Tuesday 9 October 2007

Icons

A blog's look is vv important. The more blogs I read, the more selfconscious I become and explode into a flurry of changes. Faithful followers of my blog will attest to this (sorry).

After having discovered how to post pictures in the sidebar, a depression of the highest order descended. I needed an icon to summarise, in one elegant swoop, what I the blog is all about. I chose a rondavel.

WHY?!

It's a play of words, you see. My maiden name is 'Davel' and rond means 'round' (which is by no means a reference to my morphology), and should allude in a quasi-existential, neo-metaphysical way to the completeness of things, the circle of life and cake tins.

But a rondavel is something quintessentially African, and that is me.

What is the national icon for Scotland? It's not a rugby ball, neither is it a bloodthirsty highlander in the form of Mel Gibson, but it is the thistle. Humble, thorny, enduring and edible.

...just like most Scots.

4 comments:

CORY VOIGT said...

I know that awful plant. Its a Skotse Dissel and really buggers up my precious grazing. We need to go a round with an ingenious tool called a thistle spudder and dig them up, as well as use spray when we can spare a camp for a few days. I'd rather have kakiebos, at least the sheep it that!

CORY VOIGT said...

Try again, a bit slower.....

We need to go AROUND....
...have kakiebos, at least the sheep EAT that

Unknown said...

Ha-ha! Where do you keep the sheep? I thought you were deeply involved in publishing? I think my parents are on the verge of moving to the platteland - they're tired of rushed city life and the absence of thistles!

CORY VOIGT said...

In th same camp as the horses,below the geese.No, seriaasly,we have a small piece of land at halfway House, run by the Factor (goeie Skotse woord), oom Gideon Motloutsi. He is a jack of all trades; engineer (die grassnyer is fuktup),veterinarian (ek het gesien die skaap gaan vrek),agronomist(new potatoes?nee, hulle is te klein ek kan hulle nie eet nie), social commentator (dis die zimbabwe mense wat alles steel),conservationist (skiet die meisiekat (muishond/mongoose) want hy steel die eiers)
I love this place!