In 1967 toe Craig Williamson, wat in die 1980’s beroemd of berug (afhangend van jou politiek) geword het as Suid-Afrika se “superspioen”, by die polisie aangesluit het, is niks gevaarliker as ’n pen aan hom uitgereik nie.

In daardie dae kon jy militêre diensplig vir nege maande plus ’n stapel kampe doen of vier jaar polisie toe gaan. Politiekbewuste studente wat nie die land wou verlaat het, het eerder weermag toe gegaan omdat die polisie as apartheid se stormtroepe beskou is.

Drie jaar later het lede van die kragdadige Veiligheidspolisie Wil­liamson uit die bloute vir ’n braai genooi om te gesels. Die onbeholpe, oorgewig Williamson, met sy bevoorregte agtergrond as leerling van die elite-privaatskool St. John’s College in Johannesburg, was ’n vreemde gedierte in die polisie. Maar nie vir kolonel Johann Coetzee nie. Met Williamson se wêreldbeskouing en sy agtergrond het dié hoof van die Veiligheidspolisie onmiddellik sy potensiaal as spioen raakgesien.

Twee dae ná die braai het Coetzee vir Williamson ’n pos in die Veiligheidspolisie se berugte Seksie 4 aangebied om op linkse studente te spioeneer. Agent RS 167 is gebore.

Die joernalis Jonathan Ancer se deeglik nagevorste Spy: Uncovering Craig Williamson vertel vernuftig die verhaal van sy dubbele bestaan as spioen en “vriend” van leiers op Engelse kampusse en later in die hoofkantoor van die International University Exchange Fund (IUEF), befondser van anti-apartheid-organisasies, in Genève.

Binne ’n tydperk van amper ’n dekade het die koelbloedige Wil­liamson tallose jong kamerade uitverkoop – baie van hulle is aangehou en gemartel, talle het in die tronk beland en party is dood as gevolg van sy verraad.

“Spioene verraai op minstens twee vlakke,” skryf Ancer. “Die eerste is hul geveinsde lojaliteit aan die saak van die groep wat hulle geïnfiltreer het; in Williamson se geval die Suid-Afrikaanse bevrydingstryd. Die ander een is ’n persoonlike verraad, want ’n spioen lieg en bedrieg mense wat glo dat hy ’n vriend en aan hulle kant is.”

In Januarie 1980 word Williamson se ware identiteit as spioen onthul. Een van sy mede-agente, Arthur McGiven, wat saam met hom op Wits se studenteraad in 1973-’74 gedien het, het uit die land gevlug met ’n tas vol dokumente – van hulle inkriminerend vir Williamson. Dit was nadat die Veiligheidspolisie uitgevind het dat McGiven saam met ’n man woon – iets ergs in apartheid-Suid-Afrika.

Williamson se kaartehuis het begin in duie stort. Eers het McGiven met amper die hele mandjie patats in ’n Britse koerant uitgekom. Nie lank daarna nie het The Guardian in Londen Williamson ontmasker as ’n apartheidspioen. Coetzee het sy man gaan haal – tuis het hy as “superspioen” ’n heldeontvangs gekry.

“Sy vyande vrees en bewonder hom,” het Beeld verkondig. Selfs die Engelse koerante was ewe kruiperig. Die Sunday Times het uitasem berig dat kaptein Williamson James Bond-stories na kinderspeletjies laat lyk het. Onder die vet, swart opskrif “Our man in Moscow” beweer hulle dat hy op die KGB ge­spioeneer het, maar dat hy “nooit bang was nie”.

Sy vyande was minder beïndruk. Die foto van ’n bebaarde Williamson met ’n pelshoed op die Rooi-plein wat die Sunday Times-artikel geïllustreer het, is geneem toe hy die Sowjetunie vir ’n week lank as toeris besoek het. Selfs mede-agente in die Veiligheidspolisie was nie beïndruk deur sy “super”-status nie en het die omvang van sy “prestasies” bevraagteken, skryf Ancer.

Hierna het Williamson vinnig opgang in die Veiligheidspolisie gemaak – in die volgende paar jaar is hy gebruik as die Veiligheidspolisie se hoofondervraer. By verskeie politieke vertoonverhore van wit aktiviste is hy as die staat se kenner oor die ANC voorgehou.

Dis egter sy oorgang van “superspioen” tot briefbommoordenaar wat my gefassineer het. Dis hier waar Ancer se skryfvernuf my veral vasgenael gehad het. In 1991 het ek bevriend geraak met die oud-Matie en ANC-lid Marius Schoon toe hy van ballingskap teruggekeer het.

DIS EGTER SY OORGANG VAN “SUPERSPIOEN” TOT BRIEFBOM-MOORDENAAR WAT MY GEFASSINEER HET.
Gedurende die vryheidstryd het Schoon en sy gesin in Angola gewoon. Hy was in Luanda toe sy vrou, Jenny, en hul sesjarige dogtertjie, Katryn, in hul woonstel in Lubango, Angola, op 28 Junie 1984 aan flarde deur ’n briefbom geskiet is. Hul seuntjie, Fritz (2), was buite die woonstel en fisiek ongedeerd. Hoewel hulle ANC-lede was, het die Schoons in daardie stadium as Engels-onderwysers by die plaaslike universiteit gewerk.

In 1995 maak Williamson uit die bloute ’n skokbekentenis dat sy afdeling van die Veiligheidspolisie verantwoordelik was vir die briefbomme wat die Schoons en Ruth First in Mosambiek se lewens geëis het. Marius loods ’n sivieleskade-eis van R2 miljoen namens Fritz teen Williamson as vergoeding vir skok en sy verlies aan ondersteuning en terapieonkoste. Net voor die geding sou begin, dui Williamson aan dat hy om amnestie by die Waarheids-en-Versoeningskommissie aansoek gaan doen en die geregtelike stappe word toe tydelik gestaak.

Gedurende die amnestieverhoor in 1998 stuur Williamson sy prokureur om Marius vir ’n bier saam met Williamson te nooi. Marius was woedend – dít nadat hy sy vrou en sesjarige dogtertjie vermoor het. Marius het die prokureur aangesê om te “fokof”, vertel sy tweede vrou, Sherry McLean, aan Ancer. Soos Ancer dit beskryf: “Williamson het nie na die WVK gekom om vergifnis te vra nie, maar om te rasionaliseer wat hy gedoen het . . .”

Marius het toe reeds aan longkanker gely. Agt maande ná sy dood op 7 Februarie 1999 het Wil­liamson en sy samesweerders amnestie vir die dood van die Schoons en First ontvang. McLean het aan Ancer gesê: “Marius het nie geleef om te hoor dat Williamson amnestie toegestaan is nie. Dank God.”

Charles Leonard is kunsredakteur by The Conversation Africa.

Business Day BOOK REVIEW: Spy: Uncovering Craig Williamson

LIFE / BOOKS

Author Jonathan Ancer’s novel digs up bones left by one of apartheid’s most deadly spies

23 MAY 2017 – 05:11 SUE GRANT-MARSHALL

Digging deep: Jonathan Ancer, right, spent 15 years working on Spy. Picture: SUPPLIED

SPY: UNCOVERING CRAIG WILLIAMSONJonathan AncerJacana Media

Anger, puzzlement and a smattering of suspicion permeated the packed Johannesburg launch of Jonathan Ancer’s book on apartheid spy and killer Craig Williamson.

The greying and mostly male audience queried the journalist extensively on the modus operandi of the portly figure who betrayed their university colleagues and others to the brutal police Special Branch in apartheid SA. Arrest, interrogation and torture often resulted from Williamson’s dirty work.

They wanted to know how the spy managed to infiltrate bodies such as the National Union of South African Students (Nusas) with seeming impunity.

They questioned why the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) granted him amnesty and how he can lead a consequence-free life now, often spotted sipping coffee in upmarket shopping malls.

Williamson shows little remorse for his role in the assassinations of Ruth First, Jeannette Schoon and her daughter Katryn, killed by letter bombs he masterminded.

It took Ancer 15 years to produce his deftly written, exhaustively researched book. “I am obsessed by him,” he says.

But Williamson provided no additional information — he sticks to the same story.

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“He was a patriot. He was in a war. It’s a soldier’s job to  kill and he was just doing his  job. He’s stuck to his narrative and doesn’t deviate from it,” Ancer says.

After the book was published the author received a message — “a strange one” — from Williamson. “The gist of it was that I was naive, that I didn’t understand how the world of intelligence worked. It wasn’t hostile, but he wasn’t pleased,” says Ancer.

Many a bitter questioner will find some answers in this fascinating, factual and racy read. Ancer has written the book chronologically, beginning with the spy’s schooldays at Johannesburg’s elite St John’s College.

Williamson aroused antagonism among his schoolmates for his bullying ways.

Glenn Moss, a student activist from the 1970s who knew Williamson at Wits University, told Ancer about a St John’s prefect who had boasted he had beaten the “Bunter” Williamson.

“Moss had a horrible picture of prefects flaying the fat boy … he was horrified,” Ancer writes in the book. “You helped create a monster,” Moss yelled at the former prefect.

Ancer, who interviewed as many of Williamson’s acquaintances as he could find, believes that “his St John’s experiences might have made a contribution to the person he became. It was telling to see him through the eyes of his schoolmates.”

After matriculating, Williamson joined the South African Police. “At the time, it had the reputation of being apartheid’s storm troopers. That is why liberals went into the army,” Ancer says.

In 1972, Williamson registered at Wits, joined Nusas, became its vice-president and held its purse strings. It gave him enormous power.

He resigned from the Nusas executive four years later to become a “free-floating permanent political activist … the Security Branch wanted to get him as deep as possible into the International University Exchange Fund,” writes Ancer.

“The Geneva-based fund helped students, providing scholarships as well as assistance for refugees.”

His cover was blown when Bureau of State Security agent Arthur McGiven defected to Britain in 1980 and gave extensive interviews to The Observer newspaper

Williamson provided the Special Branch with information about a range of anti-apartheid organisations and activities in SA and overseas.

In Switzerland, he again employed his organisational powers and took control of the fund’s financial matters.

His cover was blown when Bureau of State Security agent Arthur McGiven defected to Britain in 1980 and gave extensive interviews to The Observer newspaper. Williamson, in the bath in his Swiss home, turned pale when he heard the news.

The defection set in motion a series of events that exposed him as an apartheid secret agent who had been leading a double life for nearly a decade.

He returned to SA as “the spy who came in from the cold”, banner headlines declared upon his arrival.

Then minister of law and order Louis le Grange claimed Williamson had infiltrated the South African Communist Party, the ANC, the Black Consciousness Movement and the Pan Africanist Congress.

The Sunday Times also claimed he had spied on Russia’s KGB. However, a photo of Williamson in front of the Kremlin in Moscow was taken by his wife Ingrid when they were touring there.

In the 1980s, Williamson’s role escalated into a deadly one — he became a killer. He claimed at the TRC that colonel Piet Goosen had instructed him to send a parcel bomb to First in Maputo. He did so. It blew her to pieces.

He sent a bomb to the wife of anti-apartheid activist Marius Schoon in Angola two years later. Jeanette and her daughter Katryn, 6, were killed. The couple’s son, Fritz Schoon — who was three years old at the time — witnessed it.

Ancer’s rendering of their story, part of it gained recently from Fritz, is told sensitively  but nonetheless makes for  grisly reading.

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“Williamson was brought in to interrogate people such as Guy Berger, Duncan Innes and Barbara Hogan and was a state witness at Barbara’s trial,” says Ancer. “She committed no treason, yet received a 10-year prison sentence for treason.”

Part of Ancer’s research involved reading Jacob Dlamini’s powerful book, Askari, in which ANC member Comrade September “turns” against the ANC after he was brutally tortured by Eugene de Kock.

“He turned because it became a matter of survival. But for Williamson, it was a choice — he actively made a decision to become a spy,” Ancer says.

He devotes a chapter to the TRC and Williamson, who was granted amnesty. First’s two daughters and Fritz Schoon launched a judicial review to challenge the amnesty decision. But tired and despondent, they abandoned it after years of protracted legal negotiations.

The spy, described by some as a psychopath, had “outmanoeuvred the legal system to avoid paying an insignificant out-of-court settlement sum to the child [Fritz Schoon] of one of his victims”, writes Ancer.

His last interview for the book was with Williamson at the swish Hyde Park Corner mall in Johannesburg, where he searched for clues to reveal something about the man.

Ancer wanted to look into his eyes to see if there was any remorse when he asked about the murders of First and the Schoons. Williamson’s face turned bright red several times during the two-hour interview, but there was no remorse.

As he left Ancer, he remarked, “Maybe I’ll see you at the book launch.” But it takes courage to pitch at such an event. Williamson didn’t.

Leaving Behind A Trail Of Destruction

Spy: Uncovering Craig Williamson’ is a new book by Jonathan Ancer that delves into apartheid’s heart of darkness, writes MICHAEL MORRIS in the Weekend Argus (Saturday, 25 March 2017)

 

IN THE grainy picture from 1980, 2-year-old Katryn Schoon looks as though she is pretending to be asleep, head back, eyes closed, lips dreamily parted. We know she isn’t; it’s a family picture, with her toddler brother, Fritz, her mother Jeanette and, behind them, a heavily bearded and obviously doting father, Marius. Whether her seeming absence in what appears to be the only public photo of her is the consequence of accident or impish design is hard to tell. The jolt that attends this photo is the certainty of her looming fate. On a June Friday four years after it was taken, 6-year-old Katryn and her mother were killed in their flat in Lubango in southern Angola, about 200km north of the then South West African border, by a parcel bomb despatched from the heartless corridors of apartheid South Africa’s security establishment. It is said, Jonathan Ancer recounts, that “a smear of blood three metres wide from floor to ceiling on one wall… was all that was left of Katryn”. The only one of the four in that 1980 picture still alive today is Fritz, who, at the time of the blast, aged 2-and-a-half, “had probably been just outside the flat”.

In the years since, lingering attention has dwelled on another “survivor” of the bombing, the mastermind, notorious apartheid-era spy, Craig Williamson. We encounter Williamson today – only months ago – in the final chapter of Ancer’s book when the author interviews him at a coffee shop in a luxury mall in Johannesburg’s northern suburbs. And, in the final passages, the interview done, we see the former spy “picking up his leather man bag and shuffling off into the glitzy mall, (slipping) unnoticed into the crowd of upmarket shoppers”. It is hard to equate this homely image – along with the descriptions, by friends, of Williamson being “charming”, “convivial” and “jolly” (prompting Ancer’s anxiety that “to be honest, I’m worried I may end up liking him”) – with the outcomes of a life, much of it, devoted to notching up successes for an increasingly murderous apartheid state.

When the two meet at Life Grand Café – Ancer equipped with “a digital recorder, three pens, a notebook and 51 questions” – the consequence of three years of preparation means “I know the Williamson story quite well”. “I’ve dug through archives, scanned newspaper clippings, listened to recordings, read countless books, scoured social media, visited some dark corners of the internet, and interviewed dozens of people who crossed paths (and swords) with him – from a former school boy in his boarding house half a century ago, to an ex-president, four former cabinet ministers, an Academy Award winner and a young man who witnessed his mother and sister being blown to bits. “Unless he confesses to involvement in the murders of Olof Palme and Samora Machel, I’m not expecting new information from him. “I’m here to search for clues that will reveal something about the man himself. “I also want to look in his eyes and see if there’s any remorse when I ask him about the murders of (Ruth) First and the Schoons.”

Ancer was a former Independent Media journalist, and his book reads like a spy thriller. And it is, in the sense of being a comprehensive account of Williamson’s (and others’) deep infiltration of the ranks of 1970s leftwing student activism, and, latterly, of the peripheral operations and funding of the campaign against apartheid internationally, including of the ANC. It involved breathtaking betrayal – Williamson even stayed with the Schoons while they were in Botswana – perpetual cunning, and, doubtless, nerves of steel, too. For all the suspicions that surfaced from time to time, Williamson fooled a lot of people into believing he was genuine, and raked in information and names that cost many their freedom, and some their lives. It all began in May 1968 when Williamson, just out of school, elected to do service in the police rather than be called up into the army. He was adept, and was noticed, and within two years, was drawn into the murky world of the security police, becoming Agent RS 167. He had insinuated himself almost further than is credible into the “enemy” camp, latterly serving in a senior position in the International University Exchange Fund in Geneva until, in March 1980, he blew his own cover, fearing he was about to be unmasked following the defection to Britain of a Bureau of State Security agent, Arthur McGiven.

He earned a measure of celebrity on his hasty return to South Africa as the “spy who came in from the cold” – but his more chilling activities had yet to begin. Twenty years later, in a very different South Africa, Williamson (and bomb-maker Roger Raven) were granted amnesty for three murders – Jeanette and Katryn Schoon’s in 1984, and, two years earlier, Ruth First’s. First, who was married to Joe Slovo, uMkhonto we Sizwe’s chief of staff, was killed by a parcel bomb in her office at Maputo’s Eduardo Mondlane University in August 1982, where she was the research director of the Centre for African Studies. And it was First’s fate that triggered Ancer’s book. An old, fading student essay he’d written about First’s death, and not looked at for 20 years, came to light around about the time details of Williamson’s role emerged.

But it was only in 2010, having flown into Durban for a meeting, that, as he and a colleague turned on to the Ruth First Freeway to the city, Ancer idly remarked that he wondered “what Craig Williamson thinks when he travels on the Ruth First Freeway”. His colleague looked at him blankly: “Who is Craig Williamson?” He felt then that “while it’s important to remember people like First, who were killed in the struggle to bring about democracy, it’s equally important that we don’t allow the killers to slip into oblivion”. Ancer said in an interview this week that while researching the book, people often asked, “Why Williamson?”, some even suggesting his “worst punishment would be to not write about him”. And the funny thing is, he said, was that Williamson himself was the only person who did not ask “Why me?” “He was the only person who seemed to think, ‘Well, it‘s about time!’

“To me, it’s about the importance of remembering, and I have sought in the book to consolidate many stories we don’t know about – some of which go back 50 years – to present a fuller picture of the people involved, what they went through.” And, at the centre of it, is the figure of a man – a “bully” as Ancer sees him – who remains as self-convinced today as he was when he made his own choice a life-and-death matter for others without their having the slightest inkling of what was in store. Ancer said: “If you think about it, killing a little girl is probably the most grave crime you could commit. But for Williamson, his narrative is that ‘we were fighting a war, and I was a foot soldier on one side, following orders, and it was my role to kill’. “So I don’t think he sees that there was anything wrong with what he did. He was a patriot, doing his job. He has no remorse… though it was interesting to note that whenever I asked about First or the Schoons, he’d go red. It was the only sign of emotion he ever showed.”

Williamson’s version was, in essence, accepted by the Truth Commission’s amnesty committee which (as the book sets it out) “found that the killings were committed in the course of the conflicts of the past and that Williamson and his accomplice had acted in the course and scope of their authority. The ruling stated that the Schoons and First were at the time of their deaths still involved in the struggle, and hadn’t bade farewell to politics. Katryn, the committee ruled, was not an intended target but was killed in the crossfire.

“The committee didn’t accept the victims’ argument that Williamson had acted out of personal malice. The judges ruled that there was no evidence that he chose the victims and concluded that he had a political motive, which was to destabilise the liberation movement”. The furthest Williamson has ever gone to express his reaction to hearing that 6-year-old Katryn had been killed, was to say it was “like a bucket of cold water was thrown in my face”.

His victims’ families intended pursuing justice after the TRC, but eventually concluded a financial settlement with Williamson – yet the former spy failed to pay a cent of it, and then pleaded bankruptcy to avoid even this penalty. He became, as the book’s promotional material puts it, “The apartheid agent and killer who got away with it all… ” When, after his interview with Williamson, Ancer watched his subject slipping unnoticed into the crowd, he was “left with a hollow feeling”. “He answered all my questions,” Ancer writes, “but, like a good spy, he gave nothing away.” He said this week: “I set out to try to understand why Williamson did what he did… but perhaps the truth is, it can’t be understood.”

Spy: Uncovering Craig Williamson will be launched at The Book Lounge, Roeland Street, on Wednesday 29 March at 5.30pm, where Jonathan Ancer will be in conversation with former student leader Glenn Moss, author of The New Radicals: A Generational Memoir of the 1970s

Rage Against The Latrine

I hop from foot to foot. I’m in a pre-race queue for the toilet. No one says a word. What’s to say, in a queue with other people, all waiting to perform one of life’s most intimate acts?

It’s incredible. As soon as I arrive at a race, my body clock strikes ‘go’.

Every.

Single.

Time.

I hate public loos, which is one of the main reasons I can’t go to jail. Going to the loo before a race is the pits: wearing bibshorts means you have to strip, the floor is soaked with urine, and the strange things that exit cyclists’ bottoms and line the toilet bowl are straight out of the Apoocalypse!

A guy takes his place behind me.

I look at my watch. It’s 5.40am.  My group start is 6.20am. That’s 40 minutes.

Twenty people in front of me, four toilets in the men’s section, average evacuation time of four minutes a person including unbibbing and rebibbing, that’s, um… 16 minutes until my turn. Plenty of time to make it to my start chute.

There are three toilet sections to choose from: the virtually queueless women’s, a 20-person-queue men’s, and a single toilet the race organisers had opened specially, which in non-race times is reserved for disabled people. There are only five people in that queue.

I have to gamble on choosing the right queue – it’s Toilet Roulette. Although the women’s section is the jackpot, I don’t want to be chased away by the poolice. Some more mental maths, and I decide the queue for the men’s section is my best bet. Of course, as soon as I take my place in that queue, the other line moves.

5.47am – still enough time.

Then a guy in the men’s queue walks into one of the cubicles and immediately sprints out again, holding his nose and gasping for air. That toilet is clogged. We’re down to three toilets for 17 people. I recalibrate. No, the odds are still in my favour.

But then a rider steps out of the disabled toilet, and the person next in that line takes his place, and someone else leaves the queue altogether, making the queue for the single loo shorter by two – a saving of eight minutes!

I sense the guy behind me starting to head for the shortened queue. Before he can get there I make a dash for it, and join the line myself. Muttering darkly under his breath, he returns to the men’s queue. I’m now just two people away from relief.

What I haven’t counted on, though, is that the guy who’s just gone into the single loo is in it for the long haul. Four minutes go by, but he doesn’t emerge. Six minutes. Eight minutes. The stakes are high. Eleven minutes.

It’s 5.58am.

Then that curious toilet-line paranoia: maybe the guy slipped out when no-one was looking, and we’re queueing at an empty loo? No way, my eyes haven’t left that door. Maybe he’s been in so long, he’s embarrassed to come out? Hmm…

Then the guy who was behind me in the queue I left 11 minutes earlier emerges from one of the men’s toilets, a smug smile plastered on his face. Damn! Do I cut my losses, and rejoin the men’s toilet queue? If I do, then as sure as eggs is eggs the guy in the single toilet will finally surface. And it’s 6.03am – 17 minutes to the starter’s gun. I’m sweating bullets.

Never mind Toilet Roulette – this is Toilet Poker; but instead of a flush, I’ve got a full house.

Standard Bank – it’s not me; it’s you

About eight months after I closed my Standard Bank account I receive a letter from The Card Collections Manager claiming I owe them R40.68 and if I don’t pay within 10 days they will see me in court. As if! It seems they are trying to steal R40.68 from all their ex-clients in an attempt to make up the R300-million that the phishers stole from them. I wrote this letter in reply.

Your Reference: 5221266465186483

My Reference: What Part of “It’s Over” Don’t You Understand?

Dear The Card Collections Manager

 

I received a letter today from your good self, informing me that you have cancelled my credit card, which is quite a surprise considering I cancelled all my accounts with Standard Bank last year – so I don’t actually have a credit card to cancel. Your letter is like a boyfriend who tries to save face by telling his girlfriend that he is breaking up with her – even though she broke up him and has already moved on to a much nicer and cleverer and more honest boyfriend. Let’s be clear, Standard Bank Card Collections Manager – I dumped you.

Last year, after about 25 years of being a Standard Bank customer and never once missing a payment or being in arrears, I walked into the Thibault Square branch and cancelled all my accounts. Yes, after a quarter of a century I finally had enough of being in a horrible relationship and wanted out. It was a give-take relationship. I gave, you took. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to break ties – I had to wait in queues, fill out forms and transfer debit orders. It was a pain, but I’d had enough – I was sick of your incompetence, of you not listening (and giving me the silent treatment), and of you dipping into my accounts. Of course, you didn’t want me to go – and you put up a fight – you kept calling me and begging me to reconsider. What can you do to change, you asked. But it was a case of too little, too late. I was adamant. It took about five phone calls or so but eventually, you got the message and agreed.

I thought that was – and then I got your threatening letter today, telling me I owe you money – and that my account is in default. It’s like you’re in denial, Mr Standard Bank Card Collections Manager. Just so we’re clear: We’re over. We’re through. We’re done. Get a grip, dude. Pull yourself together. I’m now with First National Bank – and we’re having a really good time. FNB  gets me in a way you never did.

You see, I left because of your indifference and your incompetence – and this letter just reinforces my negative view of your shoddy service. No, Mr Standard Bank Card Collections Manager, I don’t owe you R40.68. In fact, you owe me money. As I explained back then, and because I can tell that you are struggling to hear me, you started dipping into my account taking extra bank charges for a second time and when I tried to get answers I was just met with more indifference.

Your threats of court action, Mr The Card Collections Manager, don’t scare me.

So, do me a favour, amend your records – send me one more message apologising for your error, wish me well in my new banking relationship and leave me alone – and, if you don’t mind some constructive criticism, try to be a better bank.

With no regards whatsoever

Jonathan Ancer

PS: By the way, Standard Bank – it’s not me. It’s you. It’s definitely you.

Another PPS: Perhaps instead of worrying about the R40,68 you claim I owe you, I think you may have bigger phish to fry (did someone say R300-million?)

Will the real Tim Noakes please stand up…

In the babbling Babel of the social-media era, sharing a name with someone famous can be a bit of a drag. Consider the harassed Twitter life of a carb-loving journalist called Tim Noakes – or the daily trials of Michael Jackson, a motivational speaker.

Mike Finch was on a flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town when the pilot’s voice crackled over the intercom. “Welcome on board flight 214 to Cape Town, this is Captain Mike Finch,” he said.

Passenger Mike Finch was tickled pink. He handed his business card to an air hostess who give it to pilot Mike Finch, who was also tickled pink and invited (the other) Mike Finch into his cockpit. This was in the pre-9/11 days.

A few weeks later the two Mike Finches met up for a drink. “We ordered a beer and I asked the barman to put it on Mike Finch’s tab,” recalls passenger Finch. “The funny thing is we were very alike.”

As more and more people jump onto the internet, name confusion has created a glut of baffling and comic situations.

Every year around the time of the Grahamstown National Arts Festival, for example, David Butler, a teacher in Plettenberg Bay, is tagged in countless Facebook photos meant for the actor David Butler, who has been in Generations, Binnelanders and starred as the detective Gabriel “Darkness” Harkness in the sci-fi series Room 9.

The game of tag prompted schoolteacher Butler to post a message on his Facebook wall this year: “Is it possible that I’m not the David Butler that you think I am? I readily admit that I might not be the David Butler that I think I am, but that’s not the point. I am not that David Butler. I act. We all act. But I make no money out of it and I’m not famous for it, unlike the other David Butler. The other (perhaps as far as you are concerned, “real” David Butler) is younger than me and better looking. I’m taller.”

Teacher Butler says having a famous namesake has only been an issue for him on Facebook. “I regularly put out warnings that I’m not actually the ‘proper’ David Butler, but no one takes any notice. On rare occasions someone looks at my page and squawks that I’m an impostor. It has been interesting to experience the ire of those disappointed people who thought that they’d finally got in touch with the real David Butler, who is famous for his privacy and eschewal of social media!”

The two David Butlers met briefly, in a lift in Grahamstown, about 30 years ago. “It wasn’t much of an event – but I seem to recall there were wry smiles.”

David Butler shares his name with a moderately famous South African actor, but try sharing your name with the most famous person on the planet.

Michael Jackson, a Johannesburg change guru and business-to-business speaker who markets himself as The Other Michael Jackson, says sharing his name with Wacko Jacko can be a blessing but it can also be bad (you know it – bad, bad; really, really bad).

Before the King of Pop’s death in 2009 Jackson had to deal with people’s disappointment when they realised he wasn’t the “real” Michael Jackson.

“I was booked into a 5-star hotel and was driven to the hotel in a fancy car. When we arrived all the staff had lined up, waiting to greet their hero. They saw me and thought I was Michael Jackson’s bodyguard.”

It was only in the early ’80s that Michael Jackson became a dominant figure in popular music so there was no name recognition when the other Michael Jackson was growing up but when he became an adult he had no choice but to officially become “The Other Michael Jackson”.

“It’s funny because when people think of Michael Jackson they don’t think of a middle-aged pale male – although when we met he was lighter than me.”

The two Jacksons met at a dinner party when the pop star came to South Africa on one of his many visits.

“He told me he lives his life 40-feet away from other people and said he was the loneliest man on the planet. It was really sad. He then asked me to tell him a Michael Jackson joke. I asked him: ‘How does Michael Jackson pick his nose? From a catalogue.’ He laughed like a drain.”

Jackson has learnt to live with people’s laughter when he’s introduced to them and has got used to people humming Thriller (he no longer tells them to Beat It).

Jackson doesn’t only share a name with a star, though. At an event a few years ago he shook hands with someone. “Michael Jackson,” the man said. “Yes, and you are?” “I’m Michael Jackson,” the other other Michael Jackson said. “And you are?” After their Michael Jackson merry-go-round, it emerged that the third Michael Jackson was a car dealer from Nelspruit.

“It’s an icebreaker but it can get tedious. For the most part it’s a laugh, but not when people phone at 3am and ask me to sing to them, which has happened.”

While sharing a name with Michael Jackson can be Dangerous, sharing a name with a controversial scientist can be heavy going, especially in the age of Twitter.

A certain Tim Noakes was minding his own business when a whole lot of South African tweeters started asking him for diet advice. This Noakes, a writer and radio host, is besotted with brutalism – an architecture movement – and doesn’t know an egg roll from his elbow.

Tim “But not The Tim” Noakes says he’s worried about the South African fitness fraternity, who still haven’t got the hang of Twitter. “Don’t randomly tweet. It can get you into trouble,” he says. “I generally ignore everyone who tweets at me about that Banting stuff. But I do occasionally offer up some free workout tips and diet plans, usually involving Vaseline, deep heat and a banana.” Just shows how much he knows – bananas are on Banting’s “Orange” list.

He doesn’t think he’s been name-jacked. “There are many more Tim Noakeses than just me and the prof. We’re everywhere. Watch out. I do hope that all of the prof’s disciples, who are following me on Twitter, are now buying grime music and books on brutalism.”

As the editorial director of Dazed, a massively cool music, fashion, arts and culture publication, Noakes has a significant public profile, but his fans haven’t asked The Banting Noakes for culture tips and music recommendations yet. Dazed Noakes hasn’t met Banting Noakes – although they have exchanged tweets – but he did hang out with Die Antwoord on the Cape Flats in 2010.

What happens when your namesake gives you a bad name. Poor (the other) Clive Naidoo.

Remember, Clive Naidoo from Bloubosrand? A video he recorded of Johannesburg Metro officer Laurencia Shitlhelana giving him a ticket (“for shooting a red robot”) went viral. He told the officer she worked for him because he paid her salary with his taxes and things went from bad to horrific from there. Instead of exposing her for being rude as he’d intended, he became a national joke.

Three months later, “Ask Clive” is still an internet “thing” with people still asking, “On a scale of 1 to #CliveNaidoo how bad was your day?”

The first that (the other) Clive Naidoo knew of the saga was when his phone started pinging with notifications. He says people were threatening to beat him up and there were even death threats. He tried to clarify the mess by tweeting: “Apparently my name has been mixed up with the ass that was chatting with the cop. I don’t live in Bloubosrand. Stop tweeting me.”

Although he doesn’t think he was name-jacked (“it’s his name as well”), he thinks Bloubosrand Naidoo should have taken responsibility for his actions. “He started the problem then closed all his social media accounts.”

He has never met Bloubosrand Naidoo but if he did encounter him, though, he would tell him that he is an ass.

When David van Rooyen was appointed Finance Minister, @DavidvanRooyen, started trending. “I would just like to reiterate that I am NOT the new SA Finance Minister,” he pleaded. He was then accused of not being real. “I just happen to have the same name,” he responded. “I’m not a parody.”

Most South Africans breathed a sigh of relief when President Jacob Zuma unappointed Van Rooyen. (The other) David van Rooyen, a British PhD student, was probably just as relieved. Never mind the rand; he had his name back.