South Africa: From Sandton to Melrose Arch through Sandton

In any case

There is a more important blog I wanted to write that I have been ruminating over for days already and have not been able to write the first word of a sentence, yet it is working and forming in my mind as it is not ready to be birthed and given the light of expression.

On a lighter note, however, I hailed an Uber ride from my hotel to Melrose Arch, the driver decided to take the back roads through Sandton and it was quite revealing.

I would have loved to take pictures, but this might have been considered a security risk and probably endangered my life before I was given the opportunity to explain my interest.

Prisons of defence

Whilst I find the security at my hotel a bit superfluous and cumbersome because it requires all drivers of vehicles into the grounds sign in apart from the fact that gates are manned and have barriers, what obtains in residential Sandton is quite enhanced.

Literally all compounds have high walls topped with barbed wire fenced that I believe is also electrified. To my English mind, the affluent literally lived in the equivalent of prisons, if not fearful, at least, concerned about the world beyond their walls that is violent and so far removed from wealth and access to opportunity.

The walls themselves are architectural pieces and there are some notices that suggest that there are armed response units ready to tackle any trespassers.

Overwrought oasis

On arriving at this apparently exciting Melrose Arch that exudes affluence so alien to the generality of South Africa served by many from the townships spruced up to slave in genuflection to the presumably sophisticated or nouveau riche, it looked very much like an oasis in a vast desert, the appearance of Melrose Arch from the motorway read true in reality.

I first stopped at Sunglass Hut where I asked for lens cleaners having forgotten to pack any for my journey and the store assistant quickly offered a luxury case with a refillable spray cleaner, a washable ‘Microfiber’ cloth and a jeweller’s screwdriver. Meanwhile, he offered to clean my glasses.

When it came to paying for the goods, he could not operate the till, and after fumbling for minutes, he called his boss who was out of the shop on some business and he immediately appeared to sort things out. Why Sunglass Hut needs to have a mobile phone number to conclude a transaction escapes me, and if not because I felt a bit amenable since I was paying cash, I would not have parted with any information about me.

Cavalier cravats and more

My view was almost coloured by this experience until I was accosted further on by some affable gentlemen who looked rather dandier than I was. They run the Cavalier gentlemen’s fitters shop where for once they seemed to have everything that exuded class, taste and sophistication.

They had seen me walk by and came out to compliment my dressing and even averred that they have never seen someone as smartly dressed as I come by their shop before. They had me when they said they also had day cravats. This considering that last time I asked for cravats in Sandton, I was presented with a Velcro-fastened bib. The horror.

The variety of colours and quality of the stuff, I could not resist, yet I restrained myself, I left with two beautiful cravats, and to their recommendation of getting matching pocket squares, I intimated them of the fashion faux pas of matching pocket squares to ties, it should never be done.

Yet, I did like the way they wore their pocket squares, much like a blooming origami rose, I should have asked to be shown how to do that. I might well be inclined to have a bespoke Savile Row suit made for South African prices made for me. We’ll see.

After shopping at Woolworths a brand that looks a bit classy in South Africa though long since extinct in the UK and probably never really related to the one that once rules the shopping precincts of the UK, I hail an Uber ride back to my hotel having learnt again of the great disparities that ail South Africa.

Postscript: I have since learnt Woolworths of South Africa is modelled after Marks and Spencer of the UK and has never been related to the old Woolworth’s brand in the UK.

Thought Picnic: They've run out of video tape

Casing the joint - night and day

I sometimes think I am quite observant but I have realised that it does not mean that I notice a lot. The other day, as I walked up to the chemist for another batch of pills, I expected the video shop to be open though I have not plied any trade there in a good few years.

In fact, the night I decided to buy my place, one of the things I did was to visit at night and get a feel of the atmosphere around my prospective dwelling place.

There is no point have a look at a prospect during to cool of the day when everyone is out at work and then realising that at night is a hellish place to be long after you have signed the papers and had a few sleepless nights.

The video shop that opens from 14:00 to 22:00 was at the time the last shop to close in this area, so I walked in and had a chat to the manager about how he felt about working in this area and what kind of people lived here.

It was there, now no more there

His views were encouraging and I felt confident I had made the right choice. Soon, I was a registered member of the video club though I probably only ever hired a few videos except when I had young guests that I ventured there – it was just a place that existed my coming here and had every possibility of outlasting us.

My first DVD player was bought from there and it was easy to get recordable CDs or DVDs if needed in an emergency from the shop.

However, on that day, I saw a sign in Dutch thanking us for 10 years of being there, it was not like they had moved elsewhere, rather it seemed the business had closed.

Besides the travel agent was probably the first to vacate their business premises just over two years ago and that spot has not found new occupiers yet. I suppose things have been tough but many businesses have been resilient – it has just been, the sign of the times.

Holiday Snaps: The message to kids about the times

A mind on the run

Wandering thoughts as the mayhem and noise around you gets blanked out for the mind to consider, contemplate, ruminate and meditate.

Between the madness of the outrageous to that goodness of the sublime pictures and scenarios are created, analysed and discarded one thought jumping to another without any sense of how they link up.

Cleaning up with English

The sign I saw, “Need? Clean you house, #”, got me thinking about how English can be so forgiving that we almost fully understand what is intended. This was no doubt a collision of Spanish and German aspiring to a global audience.

A little help from an English friend would have cleared out your house not leaving a speck of dust and the malapropisms that accompany describing a mess. “Do you need to clean your house?” or “House Cleaner Needed?” for brevity and directness, but everyone seems to have the notion of being better users of English than they really are.

Just because their command of English is better than your fluency in their language does not automatically mean their command of English is of the quality that allows for publication of good notices, it only means you can both communicate, even if barely so.

From David to everything else

Children; sons and daughters; their parents and the interactions but it never ceases to amaze me the resemblances I notice seeing that visage of the father or the eyes of the mother, evidence without the need for intrusive testing.

Michelangelo’s David is probably the most perfect specimen of how a man should look; the excess of lipid tissue or muscle just does not enhance the appreciation of that bearing.

When a child begins to take on features that prognosticate a future of obesity, there is need to worry why we do not allow kids to work themselves out a bit and keep fit for the sake that it would be good for them as much as it would be good for the parents. However, in the absence of good example the future might be bleak.

At breakfast, it was not the three musketeers but musculars if that word might be permitted, just this once. Walking with arms almost akimbo not because they have taken that pose but the gym has seen too many visits that the muscles have become a deformity. Muscle Marys, they are called and they are – Oh! Not so David, trust me.

Hard times for tough people

The times are tough, hard and difficult, more businesses have closed, bars have notices that have hung there for months and there have been no takers.

The ones that have stayed open to the high season are having brisk business, in the years since I wrote the blog about settling in Gran Canaria things have changed and people have had to adapt to the situation and circumstances.

I braved the carterista (pick-pocket in Spanish) shops for a cable and was pleasantly surprised at being offered the cable at 33% less the price tag without having even seen the price, maybe lessons have been learnt that we would go elsewhere than be fleeced.

As for the chap who has been frazzled by the warmth of Canarian sunshine that he is planning to settle here, if you can survive these times, you will definitely live here a long time.

I must spare a thought for those who gave up everything for the hard life in the sun with the hope that they will retire here and had to make the very difficult decision of closing shop, the brave and courageous fight to avoid failure in which they might have lost homes too, returning to their lands of origin hopefully plotting a return – these have been really hard times and everyone knows that.

AKO is hardly the best at rush hour

Shopping time for the commuter

In the commuter world, the station is a place where everyone should appreciate the context of time and the instant gratification required by customers to get in, grab something, catch the train and relax in a seat fiddling with whatever was acquired.

I have however come to the conclusion that many shops in Amsterdam Central Station have no idea of the setting in which they are based.

The shops may very well know they have a market but they do not understand their customers, the characteristics of shops in the high street are quite different from those in a train station and very different from those in an airport.

The psyche of a shop

In the high street, you have time to browse and flit around in perpetual indecision till you end up with something really expensive that you never really needed.

When you shop at the airports, the purchases could be impulsive or based on the need to acquire gifts for those back at home – you may not have as much time, but you would hardly be in a panicky rush to get on your plane, except where you do not arrive on time to check-in, in which case you would hardly be shopping.

Corner shops or late night shops are a different genre; they are open until just that time when ghosts have finished putting on their makeup; they are that last refuge to interact with retailers because you have missed the regular shops and just need a quick TV dinner or something that prepares you for the next body engine trouble.

Rush-hour in tardy shops

When in comes to station shops, it requires a completely different mindset and business model – those shops are in premium rent areas, the customers hardly have the time and they definitely want prompt and efficient service, at least, that is my opinion.

For three days now as I have half-rushed to catch my train to work in the rush-hour at because of the newsagents in the station, the experience has left me quite seriously annoyed.

First off all, these newsagents has three shops in the station and somehow have failed to get it right for all sorts of reasons.

A Knock Off

For the want of controversy, AKO [Source: AKO.nl - Online boeken bestellen – In Dutch, the online site of the store] which prides itself as the best bookshop in the Netherlands seems to be failing in its prime purpose at Amsterdam Central Station.

It is almost unimaginable that at 8:00AM in the thick of the rush hour the all the newspapers are yet to be stacked up, at the most accessible store at the East side of the station, half the papers are still on the trolley in cellophane wrapping and chance has it that the one I want is in the pile.

One can go to the West side but the queues are just interminably long, with much more variety, the choices are their to keep you there for longer than it healthy for your heart; further down near Platform 14, the papers are staked up but the price scanner cannot read the barcode, forget the queues, they are long too.

Poor staff management

It is absolute chaos at times, as you find staff that should be at the tills doing other things around the shop and the queues stretch out into the concourse – I would presume the customers have another hour before their train.

In my case, I only have minutes and by the time one has walked to perimeter of the station for what should have been available 10 metres from the entrance of the station, one is almost running for the train – it is utterly beyond the pale.

The other day, they put a greenhorn on the till, he spent minutes charging the wrong price and giving out excess change along with his obvious state of discomfiture, I heard enough of the Dutch in the customer’s frustration when he cursed about how they could have put an inexperienced lad on the tills in the rush-hour.

I do wonder if these stores realise that people who pick up a newspaper really have no time for food parcel queues – in fact, I have seen setups in London where on trust people are able to use a paper dispenser, saving time for them to catch their trains with dignity.

Today, it was the Platform 14 store, a queue 10 deep and just one till available whilst the other staff were stacking shelves with non-essentials, I just could not wait 10 or more minutes to pay for the paper so I put it back.

They can sort this thing out

I am incensed that I ended up having to travel an hour without my paper just because there are three shops in the station that cannot seem to be managed properly with a clear knowledge of their setting.

These shops probably have to open earlier to stack up their shelves in time, they definitely need to have staff manning all the available tills in the rush-hours, the greenhorns should only do the quiet hours, in the meantime they can be stacking shelves if necessary and the prices of all major international newspapers should appear on a price board, just in case the scanner cannot decipher the barcode.

Thankfully, I am not the regional manager of that group of stores, else a good few heads included mine might have rolled for what is just gross incompetence and the lack of attention to the possibility that customer impatience could have lost them a good deal of business.

The Carteristas of Gran Canaria

Paying over the odds

It could be quite rough if the first new Spanish word you learn on the night of your arrival is “Carterista” as my friend in a vulnerable situation was lightened of a wallet but thankfully with just change and the hotel card.

However, having visited a number of shops in Playa del Ingles and Las Palmas one begins to wonder if they not all like those machines in amusement arcades that give you the impression you are in for a big win only for you to realise later on that all the odds are loaded against you to part with your money and end up with absolute crap.

I had already paid over the odds for some goods I needed and when the shopkeeper could not convince me to buy stuff I did not need he passed me on to a fellow shopkeeper who ran a leather goods shop.

My rotten brother

Now, this is summer, temperatures running at 35 Celsius or higher and I am supposed to be shopping for leather jacket – I think not and I did say, I did not need one.

By the time I had tried on the first jacket which did not fit but the seller felt was right, we had established he was Algerian and I Nigerian, so from then on, it was the familiar My Brother this, My Brother that, as we tried one ill-fitting jacket after another, some with buttons almost falling off – Why am I in this shop?

So the schpeel (Spiel as corrected by a commenter - Thanks!) went on about it being the best Mallorcan leather, the highest quality and so on, really, do I have “mugu” written all over my face?

At one time, I said, I would rather I had my friend around to see if it all really fits me, to which he retorts, they are doing 50% discounts today – that really had my antenna up, I am up against a wily confidence trickster and I better beware.

So, we finally found one that was barely comfortable, but I wanted to leave and my way was barred as I tried to escape his clutches for a jacket that now was to cost 1,900 Euros, then 50% slashed off to cost 950 Euros, none of which I was going to buy, then he suggested 300 Euros and I walked away as he cursed me in German to my hearing.

I was only a brother for as long as I was ready to be conned out of money, the moment his machinations lost their potency, I was a pariah – that really pissed me off, but it was evident that all they did was rip tourists off for as much as they can get away with.

Watch what they do

So, in Las Palmas today we had to get an extra rechargeable battery for our camera and before he had the battery out he was already saying the battery was better than mine, well the packet does say 4,800 mAh, but the battery was 750 mAH and mine was 1,200 mAh, for crying out loud, I did Electrical/Electronic Engineering but I do not have to walk away with a safety helmet.

He then got out a battery that was the 4,800 mAh and I got both that and a charger that was well beyond my requirements whilst suitable for my battery and paid.

Meanwhile, my friend was thinking of getting a watch and we decided on one which was taken to the counter for the manual to be united with the watch before packaging, I also picked up a watch and soon afterwards the manual for my watch was found and a big show was made of finding my manual, however, they could not locate my friend´s and suddenly one manual was about to be packaged for the watch, but I determined to check and it was the wrong manual.

I was incensed, how could I have just done business with you and then you try to use the confidence trick of showing you got my manual to pretend you got the right one for the other watch?

They really did not have that manual that my friend had to get another watch for which they did have a manual.

I would not go into any Gran Canarias shop for anything that is not essential or properly labelled more so, one wonders which is worse – the stealthy carteras (pick pockets) or the ones who run businesses as dishonest, unprincipled and shameless shopkeepers on the make.

Tourist beware!