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About The Unauthorised History Of South Africa by Dr Stienie Dikderm and Prof. Herodotus Hlope
Researched and written by two historians well respected in concentric circles, this hilarious take on our collective past reveals stunning new discoveries and fascinating new figures, from Koos van Doosch, the cheese pimp who settled the Cape a year before Van Riebeeck, to Shaka’s lesser-known brother, Nigel Zulu, who just wanted to be a florist.
You’ll discover how the winner of the Mr Mielie Board beauty pageant came to rule South Africa, and you’ll celebrate our greatest triumphs, like when Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman won the Rugby World Cup in 1995.
From small fat gold-plated rhinos in Mapungubwe, to small fat gold-plated polititians in Mangaung, The Unauthorised History of South Africa tells you the history you always wanted to know but were too afraid to ask.
Thanks to Zebra Press, an imprint of RandomStruik publishers, we've got a highly amusing extract for you below. Make sure you read the author bios too - it's just as hilarious
Some Boer republics lasted for decades, such as the Orange Free State and the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek. But there were others which lasted for only a few years, or, in the case of the Free Democratic Republic of Blokkies Boje, forty seconds.
(After a morning of heavy drinking, Mr Boje announced that his stoep was a Free Republic, and that, as its president, he should be allowed to fondle Mrs Wilma van Niekerk if she came to visit and entered the Free Republic. Mrs Boje disagreed and made an amendment to the new constitution by hitting Mr Boje on the head with a spade.)
Most of the lesser-known Boer Republics were ultimately undermined by internal dissent. For example, when one group tried to establish a republic for white people who were disgusted by gnarled toes and wanted to wear shoes, their new country was politically isolated and starved into submission by the barefoot republics on its borders.
Likewise, the formation of the True Boer Republic in 1861 angered the founders of the Genuine Boer Republic on the farm next door. Soon splinter groups from both republics united to form the True Genuine Boer Republic. However, a disagreement over whether meat should be salted before or after braaiing led to the formation of the New Reformed True Genuine Boer Republic.
Soon there were thirty-two Boer republics (with forty-three capital cities) on a single farm.
For all the expansion of Britain and the Boer republics, South Africa was still a huge and open country, with enormous stretches of wilderness between towns.
It was this wilderness that inspired Sir Percy Fitzpatrick to write about his beloved dog, Jock. Today, Jock of the Bushveld is a South African classic.
However, not many people know that Jock was actually Sir Percy’s fourth dog. His first three also enjoyed exciting lives and tragic deaths, and he immortalised all three in novels: Cookie of the Kouebokkeveld, Woofles of the Winterberg and Poepies of Phalaborwa.
Alas, these novels are lost to us: as far as we know, all three manuscripts were eaten by Sir Percy’s hamster, Wally of the Wild Coast, late one night in 1877. Wally, sensing he had done wrong, fled out of Sir Percy’s tent and disappeared into the wilderness.
(Some historians believe that Wally was rescued by a wandering literary agent, who pumped his stomach and tried to piece the manuscripts together, but we cannot verify this.)
By the 1890s, Johannesburg would be producing a quarter of the world’s gold, a third of its testosterone and 90 per cent of its people who called one another ‘boet’. But down at the Cape, the genteel Victorian era had reached its climax.
Many historians have commented on the extreme prudishness of this culture, highlighting the Victorians’ horror of sex, but we have evidence to the contrary. For example, in the diary of Lady Candida Estrogen-Flash, we find an explicit description of a so-called ‘swingers’ party’ that took place at her husband’s estate in Bishopscourt in 1894:
Gosh I am all of a Fluster and a Tizz from the sheer rotten filthiness of it all! My first time at a swingers’ party, and it is everything I hoped!
First of all they erected a swing, hanging from a branch of a tree, and then the Women and Girls took turns SWINGING on it, as their menfolk PUSHED them FROM BEHIND.
My hand shakes as I write this, but I do confess that during my turn on the swing, my fourth petticoat blew up and revealed A GLIMPSE OF MY SECOND STOCKING and even a little bit of my UNDERSTOCKING, and poor Roderick went quite pink and then quite white: I don’t think he has ever seen so much of me, and he had to go and lie down for a while.
Dear diary, am I a terrible slut for wanting to go on the swing again? Roderick has always warned that I might one day become a fallen woman, and now I see how easy it is: one simply has to let go of the swing, and one could fall all in a heap, and THEN who knows what the men might see? SECOND UNDER-STOCKING?! PERHAPS EVEN MY CHASTITY HARNESS? Lord I must stop or I will swoon.
(Lady Candida died tragically in 1893, when, during her first-ever bout of lovemaking, Roderick accidentally touched her exposed left shoulder. The resulting orgasm caused her to spontaneously combust.)
About the authors:
Dr Stienie Dikderm was born in Bethlehem, in a manger, because there was no room at the Holiday Inn in Welkom. Educated at Dominee Sweepklap se Skool vir Gereformeerde Meisiekinders, she completed her PhD in Historical History, with a thesis entitled
Barefoot over the Drakensberg: Toe Jam and Bunions as Cultural Artefacts. She currently teaches Media-Relevant Historical Factoids in the Department of Media and Stuff and Whatever at the Technical University of the South-East, Umhlanga Rocks campus.
Professor Herodotus Hlope is a veteran of the Struggle To Get Published, having first stormed the barricades of publishing in the 1980s with a short novel about being young and misunderstood, entitled Being Young and Misunderstood. However, Academia beckoned (she was the manicurist who lived next door) and he married her in 1988.
They have two children, Number One and Number Two (Prof. Hlope admits he is ‘not good with names’). Professor Hlope currently lectures in the Department of Relevance and Vibrancy at the University College of Technical Excellence, Boksburg Campus.
The excerpt is published with permission from Zebra Press, an imprint of Random House Struik.
To purchase a copy of this book, head on over to Kalahari.com.
Researched and written by two historians well respected in concentric circles, this hilarious take on our collective past reveals stunning new discoveries and fascinating new figures, from Koos van Doosch, the cheese pimp who settled the Cape a year before Van Riebeeck, to Shaka’s lesser-known brother, Nigel Zulu, who just wanted to be a florist.
You’ll discover how the winner of the Mr Mielie Board beauty pageant came to rule South Africa, and you’ll celebrate our greatest triumphs, like when Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman won the Rugby World Cup in 1995.
From small fat gold-plated rhinos in Mapungubwe, to small fat gold-plated polititians in Mangaung, The Unauthorised History of South Africa tells you the history you always wanted to know but were too afraid to ask.
Thanks to Zebra Press, an imprint of RandomStruik publishers, we've got a highly amusing extract for you below. Make sure you read the author bios too - it's just as hilarious
Some Boer republics lasted for decades, such as the Orange Free State and the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek. But there were others which lasted for only a few years, or, in the case of the Free Democratic Republic of Blokkies Boje, forty seconds.
(After a morning of heavy drinking, Mr Boje announced that his stoep was a Free Republic, and that, as its president, he should be allowed to fondle Mrs Wilma van Niekerk if she came to visit and entered the Free Republic. Mrs Boje disagreed and made an amendment to the new constitution by hitting Mr Boje on the head with a spade.)
Most of the lesser-known Boer Republics were ultimately undermined by internal dissent. For example, when one group tried to establish a republic for white people who were disgusted by gnarled toes and wanted to wear shoes, their new country was politically isolated and starved into submission by the barefoot republics on its borders.
Likewise, the formation of the True Boer Republic in 1861 angered the founders of the Genuine Boer Republic on the farm next door. Soon splinter groups from both republics united to form the True Genuine Boer Republic. However, a disagreement over whether meat should be salted before or after braaiing led to the formation of the New Reformed True Genuine Boer Republic.
Soon there were thirty-two Boer republics (with forty-three capital cities) on a single farm.
For all the expansion of Britain and the Boer republics, South Africa was still a huge and open country, with enormous stretches of wilderness between towns.
It was this wilderness that inspired Sir Percy Fitzpatrick to write about his beloved dog, Jock. Today, Jock of the Bushveld is a South African classic.
However, not many people know that Jock was actually Sir Percy’s fourth dog. His first three also enjoyed exciting lives and tragic deaths, and he immortalised all three in novels: Cookie of the Kouebokkeveld, Woofles of the Winterberg and Poepies of Phalaborwa.
Alas, these novels are lost to us: as far as we know, all three manuscripts were eaten by Sir Percy’s hamster, Wally of the Wild Coast, late one night in 1877. Wally, sensing he had done wrong, fled out of Sir Percy’s tent and disappeared into the wilderness.
(Some historians believe that Wally was rescued by a wandering literary agent, who pumped his stomach and tried to piece the manuscripts together, but we cannot verify this.)
By the 1890s, Johannesburg would be producing a quarter of the world’s gold, a third of its testosterone and 90 per cent of its people who called one another ‘boet’. But down at the Cape, the genteel Victorian era had reached its climax.
Many historians have commented on the extreme prudishness of this culture, highlighting the Victorians’ horror of sex, but we have evidence to the contrary. For example, in the diary of Lady Candida Estrogen-Flash, we find an explicit description of a so-called ‘swingers’ party’ that took place at her husband’s estate in Bishopscourt in 1894:
Gosh I am all of a Fluster and a Tizz from the sheer rotten filthiness of it all! My first time at a swingers’ party, and it is everything I hoped!
First of all they erected a swing, hanging from a branch of a tree, and then the Women and Girls took turns SWINGING on it, as their menfolk PUSHED them FROM BEHIND.
My hand shakes as I write this, but I do confess that during my turn on the swing, my fourth petticoat blew up and revealed A GLIMPSE OF MY SECOND STOCKING and even a little bit of my UNDERSTOCKING, and poor Roderick went quite pink and then quite white: I don’t think he has ever seen so much of me, and he had to go and lie down for a while.
Dear diary, am I a terrible slut for wanting to go on the swing again? Roderick has always warned that I might one day become a fallen woman, and now I see how easy it is: one simply has to let go of the swing, and one could fall all in a heap, and THEN who knows what the men might see? SECOND UNDER-STOCKING?! PERHAPS EVEN MY CHASTITY HARNESS? Lord I must stop or I will swoon.
(Lady Candida died tragically in 1893, when, during her first-ever bout of lovemaking, Roderick accidentally touched her exposed left shoulder. The resulting orgasm caused her to spontaneously combust.)
About the authors:
Dr Stienie Dikderm was born in Bethlehem, in a manger, because there was no room at the Holiday Inn in Welkom. Educated at Dominee Sweepklap se Skool vir Gereformeerde Meisiekinders, she completed her PhD in Historical History, with a thesis entitled
Barefoot over the Drakensberg: Toe Jam and Bunions as Cultural Artefacts. She currently teaches Media-Relevant Historical Factoids in the Department of Media and Stuff and Whatever at the Technical University of the South-East, Umhlanga Rocks campus.
Professor Herodotus Hlope is a veteran of the Struggle To Get Published, having first stormed the barricades of publishing in the 1980s with a short novel about being young and misunderstood, entitled Being Young and Misunderstood. However, Academia beckoned (she was the manicurist who lived next door) and he married her in 1988.
They have two children, Number One and Number Two (Prof. Hlope admits he is ‘not good with names’). Professor Hlope currently lectures in the Department of Relevance and Vibrancy at the University College of Technical Excellence, Boksburg Campus.
The excerpt is published with permission from Zebra Press, an imprint of Random House Struik.
To purchase a copy of this book, head on over to Kalahari.com.
