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South African (Off-Topic) Quiz

DamhuisClan

By DamhuisClan
in South Africa

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Carbon Hunter

+Carbon Hunter

Posted
Posted

A lucky guess on the gaol. And now a question on Climate Change - as I have just spent 3 days at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi - that ended with a speech by Tony Blair.

 

What Southern African species was an early indicator of climate change in the region by only ebing found at higher elevations in it's northern territory (where it was totally prevalent a century ago) - and was seen in far greater numbers south of it's traditional location in the last few decades?

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the pooks

+the pooks

Posted
Posted

Funny, Mrs Pooks mentions Kokerboom as a guess this morning and I said with the slow rate at which they grow it is hardly as if one would easily notice change in habitat using them as an indicator, so dismissed the thought. I'll have to do a lot of word eating if she were right.

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Carbon Hunter

+Carbon Hunter

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Posted

Funny, Mrs Pooks mentions Kokerboom as a guess this morning and I said with the slow rate at which they grow it is hardly as if one would easily notice change in habitat using them as an indicator, so dismissed the thought. I'll have to do a lot of word eating if she were right.

 

Well start eating your words!!! ;)

 

It's the kokerboom. In it's northern habitat (mainly in Namibia) the plant is now only found thriving at higher elevations - whereas photographic evidence from just over a century back shows thriving communities. Higher elevations = cooler. Also southwards towards Clanwilliam etc. where there is very little evidence of them being in the wild a century back - they are now fairly widely distributed.

 

So GR -you're it - missed by a few minutes pooks

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cincol

+cincol

Posted
Posted (edited)

On the memory theme...

 

The slogan "Put a Tiger in your Tank" was used by which petrol company here in South Africa?

 

That was the old "Esso" petrol company that later became Trek I think.

 

I wonder how many of us remember the advertising campaign run by Total with the little fat pink thingies called "Galoobs"?!! "Get Galoobricated" was the slogan if I remember correctly.

Edited by cincol
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Jors

+Jors

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Posted

 

That was the old "Esso" petrol company that later became Trek I think.

 

I wonder how many of us remember the advertising campaign run by Total with the little fat pink thingies called "Galoobs"?!! "Get Galoobricated" was the slogan if I remember correctly.

Jinne.. brings back the memories!

 

Cincol, you're it!

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Carbon Hunter

+Carbon Hunter

Posted
Posted

On the memory theme...

 

The slogan "Put a Tiger in your Tank" was used by which petrol company here in South Africa?

 

That was the old "Esso" petrol company that later became Trek I think.

 

I wonder how many of us remember the advertising campaign run by Total with the little fat pink thingies called "Galoobs"?!! "Get Galoobricated" was the slogan if I remember correctly.

I still had a little pink Gallob with a white hat up until a few years back - It's probably still in a box somewhere

 

And the Shell gemstones and rugby teams of SA too - kept many of those for ages too.

 

BTW: Galoob is a play on the Zulu word for pig if I remember correctly

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Carbon Hunter

+Carbon Hunter

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Posted

Cincol - you're it

 

Steve "Kalamazoo" Mokone.

 

Mokone, who represented his country at the age of 16 before becoming the first black South African to play professional football in Europe, was South Africa's first soccer superstar.

 

After signing up for English club Coventry City in 1955, Mokone went on to achieve superstar status playing for the Dutch side Heracles and later for Torino in Italy, becoming one of a few players in Europe to earn £10 000 a year. By 1959 was rated as one of the best soccer players in Europe, and was being compared to the all-time greats of the game.

 

Italian soccer writer Beppe Branco famously wrote: "If Pele of Brazil is the Rolls-Royce of soccer players, Stanley Matthews of England the Mercedes-Benz and Alfredo di Stefano of Argentina and Spain the Cadillac of soccer players, then Kala of South Africa, lithe and lean, is surely the Maserati."

 

The man who's had a street in Amsterdam named after him - and a book written and film made about him - was born in Doornfontein, Johannesburg in 1932. His family moved to Sophiatown when he was six before settling in Kilnerton, north of Pretoria.

 

According to Horatio Motjuwadi, writing for the Sunday Times, Kalamazoo's father sent him to Ohlange High School in Durban "to make him forget soccer and concentrate on becoming a lawyer. But long before he passed matric he had become a national superstar with Bucks. Scouts from Newcastle, England, urged him to move over, but his father refused.

 

"A year later Mokone's father relented when Coventry pleaded for the services of his son", Motjuwadi relates. "It took months for him to get his passport because of the apartheid system.

 

"Team-mates at Coventry knew he was something special at his first training session when he sent their national goalkeeper, Roger Matthews, the wrong way from the penalty spot. 'Do it again', they urged. Once more Matthews dived the wrong way.

 

"Mokone became an overnight sensation, prompting a journalist to report that 'I haven't seen such clamour in Coventry since the end of World War Two'."

 

Disheartened by his treatment - and by the style of football at the club - Mokone moved to Dutch club Heracles in 1958, where he was an instant hit, scoring two goals on debut, helping Heracles take the Dutch league trophy and being voted the club's player of the season. By 1959 he was rated one of Europe's best players.

 

He signed for Spanish giants Barcelona in 1959, but because they had their quota of foreigners, was loaned to French side Marseilles before moving to Torino in Italy.

 

"Like everywhere Mokone played", writes Motjuwadi, "the people of this northern Italian city swore by his soccer boots. That was where, in 1961, he was dubbed the Maserati of soccer players. He made another spellbinding first appearance for Torino, scoring all five goals in a 5-2 victory against Verona.

 

"Months later, on tour in Russia, he became the first foreigner to score a hat-trick in a game against the biggest team in the land, Kiev."

 

One of those goals prompted a Russian commentator to write: "In all my 40 years of reporting soccer from different parts of the world I have never seen a player score a more beautiful goal than the one Kala scored with a deflection off his chest, save for Pele's goal against Sweden in the World Cup final in 1958."

 

Kalamazoo ended his playing career with a stint in Australia and then in Canada in 1964. In the same year he enrolled at Rutgers University in the US. Seven years later, after completing his doctorate in psychology, he was appointed assistant professor of psychology at the University of Rochester.

 

Mokone is chief executive officer of the Kalamazoo South African Foundation, which he founded in 1996. He also serves on the board of directors of the Commonwealth Sports Awards.

 

Mokone's life - and especially his time in Holland - led to an Amsterdam street being named after him, and provided the inspiration for the book and subsequent film De Zwarte Meteoor (The Black Meteor).

 

The author of De Zwarte Meteoor, Tom Egbers, has since published a further book, Twaalf gestolen jaren (12 Stolen Years), based on his investigation of Mokone's arrest and imprisonment in New York in 1977.

 

Mokone was arrested - and reportedly brutalised - by police in 1977 on a charge of credit card fraud which Mokone says was fabricated. A day after his release, police arrested him at his Rutgers office and charged him with assaulting his wife. Mokone was found guilty and served nine years in jail. He has maintained his innocence all along.

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cincol

+cincol

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Posted

I think its time that somebody else started winning these challenges for a change! :)

 

Kork Ballington grew up in Pietermaritzburg and entered the world motorcycle racing scene riding his own Yamaha. After a few very successful years as a privateer he was offered a works ride with Kawasaki in 1978. He was an immediate success and rewarded them with a DOUBLE World Championship that same year in the 250cc ans 350cc classes, followed by another in 1979. In the 12 years that he rode he had 46 podium finishes [31 wins] with 19 pole positions in 56 grands prix. He now lives with his family in Brisbane, Australia.

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