Who wants to be a millionaire, I wonder about yet another lost fortune in my life… Soccer has its vuvuzela – and if Beloved was an astute businessman instead of a sports journo, cricket would’ve had its hat. Not just any old hat: a talk-through-your-hat hat.
He late one night sketched his business idea out for me: think putting a megaphone on your head. His creation would’ve been wide enough to keep the sun and rain off your shoulders and just high enough not to interfere with the view of the cricket fan behind you.
And if you get excited about a Protea hitting the opposition out of the field à la Lance Klusener saving the team with his big hitting in the UK during the 1999 World Cup – think his (0 4 2 4 6 6) versus Sri Lanka in the last over – you can just whip it off your head and voice your amplified approval.
No, we’re not talking about That Run Out with him and drop-the-bat Donald that made grown men – and me – cry… Come to think of it, we don’t have much to shout about nowadays in cricket, so maybe the rugby crowd can have a ball with it.
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Oh, sigh. Or our politicians. Picture our ministers: Saps’ Bheki Cele, moneybags Enoch Godongwana not with their stylish fedoras – which always reminds me of the old Nat ministers in any case – but each wearing his own talk-through-your-hat hat.
We can even make the design more stylish: less brim, more talk, because they so love to sound of their own voices. In fact, Beloved, who needs a brim? Lose it all and give them a proper megaphone. Let them, true to life, talk through their hat.
Only the hoi poloi will know it’s shaped like those the “stupid” kids had to wear at the turn of the century, sitting in the corner.
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And – if I may quickly point it out to Charlize Theron – all Afrikaners know the British made their oupas wear exactly those dunce hats in the concentration camps during the Anglo-Boer war because they gave English the finger and gooi die taal. Talk about stupid… Mr Cele, I’m adapting Beloved’s design. I think you – and Charlize – need to get a handle on it…
