After ‘Black Friday’, how about Sweden’s ‘vrot’ fish day?
IOFTEN wonder why South Africans copy inappropriate northern hemisphere traditions so slavishly. I’ve seen several Cape shops advertising “Black Friday” bargains and sales, and it really does seem like clutching at straws to find an excuse for a sale.
Apparently the term “Black Friday” originated in the US because it was the day after the Thanksgiving holiday when customers had spent plenty of money on festive food and gifts and the shops’ bank accounts changed from being “in the red” to showing a profit – in the black, so to speak.
Here we are in Cape Town, half a planet away from the people who observe Thanksgiving Day, holding special sales to celebrate the fact some retailers in the US are out of debt for a while. Whoopee! Joy to the world! We’re funny that way. We live in a country filled with interesting animals – kudu, springbok, wildebeest and rhino, to name a few – and yet we choose to decorate our shopping malls with alien reindeer.
We’re in midsummer heat so naturally we depict the reindeer pulling a sleigh over snow.
In a few months we’ll be celebrating the feast of the chocolate rabbit.
If we are interested in adopting foreign traditions, I suggest we set aside the third Thursday of August annually and join the Swedes in celebrating Surströmming. As we know, this is the day on which proper Swedes eat a concoction of decomposed fish in brine and wash it down with aquavit or vodka.
I am told the smell is unbelievably pungent, but there’s an ancient Swedish royal decree which says Surströmming may only be sold on that day of the year. I kid you not. Will any of our shops be holding Surströmming Sales next August? No? Why not? Frankly, I think it’s just as relative to our retail trade as Black Friday.
On Track again?
I was delighted to read that Metrorail had launched “Operation Spider” to clamp down on crime on the suburban trains over the festive season.
I have a young guest from England staying with me and he has looked wistfully at passing trains and asked whether it would be okay to go for a train ride into the city on his own. I wouldn’t recommend it at this stage, not only for reasons of crime. From what I have seen, the trains are filthy, and they seem unreliable.
However, I will watch the results of Operation Spider with interest. I live close to a station and it would really be convenient for me to catch trains rather than have to drive and find expensive parking. I’ll wait for positive reports from commuters braver than me.
Last Laugh
Joe and Jim were old golfing pals and had played together regularly for many years.
Now Jim lay dying and Joe whispered to him: “Jimmy, old pal, When you get to Heaven, find out if there’s a golf course up there and try to let me know.”
A few days after Jim had died, Joe was asleep when he felt a tap on the shoulder. A voice whispered: “Joe, it’s me, Jim. I have good news for you, and bad news. ”What’s the good news?” “They do have golf courses in Heaven.” “And the bad news?” “I see you’re booked to tee off at 10 o’clock tomorrow morning.”
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