Page 38 - FWG_Issue 2_March_2022
P. 38
Humour
FUNNY MONEY
B Y JAMES CLARKE
ears ago I began hoarding Whitechapel Road at £60. Those figures same as Randburg – R26 000. (Sandtonians
Monopoly money in my sock were decided in the 1930s when Monopoly won't like that one bit.)
drawer – stealing a couple of was invented.
Yhundred every time I played. I One thing hasn't changed: if you land in jail
expected that by about 2020 Monopoly Then, in the 1960s, came the South African you still stay for three rolls of the dice which,
money would be worth more than the rand. version and that's when Eloff Street became in real life, is about what copper cable thieves
fixed for the next 40 years at R400 and get these days.
Everybody said I was stupid. Ha! I was Durban's Musgrave Road at R60.
nearly right. Who plays Monopoly? To be sure, every
You received R10 for winning a beauty night, every weekend, thousands of South
The 70 year-old game of Monopoly is contest. R10! Even members of the Post Africans are bent over their Monopoly boards
about the only game that has not become Office Pilferers Union, if they find an pushing around a little silver boot or silver
dangerous. You know how it is – even kite- envelope with only R10 inside, put it back. dog, battleship, car, top hat or flat iron. Every
flying has become ultra-physical these days They have their standards. evening, there are people shaking the dice
with kites powerful enough to enable a hoping and praying not to land on ‘Chance’
man to make 30m leaps into the air. Thirty Players collected R200 each time they because they know the card reading "make
metres! That's about the height from which completed a circuit of the board – unless, of general repairs to all your houses" is about to
stockbrokers leap. course they picked up a card reading, "Go come up and it now costs tens of thousands
to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass ‘BEGIN’ of rands.
I have hardly played Monopoly since my and do not collect R200".
first childhood but, until very recently, Until a few weeks ago ‘general repairs’ cost R40
whenever I saw a board I was filled But time has caught up with Monopoly. a house. R40! The last time I made a general
with nostalgia. One could still buy Eloff In the new South African version you no repair to my (real) house, when a cupboard
Street for R400 and Bloemfontein Station longer get R200 for going past ‘Begin’ – door wouldn't close, the 4kg hammer alone
remained at R200. instead you pick up R20 000 ‘salary’. cost more than that.
Among parlour games, Monopoly was a Eloff Street, unsurprisingly, is no longer I was interested to read recently that
faithful psychological landmark just as worth R400. In fact, Eloff Street is no longer Monopoly and Scrabble are still high among
reassuring and timeless as the story of on the board. It has been replaced by Clifton the most popular board games worldwide.
Chicken Licken and the Reader's Digest on at R40 000. Musgrave Road, which used to They’ll be a century old in just over 10 years.
the toilet cistern. be the cheapest real estate on the board,
has been replaced by Westville at R6 000. It brings to mind a cartoon I saw showing
Some will remember how, in the original I was surprised to see La Lucia among the Santa Claus playing his reindeers at Scrabble.
UK version, you could buy Mayfair (a posh next cheapest (R12 000) while Soweto on The reindeers were impatiently raising their
London district) for £400 and the cheapest the other side of the board is R22 000 along eyes asking him why he was hesitating. The
property on the board was London's with Boksburg and Hillbrow. Sandton is the word Santa had in front of him was ‘venison’!!
Fourways Gardens • 36 • March 2022