Call me a snob but why do wealthy people insist on showing off their wealth? Why on’s God beautiful earth must they build  Sandton-style Tuscan villas for  holiday homes, I wondered last week while I was spending the school holidays with my family at Chintsa West, about 30kms up the coast from East London.

Chintsa West... wild and remote. Would you want to stamp your mark on this coast with a Sandton villa?

In a gap in the dunes, you gaze up from your invigrating beach walk and are assaulted by four double-storey palatial homes in the Chintsa Bay estate development, garishly festooned with red tiles. They’re an absolute bloody blight on what is a beautiful bit of the coast line. Most of the original holiday homes here are simple little structures, rondavels or little two-bedroom houses with gnomes in the wind-swept gardens and ceramic dolphins on the walls. And that’s my idea of the perfect holiday home – small and ramshackle, stuffed with second-hand furniture into which you can traips beach sand and not care a fig.

At the very least, there should be a law that beach homes should have brown or green roofs so that they blend in with the landscape.

You really have to wonder about the crass psychology of people who can’t see that their montrous holiday homes stand out like sore thumbs in places where most people come to get away from the suburbs. They’re also the kind of people who parade around in huge 4X4s, making everybody’s elses’s lives difficult in parking lots. These 4×4s are conspicuously shiny and clean, seldom having ventured off the national roads onto dirt roads.

Tut, tut. Keep your conspicuous consumption in the suburbs, pigs.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Journalism awards generally laud work that uncovers lies and chicanery in government or the dire circumstance in which South African’s poor live but last week a courageous piece of journalism appeared in Business Day that has got Media Land hugely indignant – and rightly so.

Enterprising media reporter Chantelle Benjamin revealed that Avusa’s CEO, Prakash Desai, pocketed more than R24m when he split the company in two and sold a valuable stake in pay-TV channel MNet. Business Day’s editor, Peter Bruce, must have held his breath when he decided to run the piece because Avusa owns half of Business Day.

I was once a media reporter for Business Day and would fret dreadfully when it came to writing stories involving our owners or bosses. The master doesn’t take kindly to having his little hounds ask uncomfortable questions of him. It only happens if the editor has balls.

There’s nothing illegal in Desai’s payout of share options and I guess R24m buys you a pretty thick skin. For his part, Desai – more used to toadying half pages in Business Times when the company’s results are released (Avusa also owns the Sunday Times) – didn’t even bother to speak to Benjamin though they work in the same premises in Rosebank. He said in a statement, according to Business Day: “I was forced, obliged to exercise all options allocated over the past 10 years of employment at the group when the legal entity ElementOne was formed and I parted company to a new legal entity”.

Being forced to cash in R24m because of a plan you were involved in hatching must have been a trial and now the minions of Avusa are being damn ungrateful.

To read the rest of my column, go over to Moneyweb

Popularity: 35% [?]

Everytime I look at my toilet, I get depressed: this is what’s wrong about our times.

About 18 months ago, my husband and I gave our bathroom — which was a study in beige melamine — a makeover and, frankly, of all our renovation projects in our ’60s house, this is the one that came off the best. Sandstone floors, a sandstone wall; breezy yellow walls; a wooden Venetian blinds and a mobile made from sea shells picked up on the beach. We also invested in new handrails, basin and toilet. The latter had a pleasing modular design and is even environmentaslly friendly as it has two flush settings — one for pees that uses less water.

Trendy and modular... that toilet looks good from a distance.

The bathroom has been a source of pleasure ever since but now I’ve noticed that the toilet’s hinge is rusting.
How completely up the wazoo is that? It didn’t come cheap and I don’t think I’m alone in assuming you buy a commode for life. It’s hardly a fast moving consumable. Why on earth why I would grill the retailer on whether the hinge was stainless steel?

This says everything about our globablised manufacturing culture. Nothing is built to last — especially if you’re in a RDP house — and with China becoming the cheap-as-chopsticks manufacting powerhouse of our planet — everyone else in the rest of the world is cutting corners in order to compete.

An inspection of the nether regions of my toilet revealed that it is was made by Betta Sanitary Ware, which an online search told me is based in the Hecang Industrial Zone in Mingcheng Town in Foshan, Guangdong.

Now that's attractive... the rusty hinge.

Wikipedia says that Foshan is a city of about 5 million people in southern China and is famous for its porcelain. Well, that’s nice, but what about the hinge that goes with the porcelain of my loo? And where on this Godless planet am I going to find another hinge — and this time a stainless steel one with the correct measurments? I don’t have the slip for the toilet anymore so I can’t very well go back to the retailer in East London. I presume the hinge will continue its pathetic degradation and then the toilet lid will eventually fall off. Now that’ll go nicely with the sandstone floors.

It’s not that I have anything against the Chinese and, like most global citizen, I delight in consuming cheap goods like clothing, kids toys, DVDs… the list goes on.

I’m reading a fascinating book at the moment: “Where Underpants Come From” by Joe Bennet, who traces a pair of underpants he bought in New Zealand back to its souce in China as a vehicle for understanding our globalised economy. On a visit to a logistics multinational’s office in Shanghai, he discovers that just about the only thing that China imports is empty containers — for Chinese-made goods to be packed in and shipped out to the rest of the world.

I bet those containers are stainless steel.

Popularity: 14% [?]

I had occasion to pop into a sewing shop last week. Remember those? There’s so few of them around these days because they’ve fallen victim to globalisation. Cheap Chinese clothes have literally run them out of town.

This remnant of another age is called Dee’s Den, tucked away behind the Preston’s bottle store in Gonubie, East London, and what a treat it was. It took me right back to my childhood, when I’d head down to the sewing shop in Vincent Park centre to choose buttons or material with my older sister, who was a dab hand on the old Singer passed down to her by my grandmother. Then would come the painstaking cutting out of the pattern while the cat tried to upset the apple cart. Then the tik, tik, tik of the Singer as my sister whipped up a sundress for me or a little quilt for my dollies. Such excitement during the fittings and invariably, you’d get poked by a pin or two.

Dee’s Den is stacked to the celing with all the arcane goodies that make up clothing: piping  and bias binding, zips and plastic tubes of buttons, ribbons and  racks and racks of material. The comforting smell of the shweshwe print fills one corner and I marvelled at the way the assistant made a little cut in the material and then ripped it apart with her hands. Even the sound of the scissors on the counter made me nostalgic.

it’s a damn shame people don’t sew in anymore and that kids don’t learn what goes into making our clothes. Though I hated needlework at school (being left-handed I was a bit of klutz)  I know the difference between a dart and gathers, the weft and the woof and I can fix most things that come adrift in my wardrobe. The shame of it that you don’t bother now. You give it away becuase you can buy another so cheaply.

I’ve got a great idea for a fun feature (journalists are you listening?): To send a group of 20-something gals back to their grandmothers to learn the skills that were once compulsory for all women: sew a quilt, knit a jersey, crochet a blanket, make ice cream or a pie.  I  wonder if any of the young black woman of today could master walking while carrying a load on their heads? 

Popularity: 25% [?]

Productivity drops over the school holidays for the parent who works from home, especially in winter when inclement weather keeps the kids indoors. There are just so many puzzles that can be done, pictures drawn and videos watched on a rainy day until cabin fever sets in.

Let’s face it. What would you do? Test your imagination to come up with a new game or go bug mom or dad? At the very least you’ll squeeze a sweetie out of them as they buy 10 minutes more on their computer.  

I have an ace up sleeve and escape to a friend’s office two days a week so I can get some quality graft time — and adult banter but it has got me wondering why, when most of us can afford to spend so little time with our children, they drive us crazy when we do have the luxury of a lengthy stretch of quality time with them?

Like many parents, I view the school holidays with some trepidation and, I do not lie, if you’ve ever wondered into a shopping mall on the first day of term you can see visably joyous mothers relishing being out and unemcumbered their little bundles of demands.

In the last summer holidays, I ran into a friend of mine (a father of a  6-year-old boy) who was taking two weeks off work to be solo parent. He confessed he was at the end of his tether so I suggested he come round to my place in the afternoon and we’d drink beers at the pool side while the kids frolicked in the water.

He turned up brandishing a bottle of vodka, saying he needed something stronger. I unearthed a bottle of gin but couldn’t locate the shaker (my martini daze are long behind me) nor did I have vermouth so we mixed the hooch up with ice in a tea pot and knocked it back with a twist of lemon rind.

The fraught father  was visably relaxed after his second. 

Popularity: 20% [?]

As a Joburger for four years, I revelled in being in the heart of the beast. Being in the commercial capital of the country, where all the really important decisions are made, is thrilling for a journalist. And,  for a twenty-something bar fly, the social whirl was just as fun. I loved that it was so cosmopolitan and that the races mixed so easily and gregariously in the work place and at party time. 

But then you grow up, become a one-house crime wave and get bored with hanging out at mega malls.

I’ve been watching The Times and Mail & Guardian online  and their disinterest in the rabid storm that is battering the whole country’s coast with curiosity today. Doubtless both web teams know about it as it’s all over Sapa and News24 and IOL are going to town on the rescue and storm damage stories. Both newspapers also have Cape Town and Durban staff so it’s not a manpower issue.

I’m hazarding a guess that the Joburg newsrooms feel it’s not very important as it’s not affecting Joburg. If it doesn’t happen in the Big Stink, then it’s not particularly exciting — and there be the rub.

I’ve lived in three cities since I left Joburg — Cape Town, Durban and East London — and have come to view Johannesburgers are rather blinkered and insular. "This is the real South Africa," I’ve heard Joburgers say (and in fact said it myself when I lived there).  Because of its wealth and pace, its crime and grime and the fact that it’s so intergrated, they believe the rest of the country is somehow "unreal", left behind.

Now that is the cry of la-la land, if ever I heard it. The rest of South Africa — where people struggle financially, where the races are still largely weary of each other and where lifestyle isn’t a swear word — is the real South Africa. It’s how most of us — about 40 million of us — live. And at the moment, there’s a terrific storm terrorising its citizens. That is in fact a story — even if it’s at the coast.    

I know that the Sunday Times has heard a rumour that there are people out there as they keep recycling stories from other papers for their splashes. Politics.web ran a story about the recycled public-service corruption report  that the Sunday Times ran with a couple of weeks back and I’ve noticed  two Daily Dispatch stories re-done by the Crimes in the past few months (one about the ANC food parcels given out in townships and rural villages before the elections and another about Transkei teenage girls being forced into marriage).

Come on, guys, you can do better than that. Once upon a time (and I know because I worked there), a story that had appeared in another paper didn’t get a sniff at a splash contender on the diary. 

Popularity: 18% [?]

Three thoughts/discoveries for a recession:

The perfect shampoo

After giving up exorbitant salon products and dabbling with Organics and Pantene,  my friend, Lee-Anne (who has a gorgeous head of hair), came to rescue and, womenfolk, it’s called TreSemme. What a shampoo! At the risk of sounding like an advert,  it produces sleek and shiny locks, even smells like the fancy stuff  and only costs R50 for a 900ml bottle — and you can get it at any supermarket.

The perfect dish

I hate Woolworths pesto — it’s way too oily and my husband has hit on a pesto that is way superior and cheap. Forget those outrageously expensive pine nuts and Parmesan cheese.  All you do with this one is fling  fresh basil leaves, feta cheese, olive oil, a bit of lemon juice, crushed garlic and pepper into the processor, and HEY PESTO!

Leave out the salt because of the feta and  the water in the feta and  oilve oil will separate after a while so just give it a good stir before you put it on the spaghetti. Even my fussy child likes it though I hold off on the pepper if  I’m making it for the two of us.

An imperfect world

Eskom’s recent application for a 34% tarriff hike makes me mad as hell! Even in my middle class household, we would feel the hike — and we’re already using energy-efficient light bulbs, a gas stove and hob and have a solar geyser. There ain’t too much more we can do to save on electricity. I can’t imagine how the working class will cope with this, especially with food prices still so high.

This is the government’s bugger up — we all know Thabo Mbeki’s administration ignored the problems at Eskom for ages — so I think that amid a global downtrun, it’s just not right to penalise the public for this.  After last year’s substantial electrictiy hike, they need to cap this one at about 10% and make up the shortfall with the budget surplus.   Where’s Cosatu now, I wonder?

Popularity: 17% [?]

Cash flow is death to the freelance hack or indeed any start-up business owner — and there ain’t a lot of cash flowing in the economy at the moment anyway. I spent some time in the Sloughs of Despond this week as I watched my bank balance go into an overdraft I don’t offically have and paid for electrictiy on my credit card. I was  owed money for work done but hadn’t got it yet — I bet you know the story if you run your own business. So what can  a gal formerly known as Yuppie do? Drive down to the ocean and let the waves wash away your blues. As I parked at the reef and watched the wind barrel across the sea, I  lamented on Twitter:  "Money’s too tight to mention. It’s so paralysing and depressing. Hasn’t been like this since 1993 for me." And, hey presto! In a couple of minutes, I had two replies, one from a gem dealer in Bangkok and another from a woman in Cape Town. "It’s grim when it gets tight," said the Bangkok gem guy. "We were so short recently that we couldn’t even pay attention! Thankfully all OK now". That made me laugh, and then came the tweet from Cape Town: "Ditto. Mama needs retail therapy." How cool is that? Twitter is much maligned but, because it’s faceless, you feel more confident about voicing your thoughts.  I felt instantly better after reading the two tweets and heartwarmed by the fact that there are others out there just like me and I can connect to them. We’re all in this together, I realised, and we can talk to like-minded people we’ve never met across the planet so easily. That’s what being a globalised economy is all about.

Popularity: 13% [?]

So last week I broke a good story — about the Hong Kong judge labelling Mokotedi Mpshe’s use of a 2002 judgment of his without attribution in the statement dropping charges against Jacob Zuma — and my page traffic and unique users went through the roof. Read the original blog by clicking here. After a bit of canny marketing (i.e. letting people I know at IOL, The Times and Politicsweb about the story), I did more in a day than I did in the previous two weeks. Great stuff (and I was mightily chuffed). It wasn’t a hard story to do. It took some time tracking down the judge through his Oxford University alumni and then filling him in on what was potting in SA, but these are all skills I picked up as a salaried hack. I intend to keep doing original content but the tricky thing for a small fry like me is the marketing.

Read the full story

Popularity: 15% [?]

My husband opined the other day that you can judge the state of the economy by how skinny boerewors is getting these days. Personally, I’m really feeling the pinch in the hair care department. Not so long ago, I’d splash out on salon products (about R260 for a bottle of shampoo) when I went to my hairdresser. I know that sounds outrageous but it lasted far longer than supermarket shampoo and in really is in a completely different league. You know those silly shampoo ads on TV where Andie McDowell or Sarah Jessica Parker shake their gleaming locks? Well, it only get silky and shiny like that if you use R260 bottles of shampoo (and certainly not the products they are advertising) and shine a blinding TV studio light on it.

Read the full story

Popularity: 16% [?]