"When they first landed, we noticed that they had these really fantastic biosuits..."
Alive In Joburg - Google Video
(Made in 2005; set in 1990, when apartheid was breaking down but still officially in force.)
Hat tip to strawberryfrog for the link.
Edit: Apparently the director is the same genius who made the Citroen Transformer ad. Are Saffers talented or what?
This has been my week, then:
Hear about the death of a friend's mother.
Hear about the death of a friend's father.
Contract cold.
Work a lot.
Whale dies.
Mother in law's dog dies.
Sneeze a lot.
Work some more.
Get sniffy email from Parcelforce, in lieu of refund.
Develop hacking cough.
Bloody Pom starts fire on MY MOUNTAIN.
I thought I told you all not to mess with The Mountain. That's just one block away from mom in law's house, dudes. Not cool.
a-TCHOO.
Update: this just in — now another friend's sister has died. Completely suddenly, I don't yet know how. What is UP with this week?
Original content, later. Lazy blogging, now.
Four jobs I have done
Changing nappies on mostly grown children
Call centre minion
Handing out leaflets in Africa's largest office building (population: a bunch of actuaries) while dressed as a frontier ho*
Punning for a living
Four movies I can watch over and over
Delicatessen
The Princess Bride
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
Bring It On
Four places I have lived
Cape Town
Johannesburg
London
Sasolburg**
Four TV shows I love to watch
Buffy
West Wing
Gilmore Girls
Days of Our Lives***
Four places I have been on holiday
Paris
Switzerland
Cape Town
Johannesburg (seriously)
Four of my favourite dishes
Ben & Jerry's Dublin Mudslide
Salmon in a Rushdie sushi box from Itsu
That nougat ice cream with chocolate shell and cherry coulis from Cafe Paradiso in Kloof Street
Johnny Depp
Four websites I visit daily
Um, only Google. But three regulars:
Guardian Unlimited
Purlescence shopping cart admin
Little Red Boat
Four places I would rather be right now
Somewhere snowy, fighting with a pair of skis. I married into the land of Alps and chocolate, and I have still never been skiing. Whisky Tango Foxtrot, over?****
Cape Town. Duh.
On a yacht somewhere in the Pacific, sipping a champagne cocktail and reviewing the day's skyhigh takings from my global knitting empire on my stylish laptop, while minions tend the various forts.
Under the duvet, knitting, with cats on my lap and Buffy on the telly.
Oh hang on. I can totally do that.
[cartoon dust cloud]
_____
* Supposedly I was dressed as the wife of the insurance company's founder. But "Mexican bordello" seemed to be the inspiration behind the only dress the hire shop had in my size.
** Of all the many, many things I could say about Sasolburg, I'll just give you the most surprising: it had the largest and best municipal library I have ever seen, anywhere, ever.
*** Just wishful thinking. Haven't seen it since I left SA. Nope, still not done whining about that.
**** copyright Cate
In sum: Parcelforce experiment failed.
I wrote that letter as a way of getting all my complaints down without driving myself nuts from the sheer boredom and frustration of listing them all. I hoped that the reader would also have a sense of humour, and that I might get a tad more of their attention than I imagine is normally assigned to such letters. ("Oh right, another double charging issue, pass it on to the depot...")
But I guess I underestimated the offence caused by accusing an organisation of being in thrall to the Dark Lord. Who knew?
This response just in:
"I am in receipt of your quite strange letter and although there may be a valid complaint somewhere in there I must admit that after reading your first paragraph I was not prepared to read any further so skipped to the relevant point near the end..."
To which I can only say: my letter ain't half as strange as your idea of customer service, bud.
(Though it is of course a fair act of literary criticism.)
It’s January, uncomfortably close to officially the miserablest day of the year.
I have a cold.
I’m sleep deprived.
Beloved is on night shift, so I won’t see him awake till Friday evening.
I have too much boring work, getting in the way of my too much fun work, and a distinct shortage of cash. (Though all this work bodes well for cashflow in February/March.)
Parcelforce still haven’t given me my money back, although I might be getting closer to winning.
But, mysteriously, I am full of bounce today.
This might be because of a strange internet-borne virus. It might be because of a rather lovely compliment I just discovered. It might be because I had hot cross buns, crème egg and cocoa for breakfast.
Or it might be because today marks Nine Years of Mushy. Happy anniversary Beloved!
PS. 25 January is a good day for some other people, too. Go save Glo’s blog from the scary hackers. 50 comments is a notable challenge.
PS2. It's a good thing Beloved's not Scottish, or I'd be forced to eat haggis every year on our anniversary. Ew.
There's something Iraqi in the air, don't you think? We have Jarhead* in the cinema. We had a week of Iraq documentaries on Channel 4 (or was it E4 or More4? Whatever...). We have Raider Nation on Sky News** this weekend.
And then there's this.
Which is really exceptionally funny.
_____
* For the record: a horrible, horrible, horrible movie. I mean, it's very good. But completely fucking horrible. Put me right off marines, men, Americans and the human race. (In no particular order.)
** Which you absolutely must watch, if for no other reason than that Beloved was working on it for 14 days straight, 10-15 hours per day, and I never saw him, and luckily it's turned out quite good.
When I first moved to London, we were lucky enough to find a very glamorous riverside flat to rent. The view from our lounge, kitchen and balcony took in spectacular sunsets, a local sailing club, flocks of seagulls, and of course all the Thames traffic — from commuter ferries to enormous ocean liners, which got turned around by dapper little tugs right in front of our building.
But we never saw a whale.
I feel quite cheated.
Update: As Prowl points out, the whale has now left this vale of tears. A moment of silence, please.
And definitely not because any of my readers might have anything less than daisy fresh tootsies.
As promised, only slightly late in the delivery*, here is the notorious stinky feet post. It's not very interesting unless you have stinky feet. But if you do have stinky feet, this will change your life. Really. I mean it.
Now, a little background. While we all have feet — except for a very unlucky few — all feet are not created equal. And a surprisingly large number of people seem to have some kind of issue about their lower extremities: too big, too small, too bony, too wide, too weird, too smelly. The smelly part, in particular, can be a source of grave social discomfort, because like all forms of body odour, the general belief is that to smell is to be disgusting. Those not cursed with stinky feet assume that the smell must arise from lack of hygiene. Some of us have found this to be Not So.
Hello. I'm Scroobious, and I had stinky feet.
Believe me, I tried to fix it. I cleaned and dried thoroughly. I used sprays and powders, which generally smelled worse than The Feet, as well as choking me and causing white footprints to appear on the carpet as soon as I took my socks off. I was perpetually at war with The Feet. The Feet were winning. I endured well meant advice from my nearest and dearest such as: wash your feet in a peppermint solution twice a day, or, wear socks with everything (ladies! Imagine, if you will, the sartorial horror!). Which was fair enough, because after all they had to endure The Feet. Now, I did keep The Feet under some sort of control, through the powders and the cleaning and the wardrobe control. I had to wear only real leather shoes, which had to be either very open (to allow The Feet to breathe) or very sturdy (to allow the wearing of socks). But I never got to the stage where I could remove my shoes without fear and embarrassment.
Until now.
(Are we intrigued yet?)
The solution, y'see, came to me entirely by accident. The solution is very simple, very effective, very illogical, and apparently quite permanent. It's also unlikely to find approval from the Australian army, but hey. They can stink if they want to. *shrug*
The solution lies in the golden rule of beauty care: Moisturise, moisturise, moisturise. Seeking softness, I found freshness. How exciting is that?** You know the deodorant ad, "So effective you can even skip a day?" People. On my recent trip to SA, I skipped three weeks. Three weeks without any cream or powder, in the African summer, with full sweatiness. But no stinkiness! I am cured!
So there you have it. To beat The Feet, get some perfectly ordinary, non-medicated, moisturing foot cream and apply daily after showering. You can add a sprinkle of talcum if you like, it won't hurt (and thanks to the creamy underlayer, you won't have white footprint problem either), and it's probably a very good idea in the initial stages, but ultimately, all The Feet want is to be soft and smooth. Give 'em what they want, and they'll call off the war. Isn't that sweet? Awww...
_____
* I'm easily distracted. What, all the footnotes didn't give that away?
** Not very, I realise, but try to understand the Liberation!
A letter to Parcelforce head office.
Dear Sir/Madam
Subject: Customs charge on parcel consignment # EC762587744GB
I think I’ve discovered Parcelforce’s secret mission. Do I get a prize? Do I get a handsome payoff to buy my secrecy? Because I’m pretty sure the secret mission – carried out behind the mask of a respectable parcel delivery service – is to reduce the citizenry to gibbering wrecks. No doubt there is some archvillain behind it all, with a fluffy white cat and a golden gun. If I’m right, then I must congratulate you, because at least as far as I’m concerned, you’re very close to achieving your goal. And Mercury isn’t even retrograde.
While I was on holiday in December, your henchmen attempted to deliver a parcel on which a customs charge of £131.43 was owed. Naturally they left the standard letter, a copy of which is enclosed. I have highlighted where this letter makes the claim that “you can now pay these charges by debit or credit card over the phone”. Now, this isn’t the first time I’ve received this letter, but it was the first time I’ve been sucked into the hideous web it conceals, since on previous attempts I had given up on having the phone answered. But being a foolish optimist, I tried again, and was delighted to have the phone answered.
I was less delighted to be told that no, I couldn’t pay over the phone, that was a ridiculous untruth and the only way I could pay by credit card was to drive to the depot. I asked to speak to the manager and was put through to the main voicemail menu (one of the devil’s foremost inventions, but never mind). On my second attempt at calling, I spoke to someone who was happy to take my card details – but only a credit card; apparently debit cards are, as far as Parcelforce is concerned, also the work of Satan, and not in a good way. But never mind. I gave my details and was promised delivery by 29 December. This conversation took place on the 23rd.
Apparently the first minion had it right, though: you can’t pay by card. At least, not without consequent trauma and brain damage (the latter caused by banging head against brick wall).
On 29 December, no parcel arrived. On 30 December, I summoned my courage and phoned the depot. I was told that there was no record of any credit card payment, and that the depot would call me back. Someone did indeed call me quite shortly, and said simply that the parcel was out for delivery that day – nothing about payment. And indeed, a delivery man arrived shortly thereafter.
But! The plot thickens! He too claimed that no payment had been made, and he had to get a cheque from me. Since I needed the contents of that parcel urgently, and feared (rightly, it seems) that clawing it out of Parcelforce’s unwilling hands might be difficult if I waited till the payment issue was resolved, I handed over a cheque. He assured me that there would be no problem in getting a refund, should one be needed. Naturally, he lied. Is he now in line for a promotion up your ranks of evil?
I checked my credit card statement online and sure enough, Parcelforce had debited £131.43. So I immediately got on the phone. And was told someone from the depot would call me back.
Rinse, repeat. I have now made four calls to Parcelforce about this issue. Every time, I am promised someone will call me back. On Monday, I was promised that a supervisor would call me back, thus lulling me into a false sense of security that my problem was being taken seriously. Cunning! I see now that this was all part of the evil plot. Because, obviously, nobody has been in touch, and I’m still waiting for an explanation, an apology, and a refund.
Which really would be nice.
If you can provide all or any of the above, please email [spambait expunged]. I’m positively salivating in hope of Exciting Revelations.
Yours in anticipation
[The Scrivener]
cc Parcelforce London North West depot
Postwatch
A diatribe in two parts.
Part the first: London does not understand January.
In civilised places, January is a perfectly decent month, full of shiny promises and shortlived optimism and misplaced energy. It's deluded and useless, but fun.
In London, January is bleak. BLEAK. It is full of the rain and the greyness and the stale Christmas decorations. It is full of miserable faces and — the worst sin — people who are AWARE of the futility of their New Year's resolutions. It is full of ads for Nicorette and gyms and detox snake oil. It is full of sales. Oh, the sales. The thousands of desperate consumers, convincing themselves that those gold rubber boots are the bargain of the century for just long enough to get them home, after which the full horror of their purchase comes upon them, and crushes them with such shame, they are unable to face the returns desk, and who could blame them. Even the banks have January sales. What kind of place is it that offers cutprice mortgages in January? What's that about? Refinance your house now so that you can spend EVEN MORE on cutprice novelty gifts and reindeer sweaters "for next year"? It's a deeply disturbed place, that's what it is. Deeply disturbed.
And even — or especially — with all those consumer aids to Being A Better You, there is no chance in HADES of actually getting more exercise or eating less chocolate. I mean, there might be, if you weren't IN LONDON IN JANUARY. The only resolution you have a chance of keeping is: Stay under the duvet more. Which sounds like a perfectly sensible resolution to me, although it's unlikely to make me either richer or thinner, which after all is the ultimate goal of all NY resolutions. No, if I want to be rich and thin, I clearly need to be somewhere sensible. Not London. This is a crazy place. Consider, for instance...
Part the second: London is sucking my soul.
Tonight I saw the headline, "WATERLOO SUICIDE HORROR" and my first thought was: oh damn, I hope my train won't be delayed.
BAD human. BAD.
Disclaimer: Notwithstanding any of the above, I reserve the right to continue get all mushy every time I cross the river and/or listen to Waterloo Sunset.
Things that were weird about growing up in apartheid South Africa: #1 of a potentially infinite series.
Being inundated with American culture (TV, movies, pop) and absorbing American idioms, thus leading to casual use of the expression "hey, it's a free country" — usually followed by "er, not really, but go ahead anyway".
Don't get excited now, just a little thought.
Last night I caught the second half of a special by that Derren Brown mind control freak*. The show, Heist, involved trying to lead a bunch of otherwise upstanding citizens to commit armed robbery. (Without, obviously, doing anything so crass as saying so; the idea was supposed to come from their own minds.) The guinea pigs were carefully picked from a bunch who responded to an ad for a "character building seminar" and then manipulated. One of the selection phases was a reconstruction of the infamous Milgram experiment: are they willing to administer potentially lethal electric shocks to an innocent victim, just because an authority figure rather unconvincingly tells them it's okay?
Like much of Derren Brown's oeuvre, this show was distinctly creepy. Three out of the four participants did attempt the robbery, and the fourth obviously thought about it. One of those who did — when caught by the camera crew and good old Derren, and realising it was a hoax — seemed to have quite a strong reaction. "You bastard!" he managed to say. In a friendly sort of way, of course, because it would be bad form to get upset on telly, right? The four were then taken to a nice calm white tent and "de-programmed of all their temporary criminal inclinations". How comforting.
The show ended with assertions, in text and voice-over, that all four were quite happy with their part in the show, once-in-a-lifetime experience, ra-ra, great stuff, feel so powerful, very happy thanks Derren.
So my question is: is the television screen/Great Meedja Personality just another version of the guy in a white coat telling us all is fine? It's okay to press the button, or to tune into exploitative television that could have serious ramifications for these people's future lives, because, um, the screen says they're fine really?
It might be painful, but it's not harmful, right? Er, what do I mean by "harmful", er... no lasting harm is done. No, really. You know they're fine, because I said so.
_____
* How does he make out with the laydeez, do you think? On the one hand, surely all right thinking women would run a mile from anyone with such apparently inhuman access to their brains. On the other, well, he has apparently inhuman access to their brains, and could thus get anyone he fancied to do whatever he fancied. Discuss.
Today we are:
Sad that it's raining and Beloved is sick and everything's just a bit blah.
Glad to have figured out this little Life Gem: you can get out of doing stuff by paying other people to do it for you! I now have two skirts that fit and I didn't have to even look at a sewing machine. Isn't that amazing?
Mad at Parcelforce for STILL not getting back to me with a refund and a grovelling apology for taking my money TWICE for the same customs charge.
But none of that is remotely interesting, is it? So I'm going to point you to some other fun blogs I've found lately when I should have been doing more important things. Or at least posting. But I didn't. Never mind, there is bloggertainment to be had here and here and (ooh, yes) here. Or you could just check out the internet's best blonde joke ever.
And if you still want more, and if you've forgiven me for that damn blonde joke, well, I do have some wisdom to impart. Potentially life-changing wisdom. I mean that. But I'm not sure the internet is ready for it. So I'm taking a vote. Do you, or do you not, want to know the ultimate solution for stinky feet? Please choose from the following options and place your vote in the comment box:
A) Ew! Stinky feet? I'm too ladylike for this. I'm going to go and wash my bedlinen in lavender water and hope to recover from the horror. Good luck seeing me here again, stinky.
B) *gasp!* There's an answer? I've waited my whole life for this! Tell me more!
C) Like, whatever. I have better things to do with my time. Call me when it's over.
2006, sir:
Look, I have a sense of humour. I do. But this playful attitude of yours... a person could feel you're not taking her seriously.
I mean, yesterday I got up in good time to wash and dry my hair, have breakfast, sweep the floor, catch the (very) early train, walk to the post office, post packages, and still get to the office early to start catching up on emails. And what did you do? You maliciously kept the post office shut until such time as I had to be at my desk. If that weren't enough, you ensure that my computer wasn't working, thus completely wasting the first two hours of my day.
But all right. Ha ha. You got me.
Still, to ambush me this morning with a perfectly delicious dream the second I turn my alarm off, thus rendering me late for work and completely unbreakfasted? Pushing it a bit, no? You do realise that bacon sandwich is all your fault. You practically forced it down my unwilling throat.
Also, it's been three days now, and I've seen no signs of richness and thinness (to say nothing of the extra time issue). I realise these things take time, but I'd appreciate an earnest of good intent, yes? I've done quite well on the flossing and peppermint tea front. I admit I forgot about the stairs vs lift situation, but on the plus side, I haven't touched the demon alcohol at all (obviously, not counting the early hours of New Year's Day, which was in any case before I'd even proposed our little bargain). Your move.
Yr early response would be appreciated.
The Scrivener
No seriously, it doesn't. It fit all right up until 1 December last year, which is when we went away. Somewhere during the night of 1/2 December, it all went a bit pearshaped. Not actually pearshaped, really, just not mouthshaped. At least...
It's the tongue that screwed it all up, I think. By the time we arrived in Joburg, my tongue had completely ceased to fit in my mouth. When not talking or eating, I had the option of (a) biting the sides of my tongue, or (b) biting the sides of my mouth. Somehow my mouth/tongue combination had completely forgotten how to cohabit as they used to do. I put this down to spending 40 hours awake and much of that in the air; either my tongue had swelled or I had taken to grinding my teeth while no-really-asleep on the plane, causing lingering discomfort, or some such. I have no idea. No, it doesn't make sense.
Anyway, so I thought/hoped/assumed that after a night or two, the effects would wear off and I'd be able to happily* forget about my tongue again, as I used to. This didn't really happen. By the time I arrived back in London, the tongue was okay (it really did take that long; must definitely be a flight-related thing?) — but my jaw no longer fits.
Stop looking at me like that. It's TRUE. You wouldn't find it so funny if you were in my shoes.
Truth is, my jaw has never fit. My bite doesn't match, as the fearsome dentist Doc Vader told me (trying to get me to sign up for a few years of braces hell, as if). I happily told her that I was aware of this, but it had never given me a moment's trouble. I was perfectly comfortable with my mismatched mouth.
But I'm not now. I'm quite uncomfortable with the sensation of, either having my teeth all matched up but my jaw jutting forward, or my jaw where it ought to be but hanging down awkwardly to stay out of the way of my conflicting back molars. And in fact, for the first week after our return, it wasn't just uncomfortable. It was downright painful. I couldn't seem to stop clenching. Ow.
So here I am, with my mismatched jaw, wondering why it is that I can't seem to remember how to live with it.
Sigh.
[insert witty closing here]
_____
* Nothing wrong with split infinitives, say I. Boldly going where better subeditors fear to tread. Mixing idioms, also.
Jesus Christ's performance review
____
* You know, the traditional tea-spraying-on-monitor sound.
Crowley and Aziraphale get in the January spirit. Hat tip to extemporanea for this brilliant link.
As mentioned in the introduction, we've had some colourful characters, has South Africa. You don't need me to tell you about Nelson Mandela, or Gandhi (whose passive resistance movement started here). Only slightly less well known are the intriguing figures of Cecil John Rhodes (ridiculously wealthy and ridiculously British), and Jan Smuts (one of our early statesmen, who incidentally coined the word "holistic").
But I'm not interested in them. I'm interested in the nutters.
"The tapeworm made me do it"
SA's favourite nutter is Dimitrios Tsafendas. John F Kennedy had Lee Harvey Oswald (and a legion of conspiracy theories); Hendrik Verwoerd, the designer of apartheid, had this guy, following orders from his tapeworm. Tsafendas was of mixed race, but not officially "coloured"; when he fell in love with a coloured woman (an illegal union, under apartheid), he tried to be reclassified coloured, but failed because "nobody ever reclassifies that way". Under the mores of the time, that attempt was probably enough to prove his insanity, but nowadays it's used to suggest that he was more politically motivated than schizo. Funny how things turn out, eh? There's been two plays about him, that I know of.
A boy forever
Dr James Barry — not to be confused with JM Barrie, the author of Peter Pan — was a surgeon in the British Army, and was posted to Cape Town for some years in the early 19th century. Not really South African, then, but we like to claim him as one of our own, because he was a she. And s/he got into a fight with Florence Nightingale. Pretty cool. There's been a play about him too.
All the world's a stage
Josephine Dale Lace was very rich, very beautiful and very theatrical (well, she did start out in life as an actress). She claimed to have borne King Edward VII's child, and to have turned down a proposal from Rhodes. Her preferred mode of transport was a carriage drawn by four zebra; when she left the house, she had a servant blow a bugle to announce her entrance to the world. (Because the zebra wouldn't be enough to get anyone's attention, I guess.) Naturally, she still haunts her house (a Herbert Baker mansion in Johannesburg's best location). There's been a book about her.
Ma-brrrr!
Slightly more up to date, we have Brenda Fassie — the "Madonna of the townships". Pint-sized (famous people always are, aren't they?), bisexual, drug-addled and completely publicity crazed, she overdosed and died a couple of years ago in hospital, with her dealer by her side. We love her because she said things like, "He knows about my lesbianism and my drugs and all the other good things I've done," and because she wasn't shy to rock up at the City Press offices (the townships' Sunday newspaper; I was working there on this particular occasion) and demand that they put her on the front page. Not that she'd done anything newsworthy. She just wanted some attention. (As I recall, she made it to page 3.) No play, that I know of, but it's surely just a matter of time. (A David Kramer/Taliep Peterson musical, perhaps?)
"I married an alien"
Elizabeth Klarer didn't wait for anyone else to tell her story — she wrote her own memoir. All about her lifelong contact with aliens, her visit to another planet (she was missing for four Earth months; apparently that's nine years on Meton), and of course, her alien love child. Exciting stuff! Can't wait for the movie.
"I looked into his blowtorch eyes"
And moving on to a different ET affair... Jani Allen was a Sunday Times journalist who became suddenly notorious around 1990 because the silly bint sued one of the London tabloids — might have been the Mirror — for reporting that she'd had an affair with Eugene Terreblanche, a fat, bearded white supremacist. The tabloid of course used the "but it's true!" defence, resulting in screeds of column inches as the newspaper hauled in all the deliciously detailed evidence it could find (the whole nation now knows that ET wore green Y-fronts, with a hole in them) and Jani argued that the lurid details in her private journals were fantasy, not fact. Which is what earns her a place in my nutters' list. I mean, shagging ET would be weird enough. But fantasising about him? Imagining that that is a remotely plausible claim? Bonkers. Quite bonkers.
Right, that's all I can think of right now. Nominations for great nutters I have missed in the comments box, please.
Dear 2006
I'm so excited. You're so shiny and new. I just know we're going to make a great team. Look, here's everything I'm going to do for you. I made a list.
I solemnly promise that this year:
I will keep my nails filed, my hair trimmed and my shoes polished.
I will get out of bed early enough to blowdry my hair, eat breakfast and walk from the station to work, not take a bus.
I will take the stairs.
I will do my sit-ups.
I will cleanse, tone and moisturise.
I will floss.
I will keep the floor swept, the bed made and my desk clear.
I will keep my houseplants alive.
I will plan my knitting projects carefully, make them quickly and type the pattern up properly as soon as it's done.
I will use up the balls in my stash before buying any new yarn.
I will drink peppermint tea instead of hot chocolate, and lunch on salads instead of paninis.
I will do my freelance work as soon as I can, not as late as I can get away with.
I will live within my budget.
I will not drink more than three units of alcohol in one sitting.
I will celebrate my 30th birthday with dignity and decorum.
I will go to every party I'm invited to, even if it's on the other end of London and I'm really tired.
I will, in short, not be such a lazy cow.
So in return, please, I'd like you to make me rich and thin, and to add another hour or two to the day, because let's face it, without that I'm never going to handle all these promises. Do we have a deal?
Optimistically yours,
Scroobious
What to do in SA? Go wildlife spotting, go snorkelling, climb a mountain, ride an ostrich, visit bushman caves, visit Nelson Mandela’s prison cell, eat, drink, be merry. Come on, you don't really need to be told, do you?
There is one thing, though. Not so much an amusement in itself, but a kind of road game. Look at the roads while you're driving around — at the actual tarmac. Every now and then you'll see an odd trail; it looks like a tin of paint fell over in the back of a truck and dripped out for the rest of the journey. (I saw one on this trip that looked like a veritable paint explosion had occurred.) The weird thing is, you will see this all over. Now, I have no explanation. I remember when I first started noticing these trails; about eight or ten years ago, I think. And since then, they've become ubiquitous. I've never seen them in Europe, only in SA. So the challenge is: figure out what the hell is going on. And then tell me. Please.
What to bring? Mosquito repellent. Industrial-strength sunblock (there is no ozone layer! None! It’s just you and searing solar rays, duking it out on the beach!) and a wide-brimmed hat. Preferably one with a ribbon to tie under your chin – remember the wind? Sandals and walking shoes. Cape Town style is very casual (not so in Joburg, but you're not going to Joburg, remember?) and the roads are often steep, so as in Switzerland, heels are a bit of a waste of suitcase space. Try to have a jacket or pullover on hand at all times — the weather can change rapidly, or be very different from one side of the mountain to the next.
To stay on good terms with the locals, keep a handful of change in your pocket for informal parking attendants* and the like. And be sure not to say any of the following:
"What's up with that mountain thing? Why haven't they put some nice houses all over it?"
Dude. We take the mountain very seriously indeed. It's, like, a deeply spiritual place, dude. You can feel the magic through the soles of your feet. Fully. So do not diss The Mountain.
"So, Nelson Mandela will probably die soon, hey?"
Nonono. We're not ready to hear this. Madiba** is like everyone's granddad, plus the messiah, all in one. He is going to live forever. Old? Pshah! He is immortal! He has to be! We need him!
"Man, this water's cold. I hear the ocean's much warmer in Durban."
Philistine! Bugger off to Durban then. Go on. Get. Honestly. Some people...
_____
* CT used to be full of beggars. Then they all started offering to "watch your car". These days, the streets seem to be pretty cleaned up (how? where did they go?) and the parking attendants are actually a lot more formal. Anyhoo, they need tips.
** His clan name.
