• Message from James Clarke

    "South Africa's Best Humour Columnist"

    - SA's Comedy Awards September 2008

    “South Africa’s funniest columnist.”

    - Financial Mail

    WELCOME TO MY BLOG

    The name is Clarke. James Clarke. I have been told by people who know their way around the electronic world with its iPads, USBs, processors, modems, 500 gb hard drives, Blackberries and microwave ovens, that as a writer I have to have a blogsite. Otherwise, I am told, it is like passing oneself off as a CEO and you haven’t a leather chair that tilts back.

    Yet after four years of having a blogsite I still don’t really understand what it is or how it helps sell my books which is my major concern in life apart from not stepping on cracks when walking on the pavement.

    I am also told that on a blogsite it is customary to refer to oneself in the third person. This enables one to grossly exaggerate ones attainments without appearing to have done so personally.

    Not being one to buck the system...

    London-born James Clarke is your average tall, dark, handsome fellow who writes books – fiction and non-fiction. As a humorist he has been compared with PG Wodehouse and James Thurber. (The Daily Bugle in Des Moines said “compared with the works of PG Wodehouse and James Thurber, Clarke’s writing isn’t worth a row of beans”.)

    He long ago settled in South Africa where he became a mover and a shaker in the world of the environmental sciences. As a youth, being a mover and a shaker, had made it impossible for him to follow in his father’s footsteps as a bottler in a nitro-glycerine plant. Hence he turned to journalism.

    But around the time he retired a few years ago he found a new pursuit as a humorist. He wrote a daily humour column in the Johannesburg Star (now syndicated) and began turning out books of humour in the UK and South Africa.

    Clarke very recently moved boldly into the electronic publishing world. It was, he said afterwards, like a non-swimmer diving into a pool without first testing its depth.

    In November 2011 he re-issued his latest book of humour, “Blazing Saddles”, as an Amazon Kindle e-book under the title “Blazing Bicycle Saddles”. For a mere US$4.99 you can download a copy of this seminal cycling book in a matter of seconds by clicking here ....


    ooo

    He did this with the full realisation that he is totally at sea in the electronic world with its telephones that take movies and receive faxes and sports results.

    The original edition of “Blazing Saddles”, published by Jonathan Ball, has been out of print for two years. It reveals the true story of how six retired men – five of them journalists – year after year set out (intrepidly) from the African continent on a series of exploratory expeditions cycling into “Darkest Europe” to bring back to the people of Africa tales of its funny natives.

    Clarke will also shortly be publishing, via Amazon.com, another of his action-packed autobiographical books – this time an account of his Second World War exploits as L*E*A*D*E*R of the Yellow Six Patrol of the 1st Streetly Boy Scouts in the English Midlands. He recounts the patrol’s ceaseless campaign to defeat Adolf Hitler’s plan to invade England.

    You can read about “The Yellow Six” within this blogsite.

    Clarke, apart from moving and shaking, is a travel writer and proud father of two highly successful daughters – one a biologist and the other an environmental impact analyst. He and his wife, Lenka, live north of Johannesburg.

Wot I woch on telly

Posted on October 6, 2014 by James Clarke

Mrs Williams at Malhurst Primary School, desirous of going in search of some aspirin, set her class the task of writing a composition on “What I watch on television”.
She saw Belinda Tamsen, atrocious speller though she was, snatched up her pen and began to scorch up the paper – and Mrs Williams knew she and her staff room colleagues would soon be learning more about the dysfunctional Tamsen household.

Wot I woch on telly-vidgen
By Belinda Tamsen

I dont see enny-think on telly-vishun becoz mummy and daddy is orlways fitin over the remote cont-trole ex-pesh-ally this week when mie daddy wunts to wotch soccer and mie mummy wunts to wotch tennis.
If mummy win then we hafta wotch wimble-dun and for the nest 200 ours we hafta lissen 2 pok-pok-pok-pok-pok OWT! Pok-pok-pok-pok Juce! And then some-body name Ivan something itch win and he slides on his knees. It is so bor-ing. If my daddy win then we havta wotch soccer and he showt SHOOT SHOOT YOU BLUDDY FOOL.
And he ask me How can that iddi-yot get paid fifty milyun thowsind an he cant even see the gole?
As if I am sposed 2 no!
I wunt 2 wotch sumthink intrestin like super robot munky. I tell daddy I wanta see sumthink inter-resting and he say the soccer cup is histry in the making. Then he suddinly showt OFF SIDE! He was bluddy OFF SIDE! and he ask everybody – Did you orl see that. Mummy roll her eyes.
Daddy say we must orl emty ow piggy banks and send the munny to the reffa-ree so he can by glasses becaws he is bluddy blind.
And when sumbody gets kicked and lies on the grownd all curld up he showt gerrup you goddam sissy. Sum times he even sware.
Mummy askt daddy to switch the telly-vishun 2 tennis becaws the soccer scor was nill nill and even daddy was neely asleep so he switch just for a minnit and wen he switch back sumbody have scord and he didnt see it and he showt so lowd my little brutha wet hisself. So did the dog.
Wun satiddy after-noon we had tennis, soccer, rugby, crickit an car racing orl at the same time but daddy forl asleep in the armcher. We manage to taik the remote controle offa him and woch a film abowt chim-pan-zees. mummy say it is a bit like wotching soccer but mor in-telly-gent.

Filed under: Education, General |

« »

One Response

  1. prayerwarriorpsychicnot, on October 6, 2014 at 9:39 am said:

    Reblogged this on Citizens, not serfs and commented:
    The next might have been written by my spell checker.

    Reply

Leave a comment