Muggins? No, muggings!

It's not true that accidents happen in threes, they happen in unspecified clusters and just when you think you're out in the clear another comes knocking. Wallet was number one, then the music on my Ipod vaporised as a spectacularly depressing second. Added to this, my friend Rebekah had her house burgled while her flatmate was sleeping on Friday night. And on Sunday two swedish friends got mugged at gunpoint sitting in their car in town with a window down in the middle of the day. Nice.

Not even the kitties are safe...

And that is not all there is. Courtesy of Rebekah, I'll publish a list of her friends who have been subjected to recent criminal activity.

Mimi, Japanese, mugged 5 times
Sarah, America, mugged at 9am with a gun
Joanna, Canadian, mugged twice, burgaled once
Simon, Zimbabwean, B and E on his house
Camilla, Norwegian, mugged at knife point
Brett, South African, mugged with Camilla, car broken into and robbed
Thor, Norwegian, mugged 6 times with various weapons
Dan, Canadian, has all his stuff nicked from Brett�s car
Mairin, Irish, had a burglar caught as he tried to get in through her open window while she slept
Julian, American, had his car stolen outside his flat that he shares with Mairin
Ivan, Norwegian, car stolen
Laura, Canadian, mugged twice that I know of, once at gun point
Kristen, American, mugged twice
Jethro, South African, mugged 3 times
Helga, Norgwegian, mugged outside his flat trying to get his keys in the door
Ivan, South African, attacked outside his front gate by three men
Mike, South African, car broken into and burgled while he slept
Marius, Norwegian, car stolen
Tessa, South African, purse stolen
Laura, German, wallet stolen
Mandipa, Botswana, mugged

What are we doing in this place? Really? I mean, is this going to have a happy ending? Is it worth it being shot in the vitals by some lunatic pretending to sell sunglasses over your Sony Ericsson?

Merry f-ing christmas.

Cape Town music

There's a lot of stuff to do in Cape Town for the musically inclined. There is the Armchair Theatre in Observatory, where every weekend the arty set of Treacletown gather to loiter stand-offishly in their ripped jeans and listen to avant garde electronica. Or there is Mercury Live just around the corner from my house, where the fare and crowd is of a more studenty nature. Or there is Zola on Long Street, which plays.. Well, to be honest I don't know because I keep away. Think there might be drumming involved.

Waiting for the magic...

Point is, after six months here, there is no reason at all to feel bored, or miss the vast range of entertainment in London. Or the feeling of people actually bothering to coming to see great bands. Oh no, sireee not here noooo... Er.

It's not that this place lacks talent. Some of the acts are great. It's that the people here are morons. Let me give an example.

On Wednesday, a band called Harris Tweed played their first ever Cape Town gig (they are from Joburg) at Armchair. Now, they do indie pop in the Cardigans meets Tori Amos tradition, and they do it well. To illustrate how well, let me just say they have been invited to play South By SouthWest (sxsw) in the US this summer.

Don't ever start listening to rubbish bands, boy!

There was quite a crowd already when we sauntered into the venue around tennish. But they were there not for Harris Tweed, the acclaimed Joburg band that is heading, presumably, for a end-of-series prom night slot in some US telly drama like the OC. Oh no. They were there for this grinning muppet lunatic Rory Elliot, a local who plays his own crap music that he presumably wrote after reading the first fifteen pages of David Gray's bestselling book "How to make millions off simple guitar tunes" before he got to the part that reads "and now, try playing in a different key".

Gaah! I won't even link to his Myspace page because his tripe deseves NOT any more airtime. Bad enough that anybody like that gets to play on a stage anywhere. But, as I was averting my eyes from his t-shirt-and-crap-cd-throwing hideousness I saw that, around me, everybody was singing along! Not even drunkenly, but in that 'oh you sing about me. ME!' way. USELESS! Then, most of them left in time for Harris Tweed to come on. As I said, morons.

Then, of course, there are the trance parties. You can travel to South Africa and, bang, be moved back to the summer of love oh yes. Mid-1990s is what most of us associate with trance. The rest of the world has moved on, but Cape Town on new years eve (or at least the woods thereabout) revert to being Goa circa 1992.

Lark is a good SA act.

What to do? Well, there are good things. Cape-Town based Lark deserves a much bigger audience than it can get here. And a more ethic vibe comes in the guise of Freshly Ground, a band that plays afro-fusion jazz whatever and which is extremely popular down here.

Failing that, you can always make your own music. Sister and some swedes and I hung out at the Kirstenbosch botanical gardens last night to sing carols by candlelight (from whence the pictures above). Seeing as Sister and I both spent 9 years in various music schools we approach these cozy musical get togethers with cynicism. Too many turns performing xmas songs to senile old biddies in each and every one of Stockholm's old peoples homes will do that to you. But in the end, and with the help of some of Simon's excellent Rose, we got into the seasonal vibe.

Happy xmas everybody!

Merda profundo (in a bikini)

Oooh affirmation... That's rather nice. I'll try to include more pictures for you Matt, but I don't have any ones from the weekend spent in Hermanus in a mate's country house. At least not any that I can publish until Elle McPherson withdraws her injunction against them since I, in my bikini, threaten to supplant her as "The Body". Chill, Elle, there is room for two!

Speaking of bikinis, a friend in the US sent this to me this morning:

I dreamed I went back to London and was visiting the RR office, and they had turned Research Fortnight into a very fancy, glossy magazine. And you had written a feature in it, and it was called “Research Africa: Writing from South Africa (in a bikini).” And there was a big artsy-fashion photo spread of you lounging about in a bikini and looking very hip and talking about African research policy.

Sorry Nicole, the swimsuit edition of Research Africa won't be out until July 2007.

The Christmas issue, however, is turning into the biggest nightmare. At this very moment in time as I am in what in ancient Rome they used to call merda profundo. Press day on Wednesday and I'm being collectively bullied by all of my contacts. The judases that promised to write pieces for me haven't, and if I survive the next forty-eight hours it will only be due to the energy that the thought of kicking their ass afterwards gives me.

If this were a Hollywood film, this would be time when I'm hanging off a cliff with twenty velociraptors snapping at my heels and bounty hunters and cannibals jumping on my fingers, with me crying: father why have you forsaken me?. And then Gandalf or Spiderman would come and turn them all into slugs crawling on a newly salted road.

Or, in my slightly less photogenic case, emails would actually appear with something other than Eggs and Spam in them... Ooh! An email! Hang on... "Louk no futher!!! C*I*A*L*I*S to your doorstep... Only $1." Hmmm... It seems that life does not imitate art.

The bags under my eyes could be patented by Louis Vuitton. All that's needed is shoulder straps and a bullet in the head. BLAM! Oh dear, blasphemy and suicide all in one post. Someone call McDreamy...

Who reads this?

Hi, who are you? I mean, you get to know everything about me - but I haven't heard from some of you for ages. There is a comment function right below each post, you know. Why, you could even send me an email! Lazy... Then there are the others who I don't even know who you are. Do I know a James at the University of Manchester? Hello and welcome if not.

Quid pro quo. Or karma, which is another take on the same concept. A concept that has been on my mind a lot lately. Tell me, why is it that always when I raise something to the skies it comes back down to bite me in the arse? I had no sooner pressed 'publish' on the last post before I realised some complete bastard had stolen my wallet out of my bag. A bloody-minded thief! In my favourite cafe! So I spent the second half of yesterday ordering new credit and debit cards from all four corners of the Earth, and this morning filling in about thirty forms in triplicate to assure my South African bank I'm me and not Osama Bin Laden and that yes, I'd like a new card before the end of the decade. I'm trying my hardest not to hate my favourite cafe now because what's the point. But it's hard.

The whole episode goes under the list 'what not needed when approaching press day'. Oh, if anybody can find an email address to the the science minister of Senegal, I'd be much obliged.

Octogenarian

This is, according to my new improved blog machine, the 80th post I write. So happy birthday, Out Like Blixen. Not bad. I'm celebrating with a divine latte in my new home, the cafe I've discovered about 200m down the road from work. Here you get free wireless internet AND kick-ass coffee. Sundance - big it up!


See, this free wireless thing just makes so much business sense to me. For the cafes I mean. I will spend SO MUCH MONEY in this place it's unreal just because they offer this service. I might as well put my own chair in here, and write my name on a cup with a marker pen.

Also, I work much better when there are many things to distract me. I wonder if it's to do with having grown up in a big family. At college I always used to do my coursework in the lounge of our flatshare (which housed 10, by the way) while the TV was blaring and my flatmates having their dinner. Empty, silent rooms reinforce the angst felt when opening up blank word documents that need to be filled. Busy, noisy places supress it. Or something.

Did I mention the coffee is excellent?

It's a stunning day. Hot, no wind, no cloud. Bastards. I'm a week from deadline with a backlog of interviews.

I've also agreed to write the most boring article in the history of the universe. It's a detailed account of the funding possibilities for startup biotechnology companies offered by charities in Europe.... zzzzz... For six months it's been hanging over my head, and today I'm doing the first interview. Can't believe I agreed to it... But then, I know why I did. It will pay 1000 quid, that's why. Ka-ching. I mean, that's a decent holiday. For ONE article...

And, by Dickens, do I need one.

Cruel, cruel summer

What's up with the weather? It's gone back to being the same as it was in the deepest of winter - that is, 18 degrees and rainy. But still. What's up with the rain over the weekend when Cape Town's bestest street festival took place?

I spent Obz Fest doing what I do best at festivals - sit on my arse somewhere comfortable, missing all the great bands. But throwing ice on passers by was fun. As was looking after sister who was elsewhere, listening to the kin of music that makes you dance like you didn't have time to make it to the loo.

What wasn't fun was to try to find my car late at night. Was (sensibly enough) heading for MIracle-Gros just round the corner. But Observatory gets very labyrinthine after a few beers. Let's just say my companions were not too pleased when they found out that what i was looking for was a white city golf. That will only be the most commonplace car in the Cape... Er. But we FOUND IT!

Here are some pictures from the fest. They are not very good, but at least I still have my camera. Not like Elin, Swedish lady, who had both phone and camera stolen. I think a cartel of pickpockets secretly organise the festival...




Then on Sunday all the swedes met to celebrate first weekend of advent by drinking some imported glogg (strong mulled wine) and eating gingerbread biscuits. Another poor rendition of that experience below. Toby models the festive spirit before disappearing back to the great white this week. He didn't want to go...

And the dead shall walk the Earth

If you hear a sharp crack like a seal breaking, or the sudden blast of a thousand trumpets, maybe you should not get out of bed. Only two days after his sudden demise, the guy in the last post is back outside the Garden Centre with an eye patch, waving cars towards empty parking spaces. The dead are walking the Earth!

Or, perhaps more likely than the end being nigh, he was never dead in the first place. Good for him. The lesson to take from this is: before proclaiming somebody dead, check their pulse. Still, I wonder whether to now give him only 1 rand as opposed to the usual 2 to watch my car, seeing as he can only keep one eye on it?

Yesterday was Heather's, the office manager's, last day. Now I'm all alone in the office, boo hoo. But not for so long. Because lo and behold, I've hired a reporter! She's a young, black, award-winning science journalist from Zimbabwe and due to start in January. I agonised over whether to hire her or this other Zim guy who is older, super experienced and very probably more qualified to do MY job than I am. But my superiors agreed with me that this it might cause tensions and so Deborah it is.

We've also found a new sales person, I hope, and heaven knows I need a new office manager to come in soon because who else will re-stock the coffee jar? Woe woe!

I've another bloody deadline coming up in less than two weeks' time. It will likely largely be about the science ministerial that took place in Cairo at the very end of last month. Egypt is really hot right now, it seems, in terms of locating meetings there. Pity that it's at the other side of the continent.

I'm going to go to the African Union summit of presidents, kings and heads of state in January. It will be in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and I hope to be able to corner Gadafi and probe him on Libya's science policy. Now that would be a scoop!!! Seriously, they're quite big into science at the mo I hear. haha.


On to more serious things. I heard on TV last night (although I was dozing so I might have gotten this wrong) that 50 per cent of young South Africans today will have contracted HIV before they reach 60. Either 'contracted' or 'be affected by' whatever that means. I can't remember. But fact is, it's a bleak picture that is revealed today on World Aids Day. In 2005, 30 per cent of pregnant women were infected. Antenatal clinics are the key source of HIV/Aids status info, and this is also why data on male infection is pretty unreliable.

A household survey the same year showed that the national prevalence was around 11 per cent. BUT the testing was voluntary and just under half the sample refused to take the test. Of course, infection rates are heavily skewed towards the black population. The Western Cape, where I live, has the lowest prevalence, whereas KZN on the eastern coast has the highest. Prevalence amongh Africans was 13.3 compared to among 0.6 among whites.

The estimated prevalence among South Africans is 12 per cent amongh men my age, and 33 among women. The UN and the WHO have their own estimate that about one fifth of South Africans aged 15 to 49 are infected. And a second look at mortality figures in the past few years show that in 200-2001, HIV caused the deaths of over 50,000 south africans aged 15-59.

Luckily, it seems that the government is finally sorting itself out on HIV/Aids, sacking the useless health minister and putting old wives tales back where they belong - outside of government. Question is, whether it is too late.

More on the AIDS survey: http://www.avert.org/safricastats.htm