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Crtd 10-06-05 Lastedit 19-02-09
Snail without Shell
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Nairobi high end golf clinic
High End....
I really had to go to Nairobi. There was no escape: my Havana
cigars where almost finished, and the discount on a box at the airport equals
the $150 airport tax, which is half of the ticket. Then, my pills were ending
also, and they are not on the list of the Uganda Drug Authority. Since every
Nairobi chemist has them, it seriously looks like the company has not paid its
bribe (or the airlines have bribed the company not to pay its bribe to boost
ticket sales). So gaily I packed my golf clubs!
Leaving my truck
in Entebbe, I could not help feeling a bit like a snail without shell, but on
arrival, Anne's 1st floor highest end room of her high end B&B was
vacant and ... offered to me!
My high end quarters at the former Austrian Embassy Residence, left: 1st floor balcony with view down on garden and swimming pool, right: stunning sanitary facilities (for someone used to just a wake-up&pee jump in Lake Victoria)
Apart from the luxury of the facility it is the finesse which really makes you feel you arrived somewhere serious: bathing wrap and disposable slippers in the cupboard, a bottle of water with a cup upside down on a paper serviette, a pump to boost you shower outflow, wild life pictures on every wall that happens not to have a mirror or even be one in its entirety, even some local ants on the threshold to the large balcony, which, Anne immediately explained, where "high ants"
Golf ...
My research into who is the author of this definitive golf instruction picture posted in Royal Nairobi Golf Club's men's dressing room is ongoing, meanwhile I hope I do not offend him/her by reproducing it here:
Golf instruction picture posted in Royal Nairobi's men's dressing room
| 10 caddy trainees were hired by Royal Nairobi all...girls, for the first time. I volunteered for tutorship. After explaining trainee Rose (21) that she should wrap her lollypop at the caddies' quarters and leave it there, Anne could not stop herself shooting me with my caddy as she appeared at the first tee. |
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Anne was second gross (yes: gross!) in the Royal Nairobi Golf Club Ladies Open, were all top Kenya ladies non-pro's were competing, just ahead of number three, an 11 year old Kenyan girl who recently reduced her handicap from 32 to 10. I asked her distance of drive. "160 yards", she said, after some thinking. Seeing me looking puzzled, top lady golfers around her said she is still a bit confused and lost track of her yardages. Meanwhile my swing got thoroughly changed by the club's pro Charon, an Indian.
Royal Nairobi's pro Charon added ten yards and line precision to all my club distances in two lessons by having the pro shop set my clubs 1.5 inch longer, myself higher, and my club vertical on end-of-backswing, and deliberately lures me into believing I could play 10 over. I promptly applied for membership of the Royal Nairobi Golf Club, which is well willingly considered after I became third in the club's evening party's after-one-tot-of-tequila chipping contest.
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Measuring loft, taken away by Charon's suggestion to extend schafts: a straw of length c taped to the blade, a tape measure, and Pythagoras. Putting the club head down (as drawing right) yields, however more accurate results. For highest precision, where a>b get loft from asin(b/c), when a<b (wedges) from acos(a/c).
Left: my new shaft lengths (yellow, white is old, black were trial extensions for 4 and 8). Middle: my clubs' lofts as I measured them (triangles) and loft standards (open circles). Right: stroke distances. In the left and middle graph clubs are identified by their distances, e.g. the "150 yards" is the 7 iron.
Naivasha Golf Club (two hours north of Nb, altitude 2000 m) seems to seriously fight its waiting list: members are sold cigarettes, then sent to prison for smoking them
And More High End ...
The morning after this curious event I was shown its picture. My neck now sports a sizeable fungus infection call "ring worm", which, since Paris is a boy we decided to classify as a Homo-Bestial Transmitted Disease (HB-TD)
Irene, me and Anne with coffee equipment (left), mineral water tank with pump (repaired by me) and the breakfast specialty of the establishment
The firing for theft of a staff member (Anne almost in tears
by compassion with the poor fellow, and indeed, I agree, you cannot really blame
them) required some reshuffling of tasks. I took
upon me to train Irene in operating the espresso and milk foam machines, and to
be her breakfast guinea-pig...
Me: Irene, now I will be the customer and you are going to ask me what
I want for breakfast.
Irene: Excuse me Sir?
Me: Yes Irene?
Irene: What would you like for breakfast Sir?
Me: Toast with cheese and tomatoes please.
Irene: [Enters store and returns, trying not to giggle] I am sorry Sir, we
have no tomatoes.
Me: What!!! No tomatoes?? Call your boss!!!
Anne: Yes, Sir, we are awfully sorry, but
have you ever tried toast with cheese, bananas and curry?
Me [grim]: Never.
Anne: I would really recommend it Sir, it is the specialty of our
establishment.
Me: OK, let me try it then.
Irene [after my first bites]: Everything OK Sir?
Me: Very much so, I totally forgot about my tomatoes.
Back in the truck. Red band: Flor de Juan Lopez petit corona 4$ a piece, white band: Jos� Piedra, a mid island cigar tasting groundish like a Partagas, 2$ a piece