Memorable moments: Decidedly uncool

When it comes to alcohol, I have always been decidedly uncool.

I grew up in South Africa, where beer isn't just a beverage; it is a sacred cultural institution. It is considered the ultimate man's drink, and sharing your first cold beer with your father as you cross the threshold into young adulthood is practically a mandatory rite of passage.

When my turn came, my dad was genuinely thrilled to initiate his son into the fold and share his love of a good brew.

From the very first sip, however, the experiment was a disaster. I hated it. It was far too bitter, entirely devoid of sweetness, and had no appeal to my palate whatsoever. The only conceivable way I could stomach it was by diluting it heavily with lemonade to turn it into a weak shandy—and even then, I would have dropped it in a heartbeat for a sweet apple cider. My poor dad must have looked at me and wondered what went wrong: his son had arrived at manhood with the drinking preferences of a child in a sweet shop.

A few years later, as a student at the University of Cape Town, I decided to join the university wine club. In truth, my motivations had very little to do with viticulture and everything to do with the strategic opportunity to mingle with tipsy girls.

The wine club, I quickly discovered, operated on a rigid, unspoken caste system of sophistication:

• The Aristocracy: Bold, tannic red wine reigned supreme at the top.
• The Upper Middle Class: Crisp, bone-dry whites occupied the respectable middle tier.
• The Social Pariahs: Sweet white wines languished near the gutter.
• The Sub-Basement: Sticky dessert wines sat at the absolute bottom, viewed as a crime against enology.

Given my relentless sweet tooth, there were no prizes for guessing where my tastes landed. I found red wine far too sour and acidic, and dry white wine was, well, entirely too dry. While the serious connoisseurs swirled their glasses and pontificated on hints of oak and leather, I was happily lingering down in the subterranean dessert-wine section, thoroughly unbothered.

As the years rolled on, I drifted away from alcohol altogether. I simply stopped enjoying the taste, and more than anything, it just made me feel sluggish and tired. So, I packed it in completely.

These days, when I finish a long trail and join my hiking mates at the pub, I don’t order a crisp craft ale or a stout. I walk straight up to the bar and ask for a soda, lime, and bitters.

Naturally, this is considered the height of social heresy. My friends love their beer, and ordering a sparkling cordial in an Australian pub is hardly the blueprint for rugged coolness. In the beginning, there was the inevitable good-natured ribbing, but over time, they’ve come to accept that Graeme simply drinks pink fizzy water.

And really, who cares? One of the greatest dividends of growing older is that you finally become completely comfortable in your own skin. The exhausting urge to posture, to perform masculinity with a pint glass, or to drink something you loathe just to blend into the herd simply evaporates. There is immense freedom in standing at the bar, decidedly uncool, knowing exactly what you like and letting the rest of the world get on with their bitter beer. 

Memorable moments: The sardine can miracle

During my school days at St George's, a student in the year above me named James was renowned for being a little eccentric. He was fiercely intelligent, but he had a habit of pacing up and down while muttering to himself, completely absorbed in his own thoughts. Whenever he became obsessed with a new subject, he would transform overnight into a walking encyclopedia, spouting forth intricate details to anyone within earshot. He was friendly enough, and I always quite liked him.

After school, James went on to the University of Cape Town, but our paths continued to cross at a local Christian youth group. By then, he had directed the full, laser-focused intensity of his intellect toward religion, rapidly becoming a formidable scholar on all things biblical.

When I eventually advanced to the University of Cape Town myself, James was already a legendary campus fixture, famous among the student body for his endless pacing up and down the iconic Jamieson Steps.

One afternoon, I stepped into the campus lift to head up to the chemistry lab, and by pure coincidence, James was inside too. We greeted each other warmly. As the lift ascended floor by floor, more and more students piled in, until the space became uncomfortably squished—a complete sardine can of packed bodies.

Just as the claustrophobia reached its absolute peak, James cleared his throat with great authority. He somehow managed to swivel around, looked out over the sea of trapped faces, and announced at full volume:

"I want you all to know that Jesus loves you. Praise His holy name!"

The moment the doors slid open at the very next floor, there was a frantic stampede for the exits. A complete mass exodus - half the lift emptied out in a split second, leaving behind a blissful expanse of empty space.

James turned to me with a brilliant, mischievous smile and whispered, "Praise Jesus! Works every time."

Memorable moments: The Newlands dilemma

During my twenties, I shared a house in Newlands, Cape Town, with three housemates. Among them was Dane—a really lovely, generally friendly person who also possessed a fierce temper if provoked. Her ultimate trigger was simple: anyone touching her food without asking.

One afternoon, I found myself alone in the kitchen making a sandwich. I assembled the ingredients, only to realize with disappointment that I was completely out of lettuce. Scanning the fridge, my eyes landed on Dane’s shelf. There, sitting inside a pristine Tupperware container, was a large, crisp head of lettuce.

She’ll never notice a single leaf, I thought, letting hunger override my better judgment.

I surreptitiously cracked open the lid and began peeling a piece away. Suddenly, I stopped. The leaf wasn't just textured—it was alive. The entire thing was wriggling with a miniature army of worms. Feeling a wave of disgust, I put it back, snapped the lid shut, and settled for a leaf-free sandwich.

The real complication, however, arrived the following day.

I walked into the lounge to find Dane happily relaxing on the couch, halfway through eating a massive sandwich of her own. To my horror, a large piece of lettuce was protruding from the crusts. I stood there, completely convinced I could see the edges of the green leaf subtly moving.

I wanted to tell her, but the calculus of the situation was brutal. If I spoke up, she would instantly realize I had been into her private Tupperware. The fierce Newlands temper would be unleashed on me.

Feeling extremely guilty, I chose to stay quiet. I left her to finish her meal in blissful, oblivious peace, keeping the secret of the kitchen fridge entirely to myself.

Memorable moments: The shrubbery vault and the digital near-miss

I seem to have the luck of the Gods when it comes to robberies—a strange, recurring pattern where I lose everything, only for the universe to hand it back before the day is out.

In the early 90s, while living in Cape Town, I returned from university to find my house had been cleaned out. My TV, DVD player, and an assortment of other belongings had vanished. Burglary was common enough in Cape Town that I felt a weary sense of resignation as I called the police. When they arrived, I walked to the front gate to greet them. As I stood there, I noticed something odd poking out from behind a large bush in my garden. I investigated and, voila, there was all my stolen gear, neatly stashed behind the shrubbery. The robbers had clearly hidden it there for a quick pickup later, and my arrival had spooked them just in time.

Fast forward to 2010. I was asleep in bed when my dog, Mack, started barking. Half-asleep, I told him to hush and drifted back off. When I finally woke up, I was met with horror: my laptop was gone, along with a Tupperware container full of coins.

I was devastated. It wasn't just the hardware; I had spent many hours on an assignment for my English teaching course, and my entire collection of digital photos was on that machine. I felt that cold, hollow pit in my stomach that comes with losing irreplaceable history.

But then, I spotted a small black shape sticking out from under the desk.

The burglars—likely teenagers looking for quick cash—had unceremoniously yanked the cables and discarded my external hard drive. To them, it was just a plastic box; to me, it was my entire life’s work and every memory I’d captured. I had lost the shell, but the "soul" of my data had been left behind.

Memorable moments: The snail sabotage

During my first year at the University of Cape Town, I studied Botany and Zoology—a curriculum that required a fairly high tolerance for the internal workings of the animal kingdom. I remember one particularly humid afternoon in the lab; the entire class was hunched over workstations, each of us staring down a snail soaking in preserving liquid.

The task was daunting: we were expected to dissect and draw the snail's reproductive organs.

It was an exercise in extreme patience. To the naked eye, a snail is a simple creature, but once you get under the shell, it’s a labyrinth. It felt like we were untangling miles of incredibly fine, intricate tubing. The atmosphere in the lab was thick with the smell of formaldehyde and the sound of forty students holding their breath.

My classmate, Mark, was not having a good day. Mark didn't enjoy the clinical nature of dissection at the best of times, and the gastropod's "intricate tubing" was pushing him to the edge of his sanity. I could see the frustration radiating off him—the white knuckles, the furrowed brow, the mounting, silent rage.

Suddenly, the silence of the lab was shattered.

"Fuck this!" Mark roared.

Before anyone could react, he brought his fist down with the force of a sledgehammer, squarely onto his specimen. The snail didn't just break; it exploded into a thousand tiny, preserved fragments across his desk.

Without a second glance at the wreckage, Mark stood up, shouldered his bag, and looked straight at the professor. "Prof," he said, his voice trembling with a strange mix of fury and liberation, "give me zero for this. I just don't care right now."

He turned and walked out of the lab, leaving the rest of us sitting in stunned silence, still clutching our scalpels and trying to find the beginning of a mile of tubing.

Memorable moments: The projectile presentation

In 1992, for my final year of Marketing at the University of Cape Town, my friend Rory and I were assigned a presentation on the dark arts of merchandising. We wanted to be legends. We planned to reveal the "tricks of the trade"—how grocery stores put the bakery at the back to force you through the aisles, and how cereal boxes feature characters whose eyes are mathematically angled to lock onto a passing child’s gaze.

Since Google Images didn't exist, I spent days as a guerrilla photographer, snapping high-quality evidence of impulse-buy racks and strategically placed chocolates. We centered our entire grade on these visuals.

The day arrived. We set up my dad’s analog slide projector—a beast of a machine that required manual loading. We were so rushed we skipped a full technical rehearsal, but I was confident. I stood at the front, took a deep breath, and clicked the remote for the first slide.

CLACK-WHIZZZ!

Instead of appearing on the screen, the first slide popped up like a piece of overactive toast and went flying through the air, soaring over the heads of the third row.

Stunned, I pressed the button again. CLACK-WHIZZZ! The second slide followed suit, embarking on its own solo flight across the lecture hall. Rory scrambled to the back, frantically wrestling with the machine, but it had transformed from a projector into a high-velocity catapult.

Doing a visual-heavy presentation without a single image is a special kind of hell. I stuttered through descriptions of "imaginary" cereal boxes while my hard-earned research lay scattered on the floor among the feet of my peers.

Being a student with very high standards, I was devastated. But as we walked out, Rory just shrugged and chuckled and said, "Shit happens, Graeme. No one died."

Rory was right of course. Decades later, the grade is forgotten, but the image of my hard-earned research whizzing through the air like a plastic bird never fails to bring a chuckle. They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but in my experience, it often just makes you funnier. Even if it takes a few years to fully appreciate the joke.

Memorable moments: The lasagna lie

During university, I was desperate to impress a girl I really liked. I decided the best way to her heart was through her stomach, despite the minor detail that I didn't actually know how to cook.

I briefly considered passing off a flame-grilled chicken from Coimbra as my own, but settled instead on a "foolproof" plan: a Woolworth’s ready-made chicken lasagna. I figured if I kept it in the oven long enough to look authentic, she’d never know.

The evening began perfectly. Soft music was playing, candles were flickering, and I pulled the lasagna out with a flourish, making sure she heard the "hard work" I’d put in all day. We sat down, looked into each other's eyes, and tucked in simultaneously.

Horror of horrors. As my knife hit the center, there was a distinct, metallic crackle. The lasagna wasn't just undercooked; the middle was a solid block of ice. I was officially busted. As I sheepishly retreated to the microwave to perform a high-voltage resurrection on our dinner, I tried to pivot to damage control.

"Champagne?" I offered, grabbing a bottle to lighten the mood.

I popped the cork. In a display of physics that would have baffled a scientist, the cork ricocheted off the wall, banked off the ceiling, and flew back with pinpoint accuracy to strike my date directly in the back of the head.

I went in trying to be a romantic lead; I left as a man who had nearly frozen his date’s digestive system and then physically assaulted her with a grape-based projectile.

Memorable moments: The smouldering scalp

By eighteen, I was already losing my hair. My father was entirely bald, and seeing my future reflected in his shiny scalp every day filled me with a quiet, obsessive panic. I was convinced that no woman would ever look twice at a man whose hairline was in such a rapid retreat.

Then Oliver moved in.

He was my age and, remarkably, even balder than I was. But Oliver didn’t look like a man in despair; he was happy, confident, and had a gorgeous girlfriend who clearly adored him. To me, he was a living miracle.

One evening, we had a heart-to-heart. I confessed my anxieties and told him how much I admired his "Zen" attitude toward his reflection. Oliver leaned back and gave me a wry smile.

"It wasn't always this easy," he admitted. "A while back, I was sitting in the back of the car behind my mum and dad. My father’s perfectly bald head was right there in front of me, staring me in the face. I looked at it with such focused, concentrated vehemence that I felt like a human magnifying glass. I honestly expected his scalp to start smouldering right then and there."

The image of Oliver trying to set his father’s head on fire with the sheer power of his "balding-rage" was too much. I started to laugh. Then he started to laugh. Soon, we were both doubled over, gasping for air in one of those rare, soul-cleansing fits of hysteria.

In that moment, the weight of years of obsession simply evaporated. A few months later, I met Ally, and the issue of my hair—or lack thereof—simply ceased to exist.

It turns out the best treatment for male-pattern baldness isn't a lotion or a pill—it's a housemate with a shiny head and a funny story to tell. 

Memorable moments: The ballroom bone-breaker

When I joined the Ballroom Dancing Society at the University of Cape Town, I was the definition of a latecomer. The rest of the class already knew their quickstep from their tango, while I was just trying to look like I belonged in the room.

Our teacher, Maureen Shargey—a tiny, high-voltage live wire—announced that today’s menu featured "Rock n’ Roll Throws." She demonstrated a move that involved deep knee bends, a heavy lift, and a series of high-speed rotations.

"Find a partner!" she barked.

There was a stampede. When the dust settled, I was left standing with the only other person without a pair: a girl who was a solid six feet tall, big-boned, and built like a professional rugby lock. I looked at her, then at my own knees, and began a silent, frantic mantra: Bend at the knees. Bend at the knees.

Maureen gave the signal. I dove in, bent deep, and—to my absolute shock—managed a heroic lift. I swung her down toward my left leg.

CRACK.

The sound was like a gunshot in the hall. My leg went instantly numb. Oh God, I thought, I’ve snapped my femur. The bone is going to be sticking out. This is the end.

I dropped my partner, who went sliding across the polished floor like a human curling stone, and collapsed in a heap, clutching my thigh and bracing for the sight of a compound fracture. A worried crowd gathered. Maureen looked on in horror.

I gingerly reached into my pocket to assess the damage to my limb. My fingers found something jagged. I pulled it out and held it up for the room to see.

It wasn't my leg. It was my favorite plastic comb, snapped perfectly in two.

My dignity was in splinters, but at least I could still walk home.

Memorable moments: The remote betrayal

During my university years, my Cape Town housemate Oliver and I shared Willow Road with Andre. To us, Andre was ancient—at least thirty-five—and he spent his post-divorce life cycling through girlfriends with the speed of a professional sprinter. He was determined to be the one doing the dumping, often juggling three oblivious women at once.

Naturally, Oliver (a serial prankster) and I decided it was time to humble him.

Oliver told Andre he’d acquired a "juicy" adult video that had to be seen to be believed. Andre, ever the connoisseur, was immediately intrigued. Oliver started the film, handed Andre the remote, and gave a stern warning: "Don't fast-forward, or you'll miss the best part."

Oliver then "slipped away" to the bathroom, and I retreated to the kitchen to "make coffee."

Right on cue, Oliver’s sister and her friend used a spare key to barge into the lounge. Panic-stricken, Andre hammered the "Stop" button. Nothing happened. He hammered it again. Still nothing. We had, of course, removed the batteries.

In a desperate, last-ditch effort to save his reputation, Andre launched himself over the coffee table like a heat-seeking missile. That is exactly how the girls found him: sprawled on his stomach, frantically stabbing at the TV’s manual buttons, while a symphony of very loud, very explicit "adult antics" played out directly above his head.

Andre may have been a master at juggling girlfriends, but he was no match for a TV that refused to take orders.

Letter to Mr Suttle, my Latin teacher

Mr Suttle taught me Latin through my senior school years.  He taught us Latin translation (using brilliant texts he'd developed himself) and also inspired in me a lasting love of Roman history.  As part of our final year, we had to write 3 extended essays on aspects of Roman history and it gave rise to a level of enthusiasm and creativity in me that surprised and delighted me.  You can read one of them here.

Ray Suttle also taught us how to create and use mind maps as a way to study.  I immediately fell in love with this visual and practical tool and used it extensively in my final school year of study. I also used it at university and have used it often in my career.

Ray was elderly and suffered from gout which made him move very slowly.  Some of the boys called him "Speed Wobble" as a result. In his prime, he was the headmaster of a very reputable private school in Zimbabwe.  He was very highly respected for this leadership and scholarly excellence in the Latin field.  However, by the time he came to St Georges, Latin was rapidly falling out of favour, regarded as a dead language and no longer relevant for the modern age.  In our class, there were only three students who studied it. Everyone else opted for Geography instead.  It was the same story in all the younger classes at St Georges.  I think Ray felt this lack of interest very keenly.

In my final exam at school, I gained a distinction in Latin, thanks to Ray's excellent teaching.  This distinction, coupled with a distinction in Afrikaans, earned me a distinction overall which meant the world to me.

I left school, and went to the University of Cape Town on the slopes of Table Mountain to study 1st year Zoology and Botany. However, on a regular basis, I would return to the vicinity of my old school because I was a member of a youth group in the area.

One night, before going to the youth group, I suddenly felt inspired to write Ray Suttle a letter. It was a thank you note, written quickly on a blank piece of paper, but written from the heart.  I thanked him for his excellent teaching that had earned me my distinction. I told him how much I had enjoyed the classes and that I was finding the Latin really useful in my Zoology and Botany lessons. I also told him how much I benefited by using the mind-maps he had taught us.  

As I drove past the school on my way to youth group, I stopped off at Ray's residence on the boundary of school where he lived with his wife, Mam Suttle, who had been our English teacher.  It was late in the evening and getting dark. I dropped off the letter in his letter box and went on my way.

I forgot about it and 5 or more years went by.

Then one day I received a letter out of the blue.  I cannot remember how the letter got to me; maybe via my mum who bumped into Mam Suttle from time to time.  The letter was from Ray.

In the letter, Ray wrote something along the lines of "I remember that night so well, I heard a scurrying outside the door and went out to see someone disappearing off into the darkness. Then I found the letter.  I have to tell you, in all honesty, no letter has ever effected me more. It came at a time when I was feeling completely demotivated and flat in regards to my teaching profession.  I wondered if it was all worth it.  Your kind, heart-felt words meant everything to me.  They sank very deep. They gave me my mojo back.  They made all the difference in the world.  Thank you, thank you for your letter."

Reading these words moved me to tears. It was, and continues to be, my greatest teaching about the immense power of gratitude expressed from the heart. Inspired by this, I have written many more letters of gratitude over the years.  

Thank you, dear Mr Suttle, for yet another of your priceless lessons.

Mr Suttle introduced us to mind maps like this one ...