Sipping the Hazards of Earl Grey

A Chance Encounter

It must be a kind of hazard going shopping with your mother, or that is how we felt for the young man yesterday as we stopped for a pot of Earl Grey tea and a slice of too-creamy carrot cake.

We took the table beside two white ladies who wouldn't look out of place at a seaside café in Eastbourne, England, and we have seen quite a few ladies in Pinelands that remind me of home.

It is that quiet sophistication of a Laura Ashley print dress, very sensible shoes, hair somewhere between Margaret Thatcher and the late Queen, lip-defining lipstick without drawing too much attention, and costume jewellery giving airs of pearl for a necklace and earrings.

The Retired Teachers

Every younger lady who walked by seemed to know them. Without trying to be a Miss Marple, I suspect they were retired teachers, as you do not become that well known without being invested in the community. If I had wanted to engage them in conversation, I might have used the angle of familiarity to start one.

The only exchange between us was them asking if we had enough space to sit at the table. However, I could not grasp any snippets of their conversation except when they interacted with passers-by.

An Overheard Exchange

Just before our tea arrived, a middle-aged lady with a tallish young man came by, and beyond the greetings a longer conversation unfolded. From what ensued, one could surmise that he was her son. Quite soft-spoken and almost sheepishly shy, we soon found one of the ladies updating her database of facts about him.

We learnt his name, that he had just completed a master's degree, and that he had a British passport. Yet in the context of that exchange, even with the apparent privilege of being Caucasian in South Africa, there was the feeling that this country did not offer him a promising future. This young man was to set sail, though not on an Elder Dempster ocean liner, to the United Kingdom to seek his fortune.

Contrasting Perspectives

I contrast this with the idea that I seek to set up home, live, and retire in South Africa, as I see opportunities and possibilities where the locals appear not to. However, the broader point, as summarised by my partner, is the danger of meeting old ladies in a public space.

Before you know it, a catalogue of your life is revealed to strangers who might make a blog of it. Poor Joseph.

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South Africa: I will not beg for respect

This is not fun

My hotel life in Johannesburg is rapidly turning in a drama of a soap opera bordering on a tragi-comedy of laughable silliness.

In fact, that life centres around my experiences in the restaurant, because it is becoming clear from what I have heard from my other colleagues is that my hotel is so out of the way and literally in the sticks, away from the liveliness that other visitors from the UK experience when they come to South Africa.

I did not make this choice of hotel, my hostess did and I am yet to meet my hostess who is conveniently on holiday until tomorrow, whilst I savour the stillness of this exclusive area livened up by my restaurant theatre every night.

Tea for the weak

There is a likelihood that this South African visit if it continues in this way, it will have made such an indelible mark on my psyche that it is unlikely the situation will be redeemed to afford me another visit to this country.

Breakfast this morning started with an interesting exchange between the waiter and myself.

Waiter: Good morning sir, would you like tea or coffee?Me: I will like Earl Grey tea, please.Waiter: We do not have that, we have rooibos tea.Me: Yes, you do have Earl Grey tea, it was ordered for me yesterday.Waiter: I will go and check.Me: Thank you.

Soon, Earl Grey tea was served, one teabag in the pot. Little lessons of service sadly lost in the main. It is a tea bag to a tea cup, but at least two to the teapot. I guess I will have to be particular next time, clear instructions are needed where initiative is not a present commodity.

Muddled ways and places

Then I hitched my taxi ride to the office where the interminably long road had GoogleMaps in a tizzy, sending us the wrong way down the road when we should have been going the other way.

Republic Road has many names on the stretch of road, it interchangeably uses Republic Road, Republic Street and Republic Weg, without any section of road clearly defined by any of those names. In fact, because I tend to notice such discrepancies, there was one junction where Republic Road and Republic Street were road signs literally, one on top of the other. I was not impressed.

Then I tried to call my colleagues on as many phones they had with my exasperated self posting voicemail messages. Eventually, the driver followed his gut instinct after asking directions from at least 4 people and soon, I sighted where we were going, just before I would have advised him to return me to the hotel.

I’ve just about had it

At the reception, I was at the end of my tether when I exclaimed that I could not believe that I had been brought over 7,500 miles to a situation like this. At that point, someone came to comfort me just as my colleague called to announce he would soon arrive at work.

To say I was displeased would be an understatement, I feel I am being messed around a bit more than I like to be. I can endure this for some more time or decide to return home without necessarily waiting to take any more of this nonsense.

I should not dread doing anything like going to the restaurant and for the second time, my hostess has cancelled on me, I appreciate she has commitments and I know I came here for business, but I was persuaded with the promise of good hospitality. If this is what passes for the much-vaunted South African hospitality, I have no time for people who cannot treat me with respect.

A London for yesterday

Not incapacitated by half

Londinium absorbs guests with interesting aplomb as one's hotel room on the eleventh floor beside the British Library is a completely enabling paradise - handle bars by the lavatory, a seat in the shower, a bench in the bath tub and red strings that activate alarms to call the SAS to the rescue.

All this for someone who just uses a cane? Must have another look in a full length mirror, must be missing something. However, it became clear that the obvious concealed a sinister message when one's check-out survey indicated one had left a day before one was ready to leave.

Not the way to San Jose

Leaving a gentlemen's club and that was not the Athenaeum, a horde of minicab drivers sought custom only to find that out of the 8 who swarmed only one really knew how to get from South of the River to the British Library or even King's Cross St. Pancras.

How anyone could enter a trade and be completely oblivious of the means, in this case directions to landmarks in a city where one plies hackneyed carriage escapes me - they were all Nigerian and more than half Yoruba, it was both alarming and saddening.

It makes Black cabs more a convenience than a luxury along with decent conversation about what really is happening in London.

To the butler, the bottle

Twice even, 805 received custom, with Chxta for pleasant company, the first time, however, the need for a butler and possibly a cook rather than a chef - in residence - is all too obvious as one desired that the waitress open a bottle of Perrier and this for the second time, one's grip of these physical twists fails all too frequently as they all had a brief laugh at one's expense.

This is an organisation that knows its trade and does excellently with friendly staff, prompt service and an accommodating ear, one is wont to tip quite generously, in ones opinion highly recommended and it is Nigerian owned, definitely impressed.

The oil of bergamot

Ah! To Fortnum & Mason on Piccadilly for teas mainly Earl Grey, jams as jelly and Dundee cake, a look in the Royal Academy where the courtyard exhibits non-art so metallic masquerading as large dinosaurs and more eye sores on Burlington Arcade and luxurious New Bond Street as doormen to all that glitters at great expense do up all the buttons on their single breasted jackets.

All but one had a top hat and more formal attire, the dumbing down of London continues apace as chavs blot the landscape with fashion that makes one want to sniff chloroform from a pocket square.

The bus stops hum with Polish and the buses blare out with Nigerians on the blower oblivious of others.

One would think London has a way of exposing the snob in many. Certainly not! Backhand to the titled forehead as one swoons into a business class seat. Bliss!