Home and away

Last night I went home, if only for a little while. Which was somewhat surprising considering that I'm pretty sure it was my mother, not I, who earlier in the day had boarded the Gatwick Express to head back to Jozi.

Yet there I was, surrealy so, sitting in Soho's Lyric theatre tapping my tootsies to Tamara Dey and coming up for air in between waves of laughter brought on by the likes of David Kau, Martin Jonas and Riaad Moosa; the SA comedy heavyweights as they like to be called.

And even old faithfull, Alex Jay was there. Ag sweet man!

And, ahem, I know this will sound strange, so I'll whisper, but there were real proper black people there too! Not many, granted, but at least they were real; the kind of people that have rhythm, can say 'eish' and think that Ainsley Harriott sounds 'bietjie odd'.

Now now, before you get all uppity with me for talking race, let me tell you why.

You see it's an odd thing, to find yourself surrounded by South Africans, chuckling knowingly through South African humour in a gilded theatre one step out of the glow of Piccadilly Circus's lightspan. And it is in this setting, when one is out of context, that aspects of home strike, well, home.

And last night, it was race and culture.

You see, I think that without exception, each of the nine comedians that appeared used as a source of material either black people, coloured people, Afrikaners or Indians - yes, as black and white as that. And sure, it was refreshing to see a full cultural range of players but I couldn't help but think how even now, race and culture appears to be such a central theme in South African life. And I'll admit, it was strange and my knee-jerk reaction was 'this isn't right'.

I've always felt lucky to be born when I was, for as a child of the late seventies I am young enough not to have to bear the guilt of apartheid, old enough to remember its reality and consequences and lucky enough to have a vibrant social mix of friends. I suppose I forget though, that we've only been a democracy for 12 years and that this is not nearly time enough to shake free entirely of the race cloud that hovered over our country for so long.

But actually, is cultural categorisation of this nature necessarily a bad thing?

Living in London, a cosmopolitan city if ever there was one, I am struck by two things. 1) How many cultures exist here but, sadly, 2) how strength of culture is being diluted. It might be that I am alone in this, but for me the complexity and diversity of cultures is what makes the world an interesting place and it saddens me that 'democracy' and 'equality' are to a certain extent watering down the richness of cultural diversity. As a traveller I am drawn to places where life, not just landscape, is different. Yet as the world 'advances' so its people become achingly similar.

What will all this mean for South Africa? Will our unique past, a canvas not lighty touched by the brushstoke of race, serve to protect our differences, or will our quest to break free from our past be such that in its demise, apartheid, the one system that recognised racial and cultural differences (albeit negatively), will lead directly to the total equalisation of our people? Is our future, a product of our past?

Like most of my questions, this one has no clear answer. Yet. I suppose that for now, comedy is just one of the many tools employed in the exploration of our diversity, and so though superficially it may seem wrong, perhaps its themes are healthy. It will be nice though when our colourful make-up is served as a flavour-enhancing condiment, rather than as the main course!

Friendly is as friendly does

Oh I do love a good survey! Nothing like a few stats to tell you what you're supposed to agree with. So how delightful to open my daily e-update from the Mail & Guardian with the results from a British survey proclaiming once and for all, apparently, that the French are rude and boring. (And here we all were expecting the Brits to say "we're sorry about Waterloo, come over here and give us a hug".)

So yes, 46% of the 6 000 people surveyed by travellers' website Where Are You Now (Wayn) said the French were the most unfriendly nation on the planet. But if this is the case, I just have to ask, what about the people who travel on public transport? Were they not surveyed?

You see my confusion is this; on the two trips I've made to Paris this year, one of the things that strikes a visitor coming from Britain is that unlike the silent London Underground, there is the constant buzz of conversation to be heard throughout the Paris Metro system. To a pukka Londoner it must seem positively dirty. I mean really, talking on the train - disgusting. And all that eye contact; makes me shudder.
The London Underground by contrast is a place where, so long as a station announcement isn't being made, you probably *could* hear a pin drop. And if it fell near you, you'd probably see it too because your eyes would be focused on the floor - just where the Brits like 'em!

But it's not all bad, there is one thing sure to provoke a smile and a bit of friendly banter.

A spot 'o crime.

Yup, in the land where everyone understands the meaning of ASBO, there's nothing like a bit of drama to bring out the smiles. I saw this in action just this afternoon when a train was held at Great Portland Street station so that the police could contain a 'violent customer' in carriage one. As if by some miracle, people on the platform started smiling. And then talking. To eachother. And I did it too. It was just so 'kumbaya-ish without the hand-holding. All of us there together, all tribal-like and smiling, bound by curiosity and just a little bit of vulturous glee. Heck, I even took my earphones out my ears!

True, this is not a trait wholly attributable to the Brits - have you ever had to pass on bad news to someone and found it hard not to grin? Still, when one comes from Africa where even the most unfortunate members of society seem only too ready to offer a smile, it does seem rather hypocritical of the Brits to be labelling the French in this way.

Now what was that saying about a pot and a kettle?

Sunday morning with AQA and George

Our kitchen table is not just a kitchen table, it's a platform for discovery, a site for solutions and the stable frame to a web of somewhat tenuous analysis. We like to sit there of an evening or over breakfast, just we three girls - and maybe one of the Michaels: George or Jackson - and casually 'sort it all out'.

So it was that I made my way home from the neon buzz of Soho, at a rather respectable hour on Friday night, to find that in fact, the party had been at my house all along. Not that this was a guest-heavy affair, because I've realised that a party isn't necessarily defined by the number of guests, but rather by the hue of the red, the flamboyance of the hands and the clamour of the conversation. And of course, you'll always find them in the kitchen at parties. Around our table. And loathe though I am to admit that we are no different to 99% of women out there who are prone to discussions of the relationship kind, this is generally where all red-laced conversations tend to lean at 3am on a Saturday morning. You see, the girls have dubbed this simultaneously The Year of the Date and The Year of Yes. Both laudable, I reckon. But will these two ever be that simple when behind it all are two undeniable truths: 1)women are analysers and 2) it's all A Game.

Frankly, I feel sorry for men. How can you not when you know in what minutiae we oestogenised beings analyse a situation? One would think that like any vice, being aware of it would be enough to quell it, but when it comes to Analysis of The Game, methinks women are just naturally programmed to this and little short of shock therapy would be able to change it. And the problem is that we analyse men not based on the male brains that they actually have, but on the female brains we imagine them to have. By this I mean that it being impossible for us to know exactly how a man's mind functions, we have no other option but to base our deciphering on the only encoding device we know; the female mind. And though I do not wish to offend the male psyche, I do feel that perhaps the most deceptive thing about men is that they are not nearly as deceptive as what we women think! How about that lads, your secret weapon, your guile, is fully loaded at the hands of women!

Oh for a real-life AQA! True, only AQA as it currently exists is kind enough to tell me that Johnny Depp has indeed been a fool and will come running to my open arms any day now, but in truth, I'd much rather know what real life TargetManA or TargetManB are thinking!! And what, pray tell, one needs to do to score in The Game!

Until then, I guess the girls and I will have to rely on the good old kitchen table. That and George Micheal.

Forget CDs, MP3s are a pain. All you need...

...is a Cassette!

Or to be linguistically correct, not just any old cassette but THEE Cassette.

I figure since right now I don't have a job marketing other people for money, I may as well market something I believe in for no money (just undying adoration, right Cassette?!). And isn't it our duty to support SA music even from London, Melbourne, Paris...?

So you see, the thing is this: that talented bunch of Jozi musicians, Cassette, launched their debut album Welcome Back to Earth on Monday this week. They've also just recently signed to the biggest record company in the world, Sony/ BMG, so hot things are afoot! BUT they really, really need to sell 4000 copies of their album to make absolutely sure that Sony/ BMG can do crackerjack things with them. And this is where you come in. For a paltry £10 - or thereabouts - you can go online and buy the album that made Entertainment Africa's 'album of the week' (and it's only been out 5 days!). And because I know that product endorsement is important to some people, how about this: Dave Thompson - yes the judge from Idols (oh, and head of BMG in SA) - has said that "Cassette is one of the most original and dynamic live and recording acts seen in South Africa for many years.Watch out everybody !!". Also, when I opened my electonic newsletter form the Mail & Guardian this morning, what did I see mentioned on the front page as 'hot and happening this weekend?": Cassette launch their truly original pop-rock sound on CD this week in Jozi at The Bohemian on May 19 and Tanz Café on May 25!!!

Okay, so maybe you're now a little bit interested. But you want to hear what they sound like before you buy an album. Fair enough. Go to http://www.5fm.co.za/news_5fm_details.asp?id=4453 and read more about Cassette AND LISTEN TO THEM LIVE ON 5FM TOMORROW VIA STREAMING AUDIO. (That will be between 4pm and 5pm UK time, folks)

Right kids, you know what to do. Go to www.playcassette.com and buy the album. Oh, but I should mention, the site is having some teeny weeny problems this week - I think it got overexcited about the album launch - so in the words of Jon Savage, Cassette's fontman, 'it's a bit fook-ed'. BUT the online store is apparently working - click on the record player icon in the top tool-bar.

If you are in the South of Africa you can buy the album from any Musica, Look & Listen or CD Wherehouse for a piffling R99. Tell your friends, tell your family, and buy a copy for each of your pets.

Worthy research?

Apparently my brain is a bit special. Apparently I display a phenomenon - yes, a phenomenon - known as synaesthesia. It is estimated that 1 in 2000 people are 'synaesthetes' but Catherine says she suspects there are more of us lurking out there.

Catherine is a PHD student and because of my 'special' brain, I'm participating in her neurological study. On Tuesday I filled out a questionnaire, today I played neuro computer games and next week, two Italian chaps will douse my hair in gel, stick probes on my head and measure brain activity for a couple of hours. No comment please.

Taking part in this research study I've been reminded how the range of research subjects out there has always astounded me. I mean, did you know that there is a name for the conditon whereby someone feels they are about to sneeze and so look at a light in order to bring it on? Yip, uh-huh, it's true. But who in the world figured that this behaviour was worthy of a full study and who, pray tell, felt it viable enough to fund and publish it?

I think perhaps I would like to commission a study into the number of research projects currently being carried out across the planet. Yes, all of them. I'll bet there'll be some winners out there. I hope someone's working on a project to explain why gnomes only come in primary colours - what's wrong with pastels - and there had better be one explaining how it is physically possible for women to miss the toilet bowl!

But actually, I've got a better one. I'd like to see research done into the luck of birth. Seriously, more and more I look around me and think: how is it that I had the good fortune to be born into the family, society and culture that I was? Is there a formula that can explain how I, my me-ness rather than my body, came to be placed where it was and not in the guise of a starving Congolese child or an exploited Thai factory worker? Or a chav.

I guess it was my little shopping trip to a slightly ahem, uncouth, area of London today that pompted this thought again. And forgive me a 'Sex in the Cityism' but, "I couldn't help but wonder": where is the line between snobbery and fear? Truly. I like to think of myself as a pretty liberal type - some of my best friends are white middle class heterosexuals* - but walking around certain parts of London, I feel just a little out of my depth and it concerns me that I seem to be able to look at other people with a sense of unexplained prejudice. Or is it unexplained? And is it preudice, pity or merely anthropological curiosty? And if it's wrong does that make me a snob? Perhaps I just don't get the whole sports gear and 'bling' look and because of the circumstances I was born into, seeing teenage mothers - in the first world!!! - provokes a shaking of the head.

Somebody, please get researching. Oh but hang on, I have to sneeze...

*Yes, yes, I know. Bad joke.

The raison d'etre...

Once upon a time I started a blog. A sweet little thing, all bedecked in pink, which allowed my friends and family a little window into my life in London Town. I spoke of the garden gnomes I met in Ireland, the human race I ran in Paris and the cocktails I laughed over in Brixton. I also shared my dispair at the state of the world, the crisis that is Aids in Africa and the dire state of British youth. For some reason people seemed to like it. And then people started suggesting I write a book. Or something. SJP did the fabulous columnist thing on the telly while balancing in Manolos. Me, I'm lagging a little in the fame department but have blog, will publish. And so, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to share with you the thoughts that distract me from real work in this, My own private Vanity Fair.

Brace yourselves...