cheek to chic

New website on the way

2011-01-23T23:07:00.000-08:00

To all the followers from my blogspot site here is my new website address www.cheektochic.co.za

On the food trail again

2010-12-22T00:06:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year again, when I buy a copy of my favourite South African publication, the 2011 Eat Out. The compilers must have been told that a few of my Jozi favourites had been left out last year, as Desmond Mabuza's Signature (and new addition Wall St, near the JSE), The Flamingo Room at the Troyeville Hotel, Greek deli Portas, the Schwarma Co (with those delicious Palestinian twins, who get everyone so confused as the owner is always there, but only remembers you half of the time), the Darkie Cafe in Marshalltown and sundry others are now included, along with all sorts of other new gems.

Jolly good, although I still have a gripe. Joburg got around 47 pages in the guide but I felt as if they put in every sandwich shop and pizza joint in town, not just the very good places. I know we suffer from franchise sickness but the guide was still balanced very much in favour of the Cape which got the lion's share. The reviewers were a balanced collection of passionate foodies from all over the country, who obviously make it their business to eat at all sorts of tucked away places and I know Cape Town and the Winelands have wonderful places to eat, but do I detect a little bit of bias on the editorial staff's side? After all, the mag is produced in Cape Town ... is it really the hottest place to eat in the country? In a country where the quality of the food and cheffing skills is seriously good. You can have as fabulous an eating experience at a little farm stall along the freeway as you can at the highest priced establishment!

I don't pretend to know the current Cape food scene very well but this much is clear - I grew up there in the 1970s and it was not the clean, tourist-friendly city packed with trendy places to eat that it is today. It was in fact a very dodgy city that on some days was covered in a yellow sulphuric haze of pollution. That was when you couldn't walk down Adderley St, particularly at night, and the Waterfront was The Docks, doll. As in ships, sailors and various skollies and ladies of the night. You could probably get a good fish and chips but the city was about as far away from the culinary Olympics as it was from the moon. It was also mad, bad and dangerous: three pupils from the very posh private school that I went to were murdered in the 7 years I lived there. I hated Cape Town and still can't go back to some places there without feeling as though I just ran into a razor wire fence. Today the city has changed out of all recognition, with no trace of its dodgy past and lack of foodie allure.

I am as passionate a foodie as anyone on the Eat Out panel (mmmwhmmmm hmmmm, I say, stuffing in another gorgeous chocolate from Godiva, an early Christmas present) and think they should put ME on their panel, as not only do I adore food and eating but my job ensures my ear is very close to the ground regarding new places, particularly in my own home town.

I have been exploring the inner city of Jozi more and more and interacting with that growing breed of people .... the Passionate Joburger. These are people who live in the city, love it unstintingly despite all its faults, and think it is the best place in the country, if not the world. We haven't managed to convince Capetonians of this but feel that they live with their heads up their own arses half the time. The Passionate Joburger likes going to Cape Town (you can use the Gautrain to get to the airport!), and loves eating there but something is happening in our city that is very special. The World Cup may have been the catalyst but a tranformation is taking place under our very noses. Jozi really does rock.

Joburgers use the bush telegraph a lot and you can pick up so much information just by being in the right spot at the right time. The owner of trendy new Braamfontein florist Lovely on Loveday, Jano, rents in hot new inner city apartment block The Franklin in Pritchard St (the architect is Stefan Antonio), and tells me that the owners of the Darkie Cafe are opening up a new restaurant on the ground floor of The Franklin within walking distance of the Gautrain station and the Newtown precinct.

The fabulous Turbine Hall will also take bookings once a month as a restaurant. Turbine Hall CEO Glynis Hyslop and her wonderfully named MD Daintree O'Grady will ensure a wonderful underground dinner. Normally this is a venue space but on date night all you have to do is book a table!

Randlords did not get a mention in the Eat Out, but that might be because the 23 storey high Braamfontein rooftop space isnt a restaurant but a venue space (it costs R100 000 to book it out for a function). It nevertheless provides a sensational view of the Joburg skyline.

I had dinner at Signature last night and suggested to Desmond Mabuza that he start up a place in downtown Joburg. He already had plans for a rooftop venue in Sandton but a move downtown should not be far behind, especially as people start to move inner cityward.

The Salvatian Cafe at 44 Stanley in Milpark got a write up, probably because they have brought over the Oppenheimers' former private chef. Recommended by resident hairstylist Candice from Wyatt hairstylists was the calamari with five spice dip and the fish cakes.

70 Juta st now boasts a nice coffee shop, POST, and entering the Lord Milner hotel across the road is like entering another world. A sweet old couple, known to one another as Jimmy and Pops (she's done out like Edith Piaf in huge earrings, a white hat from the 70s and a pink smock with buttons), sit at one table having a pub lunch while the regulars, some of whom haveen going for 25 years, huddle round the big wooden bar, ostensibly dating from Lord Kitchener's days during the Boer War (not likely as the pub was built around 1905, by which time it was all over). The walls smell of smoke during the day but at night the party animals turn it into a disco!

More restaurants and pubs will open in this area, it's just a matter of time! Watch this space.

PS: popped into Deborah Wakefield's new place, Higher Ground, at St Stithians. Sadly it was closed but the interior looked inviting. There have been loads of functions there since it opened during the World Cup so I don't think it's just for the yummy mummies looking for cupcakes. I don't think it warrants the description of the best view of Joburg as the soccer fields and utilitarian school buildings were not that exciting.

off to La Vie en Rose in Melville Road, Illovo as those Godiva chocolates have worn off somewhat by now! A Wendy Luhabe recommendation.

The philosophy of LIFE

2010-11-13T01:52:00.000-08:00

Joburg is acquiring some wonderful new eating establishments, where the food is outstanding, the prices reasonable and the queues go out of the door! Time for a little recce of what's hot, what's new and what is getting itself talked about ...

The latest excellent ''food experience', for want of a better word, is LIFE which this week opened its doors in Hyde Park. LIFE has been going strong in Nelson Mandela Square for ten years and built up a reputation for cutting-edge food, a great ambience and amazing eco-friendly lifestyle accessories.

The shop with the lifestyle accessories.

Owners Maira and John Katsoudakis tap into their innately stylish Greek heritage and always amaze, and now it is time for another branch.

The new LIFE is on the site where the Hyde Park ladies who lunch used to pay homage for many years - none other than the legendary Steffanie's which was at its height in the 80s. The original floor and Parisian-style tables have been resurrected, stripped, sanded down and given a new spin in a modern, brightly lit space which combines edgy architecture and earthy colours with romantic bowls of flowers.

There's a sushi bar complete with sushi chef borrowed from the Sandton store, outside underneath the centre's new skylights designed by South African conceptual artist Willem Boshoff, a bar where the drinks are innovative, delicious and as alcoholic (or not) as you like, a homeware shop with a bullet-embedded floor (bought from the ammunition shop) and small tables which can be as intimate with your neighbours as you would like them to be. It's not communal eating as in Europe but you can lean over for a chat, or to see what the next door neighbours have ordered. Maybe you'd like to try that the next time.

There is always going to be a next time. It opens on Tuesday and by Friday night there's a regular clientele. One customer even spends a 12 hour shift on the first day, starting with breakfast, working her way through lunch, trying out the high tea and lingering over dinner!

My own request is that they set up a waiting area at an outside bar because it is so popular you can't really book and there is nowhere to stand and wait fir your table.

EVERYTHING on the menu is good. I try a watermelon, rosewater and basil granita the first time I pop in to have a look and have to dissuade Maira from feeding me slow cooked lamb shank served in a cute little copper dish as I am off to a vegetarian dinner with friends. The granita is sublime and a taste of things to come, but it is eclipsed by the next granita I am persuaded to try on my next visit. This one is as fragrant as it is flavoursome: elderflower, mint and lime. Yum. it comes with a long spoon so none of the icy stuff goes to waste. My neighbour does a Harry meets Sally, and tells his waitress: "I'll have what she's having." The granita is getting admiring looks from other patrons as well.

My brother in law is out from Australia and I want to show him what the South African food scene is up to. He tells me about New Zealander Katherine Langbeen and her books and orders a classic steak with pommes frites, which come in a tiny deep fryer. I love the details in this presentation and the steak is excellent, he informs me. My meal is none other than the lamb shanks, though it is really difficult to choose from the menu which is embellished in Victorian style with tiny Mrs Beaton-esque drawings.

It was designed by Nathan Reddy of GRID and is very cute. Already the menus have started to disappear as competitors pull in.

There's the breakfast section with every kind of egg dish, patisserie (sadly, mispelt!), decadent French toast with vanilla marscapone and berries and the Full Monty of breakfasts. Then there's the famous LIFE salad bar in case you decided NOT to check the diet in at the door, all very Mediterranean and yummy with olives, goat's feta cheese, grilled veggies and gourmet toppings.

Then if you feel like a sandwich there is the gourmet loaves section, closely followed by the thin-crust pizza. My neighbour, whose name we have established is Dave, is bent over his rockety pizza making orgiastic little noises. There is even a sweet pizza with a brioche base, Nutella, vanilla pod icecream and hazelnut praline. Or you could go fruity with strawberries, clotted cream and bananas. This is a definite WOW factor for me.

I won't spoil it for you by going through the whole menu but suffice to say my lamb shanks lived up to expectations and I am going back for the tapas. Maira and John are attentive to all their patrons and take people's food intolerances into account. Brother in law cant eat dairy so we have fruit carpaccio drizzled with honey and topped with nutty phyllo (my favourite, fresh sliced fruit after a big meal). I try a decaf cappuccino ("we love our latte art here," Maira says when it arrives with heraldic patterns on it that i feel ashamed to stir) and he has a filter coffee. We watch a brace of Sundaes being delivered with a flourish to an outside table, with small relief that our stomachs are full.

No doubt about it, the best meal I have had in a very long time! And I love the philosophy of LIFE: Celebration and Libation, simple sustenance, wholesome simplicity, subtle ambience and decadent delights. Artisanal, premier and crafted ...

The wood fired pizza oven.

Jozi in jacaranda time

2010-11-02T03:00:00.000-07:00

The haze of purple in the streets of Johannesburg is like being in a wonderful cathedral.

It's that time of the year again, my favourite season when my city becomes breathtakingly beautiful. The purple mistiness of the jacarandas blend effortlessly into the busy streets, the honking taxis, the urban sprawl and industrialisation of a huge Afropolitan city. All the colours of this huge artificial jungle blend into one another: the bright pink of the bougainvilleas, the Pride of India blossoms, the red coral trees and the white and purple agapanthus which pop out in the flower beds.

The funny thing about the jackys is that while they are individually magnificent (below), these trees are so densely planted in certain suburbs of Joburg, sort of "in the zone", so there are certain places where they are more spectacular en masse.

My jewellery designer-slash-photographer friend Kevin Friedman and I take a Jacaranda Pilgrimage from the overarching avenues of Norwood, through to upper Houghton, on to Parktown where the purple is offset by the deep ivy green cradling the stone walls of the Herbert Baker houses. Finally we land up at The Westcliff and watch the sunset.

IN NORWOOD ...

Nothing like the sight of sunlight bursting through the branches.

The branches of the jacarandas are normally twisted and tortured-looking (below), in contrast to the soft petals, which are even better with the back-lighting of the sun.

Kevin stopped to capture a broken bough and its tough wood (below).

A Cape dove struts among the fallen purple petals in Norwood.

THE JACARANDAS IN HILLBROW

Hillbrow was the best place to be this jacaranda season!

A romantic carpet of flowers.

HIGH UP IN HOUGHTON ...

Looking down on the stone angel war memorial outside the zoo. Italian prisoners of war built it during World War 2.

IN HISTORICAL PARKTOWN/WESTCLIFF

Whenever I get really depressed I come and look at the Sir Herbert Baker houses here, and even though I don't have R100-million to buy one, it always cheers me up!

The indigenous and the exotic ... fragile petals against sturdy cacti.

THE JOBURG GEN ... AND SURROUNDS

We were rudely turned away at the gates to this public health hospital, which has done itself no PR favours recently, but the view on the hill going down was glorious. We found an alternative viewing platform to look across the city towards The Westcliff.

This gorgeous house was built for Sir Henry Hull in 1905 and is now a conference centre.

The viewing deck (above) had one smashed pane of glass (below).

Blooms above the old carriage house.

The garden was a burst of purple agapanthus, to go with the trees.

Looking up at the Hillbrow Tower from the carpark.

THE GRAND FINALE- FROM THE WESTCLIFF ...

The hotel's somewhat harsh pink buildings are softened by the plantations of mauve.

The view across from the Westcliff to the Villa Arcadia.

What's a trip to The Westcliff without a glorious sunset and a cocktail besides the pool(below)?

ALL PIX BY KEVIN FRIEDMAN

Completely Franschhoeked

2010-10-25T01:33:00.000-07:00

The lake with the mountain behind it.

Long, long ago I had a little penpal. She was based in Franschhoek, which in those days was a charming, sleepy little town in the Winelands. Not much happened there besides the annual harvest but the town had beautiful old buildings which had stood there since the Huguenots sought refuge from religious persection in the Cape in the late seventeenth century. Many of the farms had been in the same families for generations. The Dutch didn't much like the thought of a French settlement to rival their own, so separated the new settlers into isolated farms in an attempt to break the use of their mother tongue. The town was called Olifants Hoek back then, to honour the elephants which travelled along ancient trails around and around the craggy Franschhoek mountains.

But the Huguenots brought their winemaking skills with them and found that the vines flourished in this mountain-ringed,windless countryside. They left their legacy in many of the handsome, olive-skinned, dark-eyed faces, in the surnames in the area and the 300-year-old wine farms, many of which are today the property of big corporations or foreign investors.

My little penpal told me none of this however. I learnt it all many years later on subsequent visits. She and I communicated with one another in different tongues, as I was an immigrant much like the early Huguenots and had to learn this peculiar language called Afrikaans. She, on the other hand, had to brush up on her English. it was nevertheless a charming correspondence and we learnt much about one another. Perhaps the blood of Huguenot ancestors flowed through both our veins.

Subsequent visits showed how Franschhoek was changing and evolving. It was still sleepy in the early 80s, when my sister was married in neighbouring Stellenbosch and had her reception at Boschendal, but by the millennium it began to be a major tourist destination. I stayed there in 2003 during the Cricket World Cup in a pretty B&B and saw the explosion of restaurants and big-name wine estates. There was a view of the mountains from every angle of my upstairs room, and I became aware that this formerly sleepy town was now prime real estate for retired couples, or those who wanted to leave the rat race and open yet another guesthouse. Pseudo-Frenchification was everywhere in the town - much to the early Huguenots' delight I am sure.

My next trip was part of a media trip for the new Schwartz jewellery store in the town; obviously big money shopped there. We ate non-stop, starting with fabulous fish restaurant Boullaibasse (which has now sadly closed down, along with the town's branch 6f Schwartz, thanks to the recession) and winding up at the chocolate shop down the road. Fortunately there was a great deal of walking involved! We staggered back to our guesthouse, Klein Olifants Hoek, named in honour of those long gone pachyderms, where white Iceberg roses and long stemmed lavender bushes were starting to bloom in the mizzly rain. It was early spring, sit-by-the-fire-with-a-glass-of-good-red weather, and I tumbled into my bed to sleep, straight from a fabulous open bathtub which was positively 18th century. The floors and doors were not quite flush, and I was told the building was an old school which had obviously been built on to.

Franschhoek had clearly lost none of its charm, despite obvious and growing commercialisation, and my latest visit confirms this. This time I am down for the polo at Val de Vie polo estate outside the town. All thanks to Deidre Theron-Loots, CEO of the TCB Group, who sponsored my airline ticket with 1Time Airlines, as a favour to event organiser Edith Venter!

I am staying at L'Ermitage right up on the mountain near the white painted name of the town which greets visitors on the road in. The owner has established a number of self-service villas with an adjoining chapel, popular for weddings of any religious denomination, and built himself a house not far away, with the vineyards of the estate climbing across the mountainside. A gentleman in a bright, harlequin-coloured outfit vaguely reminiscent of the Four Musketeers greets me at the gate and directs me to reception.

It is the perfect retreat. You know when you have reached burnout point when you try to switch cramping feet in the hire car and you hit the brake instead of the accelerator. Thank God this is Cape Town and everyone drives at snail's pace! I need a refuge from the endless traffic, deadlines and bills. My nerves are stretched to breaking point and I am as cranky as a snapping turtle. My room is like the suite in a hotel, it goes on for ever. There is a self-service kitchen, a dining room/TV room, an enormous bedroom, a luxurious bathroom, a garage to park the car and an outside balcony where I can lean over and look at the big dam directly underneath, the mountains and the vineyard where they produced a label called Fransch Hoek. It is so peaceful. I sleep that night and the next night with my windows open so the sounds of outside and the fresh clean air wash over me: that deep liquid frog bubble and the ducks quacking quietly.

L'Ermitage ... what a beautiful place.

Driving to the polo is delicious too. En route is one of the most picturesque prisons I've ever seen ... did you get sent to the Groot Drakenstein Prison for good behaviour? There is a half-hearted attempt at barbed wire along the wall but otherwise it is as charming as anything else in Franschhoek. The only thing that is not charming were the hovels along the road that many labourers still live in, a disgrace to one of the richest wine growing areas in the country. Only the Ruperts' farm, L'Ormarins, on the road going out of Franschhoek has rows of neat, modern, white washed cottages with chimneys slightly smudged by smoke. They are on a par with the townhouses which are springing up like mushrooms all over the vineyards.

Val de Vie, scene of the BMW International match earlier this year, is almost too enchanting- and the view! The gods of the Cape's weather smile and send us a beautiful day, along with plenty to eat and some yummy polo players.

The next day it is time to drive into Cape Town for lunch with a friend in the Cape Quarter. In true confusing Cape fashion there are TWO of the above, the older one called the 'old Cape Quarter" and the newer one, well, the "new Cape Quarter". Not only that, but there are two restaurants by the same name in both, so I land up in the wrong place. There is something exasperating about a place that does that, and does not indicate its exit signs properly so you end up driving round and round a parking lot like a nana. All the mountains in the world don't make up for this muddled thinking and Joburgers, with their finger-snapping sense of urgency and efficiency, often can't get their heads around a place where a freeway that just ends in mid-air. What is WITH that? Also the tendency to consult the weather, like the Delphic Oracle, when it comes to deciding where to eat.

????? How BIZARRE.

OK, it was time to get back to Franschhoek. They have parking mafia here too, I discover, thanks to all the tourists but finally find refuge and a well deserved stop for a chocolate icecream under the trees at BICCCS, the recommendation of chef Fortunato, who I later discover has a vested interest, as it's his place!

It's been a stinker of a day so I splash my feet in the swimming pool at L'Ermitage which has a huge fountain in the middle of it and check out the deli opposite. From the top of the road a small channel of water runs down over the cobbles and into a drain, very 17th century. The road back was a veritable pantheon of some of the most familiar and famous names in South African wine-making, as well as the food world. Graham Beck has a big-ass South African flag unfurled outside their imposing, bougainvillea-laden brick and iron gates, the biggest I have ever seen. Plaisir de Merle, La Motte, Grande Provence, Allee Bleue, Allee Bleue ... the names positively tripple off the tongue. I once asked where the old graveyards are in this pretty town; many of the founding fathers are buried on their farms and descendants can go and visit with the permission of the current owners. There is also a beautiful cemetery in the town.

I post on Facebook over my breakfast smoked salmon trout and strawberries, looking out over the dam fringed by white roses and completed by a Rodin-like reclining sculpture (never was there a more beautiful breakfast view) that there can be nothing closer to heaven than this. I can't help wishing I could win the R30-million lottery. That's how much it would take for me to move to this little piece of paradise, or at least buy a wine farm.

A small wine farm ... just like the Huguenots had.

The view from my balcony!

Sole searching for the perfect heel

2010-10-12T01:59:00.000-07:00

Years ago I walked into Harrods in London wearing a pair of electric-blue Wellington boots. It had been snowing outside, the snow had melted and re-frozen into sleet which made the London pavements not only even harder on the feet than normal, but also highly slippery. This was no consolation to the blue-rinsed, tweedy county dowager whom I encountered in the loos - she looked me up, and she looked me down, and disapproval bristled up and down her well-bred spine.

I was a small-town South African girl who was unfamiliar with English mores and dress codes (Wellies in the country only, and green ones at that!)and this was the first time I had ever got a ticket from the Shoe Police. I got to know them better in Italy later on, but that is a story for another day. How was I to know this was such a narcissistic, shallow world where you really were judged by your footwear and not by practicality alone?

My first visit to Harrods was a lesson which instilled a lifelong interest and attraction to shoes, though. I love an elegant heel, a perfect shape, a high arch, exquisite details, peeptoes which show off Smartie-painted toes, a classic court, and oh yes!, the perfect boot. I may have left my idealistic girl self behind and become part of the painted, showy universe but, boy, is it seductive to be a grown-up and a lady.

The search for the perfect anti-aging wrinkle cream may continue but doesn't a girl feel fantastic every time she slips on a fine pair of shoes? I spend many happy hours windowshopping for what I can't afford in real life. In Sex and the City a pair of Manolos cost $400, in Johannesburg they cost the equivalent of your rent. Or the rent of a store in one of our fine upmarket malls, to be precise.

I wrote a story for Elle magazine a few years ago about women's obsession with shoes, which had gained the name of "Bootism". One thing which fascinated me was the Italian shoemakers and how they could engineer something within such a small space which could carry the weight of a woman on at least four inches, while pampering her back and feet.

Two years ago, you will be happy to hear, I went back to Harrods and headed straight for the shoe department. And what did I find there?!! Wellies, gumboots, or whatever you care to call them, wall-to-floor, flowered ones, sexy gold ones - and even an electric-blue boot or two. The gumboot was now the hottest thing of the season. Where was that disapproving Englishwoman now, I wondered? It seemed that my shoe choice had been an idea before its time.

My second time I wandered around looking at all the latest styles but was particularly mesmerised by the craftsmanship and design of the Louis Vuitton shoes. They were tres, tres elegant with the most interesting heel design I had yet encountered. I carried this interest home with me and regularly pop into the Johannesburg LV store to see their seasonal stock. I have also watched with interest what Louis Vuitton has been doing on the ramp with their recent collections (eg the African sandals produced for their 2009 Spring/Summer collection). It's art on a foot.

I have always loved the Louis Vuitton steamer trunks and vintage luggage but now a new seed is sprouting in my heart, a love of their witty, inspired, creative and very charming footwear.

It was Giselle Hon, the PR manager for Louis Vuitton South Africa, who told me about the latest developments in the LV shoe department. Most people know that Marc Jacobs took over as artistic director at LV but how many people know who Serge Alfandary is?. He's the Shoes Department Director based at
Louis Vuitton's Fiesso d'Artico plant near Venice. So, even though LV is a French label, the decision was taken in 2009 to establish the plant in Italy, in an area renowned for its shoe-crafting skills from as early as the 13th century.

Visiting the plant would be a dream come true, and Giselle has made the pilgrimage ... it's designed very simply, like a Louis Vuitton "shoe-box", with a steel screen enveloping the building, making it opaque from the outside. A big plus is that the plant is also environmentally green, with insulated walls, solar panels and a geothermal heating system.

One of the most attractive features of the plant is the contemporary artwork: which consists of, guess what, three outsized, shoe-shaped sculptures. The first to greet visitors is a white pump shoe sculpture by Jean-Jacques Ory, with a portrait of Botticelli's Venus within. It's not so much the Old Woman in the Shoe, more like an upscaled version of something Princess Di would have worn to Ascot.

Then, you can't miss it, on the lawns is a 4,70 metre glittering fish-scale stiletto called "Priscilla" by Joana Vasconcelos.

The whole place is a shoe fetishist's paradise and the piece de resistance inside the cloister is Nathalie Decoster's L'Objet du desir.

There is also a library inside dedicated to books on shoes. Oh my lordy, does that not sound like a dream come true? And there are orgasmic displays of shoes on the walls ...

There is an unbelievable amount of work that goes into making just one pair of shoes at the Fiesso d'Artico plant from painting of the edges with a brush, to bias seams and buffing. Each pair takes on average two days to make and demand between 150 to 250 operations, depending on how complex the designs are. Many operations are performed by hand, a real labour of love.

LV clearly believes in pushing the design envelope and, Giselle tells me, Sofia Coppola (of Marie Antoinette fame) is now designing a line of handbags and clutch bags, especially for the working woman.

It's all a long way from my blue Wellington days and hopefully my love of shoes can only flourish and grow the more I find out about them. No more shoe police for me!

ALL PICTURES COURTESY OF LOUIS VUITTON

Let's hear it for the redheads

2010-09-28T00:39:00.000-07:00

Life after the chrysalis ... a redhead's greatest friend is green.

I can pinpoint the day when I realised that I was a redhead. I was ten years old and my school mates started chanting delightedly: "You've got red hair!! You've got red hair!!!" - as only spawn of Satan ten-year-olds can when they find a suitable target. I went and had a look as soon as I got home - and saw a definite lightish ginger colour. It was totally traumatic to be even more different than I already was, so I burst into tears and wept inconsolably for days. It didn't help that my face was one huge freckle. I was a monster, the ugliest girl in creation. There was no hope for me. Why couldn't I be like all the other pretty little girls?

Why this reaction, you ask? Aren't redheads a special breed, set apart from the common blonde herd? Don't we all have an ethereal Julianne Moore quality, all alabaster skin, soulfulness and sun-kissed freckles? In truth the metamorphosis to becoming a butterfly is the same for all: egg, larva, pupa, adult. Many a redhead, even Julianne Moore, will tell you that they were perfectly hideous as a child and in their early teens (the larva and pupa stages). Which was probably not true but perception is nine tenths of reality when you are young and sensitive.

Yeah, you try being a ginger, a "rooikop" or any of the other names dreamt up by your mean schoolmates and you'll see it's much better to blend into the herd. The worst name I got called at my co-ed school was "Red Rat" because pale-eyelashed and gooseberry-green-eyed me was friends with a girl who had white blonde hair and no eyebrows. Naturally she was "White Rat".

You see, I was born blonde. To be precise I was born with one ginger curl, teeny little eyes and very sticky-out ears but developed butter blonde curls. Much more socially acceptable. Little did I know that the ginger gene was ready to make its big comeback. While my family and I travelled through France as a child my hair began to resemble the ripening wheat fields which greeted us on the cyprus-lined roads down to the fortified medieval city of Carcassonne. And still no one spoke out ... except for my granny, who drew my mother aside and told her never to dress me in pink as I had red in my hair. And it just got redder and redder and wouldn't go back to being blonde.

Here are a few things you probably didn't know about redheads:

1. Red hair is a recessive gene and is usually a sign of ancient Celtic influence. Many people carry the redheaded gene and then are very surprised when their babies turn out to be, well, redheads.
2. The sun is a redhead's enemy. Sunblock was invented with redheads in mind. All redheads need to vigorously avoid the sun. The red pigment is an inadequate filter of sunlight and their skin is more susceptible to sunburn, skin cancer and wrinkling with age.
3. Being a redhead is not just a physical manifestation. It is also an attitude.
4. Redheads bleed like stuck pigs. Doctors know this when they deliver the babies of a redhead. You wouldn't think that white skin contained so much pigment underneath. This is due to slightly different clotting factors in the blood.
5. Red hair does not turn grey, the colour just fades away from blonde to white. As my father once told me, my hair would turn the colour of "tom cat mange".
6. Redheads are very sexy and sensual but they are also spiritual.
7. Red headed women are seldom attracted to red headed men.
8. Red heads are said to have one layer of skin less so they feel everything more, including pain. When your hair is the colour of molten lava you also have a helluva temper!
9. Redheads have very thick hair but have less hair on their head then anyone else.
10. Redheads have a secret bond with all other redheads. Kinda like a secret society.

At around fifteen and three quarters my ginger locks, which had been in a pudding bowl style but were now long, became what my admiring art teacher liked to call "strawberry blonde". Everyone started to rabbit on about pre-Raphaelites, bank managers stared at me and strange men tried to chat me up in the street. The mean kids told me my hair was now "orange". I realise now that they were probably very jealous.

Growing up in Africa as a redhead wasn't exactly a picnic. There were very few of us around and the lascivious rays of the burning African sun is not condusive to being outside, playing sport or cultivating a golden tan, which is what most sixteen years of my acquaintance were doing. So sitting on the beach swaddled up to the eyeballs with sunscreen, long sleeved shirts, hats and umbrellas I was an anomaly, a freak, an oddity of nature. I hated the beach and still do. In Turkey they took one look at my passport's place of birth, then looked at me, and said in tones of disbelief: Kitwe? Zambia?

Oh how I yearned to be a brunette, preferably Elizabeth Taylor in her heyday. So nice to wake up in the morning with healthy whites of the eyes, eyebrows, eyelashes and deep brunette hair. Oh and I wanted violet-coloured eyes. I didn't listen to anything that anyone told me, like my mother who said I had "apple blossom skin". Human beings always want the exact opposite of what they have.

It was only when I went to Ireland that I finally accepted myself as a gorgeous redhead. Ireland was truly the Kingdom of the Redhead, from palest red to deepest auburn. It was my spiritual home and I LOOKED LIKE EVERYONE ELSE. They all had puckish faces, pointy chins, gummy smiles, pixie ears. It was heaven. Irish men turned around 360 degrees in the street when I walked past them; this had never happened to me in my life before. It was an epiphany. Turned out the red hair had come down to me from my mother's side. There had been several redheads on the distaff side, some with deep auburn hair. It was all DNA after all, not cosmic torture. My relatives loved my red-gold hair and said they couldn't get over how Irish I looked. I even met a cousin years later who also had red hair. She and I were so alike it was uncanny.

My cousin Siobhan and I ... when she takes out of its plait her hair is like a river of fire!

By writing this blog I aimed to exorcise the mean names I was called growing up. Because it is only when a redhead embraces her crowning glory that she can be truly beautiful in her own skin. My red-gold hair is tribute to my Celtic heritage, along with many other aspects of my personality, and I celebrate it every day. Red hair is currently the hottest thing around but unless you are born with it no bottled colour can ever recreate it. Hairdressers should say in awe: "Is this your natural colour?" as they pull it through their brush, shake their heads and add: "You can't get colour like this out of a bottle". What possessed Nicole Kidman to lose her strawberry Celt-fro and turn to icy blonde I will never know. I found a website on the Net called www.redheadandproud.com which might convince her to change back! The author Dale Dassel talks about "Celtic women, with all of their fire-tressed, wraith-like glory".

OK, OK, I ain't no wraith, but the hair is all mine!

DJ Bacchus rocks Soweto Wine Festival

2010-09-06T02:32:00.000-07:00

Bacchus style ... The red wine flowed in the VIP area which was sponsored by a different company each night.

Soweto has a different vibe from the rest of Johannesburg. Driving into this famous township there is a palpable heartbeat which thumps louder as one approaches from the south of the inner city. I am on my way to the sixth annual Soweto Wine Festival, which is about to transcend any wine festival I have ever been to in terms of sheer festivity.

New tastes and sensations ... in Soweto.

I'd been to a race day at Turffontein ealier in the day and drove past the Calabash (aka Soccer City, aka FNB Stadium), scene of the World Cup final, a moment of goosebumps. Although the racetrack was a stone's throw from Soweto a minibus seemed the most sensible way to get there, as I did not want to drink so much I could not find my way home again! So I drive to Sandton and there at Grayston Drive's Town Lodge pile into a small bus with several exhibitors who are going in early in readiness for the 3000-strong crowd which is expected. A young American couple comes on later.

We take the road south out of Sandton. A bling-bling momma in sunglasses and a Hummer surges past us, as I stare at the yellow-and-tan minedumps of the south, those honest reminder of the city's origins, adorned with the odd tree and a sparse tuft of grass. We pass the factories and the enormous billboards next to the highway which still celebrated the World Cup. The closer we get the louder and more insistent the music in the taxi grows, beating in time to the heart of this enormous city which has nurtured so many of South Africa's most famous folk. Am I in unfamiliar territory? No, I am a South African, of no particular colour. After the World Cup many of the invisible walls which tore South Africans apart came crashing down and I feel neither out of place nor unwelcome.

Entering Chris Hani Drive and the huge sign which read "Welcome to Soweto" I am struck by the energy of this city, its hustle and bustle, and apparent affluence unlike so many other townships. The taxis buzz up and down in their natural element, the roadside car-washes are doing great trade and the roads are choked with traffic. Soweto has become a destination for those who live in the leafy suburbs of the north to come and party at the weekend. Do the tourists see the huddled, motionless figure at the side of the road, covered in tattered rags? Is he dead, or sleeping off the night before?

Baragwanath Hospital, one of the scenes of what the papers are calling "the most bruising strike in South African history", looms up on both sides of the road. It is crowded and busy, no sign of protesters beating up nurses and doctors who dare to arrive for work.

And then suddenly we are at the University of Johanneburg campus. DJ for the three-nights Bacchus, who is also the Roman god of wine, had not yet started his shift and the revellers have yet to arrive. Later on it will get so packed you cannot turn around but for now I have time to look around outside and inside.

I talk to Marilyn Cooper from the Cape Wine Academy about the kind of wine drinkers the festival is attracting. Her three daughters and husband are running around getting everything done with super-efficiency so she has a bit of time to sit with me in a big green sofa outside, near the boerewors rolls stand, although she still fends off calls and sends someone off to deal with the DJ who is being a little over zealous a little early on (Bacchus at work again).

Marilyn tells me that this festival was "the face of the future", which thrills her as she is "an educator". The Soweto wine drinkers are becoming much more discerning and knowledgeable and ask for a specific vintage which they have encountered. Some are there just for the jol, like my delightful new friend "Angel" Palesa who wears a frilled, violet-coloured dress to match her mauve Blackberry. "What have you tried so far?" I ask her. "Oh everything," she waves, "the whites, the reds, the creams, the sherries ..."

"You must come out and listen to these guys from Savika playing old-style Soweto jazz," Marilyn says, pointing her head at two oldsters with swanker, two-tone shoes. "They're about 80 in the shade but they're amazing." The jazz oldies are spryly moving the beanbags around to make space. They later get the party moving outside as the saxophones flood through the night air.

"You'll meet my co-founder member Mnikelo Mangciphu later," Marilyn tells me. "He comes in at around 8 - dressed to the hilt!"

Besides the well known estates like Boschendal, Dalla Cia, Douglas Green, Rupert and Rothschild, Saronsberg, Spier, Nederburg and many others there are 12 BEE farms who are participating in this year's festival. Tukulu is 51 percent owned by black shebeen owners, I am told, and M'hudi Wines is the first black-owned wine farm to produce wines in South Africa.

Greetings ... from a pourer from Vendange.

I set off to talk to some of the owners. First up is Vivian Kleynhans from Seven Sisters whose Bukettraube Odelia NS won a Double Gold in America. Thanks to Heritage Link Brands CEO Selena Cuffe, who distributes South African wines in the States, Vivian's Sauvignon Blanc Vivian 2009 is the only South African wine served on Atlantic Airlines. Despite her wines being sold in 41 states in America Vivian still needs to get her wines onto local shelves and is negotiations with Checkers to that end.

I look all over for Hannes Myburgh from Meerlust, who never misses a Soweto Wine Festival. "Look out for a tall handsome man with grey hair,"" his assistant from Meridian, Annie van der Bijl, tells me. She gets the tall and handsome part right, but Hannes is more on the bald side (unless his hair is really, really short). Turns out he is sitting right behind me in the VIP section under the Sowetan stars while the snacks (crumbed chicken strips, spring rolls and mini vetkoek with mince) are going around. We search for a quiet spot as the visitors are by now flooding inside in an unstoppable tide and find some chairs upstairs. Some curious stares from fellow wine drinkers who perhaps think that Hannes and I are up to no good behind the curtains ...

Hannes has started up a BEE wine store on Meerlust with shares owned by the workers who also own the land. The farm which has been in his family since the eighteenth century is close to Stellenbosch off Baden Powell Drive (yeah, the Boy Scout guy). The wine store forms a storage facility and other estates are coming with their wines. "It's pretty groundbreaking. Some BEE ventures are not that successful but this looks like a winner.

"I love coming to Soweto," he says, "the enthusiasm is so infectious. There is a consciousness about drinking wine too which defines an evolving society. This is such an occasion ... all the girls dress up. I also like the fact that the lights keep going on and off. It gives me what you call in Afrikaans 'n riem onder die hart".

Pretty packaging ... inside the arena.

Inside the arena the stands are looking gorgeous. The usually barebrick walls with banks of plastic chairs for the students upstairs are tonight transformed by different decor in each area. The JC le Roux wine lounge is pimped out for the night with a stuffed cream couch as high as an elephant's eye and stools, and a cute bartender behind a bar featuring enticingly up-lit bottles encased upright in ice. I stop and linger over the Naughty Girl roses, charmingly bottled with pink polka-dot necks. I have a choice of stickers to put on my jacket and choose: "I'm Naughtier Than My Daughter". The roses are everywhere, including at the 4th St Stand ... is that to be the tipple of choice? KayaFM and City Press also have stands, as does DStv with an upstairs VIP section full of their clients. The technological side is not neglected and the latest Samsung mobiles are on display. At the far side of the hall is located a satellite branch of Norman Goodfellows as the visitors like to buy bottles and take them with them immediately.

There are also "saints" and angels from The Saints wine lounge circulating with pink fluffy haloes which they distribute to visitors. Looking down from the VIP area all I can see is a sea of bobbing pink fluff with sparkly bits.

In seventh heaven ... nothing wrong with a few saints and angels at a wine festival!

Inside again I bump into my young American couple whose teeth are stained with the tannins from South African reds. They are starting to weave slightly. They are not alone, one oldie jazzster is staggering merrily through the throng and great peals of laughter are coming from the crowd. It's packed to the rafters and visitors constantly Facebook themselves and their friends.

The "Platinum Arena" features some of the bigger names of the wine world. Marilyn tells me that she installed this to create more space as the visitors are now outgrowing the venue. She nods at a Turbine Hall lookalike building across the road and says she wants to hold the festival there next year.

But it's time for me to pay a visit to the Pick n Pay Taste Theatre where Erick Sikhosana, the sommelier of the Hyatt Hotel were earlier presenting with Jacob Pea from Jacob's Quest winery. I queue with Angel and her friends for the next experience, charismatic chef Citrum Khumalo from Asidle Gourmet Catering who takes us through the marriage of food and wine, and South Africa's first black winemaker Ntsiki BIyela from Stellekaya who shares her passion and knowledge.

The bursts of merriment from behind the white curtain reach fever-pitch, interrupting the talk, and Citrum jokes: "Are they doing a strip tease back there?" It;s a far cry from many wine festivals of the past where everyone dresses like they were off to Dullstroom for a flyfishing weekend, and looks super-important while they tell the winemakers that they have over-oaked their Chardonnay. Like snobbish hippos huddled together in a pool, those kind of festivals constitute an ever-shrinking market.

In between learning about which foods go best with the Pick 'n Pay wines provided Angel adeptly loads UberTwitter on my phone and sorts out my Blackberry messenger. They should clone her...

Marilyn is worried that her crowd will not leave but the four burly bouncers at the door have the situation under control. "Monitoring the situation,"" they bark into walkie talkies. A tidal wave of visitors suddenly pours out through the doors, en route to their cars. One reveller weaves his way down the path, and meets a tree. He very politely tries to negotiate its branches which refuse to get out of the way. There is great joie de vivre in the air although the Metro cops are waiting just around the corner, dying to pounce."I love you!" someone shouts out of their window at me as the music pumps out over the campus. The party animals at the braai area outside (not Marilyn's problem) are only just getting started. "WE WANT MORE!WE WANT MORE!" they begin chanting.

Bacchus would have been in seventh heaven, this is the stuff that his festivals were made of ...

Party Central ... the pink halo chicks get their groove on.

ALL PICTURES BY HEATHER McCANN PHOTOGRAPHY

August rush to the BMW Polo

2010-08-25T04:26:00.000-07:00

A panorama of the West Stand at Inanda. The place was packed!

The BMW International Polo at Inanda in Johannesburg was posh-but-relaxed and the early spring day turned out to be superb. A great crowd turned out to see Chile play South Africa and the BMW marquee held a record number of guests. The marquee was beautifully decorated in black and white with accents of fresh zesty green and many of the guests followed suit. The WASPy crowd of days gone by has dissolved into a more rainbow reflection of our nation and the black diamonds who flocked to the polo were of 24-carat quality.

Everything was going champion Chile's way until South Africa turned the tables and beat the visiting team 7-5. It may have been the presence of polo's whizzkid Jean du Plessis on the team!

Chile bites ... Giving our boys a good run for their money.

Isi-stickwork! Trying to give the ball a good clobber

Pattern of behaviour ...Each of the tables was beautifully decorated.

Even though the days of stomping the divots are over these three still found the time to see and be seen.

Bay watch ... or should that be 'babe'?

Close to the action ... picnic'ing pologoers enjoyed the game in style, despite the dust.

The big cheeses ... Moetetsi Mbeki, BMW PR Guy Trefoil and Bodo Donauer, the MD of BMW South Africa, with Shenila Mohamed.

Hats for Africa ... Pallu boutique owner Peta Eggieth-Symes with Michael de Pinna and Carolyn Steyn in matching pistachio-green hats.

A bit of posh ... better than a Panama!

More of the interior of the BMW marquee.

DJ Mr Edwards and Idols singer Graeme Watkins.

Lerato Ngwane, Zama Ngwane and Linda Makhanya.

In camera ... taking the photographer's picture!

ALL PICTURES BY SHAYNE DOYLE

This one ain't no Hollywood Hijack story!

2010-08-12T03:08:00.000-07:00

Oliver Schmitz at Cannes.

It was a moment of absolute magic at this year's Cannes Film Festival ... when South African born-and-bred Life, Above All got a ten-minute standing ovation at the Cannes World Cinema Showcase. A seasoned yet appreciative audience of critics called it a "heart-warmer” and a “tear-jerker”. Their response was a really big deal and boded well for the film's future.

Life, Above All is the story of a young girl (newbie actress Khomotso Manyaka) who plays 12-year-old Chanda, who has to battle against the gossip, superstition and lies which are poisoning her small village near Johannesburg. Her baby brother dies suddenly and the community of Elandsdoorn gossips that this is because her mother has HIV. So she goes on a journey to restore her mother’s dignity. The movie is based on the international award-winning novel Chanda's Secrets by Allan Stratton.

South African filmmaker Oliver Schmitz is no stranger to Cannes, this was his third time there. He took Mapantsula to Cannes in 1988 when it was selected for Un Certain Regard. He is also known for his movie Hijack Stories and a directorship in iconic movie Paris, Je T'aime.

Oliver was recently in Durban to promote the movie at the Durban Film Festival, held at the Suncoast Centre. I caught up with him there ...

My first questions to him were:

Q: Is there life ahead for Life, Above All? What now? What reaction did it get from South African audiences?

"Even though the Durban audience, was a lot more laid back than at Cannes the reaction was great. People were very emotional and responsive and the audience was appreciative."

Q: Any chance of an Oscar?

"Yes, I do hope Life Above All will be nominated for an Oscar. In terms of quality it should be taken seriously. The distributors in South Africa are NuMetro and there will be screenings next month (September) to qualify the film for the Oscars. Already there are three of four lobbyists in the States working towards this. Lobbying for an Oscar is treated almost like a political campaign."

Q: Is local more lekker? South Africans telling their own stories and using their own actors?

Oliver believes it is important to fight for projects that are genuinely South African and that he has always been a very strong advocate of this. "The story told will carry that film. There have always been stories that were validated by that response and it is possible to do this on a world platform. Some of the best movie critics such as the New York Times and Time magazine gave the film reviews that couldnt be bettered.

The cast of Life, Above All at Cannes.

"The critics said that young actresses Lerato Mvelase, Khomotso Manyaka and Harriet Manamela 'stole the show at Cannes', even though the buzz at the South African parties was around Jennifer Hudson and Terrence Howard for their role in the Winnie movie. Life, Above All was not even mentioned and it upset my actors at the time."

Q: What of the "Hollywood Hijack stories" though? That's South African stories made by big American directors using their own stars ...

"This is not necessarily good for the South African acting fraternity," Oliver told me. ""It is often an awkward mixture, although Clint Eastwood did a good job. It is important to use South African actors although this is not an easy route financially. Internationally the debate is not that important of course. But local funders need to step up."

Q: So it is patriotic in terms of filmmaking to use South African actors? Even young relatively unknowns, such as in Life, Above All, and Gavin Hood's cast in Tsotsi?

"South African actors are starting to make a name for themselves, take Hijack Stories for example. It's the same calibre of movie as my new one."

Q: So why does he live in Berlin now, working for German TV, and not in South Africa?

"If only I could live off my South African films ... but I need to work, learn my trade and make a daily living. I am going back to Berlin to start pre-production work on a TV movie for next year. I haven't stopped working for ten years!"

Q: What lies ahead for the movie?

"I am hoping that South African audiences are sitting up and taking notice. I believe that the film will do well."

The Durban Film Festival was the first introduction of Oliver's new film to South African audiences and from everything I have heard this movie will blow local and international audiences away .... watch out for it on your screens ...

PICTURES BY NADIA NEOPHYTOU

Joburg's cityscape in pictures

2010-08-04T09:39:00.001-07:00

More and more Joburg's inner cityscapes are being converted into canvases where graffiti artists display their colourful art. This kind of edgy street art is encouraged by local municipalities and is being featured in advertising billboards more and more. These photographs were taken by Kevin Friedman on Louis Botha Avenue alone.

Steven Sach, the head of Arts and Culture for the City of Johannesburg told Kevin that they "did not know what to do with Louis Botha" and had given it over to the graffiti artists, three of whom advertised their website in the images. This is in keeping with many other large cities which are also favouring graffiti artists.

The universality of graffiti art is adhered to in both the figures and the text but Joburg's graffiti is a reflection of its community. Graffiti art owes a lot to hiphop culture and this comes through as well. Who knew our streets are so colourful? Next time you pass a wall which looks decrepit, devoid of paint and covered in graffiti, take another look.

Your local street artists have been working overtime, and maybe next week, who knows? These images may have been painted over ...

The artists use every bit of available space, like this clever use of a door.

And then there is "tagging", without which no respectable graffiti artist can look at himself in the mirror ...

Who knew an outside wall, or the wall of your house, could look so great?

Sometimes the images look a little scary ...

The fabulous 'Shoprite Checkers Women of the Year'

2010-07-27T01:31:00.000-07:00

Sing it, girlfriend! Lira was one of the performers at the Shoprite Checkers Women of the Year awards at Emperors Palace.

Those stalwarts who have attended every single Shoprite Checkers Women of the Year Awards, which searches for exceptional and visionary women achievers whose determination and foresight are making an impact on the future of fellow South Africans, said that this year's event at Emperors Palace near OR Tambo Airport was the best ever.

August is the month which celebrates the women of South Africa and their role in our future, and this was a particularly feel-good function as some of these women are unsung heroines who do such good work in their communities, never expecting any sort of reward.

This year there were some intriguing new categories, from a Corner Shop to Big Business Makers Category to Good Neighbours, Health Care-Givers, Educators and a Youth Movers Category. In addition there was a Lifetime Achievement Award up for grabs.

The entertainment was pretty great too, as the fabulous voices of Mara Louw, Lira, Jennifer Jones, Sibongile Khumalo and Loyiso were raised in song.

Winter wonderland ... the table settings were done by Nataniel with lots of candles, crystal, silverware and white linen.

Sister Jane Munyadziwa Dzebu ... who won in the Health Care Givers category. Sister Jane, who treats women for gynaecological cancers at the Charlotte Maxeke-Johannesburg Hospital, said she wanted the girl children of South Africa to be informed about their bodies and their health and that the only barometer to gauge the health of this nation is how we treat and empower our women and girl-children.

Founder of SA Fashion Week ... Lucilla Booyzen, who won in the From Corner Shop to Big Business category. Modest Lucilla said the award is an acknowledgement of the impact that SA Fashion Week has had on the SA public at large. She added: “Our aim is to create awareness in the minds of the SA consumer to the vast creative design resources that are available to them through our emerging design industry and the unlimited opportunities to create thousands of jobs through building SMMEs and luxury brands which is the future of fashion in Africa”.

The Good Neighbours Award ... went to Lesle Ann Van Selm who founded the Khulisa Crime Prevention Initiative 13 years ago. To create a positive outcome in the aftermath of crime she used African stories for morals in a series of crime prevention and community development interventions aimed at offenders in prisons, ex-offenders and at-risk youth and vulnerable children in communities to restore their self esteem, prevent crime and reduce recidivism, make restitution, and offer socially responsible alternatives to gangs, drugs and crime.

Educator ... Jackie Gallagher is the founder and general manager of the Sparrow Schools Educational Trust which started 20 years ago after she placed a small newspaper advertisement resulting in her teaching 4 learners on Saturdays in a church hall in Joubert Park in Johannesburg. The initiative grew to a well-respected educational organisation that has helped thousands of children to better their education and skills for a brighter future. Today the Sparrow Schools and Educational Trust are two interconnected projects catering for around 600 children and youth from impoverished communities at a time, employing 82 staff members at the Foundation School in Melville and the Sparrow Combined Vocational Training Centre in Sophiatown.

Khanyisile Motsa ... was honoured with the Youth Movers Award for her work at the Berea-Hillbrow Home of Hope. She founded the Berea-Hillbrow Home of Hope ten years ago and has since touched the lives of more than 8 000 street children who have had the opportunity to get their childhood back and have the prospect of becoming responsible citizens shaping the future of South Africa. Ms Motsa works in an area in South Africa that’s hardly spoken about and often ignored – child prostitution – and also has to confront dangerous intermediaries - the pimps further putting her life in danger. Human trafficking is a fact of life in South Africa, she said, and every human being deserves to be treated with dignity.

By winning the Award these five women each received R30 000 in individual prize money as well as R100 000 towards the work they do for a better future in South Africa.

Dr Mamphela Ramphele ... seen here with Whitey Basson from Shoprite Checkers, was honoured with the Shoprite Checkers Women of the Year Lifetime Achiever Award after the public nominated her as an esteemed South African whom during her lifetime has inspired generations. She received R100 000 to donate to a cause which she believes will better the lives of South Africans.

The event will be broadcast during prime time on Monday, 9 August 2010 on M-Net.

Ten Reasons To Hate Winter

2010-07-21T02:49:00.000-07:00

Johannesburg's winters are most depressing, not least because of the contrast with summer. While summer is lush and green, moisture-filled and full of glorious sunshine and electric thunderstorms, winter is in stark contrast to its sister lazy, hazy, crazy days. This may be Africa but for three months the Highveld gets bitterly, bitterly cold. But the cold is not the worst of it, there's more ... In the throes of post-World Cup depression I need to vent like a true bipolar South African, so here are my personal ten worst things about this particular Highveld July.

1. The World Cup is over. It's a mindset thing. Winter was bearable when the tournament was on because, even in a freezing stadium in Polokwane when temperatures plummeted to minus 10 and the fans' teeth chattered in time to the vuvuzelas, there was so much excitement in the air it kept us warm. But with all our wonderful overseas visitors gone what incentive is there for us to want to go out in this weather? The buzz and vibe has gone on to another part of the world and suddenly everything we do seems so Mickey Mouse. Suddenly 'chilling out' doesn't seem so much fun anymore. We would rather sit in our blankies at home watching the rather lacklustre television. Sigh, no more Wimbledon, no more Tour de France.

Fly me a river ... When will Lanseria International Airport look like this again? A friend sent me pictures of all the private jets flying in for the final match.

Even the smog was a VIP ... Look how pretty the Highveld sunset looks behind all those private jets!

2. The cold is physically painful especially if you have been raised in warm sunshine and your blood is thinner. It's the same every year. Our winter is cold in a way that is incomprehensible to a European used to snow and ice. This is a bone-biting cold accompanied by a nasty little wind that slices like a super-mean meat cleaver right through armour-plated winter wear. Wrapped up like an armadillo? Think you're safe? The wind will finger its way around the cuffs of your coat, then thrust itself deep down your sleeves, raping your unwilling flesh. It finds its sneaky, insidious way through your vest, shirt, three jerseys, scarf and coat. It sneaks up to your ankles and permafrosts the one patch of flesh that isn't covered up with insulation. Your body hurts from top to toe from the effort of trying to stay warm and maintain its core temperature. Everything in your cupboard is cold, the loo seat hurts your bum when you sit on it. And you stick to the shower curtain!

Even the Antarctic is not this unpleasant.

3. There is no central heating besides natural solar power. So you pray for a fine sunny day just to warm you up. Foreigners come here and laugh off May, strutting around in shirt sleeves. By June they put on a jersey but when July kicks in their faces start to fall. "It's so cold!" they finally confess under torture, blaming their lack of resistance on South Africa's blissful unawareness of building insulated buildings. But central heating would be a joke for the other nine months of the year, so why would we install it?

4. Everyone gets sick in winter, due to the extreme fluctuations in temperature and general lurginess in offices. It's a germ fest. The office reverberates with the sounds of sniffing, hacking, sneezing and general phlegm-iness. People look like Rudolph the red nosed reindeer but insist on coming to work. Don't you dare touch my keyboard! I go down with a cold the second week of every July like clockwork, and the only reason it hasn't happened this year is because I have been fortifying myself with lemon juice and honey every morning, drinking Berocca, washing my hands insiduously, eating lots of chicken soup and staying inside like a hibernating bear. I might as well have been sick because that's my recovery plan every year anyway!

5. After two terrible weeks of black frost the garden is completely dead. The pelargoniums that were my pride and joy last February are shrivelled brown and dry. The garden seems full of dead leaves that I cant bear to sweep up as my bones ache when I go out. It's lifeless. Could spring be only five weeks off and will I have to completely restock my plants? It seems inconceivable that life will ever spring up again in their veins, never mind mine. And where has my energy gone to? Usually I cant wait to start planting nice things like heartsease, pansies and primulas.

6. A heavy blanket of dust lies on everything inside and outside like a shroud. The plants and trees are bowed down under its weight,losing any semblance of green. The dust lies thick on my shelves and as I move it off it moves off to lurk malignantly somewhere else. It's a bad office colleague who likes to make trouble for you and you just have to live with it. No point in relocating the negative energy. Just wait for the cleansing rains.

7. Speaking of dust my car is permanently dirty. You can see kitty paw prints on it where the neighbourhood cats have had a jol. Children who should be in school learning to write practise their writing skills on my car. WASH ME! they implore. What's the point? Five minutes later it is just as dirty again.

8. The car doors bite you when you touch them. The static built up over four months of zero moisture in the air means you get an electric shock from everything you touch. You nearly electrocute your loved ones every time you hug them, and vice versa. But it's worth it. People recommend rubbing hand cream on pantihose to stop your clothes from riding up your thighs (an interesting look). Your hair stands on end and needs expensive deep moisture treatments at the hairdresser.

9. Your skin becomes positively crocodilian. I woke up this morning and saw my face was puckered up all over like Tutankhamen's mummy! It took three applications of face cream to restore the elasticity. My hands permanently look like a dried-up river bed. It costs money to buy all this rich Clarins night cream that my skin will only reject in spring. My back permanently shivers from the dry skin between my shoulder blades. Applying moisturising lotions and potions also a painful process as the cold attacks your naked form. The dryness of a Highveld winter will quickly dehydrate you again.

10. Winter is depressing and the cold leads to an enormous appetite. Only in winter do you want to eat a large roast chicken with roast potatoes and gravy, followed by three slices of buttered bread and a large sticky pudding.

On the plus side? You get to eat nice things like oxtail and buttered parsnips, and wear tailored coats and gorgeous boots. You catch up on your reading, manage to do your taxes, plan a complete house revamp. I also love exercising when I am wrapped up warm. Soup is a wonderful thing and you actually have early nights ... but this winter is beginning to feel interminable, so I say roll on spring.

Time to say goodbye

2010-07-12T01:00:00.000-07:00

Yes, folks, the show is over but the memories remain. Last night's 2010 Fifa World Cup Final saw spectacular fireworks over Soweto as Spain and Holland battled it out at Soccer City. It was an extraordinarily frustrating match with no memorable moments, besides a record number of yellow cards, and one red one. The closing ceremony was infinitely better than the opening one (unbelievable light effects and loved the elephants at the waterhole) and rumours abound of Lebogang Morake, aka Lebo M, being "relieved of his duties" because according to one source he did not write the African music that was in his contract. He kept the title of co-executive producer of the ceremony, though and got paid several million rand. Sinister shades of what we need to avoid from now on ...

So unlike the Fifa endorsed Andrea Bocelli concert, which formed the Grand Finale. That will live in my heart for many a year to come. Was I in Milan, or at The Dome in Northgate? No matter what the venue was, the music was like the music of the spheres which I used to learn about when I studied medieval literature as a student.

South Africa goes back to work with a vengeance today but the memories of this time will linger long. It is time that ordinary South Africans put pressure on their elected government to quash crime and corruption so that we can live our lives in the same way as we have for the past month. I am not saying that Fifa are wonderful, but it was entirely in their own interests that things worked and that there were no outbreaks of crime (or none reported, I wonder how much happened that we did not hear about?). And so it should be with the South African government. With all the focus on this country it is simply bad PR to allow the vultures, hyenas and scavengers of the criminal world to continue feasting on the flesh of South Africa.

Down with crime.
Down with corruption.
Down with political lies and mismanagement.
Down with public figures backstabbing each other.
Down with xenophobia
Down with non-service delivery.
Down with the likes of Julius Malema, may he fall silent for ever.
Down with poverty.
Down with HIV/Aids
Down with rape and domestic violence.
Down with racism.

And long live:

A united non racial nation.
A virtually crime-free environment where citizens can walk freely in the streets.
A thriving economy.
Service delivery: let the taxpayers' money go where it should go
Lengthy jail time for those who break the law, whoever they may be.
A strong leadership that cares about the interests of its electorate and refuses to allow rabble rousing.
Zillions of tourists who come back with their families and fellow countrymen to share their cultures with us.
Jobs and food for everyone who lives here, regardless of where they come from
A first world infrastructure
A "green" environment, with solar powered robots and public buildings

Utopia? No, I don't think so. Look what we just showed the world ... we can do anything we put our minds to.

Images of Jozi 2010!

2010-07-05T12:23:00.000-07:00

On the ball .... The big soccer ball hanging at OR Tambo International Airport.

The arrivals hall was done out like a soccer field.

The road out from OR Tambo International.

My city has never been so exciting as during this 2010 Fifa World Cup which started and ended in Soweto. Flags have festooned the city and soccer balls are everywhere plus the irrepressible spirit and friendliness to people from all over the world that are the hallmarks of Joburg. Friend and jewellery designer Kevin Friedman went around on my behalf snapping some images which capture the mood and exuberance which has enveloped Joburg for the past month.

Joburg is looking amazing, unlike Cape Town, where you wouldn't think anything was happening at all! Think of the flag opportunities, just that huge big mountain, for starters. Even the SABC building in Auckland Park has a giant flag outside that you can see for miles. Here's to Jozi 2010!

Riches from rags ... Yeoville residents have created signs out of weighted plastic bags that say: FEEL IT! IT IS HERE".

Flagging down motorists ... The highways are awash with flags from every country.

The wow factor ... entering the Nelson Mandela Bridge.

Mr Big ... the skyscraper huge picture of Ronaldo sponsored by Nike.

Spot the soccer ball ... The Telkom Tower, aka the Hillbrow Tower.

Go Bafana ... who could forget the "flowerbeds" of yellow hands at Gilloolys Interchange? They were periodically put back in place after some of them fell over!

Buy one, buy 'em all. The flag vendors were cleaning up.

Anthropomorphic ... Newtown Fan Fest's giant "Coke Man" that lights up at night.

Stars and stripes ... The American flag flies from a Sandton penthouse.

Painting vuvuzelas ... unlike a Chinese vuvu these are homegrown!

If you can maka it here, you can maka it anywhere ... Makarapas from every country on sale outside Gramadoelas restaurant at the Market Theatre.

A Jewish makarapa ... at Museum Africa where they had a collection of exotic makas.

Street art ... even the graffiti artists got in on the act.

It's electric ... despite the threatened Eskom strike.

Play ball ... The little soccer player outside the Ghana team's hotel.

Celebrating Ghana ... the party for Africa's last remaining team at Melrose Arch brought out all sorts of supporters.

The Fan Fest at Montecasino.

Well, yellow there ... The VIP lounge at the SABC media centre in the Sandton Convention Centre.

Can't miss it ... The South African flag featured large on the outside of buildings and businesses.

Er, you've got an eyelash in your eye ... some fans went the extra mile.

Hot as hell ... fans appreciate the local women.

Turn me on ... Even the lights at Soccer City were in keeping with the theme.

Subtle tribute ... PJ Powers hits a patriotic note with her takkies (sneakers).

Africa unites ... A T-shirt at Museum Africa with flags from the participating African countries on it.

A Joburg suburb supports the Holland team in the final.

Orange man ... Some people made no bones about who they were supporting!

ALL IMAGES BY KEVIN FRIEDMAN

Crying for BaGhana with Mick, SIR Sol and Leo

2010-07-05T01:30:00.000-07:00

The place was packed!

South Africa is in the grip of an unheard of exuberance right now. The mood is party-mode only and Twitter and Facebook keep closing down because of the tsunami of texting and tweets that fly back and forth over the ether. Everyone is at a match or a function or a street party or a fan fest or making new international friends. Even though there are now only two more big matches, how do you choose where you want to be or what you want to do or who you want to do it with? We just do not want this to end. Sepp Blatter for President, say I (not just president-for-a-month)!

The focus shifted to Cape Town over the weekend with a couple of huge parties (the Sol Kerzner party (we have to call him SIR Sol now, doesn't it have a cute ring to it?) and StringCaesar premiere, both at the One&Only) and the big quarter final matches between Argentina and Germany and Uruguay and Ghana. I am eternally grateful to Edith Venter-Schwartz and her husband Johnny Schwartz, who made sure that I had a plane ticket to go down via Kulula.

Accommodation was tight as the Mother City, which had not been at capacity throughout the tournament, suddenly filled up to the brim. PR Wendy Masters and her team who were handling the Sol Kerzner event at the One&Only went out of their way to try to fit me into the hotel, and the Table Bay also went the extra mile, phoning me at the last minute to say they had accommodation for me. I was so grateful to them both for their efforts. Fortunately I had found something in the pretty Gardens area so it was easy to have a fab cocktail beforehand with Louise and Sammy from Greater Than PR at the Mount Nelson, just to catch our breath. Red Nellies all round at the Planet Bar; if you haven't tried one of these you need to.

I brought friend and designer Francois Rall, who had been working extremely hard on his collection for Africa Fashion Week, to the party. He and Wendy were friends from way back when, and had spent the millennium in Hermanus with Sol's right hand man Ian Douglas. Francois, who is a very quietly connected person, told me he had been in a club in Paris in around 1983. It was one of those places where you had to purchase a bottle of pop at an astronomical sum, which ensured you a table. An English girl with multi-coloured hair hair came over and asked if she could share the table with Francois and his oil-tycoon heiress friend. Turned out she was with Mick Jagger's band and she brought the man himself over. Needless to say they all had a whale of a time.

Wendy had mentioned a possible "cameo appearance" by Mick as well as Leonardo di Caprio, who were staying at the hotel. Mick had watched the Ghana game with the US in Rustenberg and had come down to Cape Town for a week to stay. (Just to digress, my mother always makes me laugh when she describes how she was in London in 1969, switched on the television and there was Mick Jagger calming down his fans after fellow Rolling Stone Brian Jones had been found dead in a swimming pool. "Cool it, kids," he told them, and, she puts in about 50 exclamation marks at this point, "he was wearing a broderie anglaise shirt!!!!!")

No broderie anglasie on this occasion, as MJ's sartorial style seems to have calmed down. He arrived very quietly after dinner and the game in a dark T-shirt and jacket with his bodyguard and strolled off to the Nobu bar where local beauty Gina Athans in a long red dress joined them five minutes later. She was going clubbing with his party afterwards, she told me in the loo. It had "all been arranged". We were all too busy enjoying our delicious meal to take much notice, as the dishes kept arriving in quick succession and we were having a wonderful time. We were next to Brandon Kerzner's party, as Sol Kerzner had arrived earlier in the evening (did you know that his late brother Butch came up with the One&Only concept?). There was a bit of a kerfuffel when the PR photographers were chased away by the very woes bodyguard who flew at him like a mother bird defending her nest. So a photo opportunity with Sol and Mick Jagger was lost.

Upstairs the hotel was pumping with all the Beautiful Young Things of Cape Town and even businessman Patrice Motsepe made an appearance. The focus was on the game between Ghana and Uruguay (yes, they of the "hand of Uruguay goal") and the excitement, despair and adrenalin was epic. There were cheers and groans and wild cries from everyone watching. Leonardo di Caprio arrived in a schlumpy big white shirt and baseball cap and sat up at the upstairs bar.

Now came the interesting part. I could understand why the bodyguards are so unpleasant. Every single girl in the place, decked out in the tightest smallest skirts imaginable, made a beeline for the bar where Leo was sitting. Even a girl on crutches in a leopard-print dress hopped up one stair at a time to try her luck but got beaten back by her more predatory and able-bodied sisters. At first I could clearly see him from where I was sitting as he was silhouetted in the circular windows of the bar, but then he sort of disappeared under the weight of bodies. Fortunately when the game really got nail-biting he was more or less left alone.

I was kept amused by all the celebrity anctics which my fellow journos were tweeting to me from Port Elizabeth where Paris Hilton was busy being arrested. I recently indulged in a Blackberry so I can keep up with all the Jones, or the Hiltons in this case. I just wish we were still in the Space Race so we could have sent her up in a rocket into the atmosphere, the original space cadet. There is no oxygen up there for her to steal. I retaliated with all my news and so it went.

The place was starting to pulsate and the dance floor was pumping. Everyone was having a helluva time, even though the tears were flowing for Ghana, now dubbed "BaGhana BaGhana". I had talked Francois into changing his flight to a 5.45am one, just so he could join me at the party. Miraculously he didn't hate me. It was really tough to leave at midnight, as bedtime in South Africa is now around 3am every night.

But Francois and I saw each other again the next night in Joburg after his show. "My black dresses are unbelieveable,"" he told me, and they lived up to expectations. We all had a lovely dinner at Bukhara, after I had escaped from some Argentinean journalists. After you've said "Hola", and kissed each other, what more is there to say? Soccer transcends language barriers but not to that degree, and I had a sneaking suspicion they were Uruguay supporters. Uruguay is the new Robert Mugabe of soccer, they are cheats and horrid and we hate them.

I really really wanted to stay for the StringCaesar premiere but Joburg was calling me back. The focus shifts here with a vengeance this week, and the highway was closed for two hours yesterday in a trail run for the Big Day. They wouldn't do that unless Barack Obama himself was coming out for the final (he isn't apparently). It's going to be the party-of-all-parties and I for one am booking my acommodation in Soweto, as that is where it's going to be at!

PS: I heard later that Sol Kerzner abruptly left the Penthouse party the following Monday, as he did not think any of the people there were the right crowd who could afford his penthouse prices!

Local fashion gets international exposure

2010-06-23T00:50:00.000-07:00

It was founder and director of SA Fashion Week Lucilla Booyzens who used the phrase "The Business of Fashion" as her marketing message for fashion in South Africa. The message was clear. No matter how creative a young designer is, he or she cannot possibly hope to make it in the tough world of fashion if they don't have a sound business plan and know how to merchandise their work.

South African designer Spero Villioti has worked in haute couture for many years and a few years ago started up an Elite Design Academy for budding fashion designers to learn the craft of "high dressmaking". However Spero and his wife Vanessa decided that they needed an exchange programme in addition to the three-year course at their design academy, to help their students to have a more global approach. Spero and Vanessa liked the Parsons School of Design model and approached Parsons about giving Spero's students exposure to an international market via an informal exchange.

The Parsons School of Design, in New York's Fashion District, is of course where Project Runway was shot during summer school. There was an attempt to film it in California for one season but the series stayed in New York thereafter as it worked for TV better, says John Jay, one of the lecturers at the school who has been teaching Spero's students for the past three years.

Both John Jay and fellow lecturer Jean Larkin's programmes are extremely condensed. John, who takes the afternoon class after Jean's morning session, says he only has two days to teach a programme that would normally take a week. With only three hours in each class he says that his South African students are just as focused as their counterparts in New York and that he sees progress in their work. High praise indeed.

John Jay with his pupils, teaching them about the business of fashion.

It's fashion boot camp and the students sweat bullets, but the payoffs are massive. Students get a certificate from Parsons and the discipline and knowledge they acquire give them a huge advantage.

What's involved in the courses? John teaches his pupils "model drawing", which differs markedly from life drawing. It's not an art class, there is a formula to model drawing and everything is very idealised (for example, the people in the sketches would be extremely elongated and unrealistically skinny). The student has to capture a pose and make sure there is movement in the sketch.

Interestingly, model drawing has evolved over the decades. If you look back to Dior's New Look the physiques, poses and physiognomy of the models (the "orchid women") were remarkably different from today's, which are longer and leaner.

The requirements of a fashionable look and silhouette changes dramatically from generation to generation. The student needs to start off with an inspiration for his or her design, but has to understand history and always go back to the same departure point. There is also the question of fabrication: is it the right weight for the garment? So practical concerns also need to be taken into consideration.

Not only do the students study model drawing but they are introduced to new projects which throw them out of their comfort zone. They have to undertake projects which are the opposite of their own personal style and be made to go in another direction from their normal way of doing things. They have to learn to be more practical and are given a fictional person that they have to create a profile of, along the lines of a real-life client. So the profile they create of their "client" has to be accurate, not fictional or unbelievable. This profile is supported with technical drawings (called "flats") of an entire collection, and every detail and proportion has to be in proportion with no guesswork.

In John and Jean's courses students learn to make not just couture work, but the full gamut of clothing from menswear to children and ladieswear, and even knitwear. There are a lot more options for students to gain experience.

What about the counter-exchange programme? Will students from New York come out to Spero's Hyde Park studio? John Jay says that NY kids could learn about couture techniques, that specialisation which is evident in Spero's dresses.

He says he is impressed by Spero's students' progress over the past three years. "Design does not know borders," he adds.

Will anyone from the Parsons School be in South Africa to see South African fashion? Africa Fashion Week will be showing at the end of June, but sadly John Jay will be teaching summer school in New York. Maybe next time ....

Warm buttery Jaguars and a couple of Sirs

2010-06-20T02:59:00.001-07:00

Two Sirs, a couple of Ma'ams and a Right Honourable or two... was I in a Nancy Mitford novel? No, indeedy, though it felt just as grand. Yesterday saw a reception to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's birthday at the British High Commissioner, Dr Nicola Brewer's Johannesburg residence in Hyde Park and the Prince William and Prince Harry were guests of honour, as was the Rt Hon Boris Johnson, the half Russian and Eton-schooled Mayor of London. He arrived in South Africa this week to lend support to London's hosting of the 2012 Summer Olympics, as well as England's bid to stage the Fifa World Cup in 2018.

Things have calmed down a little since the ultimate football Friday and the vuvuzelas have died down all over town since Bafana Bafana were defeated at the hands of the Uruguyans this week and focus is on the games. But famous folk are arriving every day to support their teams, and the "Sirs" (as we were instructed to address them; what if I were to panic and call them Ma'am instead?) came out to support the English team, as Prince William is the head of the Football Association in the UK. The FA has always had a member of the British Royal Family as its figurehead President, since 1939.

The princes had been at the dismal game between England and Algeria the night before and had a busy schedule. Just before our function they had both attended a Fifa lunch at The Saxon and so were somewhat late for the Commissioner's reception, despite all the British insistence on protocol and punctuality. All the formal hobnobbing made a change from their time at the Mokoladi Wildlife Foundation in Botswana where Prince Harry was photographed by my newspaper mock-threating his brother with an African python. It peed near William's feet - Harry's face was a picture.

When we arrived we were sent down the road to Summer Place in Hyde Park where gleaming Jaguars with soft leather interiors the colour of butter, central heating and walnut finishes picked all the gentlemen in their military dress and medals and the ladies in coats and suits up and shuttled us to the venue. Heady stuff and enough to make you feel like a Ma'am, or at least as though you were in a James Bond movie! The warmth made a welcome change from the icy winter air which has slammed down on sunny South Africa. It's bliksem cold, colder than an ostrich's plucked behind. Fans have been shivering in temperatures of -10.5 degrees in places like Polokwane. The travel agents warned the British fans to pack their long johns and prepare for cold weather, but the silly poohs are constantly seen on television looking ferociously pink and pre-pneumonial in T-shirts and shorts.

Before the royal arrival talk focused on the "angry fan" who managed to breach security and slip into the English team's dressing room. He had a "frank discussion" with David Beckham about the team's no-goal performance against Algeria; by "frank' we understood his language was somewhat unrestrained. Fifa's face was even more eggy because the Princes had just left the dressing room and all security had been focused on them. The thing is there have been upsets all round (including us!) and even Germany lost to Serbia. I will put money on the fact that the stoical Germans just drank more beer, instead of weeping and wailing, gnashing their teeth and invading dressing rooms.

The princes were due to circle the room and the guests were instructed to get into "clusters", each with its own "cluster champion". The clusters were tables where groups were expected to gather in groups so it made it easier to circulate. First we got to meet the Rt Hon Boris though. Former journo-turned-politico Boris turned out to be a character, very raconteurial. He looks a bit like an albino-esque, unmade bed and is no stranger to controversy, but seems great fun and obviously good with the press.

He is currently blogging from South Africa on how football can transform lives for the better and even has been seen blowing the vuvuzela. The travel agents did not warn fans about "vuvu fever" which has bitten so many of them. When you hear that incessant droning, it's not just the South Africans, the fans are piling in too whether the BBC likes it or not. Love 'em or hate 'em, the vuvs are going back to Europe with the fans and even flying off the shelves at Sainsburys. So much for noise pollution, just buy it a plane ticket and send it somewhere else!

Prince William was ushered over to our table which was mostly media (The Guardian, Pretoria News, Nadia Neophytou from Eyewitness News, Chris Maroleng "dont touch me in my studio"" from E News Africa) and handsome former footballer Paul Elliot turned football ambassador, looking fabulously GQ in a striped tie and suit. Paul is a smoothie of note and rather hogged the prince but we all finally got a chance to shake his hand. The prince obviously loves to talk football and was quite frank about the fan incident. The English need to get behind their team, he said and the South Africans nodded sagely, agreeing that they need to do the same for theirs. He also let fall the fact that team coach Fabio Capello could be a "bit petulant", which could qualify as the understatement of the year.

It's such a weird thing about people always in the media but you feel as though you know them. I have had a very soft spot for Prince Harry since he was born, but was told that he would only be greeting the other side of the room, not the side I was on. His brother is the future king of England but Harry is the one who touches people's hearts, the "naughty one". He is his mother and is so good with children, in Botswana the children made him a "Chelsy Davy" television set which he loved!

I was told to be "more pushy" if I wanted to meet my favourite prince, so I went over to the other side, greeting Mike Higgins en route. Mike was formerly with Virgin Airlines but is now with Botswana Air. Mike was delighted there were fellow Glaswegians present, such as Brian Gallagher, also of the British High Commission. Brian introduced me to Prince Harry and I was able to tell him that I had seen his cousin, Lady Kitty Spencer, another charmer, this February (in 44 degrees heat, I might add). He looked quite surprised by this information but said they very seldom went down to Cape Town. My prince was looking very tired at this stage, not surprisingly what with the exhausting schedule and the fact that they had probably got to bed late after the game.

The princes moved towards the front as the High Commissioner gave the toast to the Queen after both national anthems were sung. A lot of nice things were said about the way South Africa is hosting the 2010 Fifa World Cup, and about the country in general. After the royals had left we all got stuck into the cupcakes before the buttery Jaguars purred up the front door to take us back to our cars and we all ran shivering for our heaters at home.

The ultimate Football Friday

2010-06-11T09:26:00.000-07:00

It was an early morning start to what has been dubbed "one of the most important days in South African history", the opening match between South Africa and Mexico, as the vuvuzelas rang out at 5am, the sound that a despondent music lover has described as "the gray drone of the B flat". It may have been the constant monotonous droning, but even the family cat was infected by the soccer spirit. He kicked the carpet with his back legs and played vigorously, looking for new toys and attention.

I decided to go to work early as the highway would probably be choked with 80 000 fans making their way to Soccer City and I was worried I would not be able to make it. Is there anything worse than having to go to work when everyone else is having a huge fabulous party?. Taxi commuters vigorously blew their vuvus out of the windows and pedestrians waved little flags, but otherwise things seemed surprisingly quiet. The freeway was clear, with its four new lanes, and no roadworks in sight, and I sailed into work. Unlike the past 18 months, when every morning produced a new set of challenges and everywhere there was an obstacle and a driving nightmare.

At work things were frenetic. A colleague had brought along her naughty-eyed 12 year old son and his young friend dressed in a British fan outfit. The two ran around blowing their vuvuzelas at top volume all around the harassed journos, and I could see colleagues visibly gritting their teeth. Finally, like a good Afrikaans mother, she put her foot down. "Stephen! That's the last time you blow that thing!" she yelled at him. The vuvus ceased and soon she left, taking both boys with her.

Newspapers have to come out, come rain or shine and most of us were tied to our desks for the day while others had taken leave or were leaving at 1pm. Someone had set up a projector behind me with a big picture onto the wall. Normally it was reserved for news conferences but today it was all ours as our editor was at the match, with his whole family (only editors got consideration, everyone else got kicked to the kerb!). Everyone wore their yellow soccer shirts, which they had been sporting on "Football Fridays" for some months now.

I had two pages to put out but was afraid that things would get so noisy right behind me there would be no way in Hades. But then we got the news about Nelson Mandela's great-grand-daughter being killed on her way back from the World Cup opening concert and that he would not be attending today's match. She had only turned 13 on Wednesday, a few days ago. Devastating for the family, especially her mother Zindi. Her great grandmother Winnie had not been in the car, a friend told me. A close friend of the family, she had woken up that morning to about 30 SMSs and missed calls about the tragedy. It was a blow on both a personal and public scale and a waste of a young life.

Not a good start to the World Cup. Especially when South Africa was on such a high. We need to win this match so desperately I thought, not just for sporting reasons.

A journalist approached me about Victoria Beckham whom she had been tipped off was arriving that morning. It would be a perfect time for Posh to slip into the country, especially when every single press member would be either at Soccer City or reporting on the soccer. It would be like Frodo Baggins going to Mount Doom when the Eye of Sauron was turned away from his own kingdom. I phoned a journo friend at another publication but he was watching the game with his mum and hadn't heard anything. The Queen of the Wags was free to slip into the country during the opening ceremony without any stray paparazzi recording her every move.

702 began to report on the hideous traffic jam which had ensnarled Sandton. Johannesburg has earned itself the unenviable reputation of having some of the worst traffic jams in the southern hemisphere and this was the mother of all traffic jams. The motorists had knocked off from work at 12 (even the Johannesburg Stock Exchange was closed for the day) and were trying to get their cars to the Park and Ride stations so they could take buses to the stadium. Even the Bafana Bafana team was trapped in the traffic and missed the opening ceremony! The Fan Parks at Innisfree and Tshwane, which were to take the overflow, had to close their doors after the first 20 000 fans.

Despite many empty seats the "Calabash" stadium looked quite astonishing from the air as five jets roared overhead. What a beautiful stadium. I was filled with pride over my home town. Soweto was where it was all happening, quite rightly as the soccer culture of South Africa was born here. How wonderful to think that these images were being beamed all around the world.

Finally I finished my pages and could take my seat next to my colleagues and watch the match itself. How the whole place went crazy when South Africa scored its first and only goal against Mexico, the vuvus started all over again! It was an amazing attempt by the 80 something-th ranked team against the 17th top team in the world. The sangomas might not have been right when they anticipated a 2-0 win for South Africa but we held our heads high, defended our goalposts furiously and made the country proud.

Tonight Cape Town will be in the spotlight as the second game, Uruguay against France, kicks off. The Mother City looks gorgeous with the city lights on and the fans are streaming into the Green Point Stadium.

Vuvuzelaland!

2010-06-10T02:29:00.000-07:00

The picture says it all!

I have not felt the electric current coursing through South Africa's veins so strongly since I was a junior sub working at the Star newspaper in 1994 when, suddenly, we were the news and the whole newsroom came alive.

The World Cup is one day away and the party is only just beginning. Cape Town has finally woken up and lit up Adderley Street with soccer lights, Durban and Port Elizabeth are going crazy and Nelspruit is completely itself. Not to mention all the other towns, dorpies, farms and countryside where games are and are not being played.

The country is awake with the sound of the vuvuzela, our secret weapon designed to strike terror into the hearts of our opponents and awaken love in the hearts of our friends. All the school children are on holiday and adding to the "vuvu" cacophony which sounds at odd hours of the day and night.

I am still nursing my "vuvuzela mouth wounds" after yesterday's amazing Bafana Bafana bus tour through Sandton. The country turned out to support their team and Sandton was estimated to hold around 500 000 fans in one city block alone. The aerial view must have been astounding. The media bus set off first from the Grayston Drive Southern Sun hotel which is where the team is staying. Foreign and local press alike clambered onto the roof for the best view of a sea of flag waving, diski dancing, whistling, screaming, cheering happy and patriotic fans who had been gathering since 10 that morning. The streets were choked with cars, sitting on their horns in solidarity, and people walking, walking, walking. A bank of vuvuzelas had formed outside the hotel and the crowd grew restless, wanting a glimpse of their heroes. The only problem was that there was no space left open for the police escort and three buses (media, team and local celebs) which was to drive through. A Castle sponsored Combi full of crowd whippers up was accompanying us, together with a whole lot of cyclists. What a circus! I blew away at my vuvu, a newly acquired skill, and started to produce the right kinds of sounds. The crowd responded and blew back at full throttle. My mouth started to feel like it had been caught in the pool cleaner but no matter, I blew on.

The police had to walk in front and literally part the crowds inch by screaming inch. The media on the roof had the bird's eye view: South Africa in unison as it has not been since 1994. Old and young, all colours, all political affiliations, soccer or rugby supporters, Chiefs or Pirates, construction workers who downed tools for their lunch break, stockbrokers who peered out of their rooftop offices, gogos, madalas, babies till on the breast, school kids, tourists, fans, visitors, Sandtonians, Capetownians, all of them going absolutely Bafanas. The music was pumping out and streetfuls of people were dancing. "Make the circle beeger, make the circle beeger!"

Coach Carlos Parreira waved merrily at the crowd in the bus behind us, blowing kisses. The team beamed and waved. The vuvuzelas sounded out, triggering the response in the crowd. The police took pictures of each other, presumably to Facebook later. The whole of Mexico had just arrived at OR Tambo, we were told, but only saw one lorn sombrero in the crowd. One cheeky Brit lad had sneaked into the parade with his father and held up a banner reading: "ME AND ME DAD". Another had a banner saying: No, I am not David Beckham, so please stop asking." A cute fellow in a South African flag jumpsuit did a striptease in front of the bus, revealing his soccer shirt below.

We are all so happy that Madiba has decided to join us for a few precious minutes at the opening ceremony tomorrow. With support like this and the ole Madiba magic behind them Bafana Bafana can go to their game tomorrow against Mexico with the hopes and dreams of the country backing them.

You see, it's not just about soccer. It's about two years of economic misery, it's about the disillusionment of our political situation. It's about needing something to believe in, something to make us happy again, something to unite us, something to make us believe in the rainbow nation again. The event was organised by Primedia who wanted originally to confine it to the hotel but something spoke out and said bring it to the people. The World Cup is going to be about everyone, not just all the famous people who are coming. It's not about whether you have tickets to the games, whether you have accreditation, whether you are a bigwig or not. It's about everyone. The mood and spirit will infect everyone, it will heal everyone. It just proved once again that when it comes to the crunch South Africans pull together as one, forgetting all about colour, divisions, hatred. It's what makes us such a unique, special bunch of people. We are AMAZING!

PS: Let's hope my mouth feels better so I can blow my vuvuzela some more tomorrow. Hands up everyone who is going to the opening concert at Orlando Stadium today!

Standing room only!

South Africa's 'A list'

2010-06-05T00:12:00.000-07:00

I always carry my trusty little black book around with me to record the names of those who are making their mark in my world. As you know I am a self-avowed enemy of the ""oxygen thief", so the A-LIST that I have come up with does not contain any residue of the OT. Be warned ...

The celebrity world is a ruthless one and those who are "in" today may be "out" tomorrow. Some survive to become icons of their time but many a celeb bites the dust after their 15 minutes of fame. Here is who's currently who in the South African zoo, honorary South Africans for the months of June and July included (I realise that everyone is going to copy me now and do their own A-Lists, no doubt):

IN

SPORTS A-LIST

Obviously socceris the flavour of the month so anything related to the beautiful game is high up in the alphabet.

Aaron Mokoena, Bafana Bafana captain, and all his team (South Africa has got firmly behind its teamand is united in its support).

Goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune, the star of the show of the SA-Mexico match. Why did they have to red card him??

Siphiwe Tshabalala, who scored the sole goal against Mexico.

Defender Matthew Booth (nicknamed "Booooooo" by his adoring fans. No, they are not booing, it's an acknowledgement of his undoubted skills). Carlos was mad to leave him on the bench for the only three matches we did play.

Danny Jordaan (looking much tireder after the weight of the past four years).

Carlos Alberto Parreira (although he has been grossly overpaid as the Bafana Bafana coach. The next coach will get about a third of what he earned)

Daiiiii-vid Beckham (sorry about the injured tendon, but he's is still hot at his age. Has anyone spotted him around town?). Even though the English team did not do as well as the Brit press have predicted in their first two games, Wayne Rooney and feared striker Michael Owen are still their top players.

Portugal's great hope, Ronaldo

2018 World Cup bid ambassador Paul Elliot. Got a great GQ look.

Lucas Radebe (the perennial soccer hotty).

Blue Bulls captain Victor Matfield. Victor and his boys rock! Thanks for beating France, your win was appreciated!

Our very own Proteas for coming back from the brink (South Africa is so bipolar that we love em when they are winning and threaten to change the captain when we lose).

"Blade Runner" Oscar Pistorius (the girls love him).

Caster Semenye (keep running).

Human polar bear, swimmer, environmental campaigner and amazing speaker Lewis Pugh, whose epic swim at Mount Everest went out on Carte Blanche. He is married to a South African girl and is now based in Cape Town.

OUT

Seth Blatter (for obvious reasons, as all the stories about Fifa are going to come out after the World Cup. City Press already ran a brilliant expose of how much money Fifa is making off of South Africa, none of which will find its way into the local coffers or help the poor in this country. Fifa were described by a senior government official as as "mafioso". And the local press have been kicked to the kerb by Fifa's "embedded journalists", all 2000 of them, who are getting preferential treatment. Despite applying for accreditation at the end of last year many South African journalists will not get to see any of the matches and will be forced to use Fifa's pictures and stories). Andrew Jennings is one journo you will never see at an opening Fifa match thanks to his brilliant book Foul.

Jerome Valcke..

The French coach.

Benni McCarthy (shame on him that he didn't have the self-discipline to want to get into shape and play for his country. We NEEDED him)

Rowan Fernandez, such a naughty boy. To think that Patrice Motsepe, another business A-lister, was after him for years for Sundowns.

Jose Wotisname, the coach before Carlos or between Carlos (I cant keep up). Oh yes, my favourite band, Santana.

Irvin Khoza (lock up your daughters, man, for God's sake)

Leonard Chuene (plain ole shame on him for lying and bringing our country into disrepute over the Caster Semenye story)

Ryk Neethling (past his sell-by-date, except in Potch)

Bad boy of rugby, Joost van der Westhuizen

SOUTH AFRICA'S A LIST SOCCER WAGS

Princess Diana's niece, Lady Kitty Spencer, still dating footballer Larry Cohen.

Sonia Booth, fabulous model and mother of two cute dimpled baby hotties!

INTERNATIONAL QUEENS OF THE WAGS

Victoria Beckham, whose hold over the WAG throne is undisputed. We hope she will come out to SA if England go through.

Colleen Rooney.

Fabio Capello makes my COACH A-LIST .

POLITICAL A-LIST (always a thorny one and tends to start heated Facebook debates, all over South Africa where everyone has a good vent).

IN

Madiba (he is the reason why we got the World Cup in the first place and we pray for his good health. Check out the Madiba banners all along the Nelson Mandela bridge)

Helen Zille for telling the truth about the "toilet wars" in Cape Town. And for having the biggest balls this side of the southern hemisphere.

Mosiuoa Terror Lekota,

OUT

Julius Malema (this stupid little dude can stand on his head and wave his naked butt around for the next week and no one will take any notice, thank heavens. The soccer is much more newsworthy. Anyway he is off to The Hague for singing That Song)

The Tripartite alliance (guys, plse stop squabbling like Tweedledum and Tweedledee about your nice new rattle. It's embarrassing. I cant keep up with who is sueing who or who doesn't want to speak to whoever, and as for all the death threats ...).

Eugene Terreblanche and his murderers.

STRUGGLISTA A-LIST

Tselane Tambo (honorary vote because the airport is named after her father)

Winnie (good for her not liking the movie about her. Damn Americans!). Winnie's kids, grands kids and great grand kids. Our hearts go out to the family for the tragic loss of great grand daughter Zenani, the namesake of her aunt Princess Zenani Dlamini, who captured the hearts of then nation last year when she handed over the Confederations Cup.

That perennial and venerable strugglista Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

OUT

Madiba's grandson, Mandla who wanted to sell the rights to his grandfather's funeral. Ouch.

FASHION A-LIST

IN

Thula Sindi (making some lovely stuff, cant
wait for his collection at Africa Fashion Week. Has a great shop in Parkhurst)

Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe (given up her practice for fashion)

Malcolm Kluk (must stop stirring, though).

Francois Rall (one of South Africa's undiscovered secrets.

New York milliner extraordinaire Albertus Swanepoel, whose relationship with Jack McCollough and Lazaro Hernandez in 2005 saw his famous turbans. the next day he was bombarded with emails Barney's and Neiman Marcus, and the rest is history.

Cape designer Stefania Morland

OUT

David Tlale (hasn't done anything good for years. There was a time when he was young and hungry and creative but not any more)

Gavin Rajah (except in Cape Town where he seems to get away with it)

All the pretentious fashion crowd who only promote each other. All the fake celebrities and all those vicious queens...

SOAP OPERA A-LIST

IN

The saga of President Zuma's second wife Nompumelelo Ntuli, the prettiest and naughtiest looking of all his wives. Did she really have it off with her bodyguard? Bad girl! And what is he ging to do to her when they get back from their official trip to India? Do naughty wives get stoned like in some parts of the Middle East?

Scandal and Rhythm City (doing terribly well in the ratings I hear)

OUT

Isidingo (so boring and politically correct these days. How I long for the days of Barker Heyns and Cherel de Villiers when men were men, there were women like Cherel and the baddies were real bad. I have been told by my fellow scribe that Michelle Botes is returning to the series, so she will be IN)

All the other soapies. They are boring, kitchen sink, badly acted crap.

MUSIC A-LISTERS

IN

Well, of course the Blk Jcks who have made such a name for themselves in international circles and performed with Shakira, Alicia Keys and the Black Eyed Peas at the opening concert.

Lira, Lira, Lira, queen of the stage.

Andrea Bocelli, performing at the final concert organised by Primedia. The man gives me eternal goosebumps.

Danny K, who is sporting a very cool new mohawk. The king of reinvention has moved on from his Leanne Liebenberg (OUT: her pregnancy is going to wreak havoc with that famous FHM figure) days and is getting the female sympathy vote. Danny's dad, Daddy K, also gets an A-list vote for his part in the creation of Shout SA, along with Crimeline. Maybe I need an activists' section? Also royalties for giving Daddy K his name? In that case Yusuf Abramjee of Primedia and Crimeline also gets the A list thumbs up.

Jesse Clegg, a very cute version of his dad with his own musical style and a brand new album from Gresham Records. Vive le fils Zoeloe Blanc (my French is non existent, sorry)

Zebra and Giraffe

Kwela Tebza (snappy dress sense)

The Showstoppas

OUT

PJ Powers (sorry, stop dusting her off and resurrecting her for every opening ceremony. After 25 years it's time to give someone else a chance)

Louise Carver (good for Christmas singalongs these days, but hasn't done anything new)

A LIST TV PRESENTERS

IN

Pabi Moloi (a bit of a brat but she's got staying power. And All Access is a very cool programme)

The perennially classy former Miss South Africa, Joanne Strauss (the best MC in town).

Debora Patta of Third Degree. Love her or hate her, Debora always gets people talking and respect to e.tv for doing their jobs and going where angels fear to tread (same goes for City Press editor Ferial Hafajee. The South African press need to be free, independent and vigilant even if they don't win popularity awards)

The coolest hottest weather man around, Mr Derek van Dam (he makes the weather interesting).

OUT

Penny Lebyane

The SABC, who have zero credibility or news cred

Basetsana Kumalo (She was nice about 12 years ago but seems to have had a personality transplant since)

Michael Mol (great for the ladies who lunch and his own wife but perhps it's time to hand over the reins)

Jeannie D The double DD list. (yeuch. How far up your own butt can one person be? Even the Philip Treacy hat which she wore to Royal Ascot failed to make a silk purse out of a sows ear. And the Errol Arrendz dress she wore failed to go with the hat. It was, as usual, too tight and too short)

RADIO STARS

Nadia Neophytou of Eyewitness News (flies all over the world to get her story and digs deep to get the sponsorship to do it)

Pabi, again. Though we still don't know what happened with her contract with Highveld? Hmmmm.

OUT

Jenny Cryws-Williams (change the channel unless you are an old fart)

SOUTH AFRICA'S MOVIE STARS

The stellar Charlize Theron (pity she is such a snotpoppie to the SA press, though!)

Gavin Hood, of Oscar winning Tsotsi fame. He needs to move on from Wolverine though and make another gem of a movie.

Actress Terry Pheto. Pretty and fabulous.

Oliver Schmitz, director of Life, Above All, which got such a good reception at Cannes this year.

The stars of Life, Above All, first-time-actress Khomotso Manyaka and Lerato Mvelase. This is a movie to watch.

Athol Fugard, now and for ever.

Janet Suzman, Helen Suzman's daughter. What a voice.

Actor Stevel Marc, appearing at the Market Theatre in Zimbabwean director Tendayi Nyeke's production. Tendayi is telling fabulous African stories.

FOOD AND WINE RAVE REVIEWS

Vicky Crease, caterer du jour. Her clients read like a who's who and she was voted Best International Caterer. Her events beat out anything I have experienced overseas and she thinks completely out of the box.

Party maestro Otto de Jager, recently put together a no-expense spared dinner for Fifa delegates.

Floral couturier Franz Grabe, does the flowers for the Cartier boutique in Sandton.

Anthony Hamilton Russell, of the Hamilton Russell Estate in Hermanus.

Michael Fridjhon, for his fabulous Wine Experiences. Long may they continue.

Juliet Cullinan, who always finds the best boutique and garagiste wines in the country for her annual wine festival. Juliet really knows wine.

Justine Drake, editor of Eat in and foodie writer extraordinaire.

Michel Morand who attracts the A listers to Auberge Michel week after week.

AYOBALICIOUS A-LISTERS

Former CNN anchor turned World Cup spokeman turned lingerie businesswoman, Tumi Makgabo. Way to reinvent yourself girl! And thanks for finding a niche in the lingerie business!

The ever wonderful actress-activist Rosie Motene. My photographers always linger over her cleavageous pictures and say: "That Rosie, we smaak her .."

Miss South Africa Nicole Flint. Goes everywhere with her brother Jeffrey these days and he puts his foot down on her behalf. Nothing like a bit of brother power!

Publicist Jill Grogor, whose brainchild was the Style Awards, celebrating South Africa's most stylish people every year. She puts this fabulous event together every year, along with the Glamour Oscars.

Geoff Rothschild of the JSE, who is one of the busiest people I know but always has time to answer his emails. Now that's manners!

Businesswoman extraordinaire Wendy Luhabe.

NOT AYOBA

Ray Mccauley of Rhema Church (comes across as seriously dodgy)

The Big Brother inmates from 2000 (seriously folks, how desperate are you to invite these people to anything?). Also people who were on any season of Survivor South Africa. All of them are so forgettable.

Miss South Africas from ten years back or more (unless it's Amy Kleynhans Curd)

Girls in sashes, in general.

Social climbers and wannabes

Bad boy bands

'Sunny bananas' from a soccer-befok South Africa

2010-05-30T01:19:00.000-07:00

Even fashionable Parisian ladies will be wearing the colours of the South African flag this season! Check out these Christian Louboutins.

When the Fifa World Cup Soccer took place in Germany in 2006 it sparked off an unexpected reaction in the Germans. They had been too ashamed to fly their flag since the end of the Second World War, but when every visitor unashamedly waved their flag around the Germans decided to join them and every house and business sported the German flag in a display of unparalleled patriotism and national pride.

With just EIGHT days to go until the opening ceremony of the 2010 FIFA WORLD CUP the eyes of the world are on South Africa in a way that hasn't happened since 1994, and the South Africans have outdone themselves in the patriotism department. The country has began in short to resemble a giant flag. The South African flag, naturally, with its distinctive colourful, Y-front underpants design. In a word, we are soccer-befok, to use a South African expression (it's not as bad as it sounds, it just means obsessed with something, mad in other words)!

This burning patriotism is putting to shame any bad media reports about a lacklustre response from soccer fans, Fifa's thoroughly unprofessional handling of the ticket sales, and general malaise over our political situation. A friend of mine who has relocated to far-away Dubai expressed sadness that she could not be here for the World Cup and I sympathise as the madness from Matjiesfontein to Mapumalanga is completely infectious. That said, the flag vendors are also selling enormous Blue Bulls flags for the diehards.

The airports are looking gleamingly spick and span. The stadia are truly beautiful, masterpieces of architectural engineering. The Gautrain will be working, we are told. The teams have started arriving. The giant screens are going up at the fan parks. It is a reality. For once we are not going to let the woes of the world get us down: ash clouds, terror threats, accommodation fall-throughs, British Airways's strike, soccer hooligans, the Israelis behaving like hooligans,etc, etc, etc.

The main highway leading into host city Joburg is lined with the flags of the participating countries which flap energetically in the wind as well as Fifa banners (sleepy Cape Town is naturally a little behind and hasn't started putting up their decorations, I hear) and giant national flags adorn businesses and townhouse complexes alike. Flags are huge business at the moment,and of course there are those rear-view mirror covers which look like abbreviated underpants in the colours of the SA flag, "makarapas", vuvuzelas, beanies, scarves, jerseys and everything else soccer-related. It's all a bit mad and in your face. Schoolgirls wave giant England flags at the side of the road and shoppers wander the aisles with their Italia shirts on. Football Fridays have been in vogue for some months now and yellow and green Bafana Bafana shirts are everywhere.

The "entrepreneurs" at the side of the road who can sell you practically anything under normal circumstances have got positively aggressive in their marketing techniques. They are doing a roaring business so I don't understand the pressure tactics. I was returning from my grocery shopping the other day when I had to stop at the robots (that's traffic lights to those who don't speak Seffrican). About 20 vendors ran up to my car and assessed the number of flags and various soccer paraphenalia (or not) which I had invested in, in a vocal and very collaborative manner. I felt quite threatened, especially by the scary dude in the wheelchair with sunglasses. I have since done my bit, and adorned the bead and wire monkeys made by the Zimbabwean craftsmen who live in my treetops with various tiny flags which they wave at all the passersby.

It is interesting to see the ways in which people have interpreted the soccer theme. A nursery has put out an array of seedlings which were designed to flower in the colours of the South African flag. Another favourite is water features done out with the distinctive black and white shapes. My favourite shop, Ilovecupcakes, has placed iced cupcakes in the appropriate colours in a rectangle in their shop window. R450 for the lot - a bit steep for cupcakes, I think. Local is lekker store Woolies are selling "do it yourself" makarapas (the makarapas originated from mining hard hats which people wore to matches to stop being hit by flying bottles, and have now developed into artworks which had taken their place in soccer lore. I even saw an American fan wearing one in his own national colours). Beaded vuvuzelas of every nationality abound in the African craft markets. The French companies are on board and Total has enorrr-rrmous balls tethered outside each one of its garages (the French are delighted to be playing 60th (?)-placed Bafana Bafana). The guy that I call the "Mime of North Riding" has dressed up every day with a soccer theme, he is quite brilliant (I want to interview him, but how do you interview a mime?) Even the expensive designer shops have window displays, including 2A at Hyde Park Shopping which is selling distinctive "six-color", stacked Christian Louboutins platforms. Even the new Sex and the City movie had a reference to the World Cup and featured some of the gorgeous Argentinian players who will be heading here next week.

A South African publishing company has come out with a Hello South Africa Phrase Book which has common phrases and phonetic pronunciations in each of the 11 offficial languages. The national anthem is a scream, in itself. I can just see those British tourists greeting everyone: "Sunny bananas, do you know the way to So-wet-toe?"

The Striding Man awards

2010-05-08T01:10:00.000-07:00

My favourite function of this week was the JOHNNIE WALKER STRIDING MAN AWARDS, held at Turbine Hall. On arrival I met decor magician Rudi de Wet, who had done the tables, settings and food.

The Turbine Hall is one of Joburg's best spaces, interestingly because I remember it in the 90s as a derelict shell populated by squatters, with every single window broken. It has since been transformed into a fabulous venue, next door to solar-powered AngloGold Ashanti's offices, and Rudi's touches did justice to the space. I have been to several events here, and loved every one because of the light and shadow, the artwork, the nooks and crannies and industrial infrastructure of Turbine Hall. Rudi had set up two long tables inside the venue, set with tall perspex candles, silver tableware and the most fabulous floral arrangements (for example sections of equisitum aka horsetail, bent and twisted in interesting shapes in bulbous white ceramic vases, and then leading into secondary vases). The place glowed with light and reflections and images from the ad campaign flickered on screens on the wall, a black and white shrine to the brand.

Johnnie Walker could have chosen to make the event a conspicuous consumption affair - a party for the likes of the ANC Youth League and their tenderpreneurship cronies all guzzling up the Johnnie Walker Blue and Gold, a la Big Bad Bob. Instead the brand chose to be socially responsible and had four categories: business, environment, art and design with three finalists in each, all powerful players in their own fields.

Arts category winner ... Welcome Msomi, an accomplished author whose name has become synonymous with Zulu literature. He is the founder of the IZulu Dance theatre and Music and responsible for launching the Zulu version of the Lion King, which he launched for Ster Kinekor.

Business category winner ... financial rights activist Max Maisela who pioneered the formation of an independent company, NBC, to help protect and best benefit the unique retirement needs of black employees in apartheid South Africa.

Talented photographer Andrew Brauteseth had been commissioned to shoot the portraits of each finalist, as well as stills for the Striding Man ad campaign - a mammoth task which involved ten locations around the country in two days, from the lofty columns of UCT to the poorest townships of the Cape,

... from the urban landscapes of our cities such as the interior of the Market Theatre to the wind whipped coastlines.

These are his pictures that you see on my blog ... I just love them!

The wonderful thing about the awards was that each winner received a R125 000 prize package was he spends, not on himself but on beneficiaries of his own choice.

Simon's bursary fund will cover tuition for course work programme or M Phil degrees in the environmental and geographical studies, urban design with emphasis on sustainable cities, architecture with emphasis on green buildings or engineering or science to develop sustainable technologies.

Winner of environment award ... planner and urban designer from Cape Town, Simon Nicks. He is a committed environmentalist whose aim it is to “design places that are nice to live in with minimal impact on our planet's resources”.

Welcome's prize money will help resuscitate a community art centre and theatre in Durban called the Stable Theatre. The funding will help rejuvenate the centre which offers performance and rehearsal space as well as an easily accessible venue for workshops or seminars. The venue is a home for all arts and allows artists to present exhibitions, writers to host book launches, film-makers to premiere their films and poets to entrance audiences with their work.

Max on the other hand is using his R125 000 prize money to pay for tuition fees for eight elected pension fund trustees for a Graduate Diploma in Trusteeship at Monash University South Africa.

Design star ... young architect Mokena Makeka, who is currently redesigning Cape Town Station for the new public transport system. His first professional assignment was to design a series of police stations at key railway stations. He will use all his prize money to create an Academy for Creative Excellence to help others succeed.

PS: See my column in The Citizen next week for more on the Striding Man awards!

Falling in love with real leopard print

2010-05-04T23:23:00.000-07:00

A leopard? Ha ha, fooled you, it's a cheetah!

There are times when Joburg is a Sodom-and-Gomorah city, when the daily smorgasbord of nastiness served up in the news illustrates the limitless depths that human depravity can sink to. Times when the Orc-ish neighbours wake you up with night after night with their doors slamming over and over, with their visitors, loud voices and saucepans crashing at 12.30am, 3am, 4am. When you do nothing but sit in traffic, sometimes for four hours as fights break out around you between frustrated motorists. You toss and turn, hoping for some respite from the ambulance and police sirens, the alarms, the dogs barking, the loud squinch-squinch house music that doesn't stop, the endless demands of work, cleaning and cooking and paying the bills. Every body cell screams for you to go back to the bush ...

There is a hunger and thirst for the bush bred in the bones of anyone who has grown up in Africa. I remember crossing the Zambezi River as a child and hearing the great steel bridge flick-flick-flick-flick past the windows of the car as we left Zambia en route to the Kruger Park. We drove with our windows wound tight in those days, in a sun-drenched car and no air-conditioning. What excitement when it was me who spotted the first animal of the trip: an enormous giraffe. We stayed in bush chalets in Skukuza Camp which had curtains with the animals which we had seen that day on them (some of those curtains are still there!). The wide open spaces, grass the colour of bone, the sharp acrid smells of territorial urine and dung, the taste of the dust, the sweat of the high midday sun, and the bush quiet.

So when CEO of THE THORNYBUSH COLLECTION Nic Griffin said to me at a party: "When are you coming to stay with us?" I couldn't wait to pack my safari bag. My second cousin once removed was coming out from Cologne and what could be a better opportunity for a long weekend break and to introduce the Cuz to the real Africa, with all the trappings of a five-star lodge? Nic organised a weekend for us at SIMBAMBILI GAME LODGE, two private suites with their own plunge pools and, wait for it, a daybed.

Five star luxury .., time to relax on the deck while the monkeys watch!

The drive down was pretty torrid as the heavens decided to open and poured liberally. I took the Dullstroom road, thinking it would be prettier but you couldn't see much through the rain-smeared windows. After lunch in the town which consisted of hot chocolate shots, followed by trout pie, like a seasoned Grand Prix driver I dodged potholes as big as an elephant's watering hole until we got past Lydenburg. And then like a fool I decided to go on to Ohlrigstad, thinking it would be quicker.

Past Hoedspruit, ten hours of driving and now it was dark. Trying to avoid drunken Saturday night revellers and speed bumps from hell at Acornhoek, we phoned the lodge to try and find our way as the signage was non-existent. Finally I found an incredibly corrugated dirt road and hurtled down it at high speed, praying my tyres would not burst, for what seemed like forever. By now I was having a minor meltdown and my city-locked neck was burning ... was this the wrong way? And no one was answering the phone!

Then the Gowrie Gate appeared in the darkness. In the Kruger Park at last we "hugged the fence" until the lodge appeared before us, all the lamps and candles lit in the driveway and entrance hall to welcome us in. The young couples who ran the place were waiting with glasses of port and a roaring fire as the rain mizzled down. We were finally at our destination ...

Port in a storm ... the lounge area.

We were shown to our rooms by our guide, Amos, who went ahead with his torch flicking through the dark and along the pathway. The water buffalo found the grass at chalet no 3 the sweetest in the world, we were told, and a leopard sometimes passed through the camp like a shadow. Then he stopped and told us to listen. "Lion," he said, with the faintest smile. The roaring was coming from ten kilometres away - not enough time to come into our camp and eat us before dinner, even though there were no fences. The males were moving to the next camp, we found out in the morning.

The big boys ... Mapogo lions at Simbambili.

The lodge is renowned for being one of the most romantic spots in the Kruger and did not disappoint. My room had a mosquito net pulled around the bed, gauzily tied on bamboo canes hung from the ceiling, which was lit softly from within by two bedside lamps. Outside the plunge pool was lit and beckoned seductively. The bath was enormous and stone, with a big saucer of crystal bath salts. I decided never to leave my room again, but I was starving after the long drive so Cuz and I decided to drop our bags in our respective rooms and brave the pathway back.

Supper was glorious: kudu served up by Nico the butler for Cuz (who had struggled with a rather tough meal of gemsbok the night before at the Intercontinental Hotel at OR Tambo) and a lamb curry served in a poppadum with sambals for me. Cuz had a chat at the fire with a couple from Dusseldorf (who knew there was a rivalry between Dusseldorf and Cologne that rivals that between Cape Town and Joburg? It's so bad that there are no signs for Dusseldorf from Cologne!) but it was time for my head to hit the pillow. Why is it that pillows at a five-star lodge are always plumper and enticing and the linen whiter and crisper than anything you could ever buy? And the mattresses softer and more sleep-enducing? Especially after a long hot soak in a never-ending bath tub.

Only one problem ... "We'll knock on your door at 5.30am for a game drive," said Karen who was manning the reception desk. Oh no, you won't! Cuz went off early in the morning with the Dusseldorfers but I died until 8 the next morning when I found it very difficult to get out of bed. After finding out that the doors to the bedroom and bathroom folded up completely, opening up the whole space to the heavenly smelling air, I staggered off in a big fluffy robe to my daybed, overlooking a dried-up river, where I devoured all the peanut brittle, dried mango and other snacks on my tea tray, plus two cups of hot chocolate, and lolled around like the Queen of Sheba waiting for the monkeys to come and try to steal my sunglasses, as I had been warned they would do. Perhaps they were watching me quizzically from the trees waiting for me to snooze off again.

Closing my eyes I succumbed to the absolute quiet. Not quiet really, but completely different sounds from those in the city. The sounds layered one over another and I tried to distinguish each one. They all seemed so far away. The fan whirring in the room, a little fountain playing at the next-door spa, the staff going about their business in the distance with armfuls of linen, the sound of the wind in the trees and a fine rain falling, a door shutting and, best of all, all the different birds singing liquidly, their tunes overlapping like a fine choir. Something barked in the trees down below.

It was hard to leave but time to go for breakfast, wielding a snazzy Burberry umbrella against the mizzly rain. A little duiker was grazing near the main lodge, as tame as can be. No sign of the water buffalo, although one guest said he looked out of his window at 4am and saw one right outside the chalet.

En route to chalet number 3 ... a water buffalo.

In the breakfast room the staff shivered dramatically, saying it had been 45 degrees a week ago. Twenty degrees seemed cold for them. Everyone was back from their game drive and boasted of the leopard they had seen, courtesy of Grant the ranger and Mumps the tracker. The foreigners, who consisted of a jolly couple from New Zealand, a quieter duo from the UK, and the Dusseldorfers, seemed disappointed that there were no lion, but for a southern African the thought of leopard was excitement beyond measure. And I was in for a treat. The SABIE SANDS GAME RESERVE, where Simbambili is situated, is home to the world's biggest leopard population. Leopard are my favourite animal, and up till now something I had only glimpsed in half-shade or in a tree on a night drive. It is a combination of their gorgeous markings, their exquisite elegant shape, the white tuft on their tails which they carry always erect like a weapon, their silence and stealth, their grace and endangered status. How could anyone kill such a beautiful animal for sport or even wear its fur?

Breathtaking ... a leopard in repose.

After lunch overlooking a well visited waterhole...

Wallowing at the waterhole ... water buffalo heaven.

... and a wonderful neck massage at the spa it was time to see the leopards for myself. We were given green blankies with rain ponchos to match, and after a few hours on the trail looked very much like a bunch of lappet-faced vultures huddled bedraggled in the game drive vehicle. But we did see leopards, three of them, one after another, walking openly in the road, looking as at home in the attention as Mandela at a state banquet, but flinching a little at the constant flashlights.

Our first was an 18-year-old female, a Grizabella of the leopard world who had lost one eye and sustained various injuries over the years. Still beautiful with her one milky eye she stared in bored fashion at the game drive vehicles which pulled up for a better look. One vehicle bumped over the horizon with each inhabitant wielding an enormous camera with an even more enormous zoom lens and flashes going off like the Oscars. The scene was material for a cartoonist's pen. They were a photographic club who went off to various lodges every month and took piccies of wildlife. This was hitting the jackpot, even for them.

Not another photoshoot ... such a bore, all these cameras going off all the time!

After we went off road onto a dried-up river bed, thorn tree branches whipping at our eyes, hooking our ponchos and making us lie flat on our seats, our tracker Mumps found fresh paw prints in the dust (how do trackers do that?) and told us he was off to find the next leopard, armed with a slingshot. Before we knew it he had disappeared into the thick bush while Grant swung the vehicle round and went round back on to the road (all the roads have names, you could find it with your GPS system). I was terrified. "Oh he's completely mad," shrugged Grant who was explaining all the dead-looking trees to us. They were called leadwood trees and were kinda tough as they just refused to keel over, or let the termites eat them. Fortunately we picked Mumps up again safe and sound after ten minutes and we saw our second leopard, a young male with much paler markings this time.

Leopard number three was not far behind and we followed him for a short distance, trying to get the foreigners not to stand up in their seats (leopards recognise the "man shape", but see the game drive vehicle as one big animal. Who knows what they could do, they are so beautiful and deadly). I asked Grant if there were hyenas around and they said yes, they were always around and were his favourite animal. Not mine though, and the sworn enemies of leopards. A case of the ugly and the horrible threatening the beautiful and special. Happens in the human world, too.

Lapping up the attention ... leopard number three.

The hippos were yawning pinkly in the river bed, one enormous male with a bum like a Putco bus, as the rain made ripples in the water. The waterbuck huddled under a tree, their distinctive markings on their rear "looking like a toilet seat", said the Kiwis and the Poms. We saw elephants moving through the bush, their trunks snapping at branches. Time for sundowners, and more snacks, biltong and nuts with liberal gin and tonics (did they pour me a triple by any chance?). It was getting dark and Mumps had disappeared again. For a wee break, this time. We set off for the lodge, a hot bath and dinner (a three-course meal of soup, fish and fresh fruit, that wonderful Lowveld pawpaw) followed by another heavenly, Orc-less sleep.

I thought of how my grandparents lived and how the things which were necessities in the bush have become part of luxurious bush life. The hurricane lamps, the mosquito nets, the open verandahs, the sundowners, the rifle in the vehicle, the anti-malaria tablets, the little cool breezes at night ...and was glad that modern living has improved the human lot while allowing us to still enjoy Africa.

Bye bye baby ... see you next time.

Autumn and the art of the scarf

2010-04-22T09:33:00.000-07:00

There is a different blue in the sky. The shadows are longer and the piled-up leaves rustle restlessly from one side of the road to the other. The suburban streets and gardens are full of last-minute autumn glory, but the nights sink in colder. It is changing from rain-sodden summer into winter. Time to start thinking about dressing warmer, eating differently and coming to terms with the cold, dark, soul-searching months ahead.

In short, it's time to start wearing ... a scarf. Most of the "autumnal" poets (Keats, Blake, Elizabeth Barret Browning, John Donne, Shelley) have been inspired by this season's beauty and elegiac quality, and some must have at some stage addressed the humble scarf's literary merit. Emily Dickinson certainly did...

The morns are meeker than they were,
The nuts are getting brown;
The berry's cheek is plumper,
The rose is out of town.
The maple wears a gayer scarf,
The field a scarlet gown.
Lest I should be old-fashioned,
I'll put a trinket on.
Emily Dickinson
Nature XXVII, Autumn.

A scarf can certainly be considered a trinket, and its lure wholly belongs to autumn and winter culture. Women and men in Europe have a lifelong romance with The Scarf, particularly the French and Italians (little French girls learn the art of the scarf at their mother's knee). They wear them with such flair, such style and such know-how - even with a plain white shirt. They sling long skinny scarves round their necks, wrap bandanas, knot short necktie scarves, slither on silk scarves from Hermes or Chanel (which come with booklets on how to tie them), double-wrap head scarves, twist neckwarming woolly scarves over coats, tie cravats and toss on pashminas. It's all in the imagination and today's scarves are a far cry from the mufflers that your granny used to knit to keep your chest warm! They are now the ultimate fashion statement - bang up there in the style firmament with shoes and bags.

The universe has finally smiled upon me and allowed me to find the perfect scarf-maker, right here in Johannesburg. Her name is Sanny Nijkamp and she is a Dutch artist who paints on silk. Just perfect for poetic autumn style!

Sanny, whose real name is Sara (her father visited South Africa and liked "Sanny") loves the art of the Japanese kimono, as well as traditional French silk painting, and it comes through in her love of bright colours. She has a signature style in her scarves: lots of geometric shapes, the use of dots, squiggly quill writing and lots of different coloured squares. It's literally art on a scarf.

Sanny's home is like one of her scarves. An eggshell blue ceramic stove dominates her living room and a steel flue leads into the ceiling. The house is full of light, colour and artistry. Three funky white recycled light fittings from lighting designer Heath Nash form a vertical line leading the eye down to the stripped wooden dining room table, and the walls are covered with local art.

She has been working in silk for 26 years and she sold to three shops in Holland before she moved to South Africa. Now I find her Sarasilk scarves in second-hand shop Rags and Lace where stylish saleslady Matilda Montanari wears them with her usual panache, giving tips on scarf-wearing to the uninitiated ("this is the hangman's noose ...").

Sanny's work is painstaking as she hand paints every detail on the white silk which she imports from China. After planning the design beforehand she stretches a silk rectangle on a homemade wooden frame in her studio and use silk paints made in France. "I love silk,"she says. "The colours are so beautiful and the paint flows. You can't make anything ugly." Luckily she has a supplier who gives her wholesale prices.

"Sirti" glue is one way of separating layers of colours from one another. It can be painted onto areas which need to be paler, which then stand out. After the hand painting process she fixes the colour by steaming the scarves. "I make a big roll in a white cotton cloth and put it in a steamer."

But the most incredible thing of all are the prices: R160 for a handpainted scarf? That's about sixteen euros!

Sanny's piercing blue eyes are testament to her Dutch genes, and she says that in Holland they love bright colours, particularly blues (to match the eyes). Everything around her, including her art and pictures, is an inspiration. I fall in love with the soft blue silk swatches from cocoons which she has arranged on a table, prior to it being made glued into paper and made into packaging for jeweller Marcel van Tonder's upcoming exhibitions.

Sanny has been experimenting with new techniques and I am captivated by a delicious medley of gold, sky blue, and violet squares and rectangles on a light-red silky background: it's ornamented with doodles, sunbursts and stars on the ends. I imagine it with a plain black dress and red cowboy boots ... and, even though I already have three other scarves by Sanny, I melt and buy my fourth.

Now I have an autumn scarf for my scarlet gown. Emily would have approved ...

The "lazies who lunch" find a secret garden

2010-04-13T06:28:00.000-07:00

A "lazies lunch"? Sounds like a good plan for a bunch of hard working journalists and media types! We were told by chief lazy, Allison Macdonald, to meet at The Birdcage in Saxonwold, recently voted one of the top ten al fresco eateries in Joburg. I was early, as I was stressed that I would not be able to find the place. One hour to be precise, and I was starving, with a neck as stiff as a board. It wasn't so hard to find in the end, just off Cotswold Road and a block from Zoo Lake. The parking was a bit of a bind, but what a delightful spot ... a secret garden change from our usual Ocean Basket, fast-lane lunches.

The Birdcage lived up to its name - there were several attractive wicker and wire bird cages (sans canaries) dotted around the garden. It was a little gem of a hideaway tucked under tall trees and adjoining nearby boutique hotel the Villa d'Este, with its five-star spa. I love places like that, especially at the weekend, when all you want is to retreat from the traffic's roar, find yourself a newspaper and settle down with a lovely glass of Belgian hot chocolate while you wait for all the other "lazies", who clearly were not as lazy as me, to arrive. My sunglassed fellow lunchers were working on their laptops, feeding their children or just gossiping quietly with friends in the sun.

It had been a very tense week in South African politics. I was afflicted with our usual bipolar outlook, and was very down and depressed (the Saturday Star did not help with its sensationalist story of Eugene Terreblanche's murder accused. Although it did get an unwilling and disbelieving laugh out of me).

So the hot chocolate blocks which I stirred with my spoon to make decadent mocha swirls at the bottom of a tall glass of hot foamy milk eased both my hunger and my mood. Yum, yum! And the setting was so pretty, a feast for the eyes. Inside was a small, simple space with a tiny fountain and three big jars of fresh-cut, pretty-as-can-be pink roses at one end. A crystal chandelier gave a touch of luxury, with an array of tarts, cooked chicken, salmon tarts, pies, salads, asparagus dotted with bacon bits, breads, and baba ganoush dotted with slivered almonds on a generous buffet table. Guests filled the tiny space at regular intervals, each holding a plate, and proprietor Lara Meter patiently explained to all of them what every dish was, before their plates were weighed. I smiled at two little girls who wandered over to stare at me with big dark eyes.

A big table had been booked for us in the courtyard so I went outside after my hot chocolate and sat in the dappled shade. The "lazies" started to arrive at around 1'ish. First was Allison, in whose name the table was booked. She had spoken to our waitress Cleopatra (no, that was her name) or was it Patty? It was hard to get confused, especially as the afternoon wore on. Allison was looking relaxed and expressed pleasure at her choice of venue. Then Nia, Lesley and Andrea arrived, and we started to order drinks and wonder about lunch. Jane was in Paris, lucky woman that she was, working on a film, so no Jane.

It was one of those spots that, although the space seemed tiny, you always bump into someone that you know. Brandon McLeod from Newsclip suddenly appeared with his friend Roan from ModelCo and we invited him to join us as a fellow "lazy". Brandon and Roan ordered some Waterford Rose and settled down at the other end of the table. I have a soft voice and found it hard to speak to them so moved down to their end. By the time our table was in full swing and getting loud and happy. Our fellow lunchers gave us indulgent looks from time to time as our laughter burst forth under the trees.

"There's a hole in this bottle!" Brandon told Cleopatra, who grinned and went to get him another one. He held up his glass to the light, revealing the tiniest hint of pink in the wine. The cut glass jar with the ice was doing the rounds, and I put some into my wine.

Then Helen arrived. She was late because her daughter Layla was turning nine and had a birthday party later in the afternoon. We all had to admire pictures of 9-year-old Layla, looking beautiful and "schmodelish" in her mother's garden.

We went inside for lunch and loaded up our plates with the goodies on the table, using the funky salad servers (one printed and one dotted, in red). It was so good that I could not speak to anyone for at least ten minutes. But afterwards the conversation flowed, naturally touching on the events of the week. The setting, glorious food and afternoon sun somehow diluted some of the horrors that had passed and helped ease the wounds.

The smokers retired around the corner for their fix, and en route to the loo I went to see the gardens of the Villa d'Este, which were immaculately clipped and topiaried. Each space was more delightful than the next. Why had I never discovered this place before?

After pudding for some, tiny puffed up chocolate souffles oozing over ramekin dishes which everyone dipped their spoons into for just one taste, our bills arrived individually, a coil of paper in a rose-pink, Moroccan water glass set at each place. The lazies only started to leave at around 5pm, when Cleopatra, Patty and their fellow workers had to pack up for the night. It was hard to put an end to what had turned out to be a very fruitful and lazy day.

The Birdcage beckons with a date for a future long lazy lunch!

How to have fun in a recession

2010-04-08T01:54:00.000-07:00

It's 2010, the year that everyone said would be better, the year of the 2010 Soccer World Cup, the year that would lift us out of the doldrums of 2009, the annus horribis. 2010 seems to be the year in which I have officially joined the ranks of the nouveau poor, as opposed to unofficially.

One has to learn to have fun while being a recessionista. Even if my life has become a series of ever-increasing restrictions and frustrations, some newfound penny-pinching habits have become a source of comfort and amusement. They appeal to the bargain basement diva in me and I intend never to desert them in better times.

1. Watching TV with the lights off, and enjoying an unearthly flickering on the walls which looks as though the aliens are in conference in my flat. Living by candlelight is terribly romantic so I get those little tea light thingies and float them in water, which makes the place look cool. Those solar lanterns from the Cape Union Mart or The Space are also quite fetching, especially out on the balcony. You could guide Boeings in with those things. They remind me of the hurricane lamps which my grandparents used on their farm.

2. Buying my loo rolls at Diskem for R24 for 10 rolls (in fact, buying all my toiletries there, instead of at the supermarket, as every time I buy something it creates points which means I can get something free somewhere down the line. Yay, free stuff!). You know you are down to the wire when you have to use your paper napkins when the R24-for-10 pack is finished. Or the tissue paper that you stuff your shoes with. Or you have to nick some from the nearest shopping centre loo. But I am always grateful for something to wipe my bottom with as my ancestors had to use grass.

3. Putting stuff back on to the supermarket shelves and remarking loudly to other shoppers: "Can you believe these PRICES?". Giving the manager level stares as you do this. In other countries you get to clip coupons but our mean supermarkets doesn't believe in letting us get soft and, shame, they have to make a living as we starve. I have also got very good at saying NO to myself especially in those queues in Woolies where they put all the good stuff along those lanes.

4. Buying Lotto and Powerball tickets every chance I get, just in case I hit the jackpot. My ticket showed two correct numbers and a Powerball number yesterday ... the machine made melodious little noises five times and I thought: "Gosh, what would it do if I won all six numbers?" Probably explode into a great ball of fire! I have given up SMSing numbers from Coke can tabs or Easter eggs as even in my desperation I have lost the power to suspend disbelief to that degree. Those guys are just scam artists.

5. Cooking on a Cadac gas stove. I was thrilled when I found that the garage up the road fills gas bottles but mine has lasted me since February 2008 so I don't need to use their services just yet. Even my tea is made on the gas stove. Sucks to Eskom. Outside braais are good too, but with the colder weather coming, gas is better.

6. Shopping at secondhand clothes shops. Thieves probably look at me on Facebook and think, well, she's a rich bitch, but I forgot to mention that the designer threads always go back. Instead I go off to Rags and Lace in Craighall Park with my old schmutters and find amazing things like Chanel sunglasses or suits from Paris or beautiful hand-painted silk scarves from a woman called Sanny Nijkamp who lives in Emmarentia.

7. Using pay as you go on my cellphone. Friends are used to conversations being cut dramatically short as my airtime runs out. I have found a way to recharge via the phone now, so this should no longer happen. But usually in my newfound thriftiness I ask them to phone me back. SMSs are also good.

8. Trying to do all my errands at once in a particular area so I don't have to drive around and use up all my petrol.

9. Watching movies with the old age pensioners on Tuesdays. Tickets on Tuesday are ostensibly half price for the OAPs, at R25, but the price is still equivalent to what it was about eight years ago. I have also invested in a movie card, so I accumulate movie moola and get to watch a free film once in a blue moon. Ster Kinekor has made it easy to save money on snacks as the Coke machine is generally on the fritz whenever I visit their establishments.

10. Finding a good backyard mechanic. If you like me have a Renault or an imported French car you know the pain of dealership prices for parts and labour. These cars break down a lot and are expensive to fix ... If you have a look at any passing towtruck you will always see a Renault Clio on board! It's important to know when you can use a generic part or ask your mechanic.

11. Shopping for appliances at places like Cash Converters/Cash Crusaders. So many people have left the country or sell off their worldly goods to these secondhand dealers that it is easy to find practically brand new appliances here at half the price. DVDs and CDs and jewellery are also nicely priced.

12. Using a laundromat instead of a home washing machine/tumbledrier. This does mean that you get nasty people who take all your stuff out and leave it in a wet pile while they do their load but they are in the minority. Laundromating is a great way to catch up on all the gossip too, who's doing what to whom and all that.

13. Buying your veggies, fresh produce in the country, or at a food market. I used to go and get a huge box of stuff (fruit, nuts, vegs, honey) at a fruit and veg shop but now I go and pick stuff myself from the soil for a fraction of the price.

14. Shopping around for car, hospital and household insurance. I was glad I was with Outsurance when I had an accident as I had a car hire policy and could keep the car for 31 days. Each insurance policy has pros and cons so you need to check out the small print before committing yourself.

So there you have it. Joining the ranks of the nouveau poor can actually be enjoyable as you figure out ways to beat the system. Or you could just go on moaning about everything. Do what you've got to do!

Of cheesely delights, Diski dancing and Scottish scams

2010-04-01T04:28:00.001-07:00

This week I decided to indulge my inner foodie, as parties were scarce and the food markets beckoned. Robyn Higgins invited me to the party to celebrate the Codfather Food Market in Rivonia. We were all very worried about Robyn as all her friends received a message about her being stranded in Scotland and please, please could we send off a Western Union order to help her with her hotel bill and flight as she had lost everything. The odd thing was that the bank account was based in Cambridge, which wouldn't have been much help. It turned out to be one of those M19 scams that the Nigerians are getting so good at. Robyn is one of those people who would have travel insurance, but I felt quite awful I couldn't help her, until the scam was revealed.

Robyn was safe and sound however and getting ready for the CODFATHER FOOD MARKET in Joburg, the only Saturday market which has a selection of meat, fish, vegs, breads, jams, delicatessen stuff and herbs under a covered roof. I love the food markets in Joburg and visit them as often as my budget will allow, so this was a new treat. First person I saw was Mirella who makes the best pizza in town, just a simple thin crust pizza with a tomato base. So I got two of her closed pizzas with artichoke and salami, pronto. Then it was time to visit Rosemary, the herb lady (what else would a herb lady be called? A man would obviously be Basil!), and grab a big pot of healthy thyme to replace my one that died.

I popped upstairs to see Andy Green who used to run The Chocolate Room in Lanseria. He and his wife Marlize are running SI SI, upstairs from The Codfather (and there is a Cowfather, too, by the way for those who love their steak). Si Si was participating in a promotion whereby you can pay for a visit to the four restaurants in the block and get great value for money). Si Si is a lovely space, very simple and white with a few black and white illustrations (of a Vespa and an Italian scene) on the walls and a splash of colour over the bar. Andy is still doing his gourmet pizzas and cheese platters, this time with an Italian twist. And they are opening a new outside bar called The Office. Thank heavens the hot chocolate is still as hot and chocolatey as ever, so I had the coconut flavour. Their staff are all the same too, friendly and helpful.

Mid-week I decided to pop in to Jo Dick's cheese shop, THE CHEESE GOURMET in Linden (apologies to Jo, but her name always conjures up a secret South African joke for me, as in "jou ma"!). It's been something I have meaning to do for some time now and when Easter is upon you you need to do all those little indulgent things that time would not otherwise allow. Apparently Jo is one of the award winners in the 2010 Eat In, but the problem is that the publication of the magazine keeps being put off and put off. Remember I couldn't get hold of a copy in January? That's because there weren't any. And still we wait ...

Jo is an advocate of note for great South African cheeses. Her shop carries some of the finest examples of local cheeses, which have raised the bar for the cheese world and giving cheeses worldwide stiff competition. We chatted about local hotels and boutiques, and why they should be choosing local produce rather than lavishing cash on imported stuff. The Saxon used to be a very good client, she told me, but there is always a turnover of chefs in big hotels and new brooms sweep clean. I think they now offer platters of (pricey) French cheeses (which, I hasten to add, I am sure are world class).

Philippe Wagenfuhrer of Roots has also contacted Jo's cheese emporium; he's the one who told me about The Teak Place in the Cradle of Mankind where you can pick your own veggies and stagger off with R50's worth of seasonal goodness in a basket (I love their green tomatoes). Philippe loves good home-produced foodstuffs, and that's what South Africa does best. Even though the Cape is very snooty about their food, they can't touch us Highvelders in the good taste department. It's something about the big sky, the big rains, the electricity in the air, the endless sunshine and the mineral-laden soil. If you go out to the Magaliesberg, you could put a stick in the ground and it would grow, the soil is so good. Or is that just me being partisan?

I spotted a jar of homemade mulberry jam, which my Australian based sister would adore if I could manage to smuggle past the dreaded Tasmanian sniffer dogs, and asked Jo what would go best with it. She shaved off a sliver of Hester Hoogendijk's pecorino and offered it to me on the point of a cheese knife. "It's slightly salty," she ventured, and would go admirably with the dark-purple, seed stuffed mulberry jam, which carried the label "Homemade on Zondagskraal" and was decorated with a blue gingham frilled lid tied with raffia. Pure goodness in a jar. I had written about Hester's Hijke cheeses last year when I did a story on Joburg markets for Good Taste magazine and had intended very hard to get to her farm Doornkraal, outside Bapsfontein, for a taste but Jo's shop was clearly much closer. Hester won third place at the World Cheese Show in Dublin for her Gouda Light, and her cheeses are outstanding.

It's bloody hard to choose one cheese in Jo's shop. It's kind of like eating one peanut. The next taste she offered me was an "Oud Gouda", which was much sweeter and crumbly when she sliced it with an enormous mezzaluna knife. I had to have both and how satisfying it was to walk out with my squares of cheese wrapped up close in greaseproof paper. I am trying to give up plastic but it like being on diet in a world full of sugar. It requires the utmost willpower. Inside the paper the cheese was wrapped in plastic - and it seems so natural, as that is how cheese has always been wrapped my whole life.

I said goodbye to the bead and wire goat in the window which food reporter Hillary Biller had donated to the shop. It was all done up in a tiny Bafana Bafana jersey with a green cap stretched over its horns. Jo likes to dress it up in different outfits every week. On the subject of soccer, Jo's husband said that he wanted to try his hand at Diski dancing - I know if I tried it with my luck it would be Slipped Diski dancing.

Outside the Kia Piccanto which had been following me around all morning was waiting. Apparently Julius Malema (who to my delight no one has heard of outside this country) has decided that it is in the public's interests that journalists be followed and their private lives chronicled, as he feel that the boot should be on the other foot and he is (poor dear) the victim of a political conspiracy. It had, had, had to be the ANC Youth League, who was following me! Who else would take the trouble? What amazed me was not that fact, but the ineptitude of their technique. Same car, same numberplate, no attempt at disguise. Whatever happened to the art of surveillance? Was it because I joined the Facebook page, Helen Zille for President? Perhaps this could explain my missing number plates?

Anyway my life must have been ultra boring - no visits to brothels, no coke scores or visits to Nigerian drug lords in Hillbrow, no bribing of police officers (although this is probably the only country where you get locked up for not bribing the cops). No fun of any kind, not even a movie. The Kia Piccanto was gone by mid-afternoon. Obviously I need to do something much more scandalous with my life than go to markets and cheese shops. A tenderpreneurship or two? A fake driver's licence? A little porn?

Recycle like Lance Armstrong

2010-03-23T01:42:00.000-07:00

OK, folks, enough of the silly stuff now ... time to get serious. Time to throw away the plastic bags and never buy another one, time to start that veggie garden, time to think about what you eat, wear and throw away. Time to do your bit to help this truly lovely planet.

RECYCLING has been on my mind for some time now, but I did not know what to do about it or how to start. Recycling and environmental awareness is so much part of life in Europe, the States and Australasia, but South Africa has not quite reached this stage. Overseas there are special bins for paper, plastic, bottle and tins and everything gets taken away by the municipality to be recycled. But our own beloved Pikitup arrives once a week, makes a helluva racket, everyone screams and shouts, the cats and dogs run away and then the truck is gone - having emptied the contents of the neighbourhood bins all higgledy piggledy together. No chance of recycling there.

The only ones who do recycle are the hawkers who go through all your municipal bins outside in the street, then load up their shopping trolleys with bottles and cans and huge cardboard pieces that they can't see over the top of, and wheel them down the road against the traffic (cue: screech of brakes!), en route to the dump where they get paid for their goods-to-be-recycled by the kilogram. This for many is their only form of livelihood. They can earn between R100 to R1000 a week, depending on how much they gather but it's a very tough existence.

Good news is, there are a myriad of smallish independent recyling companies out there and the shopping centres are coming on board. Like Gateway in Durban which is the only place in South Africa which has built-in semi-automatic sorting machines in the basement which bale all the waste, I was told by Marianna Naidoo whose husband Darren runs a company called WASTE RECYCLERS. Some of the shopping centres do recycling on site and then get companies to remove it to different depots. Marianna told me about the "bakkie brigades", who arrive with their own cars and take the rubbish off to the depot, earning themselves much needed cash. Something that people have not yet cottoned on to is there is MONEY in recycling.

There just isn't enough information for the man on the street, though. You all ask yourselves, how do I recycle in my own home? And where do I take it? What do I do about that pile of old magazines and newspapers? And the bottles from last night's party? Or all the empty loo rolls that the family mysteriously accumulates in a single week? Can I start a veggie garden if I live in a townhouse complex? Why does everything you buy seem to be packaged in plastic (sometimes impenetrably so). What happens to this mountain of STUFF?

First thing to do is, get into the habit of sorting out your rubbish into glass, plastic, wet waste, paper and cold drink bottles. Get a couple of old naartjie/fruit boxes and put each category into a different box. Soon it will be as much a part of your daily routine as brushing your teeth. And here's what you do with it ...

Michelle Garforth Venter, who has just won a Glamour Woman Award for her eco-contributions, told me about a company called WHOLE EARTH (www.wholeearth.co.za) who provide recyling bins for your home and come every second Monday of the month to take away your sorted goodies (and yes, they do come to townhouse complexes). The company was started by Michele Higginson, who owns Crabtree & Evelyn in South Africa. The Whole Earth bins cost about R300 each and the service is about R700 a year. All you have to do is wash out your stuff (don't want fruit flies infesting your bins!) and sort it into different categories. Just throw in the cat food pouches or dog food packet, empty Coke bottle, yoghurt cartons, etc, in with the morning's washing up, and train your "home executive" to do the same.

Michelle gave me some great other tips too. If you can, get a wormery she says. This is for all your "wet waste" that doesn't get sorted out and you can put the nice smelling compost created by the friendly earthworms on your newly created veggie garden. She said Full Cycle make the best wormeries and you can get them at all garden shops. The reason she say they are the best is because they come on legs which allows for run-off. Keep the taps open, she says so the wormery drains and the worms don't drown. You or your "garden executive" (who may be your husband or even a green-fingered child) can use the run off diluted 3:1 with water as liquid fertiliser for your plants. Alright, get your head around the word "worms" now. These are the earthworm variety, the kind that eat up your tea leaves, newspaper and veggie scraps and turns them miraculously into soil!

Or try an interior composter from Full Cycle which you can keep in the office/home. It works with "bokashi", which looks like sawdust. Chuck your sandwich crusts, tea grounds, apple cores and lunch waste into the tray and sprinkle the bokashi over it to help the waste decompose. "Basically, it pickles the waste,"' says Michelle.

Another option is a Sink Master, the same as they have in the States, for the leftovers. No more old green gibble in dustbin gravy!

Michelle and her husband Riaan have already been involved in greening the Minister of the Environment's house, as well as that of Basetsane Kumalo, and gave me some handy things to do around the house, some of which might help beat Eskom's unbelievable price hikes.

1.Geyerwise is the gadget that you put on the side of your geyser and set the temperature at 27 degrees Celsius. If you want you can go down to 10 or 12 degrees.
2. Changing all the lightbulbs to Eurolux, including up and down lighters.
3. Stop using a tumbledrier and use natural sunlight.
4. Use a Bioball (get this at health shops, such as Fresh Earth in Linden) to replace your detergent, or use local natural detergents such as Blouwaterblommetjie or Enchantrix, also from Fresh Earth.
4. Recycle all the water in your house via a gray or black water system.

Michelle also told me about the top three chemicals to avoid in household cleaners and cometics. The next time you're in the supermarket squinting at the fine print on your toothpaste, face cream, general cleaner, or dishwashing liquid, here's what to look for:

1. Parabens. These are preservatives.
2. Phthalate, commonly known as parfums.
3. Asodium Laurel Sulphates (on the label it will say ALS).

All of these are oestrogen mimickers, she says, which enter the bloodstream. They do have to be present in huge quantities before they affect you to the degree where all sorts of medical conditions present themselves, but who wants to risk that? It's time we starting thinking more about these things.

Another scary fact is the landfill. Landfills are municipally allocated specific areas where everything is dumped all together. Often this produces huge amounts of methane gas (which can be used to generate energy, which is positive) and the landfills have to be covered or they pose a health hazard. They also have to be dug very deep and if the dumps are not lined the waste goes into our water table. Not a pretty thought. Michelle told me about a "good" landfill called Enviro-Fill which her programme has shot a few times. Enviro-Fill have a reccyling station and compact cubes of waste on site.

Another thing I have always wondered about is what happens to all the plastic and paper once it has been sorted, collected and sent to the right place. So I asked Marianna what happens to the waste that is sent to her plant in Elandsfontein, where they have different machines for breaking down and recycling plastics. The plastic is melted into opaque thick masses, like cottonwool, to be reused. Sometimes the cans get flattened and sold to India to be turned into sheet metal. Paper is sent to big companies like Sappi, Mondi and Nampak and sorted into different categories, like white paper, coloured paper, newspaper, magazines and cardboard, and broken down again. The ink of course dissolves. The recycled product is used instead of virgin paper for other commercial products.

One company in South Africa even makes polyester clothing and duvet covers out of cold drink bottles, she told me!

Education is the key to understanding recyling and environmental awareness. We have to relearn our lives and the way that we think. We have to throw away our favourite household brands that we grew up with, unless they get with the programme and become more environmentally friendly. Nursery schools are a good place to start. If your children become more environmentally aware, so will you. Local garages are another good spot. Press coverage needs to be stepped up although community papers have been very vigilant.

We as Africans were brought up with the notion of conservation, of saving or rehabilitating animals in the bush, practically on our doorstep. The idea of shooting a wild animal for the sheer sport of it is anathema to most of us. Even culling seems cruel. So let's translate that awareness into our own lives, as now it is our planet that is endangered.

My 10 worst dates from hell

2010-03-15T01:24:00.000-07:00

Every girl (and guy) has been on one ... the really really bad date. Which is why programmes like Sex and the City hit the spot. Those girls went on some of the worst dates possible, even though they were gorgeous, accomplished, successful and intelligent women! From bad kissers to men who break up with you on a Post-It, there was just no getting off the bad dating game carousel for Carrie, Sam, Miranda and Charlotte.

Even though my bad dates were hardly in the region of the Fab Four, I think, after a lifetime of dignified silence, it's time to name and shame ten of the worst dates I have ever been on.

My teens and early 20s were a dating desert, probably due to extreme inexperience and natural nerdiness. I never got any useful information about dating, except when my older sister who was much wiser in the ways of the world said to me: "Men are rats."

My worst blind date at school was with a Bishops boy who was part of a visiting rugby team. The school organised some of us girls to accompany them to a dance and I was teamed up with a "gentleman" called Peter. We did not like each other and he promptly ran off with the Biology teacher, who was engaged, but turned out to be nothing but a cheatin' old cougar. Her sex education lesson to us all in class consisted of one word: "Don't". She obviously wanted to impart some biology lessons to him, though, and I was left with some nerd who played in the brass band! Peter was not finished behaving badly, however, and distinguished himself by writing in the vistors' book at school: "Sit on your face". He was a real charmer.

Then there was Juan or Jose or something like that. I (all 17 years of me) met him at a dance on my first day at university. He had flat bright predatory eyes like a ferret or a small weasel. He took one look at me and said: "You are so preeeetty and so eeeenocent." Although we kissed like crazy (he was a very bad kisser, later years would teach me. Slimy-tongued! He also put me off Latin men for life), I wasn't dumb. He did not get what he was after ("You are so cold!" he accused me). I tortured him. He was forced to date the campus mattress subsequently (more his speed). He now lives in New Zealand. The really bad thing about Jose/Juan was the boy that I did like saw me with him, and wouldn't speak to me for years.

Then there was the dreaded Lurgy. Oh lordy. My mother pushed me into this one. The dreaded Lurgy was much older than me. Again we went to a dance. My so called friends were rightly horrified by him and kept at a distance, whispering in the corner about us. Only 18, I just about died of embarrassment. Then he took me to an establishment called Charlie Bambi's which was a right dive and served chicken pies probably made from old horse. I could not wait to get home. The dreaded L tormented me for years afterwards though, with bad bagpipe playing outside my window.

A vast men-free void of studying followed at varsity. After I left home for the big bad world dating picked up considerably. I went on a date practically every night and not all of them were bad. But then there was Dominic, who was my age instead of the slightly older man which I preferred. He asked me out and arrived late, in an un-ironed shirt. He took me off somewhere (the Hard Rock Cafe?) and spent the night flirting with the various waitresses (my worst, gameplaying). Contrary to his expectations I was not prepared to be dessert so he dumped me off at home at around 9.30pm (I thought this was a world record, but it was beaten by one of my sister's dates, who was called Milton. Milton was told by my father he had to have her back at the house at 7.30pm!!).

Then there was some dude, whose name I can't even remember now. I think it was Oswald, but we will call him Date no 5. A friend rustled the whiffle-bearded Ozzy up as a plus-one for, ironically, Dominic's sister's wedding. My date was married but still considered himself in the game (as I recall, he was reading Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses at the time, in a brown paper bag, as it was banned). We sat at the same table as the best man, who was cute and dark. I took a huge shine to the best man and we flirted up a storm. Then my dodgy date suggested that we all go out on the town. I had to go home to feed the dogs and when I came back cute, dark boy had disappeared completely (suspect to this day that Oswald got rid of the other guy). I was forced to go out with my date instead, who turned out to be tighter than a duck's ass. After our meal he patted himself down and said: "Oh dear, I seem to have forgotten my wallet". Then he made me pay for his parking!!!!

I also met "Hannibal", who was probably a bit mad. I met Hannibal at a rose nursery when I was with my sister and brother-in-law. He gave us a phenomenal discount on all the plants we bought. "Oh, how kind!" I said and my sister and bro-in-law gave each other a significant look. Surprise, surprise Hannibal (not his real name) phoned me at work and proceeded to take me out. He got very insistent in his bakkie ("kiss me, kiss me"), after bringing me love gifts of compost, manure and about a million rose bushes. After a while I couldn't take his calls any more. He seemed a bit disturbed (he had been in one of the bush wars) and it had finally dawned on me that he was in earnest.

Friends introduced me to Munich-born Michael, who worked for BMW. Michael was much older but fun, especially when he was drunk, which he seemed to be most of the time. We played Trivial Pursuit together and he liked my killer instinct. We were friends for a while and then he asked me out on a date. Big mistake. We were supposed to be going to a Police Ball but it turned out (very coincidentally) that his PA had messed up the dates. Instead he took me to a Japanese restaurant called Osho in Rosebank where he proceeded to behave like a prize idiot. "Do you know who I am?" he asked all the restaurant staff, demanding that someone be at his elbow 24/7 to refill his glass. I was mortified and we had a ding-dong fight in the car on the way home. We had another date for the next weekend but he got his secretary to phone me and cancel, saying he had to PLAY GOLF THAT SATURDAY NIGHT!! Turns out he was having an affair with a married German lady, hence the golf.

Who could forget Psycho Steve? By this time I was having serious relationships, followed by painful break-ups. It was after one of these that a friend introduced me to PS, who was going through a divorce (I am not surprised). He seemed very nice at first meeting and we went to a ball, organised by Edith Venter. I liked the way it went and thought he could be useful as a partner. So I invited him to my next function, the Viennese Ball. He accepted but on the morning of the ball sent me an SMS saying "uuurgh he had gastric flu and was in bed so he couldn't come". I told him I was upset by the short notice, and got hit by an SMS from hell. NOW I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE REALLY LIKE. I AM GLAD I FOUND OUT NOW. I AM REALLY SICK. GO TO HELL YOU BITCH. Right. I was told later by other people who knew him that Psycho Steve was one sick puppy.

My friends all know about The Skidder by now. I met him on a wine tasting course where he eyeballed me boldly across the room. For six weeks we worked very hard at our course and finally when it was finished everyone went out for dinner together. The Skidder who was from Glascow was terribly proud of his Audi TT. He honestly thought I had never seen anything quite like it and asked me if I was impressed. He lived in a house which used to belong to an old school fellow of mine, a grand mansion which he had done out with fake Scottish coats of arms. He thought I would be impressed by that too. He told me how much everything in the house cost (there were huge boom boxes everywhere, such class) but then sat and farted into his expensive couch at top volume. I went to the loo, which is how the Skidder earned his nickname. I was brought up in a house where you had to leave the loo bowl as you would wish to find it. Obviously the Skidder grew up in the Gorbils and left the loo, well, with skidmarks. I never saw him again.

I then dated seriously again, or so I thought (this is actually getting to be like an episode of Sex and the City, by the way. Who knew I could compete with those New York glamazons?). This guy Andrew took the cake. Turned out he got married six months after he met me and lied like his feet stank about it. He worked in a bookstore and fed me big lines about how he had bipolar disorder and couldn't go out at night as he had to go to sleep. And I bought it. Well, the day that I found out about him and DUMPED his ass I immediately phoned Fergus, who my friend had been trying to hook me up with. Fergus was 27, younger than me, and worked for a security company, and I thought the date would make me feel better. We agreed to meet at the Westcliff Polo Lounge. When I arrived, I found that Fergus had brought all his friends along with him and that he was actually in love with the friend who set us up!

My ten dates from hell were probably the opposite to a date with Tad Hamilton (fortunately I have had lovely dates as well in my life, so what's ten bad evenings?) I am sure there are people out there with far worse stories to tell, so please feel free to leave your comments!!

Encouraging South Africa's chicest women

2010-03-11T06:08:00.000-08:00

I asked Francois Rall from Carducci Woman to help me out with an outfit for the Glamour magazine Oscars at the Table Bay last weekend because I have always liked his style and sense of chic, ever since he had a shop in Hyde Park and told me about his French grandmother. Francois has been employed by the House of Monatic since July 2008 and supplies Stuttafords and independent boutiques with his tailored ranges for the woman who has to juggle her work, family and lifestyle and look super-good in the process.

I was impressed by his outfits at the J&B Met this year, especially Leanne Manas's burgundy chiffon dress, with its long train and elegant hat. He amazed me for the Oscar party with a sheer printed blouse teamed with a 40s high waisted black velvet equestrian skirt printed with a gold bamboo pattern. It even had a train. I was in love at first sight. "It's print on print," he explained simply, and told me just how to do my hair.

SMSs flew back and forth while a gorgeous 25 year old stylist was blowdrying my sadly straggly locks. "Straight messy or curly messy?" I inquired, and the answer flew back, "Straight messy, like they did it at London Fashion Week this year." After turning my head upside down and tossing it about madly a couple of times I was dizzy, but messy enough. (Sorry about all the me, me, me but Francois's outfit did made me feel like a million dollars. So let me have one little Cinderella moment!)

I met up again with Francois at Stuttafords this week, having joined his Facebook site The Face of Carducci Woman. The site is getting around 100 fans per day - the power of Facebook - even though it was started up only two weeks ago. The closing date is April 17, and 20 finalists will be chosen from each region: Joburg, Cape Town and Durban.

So who is this fabulous Carducci Woman who can project a new ad campaign? Not a professional model who are all over-exposed, he believes. One week they are with this brand, the next week with another. Last year he sat down with creative guy and producer/designer Dirk de Waal who is also a scout, and discussed it. "Let me call you back in ten minutes, said Dirk. He did, and suggested: "Why don't you have a competition?"

Francois's designs from Carducci Woman are aimed at the career girl, from 24 upwards to an elegant, beautiful older woman. In fact, that's one of the criteria for entering the competition: you have to be 24 and upwards, and you HAVE to have a career (circus acrobat, dog walker, personal shopper, CEO of your own company - you're all eligible). He and a panel of media will be looking for someone with the right proportions, ("I am not sensitive about size. They don't have to be a size 32, size 36 can photograph just as well," he told me), plus intelligence and inner beauty ("anyone can look like a movie star with the right make-up, but we want the overall package") and sophistication ("the clothes in my range are sophisticated. My genre is clothes for the modern working career woman, with evening and day lifestyle pieces. I know women like that, they are my friends and I relate to them"). When the finalists have been chosen they will be given a makeover, photographed by a professional photographer and interviewed. The overall winner will be the first face out on the catwalk at his Carducci show at Joburg Winter Fashion Week. She will also do the next Carducci Woman campaign.

Francois is very excited. "I'm going to choose the Face of Carducci Woman, but every woman could be the winner," he told me flourishing his Blackberry which contains an amazing amount of photographs ("someone should publish a book").

Each entrant has had to submit not only her Facebook pic on the electronic competition form (www.carducciwoman.co.za) and must post pictures of herself on the site.

I'm a bit of an Elle fan and was happy to hear that they had come on board as a media sponsor. Also on board is Iman Cosmetics (I'm meeting her at a Destiny breakfast in a few weeks), Clinique and Redken to do the hair.

The Face of Carducci Woman competition and the catwalk show are all very good news for South African women who are being encouraged to become more chic every day by great designers like Francois.

The story of an African wine farm

2010-03-10T01:14:00.001-08:00

The Barns brothers, Andrew and Gary, from Mischa Estate invited me at last year's Glamour mag Oscar party to come and see their Wellington wine farm, and it took me a whole year to get there (sorry guys). The visit was a lovely relaxation time before this year's Oscar party, and I was picked up outside Cape Town's very swish new domestic arrivals hall by a busload of celebs and fellow media, looking for all the world like the bus from Little Miss Sunshine as it careered around the corner with the door open and everyone hanging out of the window shouting: "Get in! Get in!"

(OK, that's a slight exaggeration, but us scribes are allowed to embroider a little from time to time.) My fellow occupants of the bus were eager to get on their way, as the Cape was in the grip of a heatwave and temperatures in the winelands had hit 44 degrees. Presumably the grapes were turning to raisins on the vine. It was positively boiling and the air-con struggled. Most of us sat in our seats with our mouths fishily open, gasping for air. The party consisted of footballer Larry Cohen and his lady love Lady Kitty Spencer (who had been savaged by mosquitoes attracted by the soaring temperatures the night before)

... Thoko Qoboza from the Table Bay where most of us were staying,

actress Lee-Anne Summers and her boyfriend Bjorn, Danielle Franco from Bush Telegraph who had supplied VO5 hair products for the Oscar party, singer Jennifer Su (who spent most of the day flat on her back suffering from heatstroke), MAN star Henri Slier (who told us about a old school dive in Cape Town called the Dom Pedro where the German tourists take their dates and everyone sits around and has a jointwith the waitresses who afterwards get up on the tables and show off full-bodied, gorgeous voices) and TV producer Alan Ford. Plus a photographer.

Driving through the dusty streets of Wellington I was reminded of trips to the town as a child, eating dried fruit that we bought at farm stalls. Wellington is one of the Cape's lushest fruit bowls, and is also renowned for its meat and fresh produce. Not in this weather, the tail end of the Cape summer. Men walked shirtless in the searing streets and the town bowed before the heat, silent and motionless. Only its stern Victorian patriach Andrew Murray glared straight ahead of him like Abe Lincoln. The gardens were desolate and flowerless, the trees sparcely planted. No over-arching avenues of Joburg green to break the dry, dust-laden agony as we drove down the main street with its algemene handelaar, requisite bottle store (closed on a Sunday), Pep store and butchery.

It was a blessed relief to bump down the dirt road which led up to the farm, one of the oldest in the district, and be greeted by greenery, a big dam, picturesque cellars and a chilled glass of sparkling wine, grown on the estate.

Andrew's wife Rachel (see both of them, above) dispensed it as we huddled under a vine on the verandah, and he told us Mischa's bubbly is of the few to use Merlot as its base. The estate in fact is mostly devoted to viticulture and the nursery supplies vines to many of the neighbouring winemakers. That's younger brother Gary's job. Both men grew up around wine, as the farm has been in the Barns family for three generations, since the 1940s. The name Mischa is a composite one, after their grandmother's Russian dance partner plus a family friend called Michael.

The estate had finished harvesting and our group was aken to see the grapes fermenting in big vats, covered with plastic taups. Their smell hung heavy in the air and the miggies danced drunkenly above the vats. Gary plunged his hand in to show us the frothy purple juice coming out of the de-stemmed berries. It stained his fingers indelibly, reminding me of Homer's wine-red sea.

I was hoping we might have an old-fashioned grape stamping - certainly few of us were dressed for it. But the organic-ness of winemaking was unmistakable, and seductive.

Andrew led us off to the cellar where the temperature was regulated at a blissful 16 degrees. The cellar was romantically full of pink-stained barrels and Andrew explained the various kinds of oak they are made of, and how each style of oak makes the wine taste different. He drew off various samples from American and French-oaked barrels with a "barrel thief" (a long glass tube that looked like a catheter) and squeezed them into our glasses, inviting us to taste and explaining how the wine evolves and grows in the barrels.

With his patience and knowledge we could start to distinguish the various tastes, and he explained terms like "'open", "closed" and "structure" to us. He was also quite passionately opposed to comparison being made between French and South African wines (Bordeaux, for example). They are two completely different countries, he said, with different styles of wines, climate, soil and methods. There is no need to compare them - just enjoy the good wines from both countries at all times!

Despite South Africa being a wine-growing country few of us encounter the actual processes involved, and so many of us don't drink it or are intimidated by all the pursed-lipped pretentiousness that goes with wine drinking and winespeak. Who knew that there is no longer any need to worry about corkage, with all the new screwtop bottles around. So you don't need to make a wise face, and swill your mouthful around the next time the waiter pours a little to taste in your glass.

By this time the Mischa sparkles had kicked in and I was staggering like one of the drunken miggies. It was time for lunch. Andrew and Gary's parents joined us after our trip to the cellars. The resident chef Duncan explained how he had married the Mischa labels to the meal: springbok carpaccio,

... followed by seared beef with a prune juice sauce (above) and a berry chocolate dessert. I was loving my Eventide Viognier (below) and Cabernet Sauvignon and we were given a gift bottle of the latter to take home with us.

After lunch many retired to the pool, in either their bathing costumes or feet first in the clothes they were in.

Beating the heat ... hotties Gary and Bjorn.

What a blissful end to a wonderful day at an African wine farm ...

An act of international tenorism

2010-03-02T01:23:00.000-08:00

Did you know that a man's voice can change when he gets older? We know about piping little trebles becoming deep baritones as their hormones kick in, but did you know that Elton John used to be a tenor? And that his voice "dropped" with age? Yellow Brick Road will never sound the same again! Gravity is an interesting thing.

That's one of the things I learnt when I had DINNER WITH THE 12 TENORS the other night. "The who?" you ask. Please don't confuse me, as I can be a little musically challenged. No, not The Who. The TWELVE TENORS. Not three, or four, or even ten - which is the last number I heard singing together (those were Australians, I say, whipping out my official anti-Aussie T shirt). These are the 12 tenors, who were put together by Michael King, he of the Spirit of the Dance fame (more confusion: Lord of the Dance? Riverdance?), or so they told me.

The tenors, all 12 of them, were invited to dinner at friend Carolyn Steyn's penthouse in Sandton. There was already one baritone (Timothy Maloi) and I thiiiink, a few other tenors: Craig Whitehead (doing a very breathy Eartha Kitt "I want to be Evil") and Michael de Pinna (who talked about his variety days in the UK when he was told they were the worst act but everyone liked them anyway). When I arrived there was much howling coming from the roof, and I thought, God, it's a Sunday night and they have (a) started without me and (b) I don't think I have the stamina for this. Is it possible that tenors can misbehave so? I thought they all lived on a diet of lemon and honey and had to have resident chefs like Pavarotti.

On arrival at Carolyn's flat, it turned out the racket was coming from a school group who were two floors down. Carolyn and her friends were relatively sedate even though the champagne was flowing. The penthouse had a virtual 360 degree view and the Sandton sunset was gorgeous. The weather held out perfectly throughout the evening in fact, with a bright china moon so we were invested with inescapable lunar energy. That must have been the champagne talking _ I had had two glasses by this stage and was avoiding the edge of the balcony.

We, including Sandton magazine's Josef Talotta, had the roof all to ourselves as the tenors had not arrived yet. They were coming in convoy from the Parktonian downtown. So I had a chance to chat to Michael de Pinna, who amused me with his trip to Tasmania. I had a brush with some Jehovah's Witnesses when I was there many years ago and thought that beautiful as it was, it could, on occasion, be quite an odd place. Michael described the Tasmanian Devil as being like a "woes dassie with Pieter Toerien teeth".

At about 7.30 there was a flurry at the front door. The 12 good men and true looked like someone's childen who had had their hair slicked down for them before being sent off in their Sunday best. Except for LA Lakers soloist Branden James, who was curiously self-assured. And astute. He told me that he had gone to the Vatican to sing for the current Pope's 80th birthday and that word was that the next Pope would be coming from South America. The Vatican politics seem to be as involved, if not more so, than the average American election. Branden said that all the bishops vote but I wanted to find out more. Seems that Popes are pre-elected (what does that tell you about politics in general?). I told him that the previous Pope was my favourite, if you can have a favourite Pope. Who could forget the Popemobile? It had a certain razzamatazz.

Branden, who is used to meeting Hollywood celebrities at the Lakers games, clocked Princess Zenani Dlamini Mandela at 12 o'clock immediately. Not that Zenani would count herself as a celebrity. She is a good person, and so much like her dad. She was still upset about her PA who had died of cancer recently. The health care system in this country leaves a lot to be desired, as the PA had had lupus in her family but this was not diagnosed until it was way too late.

Zenani meets the guys.

The tenors were relieved of having to sing for their supper as their show had been cancelled that day and they seemed happy. It was off to London (home for many). We had to ask them about their washing situation; one of them told me they had been given a few pairs of Bone underpants so that was one problem solved! Carolyn was telling them about the time she was kept in custody at Heathrow for several hours. Her ex husband Dow Steyn phoned Madiba who phoned Carolyn whose phone had been confiscated. She was kept in a long room with a dirty loo, whose only occupant was a poor woman from Burundi who had been there for three days. The Nazis at Heathrow who were holding her prisoner then got a call from Jack Straw and she was released immediately. Good thing the boys were not there or she would have been accused of being a "tenor-ist". She has, incredibly, gone back to the UK several times.

Herbivore and carnivore alike tucked into their dinner with great enthusiasm and Michael (who had been roped in as cook and bottlewasher, so he told us) waved everyone over to bring their plates and start. And very delicious it was, lots of lasagne, chicken drumsticks and gorgeous salads. The champagne had given us an appetite so we joined in the eating fray.

The tenors, sweet young fellows that they were, told Carolyn later that it was the best time they had ever had. And they certainly seemed to want to come back to South Africa, mourning the fact that their tour dates had not coincided with the 2010 World Cup dates.

PS: I just got a comment about how do they split their takings between 12 of them. Good point ...

Stealing the show at the SAFTAs

2010-02-23T00:46:00.000-08:00

Acting legend John Kani managed to steal the show from the rent-a-scream mob at the fourth SOUTH AFRICAN FILM & TELEVISION AWARDS in Pretoria. "What is wrong with us South Africans"?" he asked when accepting his Lifetime Achievement Award, the fourth such award in six months. "Why do we not think we are good enough to play Mandela?" It was a pointed reference to Morgan Freeman's role in Invictus, the Clint Eastwood movie which is (baffingly) up for several Oscar nominations.

Not only did Kani get a standing ovation, but his statement was greeted with wild cheers from the audience (perhaps not as piercing and wild as the ones greeting each wannabe and soapie star arriving on the red carpet, but much more satisfying as they came from his peers). It was a moot point. Anyone can do a Madiba accent but Kani would have brought a lot more gravitas to the role. He was so brilliant in Disgrace, and the movie did not get any nominations. What does that tell us? Maybe Clint Eastwood's butt gets kissed so much in Tinseltown that the judges are willing to overlook the fact that Invictus was certainly not his best movie ever. Kani was right: South Africans are the only ones who can tell their own stories, we have a depth and understanding of ourselves and our own history that no imported film crew could ever grasp.

Eastwood, Damon and Freeman did their damndest and maybe the film would work for a foreign market who still think in the apartheid stereotypes implanted in their minds (all Afrikaners are bad and all of them speak in those incredibly dodgy accents which foreign film makers employ. I don't know anyone, English or Afrikaans speaking who talks like that!!!) but at the end of the day they were just a bunch of tourists really. The film was interesting from an historical point of view but in contrast Disgrace explored so many nuances and complexities, so many areas of grey and layers that Eastwood's movies just never peel back. But then Eastwood's movies are, and have always have been, aimed at the masses, and earn cult status due to their popular appeal.

South African writer Antjie Krok is in agreement regarding Disgrace's Oscar status, another legendary local film maker Katinka Heyns told me in the lobby before the award ceremony began. It was a brilliant book and an equally brilliant movie. Katinka herself is no slouch in the great movie business (think, Fiela de Kind and Paljas) and she also won a Lifetime Achievement Award and a standing ovation. Unassuming and indefatigable, Katinka is another great South African film icon.

It was heartening to see that we do honour our greats, even if quite a few awards were posthumous this year. Myself and my neighbours got officially depressed when it turned into a case of Bring Out Your Dead.

We needed a cheer up from MC John Vlismas, who was dressed as a cross between Sid Vicious and Mad Max for the night, lots of chains and bovver boots.

A little 'Greek power' in the East

2010-02-18T00:14:00.000-08:00

In the swim ... the Goldfinger girl in her snazzy cossie, which she changed later. It all tied in with the swimwear/lingerie show.

Last night saw the launch of the RICH REALGRILLBAR in the Bedford Centre. You don't expect a glam, red-carpetish sort of affair for the opening of an East Rand restaurant which has actually been doing business for three months, but I guess the owners wanted to make a huge splash to impress the people coming out of movies (pity they didn't include the price of the drinks in their obviously generous budget). And as it was a very Greek affair, it must have been the equivalent of pinning gold coins on a bride's dress. Let's just impress the hell out of everyone, shall we!

First thing to greet us was a girl in a Goldfinger 60s style swimsuit splashing around in a huge glass bowl. The water distorted the lines of her body, so that at times she almost looked pregnant but, hey, it was a good gimmick and all the men hoped she would take her clothes off (typical). Later on, when thirst overcame some guests we eyed out the enormous watery glass (sans model), but thought, no, she might have peed in it. Still have no idea how they got her in and out of the water.

OK, that's how .... Goldfinger girl had to hoist herself up to the top of the glass, then be carted out bottom first while a burly fellow held on to the glass itself. Rather undignified!

Also outside was a swankily gleaming Aston Martin convertible signed by Nelson Mandela himself, worth a few mill.

Besides the "Greek power" on the guest list there were lots of folk from across town who never venture out to the East. Now not only do most of Joburg's Greek and Italian population live here but the food is also very lekker. You find the best delis, coffee and restaurants on this side of town. If the food wasn't good we would probably see the Peloponnesian War, the Trojan War, the Greco-Persian Wars and the Greek War of Independence all rolled into one. Plus a few good Italian skirmishes.

Greek caterer Vicky Crease had done out the food stations, which combined savouries with desserts (wonderful mini-doughnuts coated in chocolate, bunches of fresh grapes, meringues, cheese platters with dried figs), and I found a table to enjoy it with in the company of Carlton Hair chief hairdresser David Gilson and his wife Alison. They were loving their food! We started with oysters (bit too icy for my liking), then I tried a souvlaki on a stick (very tender, especially with a squirt of lemon), then David went scouting for some prawns (soft and tasty) and the waiters came round with mashed potato and crushed pink peppercorns topped with lamb chops and sprigs of rosemary, served, wait for it, in martini glasses. Great presentation idea for the next dinner party! Vicky thinks out of the box every time, not only in the dishes she serves but in the way she presents them.

You have to sit down and enjoy when the food is this good but there was a lot of mingling to be done. I tracked down Ashley Hayden and her life partner Charlie in the smoking section. She had just got back from being voted off the South African Survivor series and had some interesting stuff to say (see my column in The Citizen on Saturday!). I don't have M-Net (gasp, horror) but will definitely be supporting her.

Yugoslavian model Danijela was a touch disapproving of the lingerie show as the models in swimwear wear wearing wings and apparently that is reserved only for lingerie models (who knew!).

Friend Jared Orlin looked around and said: "I must be the only Jewish person here". I think he was wrong as I did bump into model agency owner Paul Diamond's engineering brother Anthony . Nothing wrong with discovering your inner Greek though!

Dinner with a bunch of butchers

2010-02-15T02:05:00.000-08:00

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Here's looking at your chops ... Some of the beautiful flesh on offer at Meat, Etc.

One of the things that visitors to this country always tell you (besides, "You have such a beautiful country") is that the meat here is so fantastic, unlike places like the United Kingdom where it tastes of virtually nothing. One of South Africa's premium steakhouses, The Grillhouse, has been going strong since 1995 and many a fine steak has been enjoyed with a good bottle of red in this fine establishment.

Something to drool over ... carpaccio from heaven.

With the new expansion of The Firs shopping centre in Rosebank The Grillhouse has expanded its horizons with the opening of a new boutique butchery and deli right opposite its adjoining jazz haven Katzys, called Meat, Etc.

Gourmet butcheries are springing up like mushrooms all over the world and meat cleaving courses are becoming particularly popular (especially with the ladies) so this expansion is right on the money.

I was invited with a group of foodies, such as Hillary Biller from the Sunday Times and Rosanne Buchanan from Food & Home, to enjoy a dinner in the deli section, which was closed off from the public for the night. This did not deter passers-by from constantly peering in at us through the glass doors. Some of them belonged to the Lufthansa crews who always stay at the Hyatt Regency. Apparently they are great customers and take vacuum-packed meat back with them to Germany. It makes a great present - I have always wanted to give someone gorgeous fillet steaks for their birthday!

The invite read: "Don't know your rump end from your shank?" and we were promised that by the time we left we would know all there was to know about meat, the best cuts, as well as how to prepare and cook them. Now I don't eat a lot of red meat - too worried about hormones and steroids and all that extra acidity - but every now and then I really lust for a steak and start salivating involuntarily at the thought. While butcher Jan was explaining to us about the different cuts I was positively slavering. "Now, we are going to slice some rump," he told us. "Oh please don't," I entreated, having just watched The Long Good Friday again where a gang of hoodlums cut some poor man's bum up with a long knife. The Food & Home team sniggered.

But Jan, who was big and burly and built like two butchers put together, was unstoppable. He was incredibly deft with his sniper-sharp blade and snipped out the sinew in one fell swoop, then trimmed off the fat without removing one atom of meat so it was as clean as a whistle. He told us that the rump as so good it could pass for fillet but that he knew better. With all this knowledge under our belt we all felt like we could waltz into a butcher shop tomorrow and watch with an eagle eye, knowing what was what.

Then it was our turn, with a long red gorgeous piece of fillet each (still drooling at the thought). We were issued with plastic gloves which were very sweaty and stuck to our clammy hands, plus a sharp knife. I was sitting next to Moneyweb's David Bullard who proved to be a dab hand at butchering. He slid his knife under the white sinew, pulled it upwards off the meat and sliced it off expertly (maybe he was imagining it was his ex-editor Mondli or the entire team of Avusa!). Mine was a poor show - I managed to cut off the chateaubriand part first and then got horribly mixed up as to which end was which. As for trimming the fat off, I hacked off bits here and there so the whole piece looked terribly raggedy-assed. Our pieces were taken off and weighed but very few managed to cut a 300g steak and two 20Og steaks, most were underweight.

Then followed a magnificent meal cooked by the in-house chef and staff. On the table were some melt-in-the mouth lamb cutlets with neighbouring platters of steak ranging from well done to very rare, carved and beautifully presented. With that came all the trimmings: mashed potatoes, creamed spinach, sweetcorn and butternut squash. The marketing manager from Waterford Estates, Mark, was on hand to serve his fabulous whites and reds and tell us about them (he even told us about his Waterford Rock Salt chocolate which was created to be enjoyed with the Cab). David had perked up after all his Hannibal Lector-like carvings and told us about his brother, who is the lead guitarist with Smokie (of Living Next Door To Alice fame). The band still travels the world and sometimes plays at Carnival City where all the ancient groupies come out to greet them, like the Banger Sisters of Brakpan. The security guards take one look at all these Afrikaans off-duty policewomen, etc, and say: "OK, you can go in, and you, and you, and you ..."

I discovered that the deli not only sells magnificent meat (the same quality aged cut steaks that are served in The Grillhouse) but there are other goodies to be had as well ... the best biltong in town, and I have to repeat it ... the BEST. The boerewors comes in lambs' casings, and is to absolutely drop down dead for. It retails at around R170 a kilogram so we are talking top quality here, but what a treat. There are also spices and sauces and bastings and oils (all local). Fynbos honey from the Hamilton Russell estate, which is produced in limited quantities. Little Webers with wood chips to smoke meat with (always wanted to do that). All sorts of paraphernalia and braai equipment. No wonder they call it Meat, Etc.

And I loved the tag line: "Meat to Please You". It most certainly did. But I can't stop the drooling now ...

Smoke 'em ... No meal is complete without a nice Cuban. But you might have to nip next door to Katzys for one

Valentine's Day comes early

2010-02-13T00:45:00.001-08:00

He who pays for the Piper ... a romantic spot of bubbly!

VALENTINE'S DAY came three days early this year, with a Glamour magazine readers' event at the chicest mall in Joburg, Hyde Park. The mall carries screamingly expensive top fashion brands, some of which were on display in the downstairs court.

Love the shoes AND the handbag ... Part of the display from the Hyde Park shops

We all met up at the new Southern Sun Hotel and enjoyed some cool poolside mingling ..

Cool pool ... the Southern Sun Hyde Park deck overlooking Sandton.

... before we went downstairs to Greek restaurant Santorini and enjoyed upmarket meze, fish and meat platters, all with plenty of lemon. The restaurant was curtained off from the rest of the centre, so there was an intimate feel, especially with the banquette seating.

A Greek salad at Santorini.

A lingerie show followed, showing off the French Shop's finest.

The Lollipop Lounge ... well not really. The girls from the lingerie show.

Paparazzi style ... Guests take pix of the models.

Ouch ... even lingerie models have bad angles.

Simply heavenly ... Lucky guests took home Angel for the ladies and Amen for the gents.

PS: For those who are anti-Valentine I loved the story on e.tv this week about the French guy who started up a business sending cow pooh to ex-lovers and spouses who had the cheek to dump just before Valentine's! He is doing a roaring trade apparently.

Pictures by primo social lensman, DAVID SHEKLETON

The game is all about love, ladies

2010-02-10T01:24:00.000-08:00

A poster outside the centre court of top seeded player Gael Monfils, who told the media he loves South Africa!

Dimension Data sponsored a Ladies Day at the SA TENNIS OPEN at Montecasino last week. All the ladies were instructed to wear hats and look glamorous. As you can see, they succeeded very well! As Mandisa Ntloko from Dimension Data said: "This is a game all about love", so the proceeds of the day went to the Starfish Foundation. Some of the players popped into the marquee to say hallo before their game, but sadly Gael Monfils (I love saying his name, so French!) was not one of them. Photographer Irene Athanasias was on hand to snap their pictures, though.

Basetsane Kumalo and her friend Polly Tebeila.

Two of the dancers who performed for guests.

Gerda de Sousa from Jacaranda 94.2 radio station, in a lovely fuschia jersey dress and shoes from Aldo.

Former First Lady Zanele Mbeki and Jacqui Mabu from Montecasino.

A member of the boy band Navi Redd, who sang Johnny Clegg songs, among other things.

Winner of the best hat (from Harvey Nicks in London) Noelle McKean and former Miss South Africa Amy Kleinhans-Curd.

Hot, hot, hot ... two of the players, James Cerretani and Prakesh Amrita.

Actress Nambitha Mpumlwana (in my hat!)

Miss South Africa 2010, Nicole Flint, and winner of the Best Dressed prize, Kholeka Mzondeki.

An elegant representative of government.

Zanele Mamba from the Starfish Foundation.

Caterer-to-the-stars Vicky Crease, myself and Annelize Plettenbacher of the Executive Women's Club.

A glowingly pregnant Thuli Sithole (who joked that her baby was conceived at Edith Venter's comeback party last year!) with the glamorous Zodwa Pakade.

Scenes from the movies

2010-02-07T01:01:00.000-08:00

It's that time of the year again, when the Oscars are coming up and the awards are given out for the best movies of the year. Despite the bad economic times (the only strongest thing in the economy last year was the recession!) there was a feast for movie buffs and some stunners were on circuit last year, including a few with South African settings and stories. I did not think much of Invictus, personally, although Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman were brilliant and nailed their respective accents. The South African actors on the other hand were very poor and had not put much into their performances. It was a subject which could not miss its mark, though, and of course there was that typical Eastwood ending, very Hollywood and bigged-up, with PJ Powers lustily singing her '95 anthem.

Disgrace on the other hand was quite brilliant ... and I was particularly astonished that an Australian director had the guts to venture into the minefields of race, crime, prejudice, hatred of and violence against women - all the dark places where South Africans are too afraid to go - as well as pulling something positive out of the situation (John Kani and his family's betterment in life and an unexpected forgiveness which was almost Mandela-esque). Casual violence and trauma happen in our homes, on our streets every day and the movie forced me to examine the reasons behind it, as well as my own responses.

I was appalled to find myself shaking from head to toe at the scene when the daughter is raped and the three men laughingly drop a lit match on John Malkovich's petrol-drenched body. Initially I felt it as deliberate violence against my own tribe but began to see a much wider picture as the film progressed. This was for me an Oscar-winning movie. I can watch movies on the Holocaust, Bosnia or the genocide in Rwanda with some degree of detachment because they are not my stories, set in the places where I grew up, but when I watched Disgrace I could not tear my eyes from the screen.

What makes the media of film so powerful is that it can so skilfully manipulate emotions and provoke questions that change the way you think about a situation for months afterwards. It's like having a meal that feeds the soul.

I loved 500 Days of Summer because it made me think about what love really is. For so many people love is really obsession, wanting desperately to make someone else into what you want them to be. When you are young and have strong feelings it's easy to turn love into obsession. People meet, take one look at one another and decide that they are soul mates. Sometimes that way disaster lies, like Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, who seem to have decided that they really don't like each other at all! Sometimes though that soulmate feeling stays with people their entire lifetime, even if they go off on their separate paths. Humans are weird creatures and they can cherish their feelings like little spring blossoms which are not designed to withstand this world. Its survival makes no sense at all to an outsider. The practical would say, how can you say you love someone when you don't really even know them? For them love is spending your life with someone, having children together and making a home. However, there is a romantic inside even the most practical one of us. Who knows? People are so varied and complex that anything goes.

I am a real chick and some of my favourite movies about love are The Piano (so sensual), Gone With The Wind (the ultimate love-become-obsession movie), The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (a three-hanky movie about young love which doesn't make it, with a sad little soundtrack), Bridget Jones's Diary (sometimes you have to love a bad man before you can love a good 'un), Sophie's Choice (doomed love), Sleepers (about friendship which survives the unthinkable. Yes, friendship is also love), My Big Fat Greek Wedding (sometimes you love your family in spite of yourself), Breakfast at Tiffanys (an unexpected happy ending), The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (how to make a fool of yourself with a younger man), Henry and June (sex, obsession and love), The Graduate (the male fantasy: mother and daughter and lots of obsession), The Great Gatsby (at last, the real thing), Chocolat (most of my love was for the choccy scenes), Sideways (loved the description of Pinot), Gigi (archetypal lovestory), Fried Green Tomatoes, Babette's Feast (everyone got to love each other through food), As It is in Heaven (heavenly music does the same), Barry Lyndon (Brad and Angelina in the 18th century) and certainly not least, Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet (now that was the real deal).

The rainbow nation goes to the races

2010-02-01T07:29:00.001-08:00

Freak show city ... check out the blue hair caught in a very strong South-Easter!

Sensational ... Pabi Moloi, who was one of the judges,kept her cute grey hat on her bald head with elastic.

The River flows through it ... River Jetez, Pocket Power's sister came in with odds of around 60-1. Ridden here by jockey, Glen Hatt.

Over the top ... Some punters didn't bother to dress, just painted on their outfit!

Psychedelic, baby ... YFM's Twinz, Ntando and Hlelo Masina.

Pink 'fros ...The girls at the icecream stand, Monade van Heerden with Nicole Bester and Mieke Esterhuyse.

Best dressed couple ... Henri Slier in an hallucinogenic Carducci jacket and Thembi Seete

Hey, don't take that picture say the world's silliest talk show hosts, Corne and Twakkie. We're not Asterix and Obelix

And the winner is ... Durbanite Kevin Ellis (who is a bit of a Pocket Power in the design department, as he has won for several years) with his model in front of the J&B marquee.

Girls in tight dresses ... Christina Storm, Cindy Nell and Uyanda Mbuli.

Nice, but not raceday ... Minki van der Westhuizen in a gorgeous long pink evening gown with Ryan O'Connor.

Old soft shoe shuffle ... a very doo-wop moment from Kwela Tebza (Tshepo, Mpho and Tebogo Lerole).

It was pink and purple and blue and ... Meet Joseph's Technicolour hair worn by a gentleman with the very fusion name of Kevin van Tonder.

Fine feathers ... Lihle Njikelana & Ziphozakhe Zokufa

The new Miss South Africa 2010 ... Nicole Flint in a Malcolm Kluk design.

Bright lady ... Leigh-Anne Williams.

This year's J&B Met was a riot of colour and a few interesting things went down...

The new Miss SA, Nicole Flint unsuspectingly started a Twitter debate on whether she should wear her sash or not. Obviously us South Africans have nothing better to do but tweets flew back and forth. She told the press that she wore her sash so that people would get to know her as she didn't feel that they did yet. But several felt the sash was not ayoba! It certainly didn't go with her gorgeous Malcolm Kluk dress.

The lunchtime Mango flight was late by about one hour, and the captain made an announcement telling passengers that this was because their fellow J&B revellers had all been late for an earlier flight that day. Mango came on board with great rates and was the official carrier for the Met, so I guess they couldnt tell the bigwigs, sorry for you, we're not holding flights because you have a hangover.

PS: Met organiser Eddy Cassar, when asked about this had this to say: "Crap, crap, crap and nonsense! he seemed to think it was a joke on the part of the captain ...

Herschelle Gibbs obviously knows he has a cute butt as he was wearing a pair of very tight white Levis with studs on the pockets (knowing where the eye will go). His father overheard the remarks about his son's tush and was delighted. He rushed off to tell Herschelle who was hanging out with Bobby Skinstad. Bob was obviously H's wing man as he was wearing a pair of shapeless schlumpy jeans with no focal point at all.

The question on everyone's lips on the way home, was: is she, isn't she? Referring to singer Lira who is rumoured to be three months' pregnant. We all noticed her different hair but couldn't tell from the high-waisted dress she had on (she has been favouring these for some time now).

TV star Natalie Bekker had a dingdong fight with the "pudding guy" Dirk de Villiers when he started bringing out macaroons and cupcakes. "It's no good you standing around," he told her, adding that people could only start eating the treats at 5pm. While they were arguing naturally people were pulling in and filling up their plates with everything in sight. Natalie was outraged, however, and told him not to be such a bitch. He immediately got on to his cellphone while the macaroons disappeared at an ever more rapid rate!

Zuraida Jardine's new baby was much admired and she was congratulated for being a presenter on Alan Ford's new show (he left 3 Talk at the end of last week). However she told me that she hadn't signed the contract yet and didn't consider anything concrete until signatures were in place.

The stars of Cape Town's hot new TV show MAN, the all male answer to Sex and the City, were all at the races. I overheard an ex girlfriend of one of them, Maurice, expressing how upset she was by the way he was being portrayed in the show (as an arrogant, womanising idiot!). "He's not like that at all," she said in the neck massage queue as our ears wiggled like satellite dishes. "He just says stupid things sometimes." If a man's ex has only nice things to say, one should listen, but I noticed that all the nice girls gave him a wide berth while the sluts positively threw themselves at him. He did not seem to mind!

Who knew that the Justerini and Brooks brothers made champagne? J&B sent over a couple of cases of their own private cuvee for the Met and the verdict was: "Very nice, it tastes just like Graham Beck!"

Has anyone started up an anti-Khanyi Mbau/Paris Hilton/Oxygen Thieves of the World Facebook posting yet? Khanyi would survive everything, even 2012, and still manages to make headlines for absolutely no reason. She tried to push her way into the J&B hospitality marquee, trying the very original line: "Do you know who I am?".

The social scene, Part 2

2010-01-28T13:47:00.001-08:00

More characters to be found around and about the scene in South Africa...

THE GYM BUNNY

Avoid the gym bunny especially around mealtimes. They are completely obsessed with food and gyming and will spoil any meal for others. Don't try to change the subject when they are harping on about their gym routine or the lettuce leaf which they had for lunch (o my, delicious!). Don't try to have an interesting conversation as they will immediately and firmly steer the conversation back to themselves. It's all about them. They will tell you in minute detail exactly how long they spent on the treadmill, what their personal trainer told them to eat and what not to eat (most things, including chocolate), how bad gorgeous food is for you, how many calories they consumed that day. Your eyes glaze over and you nearly fall down with boredom. You never ever ever want to see the inside of a gym if it has people like that in it. It's kind of like childless people who don't want to be around people who do have little darlings, the Walking Contraceptive kind that is (see further down on the list). Yummy mummies, beauty contestants and would be Sex in the City girls over 40 tend to be complete gym junkies. Are there any women out there who LUUUUURRRVE their food, make no apologies for it, excercise discreetly and quietly and don't believe in being a complete bore all the time?

THE DESIGNER BRAT

The designer brat is not at the top of his or her game because he/she is particularly good or talented. Usually it's because they have rich friends who patronise them or spread the good word on them. The designer brat quickly becomes the most obnoxious person in the fashion pack, almost overnight. It's scary. They do have power and influence because, as I say, they have rich friends or clients. They dress the part too. Designer brats usually wear their Own Label, with sunglasses. Sunglasses are very much part of the designer brat's wardrobe and all the twittering fashionistas will slavishly copy them and wear them in the middle of the night. It must be to ward off all those popping flashbulbs (those damned tabloids, it's such a bore). Designer brats make up a lot of their own publicity, some of which is soooo not true. Sometimes designer brats fall off their perch and have to go to earth, designing clothes for factories or the new Cosatu line for fall. It's sad when that happens. Sometimes they don't recover, sometimes they crawl their way back because people still remember their names from old magazines. Usually it's best if designer brats decide that their talent is required "overseas" where Vogue beckons enticingly and they envisage a little Parisien atelier for themselves. Then we can get rid of them. Yay.

THE WALKING CONTRACEPTIVE

I was once in a Woolworths with two 12-year-olds going on 45 behind me and a Sandton mommy in tow. They looked me over coolly from head to toe and decided I was retrenched schoolteacher material, ripe for the insulting. The one nudged the other, and pointed to my hat (I love my hat and never travel without one). "Mary Poppins!" she said sotto voce, so Sandton Mommy couldn't hear. I pounced. "You should patent your children as walking contraceptives," I told her, pointing at the offending offspring. "You could make a LOT of money." I don't know if she took my advice, but every time I see an obnoxious child I think of those two. It's true, some children are just plain offputting, especially when they haven't been brought up right. Nice children are a delight and a joy for ever, a lot of hard work has gone into making them that way. Nice children really are children, not vicious little Lolitas who have not a shred of innocence. Blame the parents, it's all their fault. And laws that state that you may not smack your child. Sometimes a good smack, not just a threatening, works wonders. It ensures that your child will never be called a walking contraceptive by some mean lady in a hat in the queue at Woolies.

On mechanics and the Government

2010-01-27T01:27:00.001-08:00

Sometimes bad things have to happen before you learn stuff ... still on my plates, I just got back from my mechanic where I was informed that it would cost me R200 for a new plate and on top of that another R200 for them to "bolt the plates on". Now chicks today are a sussed breed. Unlike the Women's Libbers of the 70s we love to be feminine and to dress nicely. But we also know that our earning power is considerable, that marketers look into what we spend our money on and why. We also know when we are being ripped off. Even if we don't know a car inside out we don't accept some Neanderthal wiping his greasy paws on a filthy rag telling us that we have to cough up massive sums to fix something! Not that R200 is a massive sum, but it is R200 more than I was quoted for. And I know for a fact that you cannot drill through a numberplate or "bolt it on". That's why they are so easy to steal in the first place!

The new numberplates that are coming out contain a chip that means they are traceable. They cost around R700 and are also a huge rip off because the Government is going to start to charge each vehicle toll fees without actually having to go to the trouble of building toll gates and man them with staff.

Does that mean if it isn't the backyard mechanic trying to screw you over, it's the Government? My solution to the chauvinistic mechanic is to attach them to a chain close to the cars where they can run around, assume dominant male positions, grunt and scratch themselves without annoying the female clientele too much (if only they were cuter, we could forgive them. Fortunately my place put the cute boy front-of-house and the Neantherthal gets to yell loudly at his staff off-site while scratching himself in places you did not know were possible). As for the Government, well there are ways to deal with them too. Look at what happened to the Nats, even if it did take 50 years.

So I will not be paying the extra R200, instead I am taking the car with its new plate to a friendly neighbour who will put it on for me.

Let's hope by next week the plates aren't gone again, as all the thieves have to do is slide them out of their backing. Wish me luck ...

'Jacked plates probably over in Bloem

2010-01-26T01:09:00.001-08:00

Still annoyed about finding my registration plates gone after leaving the ftv afterparty for Errol Arendz and Craig Port's show last Saturday. I always thought people who drove around without numberplates were (a) gangsters, or (b) ordinary non law-abiding citizens trying to evade the long arm (or the long pocket, in South Africa's case) of the law, and would always wave my fist out of the window at them with a few juicy curses. Now I understand everything - those are all the poor fools who park in Nelson Mandela Square and get their plates 'jacked while they go around their business. The victims' own plates are probably over in Bloemfontein or somewhere Down South being used on a heist vehicle, or worse. The thieves had managed to scale one set and were working on the back ones, which were definitely loose, when I arrived on the scene. But did I see any sign of the dudes who did it though? They had completely vanished into the woodwork.

It kinda put a bad taste in my mouth after a really great party. I was told that the only way to stop being arrested and thrown in the clink with a whole lot of really interesting people for the night is to go and report the plate theft to your nearest cop shop, and get an affidavit which you are supposed to wave around like fake papers at the Gestapo hoping this will protect you, the innocent party, from being blamed upon for the bad deeds of others.

But it does beg the question: crime is getting so very enterprising in this country that you wonder what they will come up with next? Identity theft seems to be the new crime-chic, and taking someone's integrity with it is part of the game. Even if you are law abiding in this country, which increasingly fewer people seem to be, someone will manage to take away your good name.

"Who steals my purse steals trash but he that filches from me my good name
robs me of that which not enriches him, and makes me poor indeed."

PS: On the bright side, and completely not apropos of anything except for Bloemfontein, I was told that a bright spark has come up with the idea of planting young saplings in all the potholes in that thriving city. Why let a good pothole go to waste, after all?

A helping hand for design

2010-01-21T00:04:00.000-08:00

Met an interesting face at the Audi Fashion Week last night, straight after the Spero Villioti show. I was introduced by jewellery designer Kevin Friedman to South African born Shaun Borstrock who has started up the Shaun Borstrock Foundation for the Creative Industries, in South Africa. He is working in combination with well established label Karen Millen whose show kicked off the fashion week, along with other international partners.

The Karen Millen label is scouting for talented emerging young designers who might not have the education or the funds to start off on their own. Which is where the collaboration with Shaun's foundation comes in. The foundation will "mentor, nurture and empower" young designers within South Africa's creative industries ... so that's not just fashion. It's graphic designers, product designers, jewellery designers and industrial product designers. I asked Shaun about crafts as they do influence design to a certain degree in South Africa, but he told me that it was about design in a wider sense. The Foundation wants to find someone who will make it in the world of design internationally.

Shaun says that the Foundation is looking to support a designer and that this is a
collaboration between the University of Hertfordshire, CPUT, Ruth Prowse and BHC
School of Design, all in Cape Town, working together on a project called
The International Entrepreneur. He told me to have a look at their work in progress on www.designforafrica.org.

Ultimately the most promising among the young designers is going to London to work in the Karen Millen studio, and then on the Premier Vision fabric fair in Paris which is a huge opportunity.

Shaun says he wants to teach the young designers how to put a collection together, how to price and merchandise and how to establish their market, so that they can go out on their own afterwards.

Spero Villioti is another designer who is helping youngsters in the world of couture. His students works kicked off his show, and showed a polish and finish which few young South African designers have grasped. Attached to his couture school is the Couture Educational Foundation which was also established to help those who are not in a financial situation to pursue a career in fashion design. The foundation grants bursaries, scholarships and awards to select candidates and some of the money raised from the Fashion Week show went towards this foundation.

His show elicited gasps of pleasure and delight from the audience, as his garments are always so feminine and exquisitely made in gorgeous fabrics.

Talk show show and socialite Carolyn Steyn joked later that she "had found her wedding dress" at the show and vowed to pay him a visit!

A foodies diary

2010-01-18T02:25:00.000-08:00

My last posting got me to thinking about some of the best meals I have ever eaten. They pale in comparison to my globetrotting parents who have circled the globe several times and dedicated themselves to eating well in most of the places they have visited. They still have a menu from New Orleans's most famous fine dining establishment, Antoine's, which they have framed in their kitchen. Antoine's was the place where Oysters Rockefeller were invented, and named thus because of the richness of the sauce. My parent ate there in the 1960s and still remember the meal (they saved every penny for it). They have also paid a visit to Spain's oldest restaurant, Botin in Madrid where they ate roast suckling pig on my father's birthday.

I can't aspire to this level of fine dining but hope that my best eating years are still ahead of me! There is still the Americas, Russia, India, China, the Middle East and parts of the far East to explore. As well as places like Austria, Scotland, Germany and the Balkans.

AUSTRALIA has been a frequent destination and I enjoyed a memorable meal in a little French restaurant in St Kilda's in Melbourne with my sister in the 1990s. Daniels is now sadly no more but I remember the menu: onion tart, followed by a salade verte (Daniel himself stood over us and made sure we finished every scrap), then scampi which we picked up with our fingers and sucked noisily to great giggles. This was finished off by a slice of dense, dark and delicious chocolate cake dusted with sugar. No doubt about it, Oz is foodie heaven and boasts some of the best coffee in the world in Collins Street.

Another very good meal was at The Fisherman's Pier in Geelong a couple of years ago. The oysters were brought in from Coffin Bay and were the best I have ever eaten, accompanied by a vinaigrette sauce that was superb. I followed the oysters up with scallops ... would that the scallops in South Africa were so good. The maitre d' was Italian and very attentive, saying to my father when he arrived: "Would the gentleman like a Scotch?"

Sadly, I've been to PARIS only twice, and my mother tells me of the time we dined with the students on the Left Bank when I was a child. The proprietor was very nice, she said and sent out for milk for myself and my sister. We had steak followed by fresh strawberries but all I can remember are the striped candy canes which she bought us and which we were only allowed to have a bit of every day. I can remember the meals I had two years ago better. I was taken to Laduree tea room where I had macaroons and Marie Antoinette tea. I loved the wine, the pastries and the bread, and had a great supper at Kong and lunch at George's (salmon and mashed potato made with olive oil) near the Ritz. What heaven France is and what a dedication to pleasure they enjoy there.

In LONDON I was taken to Zuma (no relation) where the star of the show is the "age watarigani” or soft shell crab with wasabi mayonnaise. I also enjoyed some spicy tuna roll made with chilli miso and there were things like prawn tempura and grilled red miso quail on the menu. The place was full of Russians with girls who had had bad plastic surgery and who wore tiger-striped lame skirts but the food was really delicious. It was so busy that you had to wait to get into the queue but the people watching was worth it. We had a young David Bowie lookalike behind us who was also delicious.

In ITALY it is impossible to have a bad meal and I loved the food wherever I went. I had little lamb chops on arrival in Rome and got horribly drunk. Not because I drank a lot but because the alcohol content seemed to be higher than I was used to. So it was an aperitif then a glass of wine then a limonello, and a different tiramisu every night. It's nice to be a food slut sometimes. In Florence a sleazy pair of fellows tried to pick myself and a girlfriend up in a joint called Guido's and I really can't remember the food there. But I do remember Lobs, where I had a wonderful steamed seafood platter with different sauces and a wonderful restuarant where they made a sliced Florence fennel salad with Parmesan shavings that was so simple but just so good.

IRELAND was another great foodie place, because everything just tasted so good. The yummiest potatoes ever and the ham!!!! I brought packets of soda bread back with me even though I had my mother's recipe for fresh soda bread at home. I must have put on ten pounds there. It was the soda bread, the gorgeous smoked salmon and my mother's cousin's Chocolate Mousse (nicknamed "Eirish Mousse" and loaded with one-and-a-half pints of cream) that saved me when crossing the Irish Channel. It was a very rough passage and I had booked a berth in the bowels of the ship. All my neighbours were retching violently and I was a nano-second away from joining them, when a brainwave struck. Eat all the rich goodies which my godmother had given me and I would have something to line my stomach with. It was almost impossible but I got it all down and instantly discovered a cure for seasickness.

On the other side of the world a different kind of foodie heaven awaited me in SINGAPORE. Fragrant teas of every variety wafted to my nostrils in Tangs, from bergamot to chocolate, and the noodle dens were open 24/7. My taxi driver took me down to a place which was dim-sum den by day and red light district by night. There he introduced me to one of the island's signature dishes, Singapore chilli crabs. He also told me about the frogs in congee and laughed when he saw a picture of the frogs outside a building. Look, he said, "they are so happpeee, they are dancing". My private thought was that they were probably trying to get out of the pot, but maybe I will try a bit of frog next time. The Singaporeans have a love affair with coffee and funnily enough all that chilli and coffee had no effect on my stomach or sleeping patterns.

In GREECE and TURKEY I was introduced to the delights of baklava, yoghurt (dubbed the "Peaks of Parnassus" or "Parnassus pud") with pistachio nuts and strong dark honey, strong coffee and chai filled with two lumps of sugar, and rosewater ("Gul suyu" in Turkey). It wasn't so much the fine dining places as the quality of the Mediterranean/Middle Eastern food which impressed. I loved the moussaka even when it was made with rough green olive oil that upset my tummy and I couldn't eat for a day. A weird feeling over came me when I was sitting on a stone wall outside my hotel in Rhodos and a boy called Poseidon was taking in the luggage for me. "Is this happiness, I feel?" I thought as a warm glow embalmed my very soul. Truly this was the food of the gods.

To Eat Out ... or not to eat out

2010-01-18T01:15:00.000-08:00

Promised I would check in after reading the Eat Out (parties are still a little slow this week, but you don't want to read about parties just yet, do you? The fun of my blog is that it is so varied, you never know what topic I am going to tackle next! From jacaranda trees to car guards to Jozi hotspots to facebook pages for cats. It ain't all skandaal and Joostgate here, believe me).

Well, I had a look and besides getting rather hungry it bothered me that some of the new better places in Joburg in particular were left out. Jozi has the reputation for mediocre establishments which open up, then close a few months later, or turn into a chain of franchises, thus losing all their exclusivity appeal. Why drive to this amazing spot that does the best whatever-in-town when you have one in your suburb, you ask. Ah, but that's the thing. When there's only one of something you have to make that effort and the place will never go off because everyone is beating the door down to get in.

Although the mag paid tribute to places like The Monarch, The Greek Sizzler, La Scala, Yamato, Bismallah's and Mythos (all favourites of mine), sadly about six of the places which I have grown to love in Joburg didn't feature.

Where was the Troyeville Hotel with its fantastic prawns and great vibe? And The Teak Place in the Cradle of Mankind where you can have a very good lunch outside, then go down to the vegetable gardens where they have a pick-a-veg project and can fill up your basket with seasonal produce to take home for a mere R50? Or The Chocolate Room at the Hertford Hotel which did faboulous gourmet pizzas and designer hot chocolate besides a roaring log fire in winter? Or the new restaurant down at Arts on Main in the CBD? Or the Darkie Cafe in Marshalltown which stays open late, late, late and is always such fun? Or the fabulous Signature in Morningside with its hardworking manager, Desmond Mabuza, which I wrote about last month?

Turns out that the Chocolate Room's Andy Green is starting up a great new Italian restaurant called Si! Si! (as in yes, yes, o yes) near the Rivonia Spar where the new food hall will be. They will be joined by a great new vegetarian place called Hari (as in Hari Krishna). Signature took a full page ad in the mag but there was no review, very weird because the food is decidedly better than a lot of the places listed. While I am happy that my favourite spots are not out there on the Lonely Planet Guide it is annoying that the Cape should be so well represented. This oversight might change after the World Cup, although most of the fans will be looking for a place to have a good booze up rather than discerning dining. So no one will know that the best schwarmas in town are at the Schwarma Company in Norwood (the halva! to die for, doll. They do a mean chicken salad too), and that if you're hankering for hot brisket on rye or even some Cuban cigars there is a cafe near Senderwood that serves both, plus a range of Greek cakes and biscuits.

I want to keep it under my hat that you can get wonderful street food in Mayfair on a Saturday morning and that even the local housewives will drive up for it. Can you say the same about Cape Town, which has been trendified to such a degree that it has lost all its flavour and the food industry is now dedicated to ripping off the hapless tourists? Where are those amazing rotis that you could get once? They had the most wonderfully sensual bite to them. Where are the fishermen selling fresh vis on the quay? Besides Kalky's of course, where they still call you "Laidy" and the patrons order a Carling Black Label for their children. But o wow the fish and chips.

PS: Desmond Mabuza agreed with me that it was an oversight not to include his restaurant Signature. He even phoned the mag but editor Abigail Donnelly had not yet got back from leave. Lets hope they do something on their website to update the places they didn't manage to include. That said, it is a great mag and a great read beautifully presented