Heinz Meanz Has-Beenz

CAPE TIMES, 5 JULY 2002

I DON’T LIKE HEINZ WINKLER. I’m sorry, but I don’t. There is something about that smirking face and smug hairdo that makes me want to seize him by the lapels of his pizza-delivery-boy-moonlighting-as-a-male-stripper outfit and strike him firmly with both sides of my hand. In fact, the more I think about Heinz Winkler, the less I like him. He is young, allegedly attractive to women and on the brink of making more money than me. What’s to like? He is the Jamie Oliver of South African pop music.

There are many things I dislike about Heinz Winkler, not least his name. What kind of a name is Heinz Winkler for a pop idol? Not since Engelbert Humperdinck has there been a name so unlikely to have me heaving my boxer shorts on stage. I don’t know precisely what a heinz is, but I don’t think I’d care to see one winkled in my presence. (Although, to be fair, he does have this over Engelbert Humperdinck: Heinz Winkler is in fact his real name. Unbelievably, Engelbert Humperdinck is a stage name. What could Engelbert’s real name have been to have driven him to such a sobriquet? Jim Scrotum? Ben Dover? Adolph Hitler?)

Do you join me in spurning Heinz Winkler? Probably not. Chances are you are one of the squillions of local viewers spending your evenings and your monthly salary calling the Heinz Winkler vote line at cellphone rates. Gee, you must really like him. I have close friends and family members for whom I wouldn’t pay cellphone rates.

At any rate, there is no real doubt that Heinz Winkler will win Idols. My man at M-Net first tipped me off three weeks ago that the sheer volume of calls suggests that the Winklemeister has a fan-base roughly the size of North Korea. Is there space in Stellenbosch to hide the population of North Korea? my man at M-Net asked me. Because all the calls seem to come from Stellenbosch.

This is causing some discontent in Johannesburg. Northerners take their Reality TV shows very seriously. These are the people, remember, who staked out the Big Brother house and threw messages over the wall hidden inside potatoes. That would not have happened in Cape Town, and not just because Capetonians do not go out of their way to greet new neighbours. People in Gauteng invest themselves deeply in the contestants, and they are beginning to suspect a conspiracy.

There was disapproval at that chucklehead Ferdinand winning the first Big Brother, but nothing was said because there was no one else that anyone especially liked. Idols is different. Not only have there been candidates clearly stronger and less annoying than the Winkster, but for the next few months we are not going to be able to switch on the radio without hearing the winner’s rendition of “Islands in the Stream” or “Nelly the Elephant” or whatever fresh horror lies in store for us.

There is much at stake here. Johannesburgers are becoming suspicious of the rural areas of the Cape. “What goes on down there?” they say, narrowing their eyes. “Are there betting syndicates in Stellenbosch with automatic dialling machines? Are there units of Cape patriots with telephones funded by Jürgen Harksen and a brief to win at all costs?” Then they say: “If this goes on much longer, we’ll just stop making Reality TV shows. Then what will they do?”

Good citizens of Cape Town, I know these people. They are not joking. It is too late for Idols, but Big Brother 2 starts soon. Take my advice: let the northerner win.