[I began this “talk” by quoting Moira Lovell, who told us, “You can break the rules when you know them.” I broke the rules by reading this out loud, as opposed to having memorised it, or presenting it. How many teachers told us not to read our orals/mondelings? It turns out, I can lecture and present… But, this I felt was a time for reading. Thanks Moira for giving weight to my decision so the audience didn’t think I was a charlatan.]

In Lasse Halstrom’s 1993 film, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, the opening sequence reveals a small, neglected midwestern American town, Endora. We’re shown Ramp Cafe, End-ora of the Line Drugs, Dairy Dreme, and Lamson’s Grocery, where the lead character, Gilbert, works.

Gilbert’s opening narration explains that the annual campervanners are doing the right thing, just passing through. He continues, “Endora is a town where nothing much ever happens, and nothing much ever will.” 

When I first watched the film, it resonated with me because that’s how I felt about Hilton, my home town. And for a lot of people it is just a place to pass through, or just drive past on the N3, or drive to, to drop kids off at boarding school. 

In the spirit of Gilbert Grape, I’ll walk you through my Endora. In 1983, my first home was the rondavel cottage at the Hilton Hotel. That’s where my dad worked. Further up the road, the Shell garage, the only petrol station in the village. In those days, Hilton was a village. Opposite the Shell, the Hilton Town Board Hall, where our folks went to pretend to look at our kak school art, while they drank beer and OBs at the annual Hilton Lions’ Fair. 

Hilton Pre-Primary is where I spent three magical years with crayons, finger paint, blunt-nosed scissors, and crusty Marmite sandwiches. Laddsworth is where I learned to love learning. 

The Fruit Basket, since demolished, is where we’d go after school… Or to the Spar, owned by the Footselars, for a Super Moo and chicken and mushroom pie. Often, we’d have to hang around in Hilton Drapers waiting for our mums to finish their “quick chats” and buy fabric to turn into matching primary coloured tracksuits. All the kids in Hilton were dressed in the same Butterick patterns… With either gumboots or Bata takkies from Kubela Stores. On Sundays, we’d head to the Hilton Tea room, clutching 50c coins to buy candy cigarettes and other guilty pleasures. The owners of the tearoom knew which parents had permitted us to buy the real Benson and Hedges Special Milds on their behalf.  

That was the colour of village life. Not quite Gilbert’s Endora, but still small. 

However, things were about to get bigger. Soon after Nelson Mandela was elected president, we started to hear whispers. The village grapevine, led by the Walkie Talkies (a group of early morning women walkers), had heard Hollywood was coming to town. 

Our village was summarily upgraded to a town. 

The proverbial “They” were remaking Cry the Beloved Country. Soon after, we heard They was actually South African filmmaker Darrell Roodt who was diving headfirst into the much-famed Madiba Magic by giving us the quintessential South African film. “And have you heard, big hitters James Earl Jones and Richard Harris are the leads?” Suddenly, Hilton Library’s copy of Alan Paton’s novel was flying off the shelves.  

These were the days when Cry the Beloved Country was a symbol of hope and reconciliation… Slightly precarious, sure, but we were heady with the allure of the new Rainbow Nation fragrance. This was well before social media – people hadn’t yet appropriated the book title in response to bad news about the state of the country… “Oh Good Lord! Cry the Beloved Country!” – the calling card of the disgruntled Facebook commenter in reaction to anything government-related. 

But, as with all things that happen in one’s childhood, it was over in a village moment. Hollywood came and went, and Hilton went back to being a village, the place where they filmed Cry the Beloved Country. That hotel became known as the place James Earl Jones stayed. That section of the Midlands… Where “They shot that scene from that movie… Oh, you know the one.”

Soon after the trains stopped running, and the abandoned train tracks became my teenage place for measured rebellion.  

We all have a favourite quote that we bring out whenever we can to sound smart. Mine, which I’m fast turning into a cliche, was introduced to me by Duncan Brown, in that building just over there, in a small classroom, during my honours English seminar on South African storytelling. 

“If this is your land, where are your stories?” 

In the same way that disgruntled Facebookers have appropriated Paton’s novel as a catchphrase, so too have I with J. Edward Chamberlain. 

If this is your land, where are your stories? The title of of his book on placemaking and connection.  

This quote is at the heart of my work and research, because the best way to change human behaviour is by changing the environment. Humans like to think we’re clever and not easily manipulated but just see what happens when a McDonalds rolls into town, or when bins get removed from parks, or when you walk into a library with a vuvuzela. 

My partner Jono and I focus on public space, because in this country social cohesion needs a bit of a nudge. And, developing equitable multipurpose public spaces, that become places, are how you start to see change.

So, how do you change public space?

Well, you just decide to do it.

Jono and I combine mural art, storytelling, and a lot of plants and fruit trees to activate places. We treat the land as ours, not Jono and mine, but the community’s and through investing in that we’ve shown the power of connection through belonging, representation, and inclusivity. Having free spaces is quite literally freedom. But it’s more than that, when people feel invisible its easy to forget them. Having access to public space means being seen, and being able to say this is my home too, I am here, I belong.  

Cry the Beloved Country is a story that, through its title, pages, and magnitude, tethers us to our local home, our national home, and our global home. 

Alan Paton wrote, “When people go away, even the ground cries out for them.”

Which, to be honest, doesn’t always ring true, as we’ve seen in recent news about 49 people who definitely use “Cry the Beloved Country” as a catchphrase to trash our country.  

But for those of us who are tethered, that’s the sum of Home. When we leave, the ground cries out for us. That’s our South Africa, in all its complexities.

I came back to Hilton five years ago, because I needed to be home. And, while I used to think that when Gilbert Grape says that “Describing Endora is like dancing to no music,” that was a bad thing, now I’m not so sure it is. For many of us, describing South Africa is like dancing to no music… It’s not easy, it’s difficult… But we do it because we love dancing and we love telling stories. As a continent of storytellers, stories are our heart. They’re how we say we are here. We claim this space. We are tethered. 

So, what can I tell you about the filming of Cry the Beloved Country? It turns out, not much, but I was invited here today because of a particular piece of writing. And because I’m a storyteller and a placemaker, I think I should stick to what I know. And because I’m not famous, most of you won’t have read this piece, but for those who have, you can use it as an opportunity to catch a snooze with zero judgement. 

Placeholders: In a Station of the Station

[originally published https://www.jackalandhide.co.za/2025/03/12/placeholders-in-a-station-of-the-station/]

My brother and I were furious and jealous when our fourteen-year-old cousin landed the prized role of an extra in Cry the Beloved Country. She was tall and mature for her age, and my older brother was the opposite– you could always spot him in the front row of every school photo, the designated spot for the short arses. Neither my brother nor I were even in the running for a look-in for a coveted extras spot, but that didn’t stop us from being disgruntled, and annoying our mother about how unfair it was. The whining was palpable. 

This is one of my most enduring memories of the Hilton Train Station – a backdrop for a movie, a place suspended in time, swarming with people wearing fancy hats and milling about. And, it also goes down as one of the most exciting times in Hilton’s history… We had celebrities in town and everyone was in a frenzy trying to catch a rare sighting of Richard Harris and James Earl Jones. That was another thing to be disgruntled and furious about. Why wasn’t our hotel (The Hilton Hotel) posh enough for them to stay at? Why were we the hotel for crew? More whining. To be fair, my mother led the charge on this particular bout of whining, as it’s no secret she’s long harboured a bit of a crush on James Earl Jones.   

I know there must be other memories of this central space from my childhood. If I really try, I can just about make out sitting next to my mother on a brown pleather bench seat. I’m not sure if some of the fabric has come away and was fraying or if that’s just the mystic chords of my memory editorialising. Torn and frayed pleather seats that snapped at bare legs were definitely in vogue for that era. In any event, my legs are stretched out in front of me, and there are a tiny pair of white patent leather shoes that I can just about make out. I’m on a train ride… I have no idea where the destination is, that bit has long faded. There’s another part of me that sees myself as part of a crocodile of Hilton Pre-Primary kids in primary coloured clothing snaking our way onto the train for an exciting excursion. Did this happen or is it something that seems plausible and has become a false memory akin to the “Mandela Effect”?  

And then suddenly, one day, the trains stopped. Bugweed crept in, weeds crept in, and sprawling creepers metastasised along the railway. That part of Hilton was gone, hidden… It became a place of “used to”. This used to be alive, now it’s abandoned until some intrepid teenagers or drifters rediscover it. Typically, it takes teenagers, drifters, or the homeless to re-occupy spaces that “used to” and breathe life into them again. These are the breaths that resuscitate the lungs of buildings and we see life through signs, symbols, marks, and abandoned artefacts (usually trash). But as they say, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure…” More about that in a moment.  

A months ago, my partner Jono and I were discussing public space, and the conclusion was that we’re woefully ignorant about what’s on offer around us. The irony and shame are not lost on us. But that’s how we ended up at the Cedara Station. We decided we need to explore. 

As our car drove up the dirt road to Cedara Station, I thought about all the rumours I’ve heard about the space over the years. 

“Cedara Station is going to become an abattoir.” 

“They’re going to develop it.” 

“Cedara Station is going to become the destination for a train ride to and from Hilton, like in the old days.” 

We park up and I feel nothing. Usually my memory is a magic wand that can get stories out of anything. But nothing. In the words of Gandalf, “I have no memory of this place.” I can’t imagine what it used to look like, it is all completely new and I have no frame of reference to pollute my experience of how it used to be and how it is now.  

“Fuck this is cool…”

We walk through the long grass towards the station. This is the old platform, and using my experiential geography I imagine that tickets were sold just through there. I wonder how much they cost? If you walk into the station, there’s a big chunk of floor missing and you can see into the basement. It’s a swamp of ferns, chip packets, sweet wrappers, new and ancient drinking vessels, and other detritus. I notice the skeleton of a VHS tape and smile. I wonder what’s on it. Cry the Beloved Country? 

The handwriting on the wall shows that brave teenagers have walked across the beams to leave their marks. The Hilton Boyz are a gang of eight names. I’m not brave enough to walk along the beams, and I don’t think peer pressure from teenagers would convince me otherwise. Meanwhile, Jono has spotted a wall, and he begins setting up his cans the way he always does, meticulous, pausing every so often to glance at the wall, step back, step forward. It’s a musical-less dance.

I explore the space, this Khazad-dum of secrets. There are stories to piece together… The Hilton Boyz who want change and to be seen, the invisible boys of postapartheid South Africa. The rebellious spirits who’ve drawn penises on everything, Shocking, you may think, until you go into the myriad of museums and see that phallic symbols never go out of fashion. There’s an odd drawing, a Rorschach Test asking if you see boobs, balls, or a squirly stick figure. Underneath reads, 

Fuck

Sex

Is this advice or a list? 

I move on, hoping young teenagers get the message, “Fuck Sex, fuck it.” Sage advice. And then as if they’re listening Bathini, Bona, Batchi, and Bek… (the last name is smudged) caution me, 

“Book Before Boys Because Boys Bring Baby.” This is written in chalk, and as if in a secret teenage pact, the girls have written their names below. It’s official. A clubhouse rule.  

I’m proud of these girls, I wonder where they are now. In the library I hope. 

I vandalise their space by spraypainting my name, Dr Jackal, onto their walls. Adults were here. 

I now have a memory of this place. Memories of this place. People have left their marks, told their stories, shared their secrets, made promises. It’s easy to dismiss graffiti and to bemoan trash. I hate litter, I try to do my bit, but sometimes you just have to see it as a part of a story. The things they left behind. I’d rather it was in the bin, but sometimes a reframe protects the mind from futility. 

Jono finishes his piece. And we leave. But we’ve left our mark. We will linger here at this place that represents the past, a place that’s never coming back, a ghost of the way things used to be. The old South Africa. 

As we get into the car, I think of one of my favourite poems by Ezra Pound,

In a Station of the Metro

The apparition of these faces in the crowd:

Petals on a wet, black bough.

“Shall we walk along the track now?” Jono asks. 

This is what we did as Hilton’s teenagers, but we are not teenagers anymore. 

We have permission, the space is no longer hidden. 

This is particularly poignant because a lot of public advertising goes unchecked, and a few select people benefit from it and are making loads of dosh off it. What stings is that they’re profiting off our public space, off our visual landscape. It’s offensive. Graffiti on the other hand, is in many cases a visceral reaction to advertising, it’s showing that individuals share the space too… Who gets to decide what stays and what goes? 

I’m not here to espouse the virtues of graffiti, but I am here to say that how we react to it, how we respond to it, and how we deal with it is important. In December 2023, Jono aka Hide wrote an open letter to our town, Hilton, because someone (we now know it’s a group of young teenagers) was overzealous with a can of black spray paint. His letter was a masterclass in diplomacy. 

Sort-of similarly, a few years ago, someone tagged the Basilica de Santa Maria del Pi. This was illegal graffiti and the church denounced it… From there controversy erupted, the media got involved, and the church realised it had to reach out to a collective of mural artists. The mural artists and the church then developed a project to equally serve the views of the church, urban art, citizens, and public space. It was a superhuman effort in diplomacy and group work. 

The artist Aryz (Octavi Arrizabalaga) was commissioned because he is an artist who knows a whopping amount about religious art history. He was tasked with painting a 14m x 10m canvas to install in the church as a symbol of how modern art can be integrated into old spaces. In an interview, Aryz says, “For me, the dialogue between the piece and its surroundings is fundamental and there is a direct dialogue between the architecture of the church, and the piece.” The idea of street art and mural art is to always reference the space and that’s why it’s unique. Public art is as much about the space as it is about the piece… It’s a dance.   

Aryz, like most street artists, understands this dance because he began his journey with graffiti and learned about communicating through art and space. His style developed, and now he is a renowned street artist and canvas artist through his epic (and I mean that in the traditional sense of the word) installations. 

The Crianca (Child) project launched as a convergence of the past and the future and showed that there is a place for modern street art and mural art in traditional spaces. The overarching message is that if government institutions, municipalities, and cities were more open to discussions about legal and curated street art, then this would have a positive impact on stamping out or at least lessening illegal graffiti. The way to nurture local talent and allow it to grow, is not done through painting over illegal graffiti and ignoring the problem. It is done through active engagement, and opening up public space and dialogue to allow artists to work with communities to create everyday magic. 

“We live constantly overstimulated at a time when everything is immediate and it is almost revolutionary the fact that you can go to a place to look at a piece quietly. That a coat of paint on canvas can transmit or generate a feeling to a person like it has done for centuries, for me it’s magic. And that it continues to be meaningful in these spaces of reflection and contemplation is also magic. Because reflection and contemplation are fundamental in art. Because if a film, a text, a book, a song, or a painting can make you think… This is the meaning of art, because change can come from reflection.” (Aryz: 2023)

On our spectacular tour of Prague, where the old seems to be suspended in a time capsule, we were fucking delighted to know that Aryz was exhibiting less than 800m from our hostel. I didn’t know what to expect, but Jono was absolutely bibbing with excitement… I think the equivalent would be if I went to a book reading by Ivan Vladislavic. The exhibition titled Vestigio, immediately ignited something in me. Titles are important, and vestiges of the past have always resonated with me, I knew the exhibition was going to be incredibly rad. 

But not as rad as it was. 

Even if you’re not the type of person who likes to ponder over art and look for, “What is the artist trying to say here?” You’re going to dig what you see when you look at Aryz’s art. At it’s most basic level, Aryz uses a very specific and distinct colour palette and there’s a calmness to it. This calmness is juxtaposed with the fragmented nature of his compositions and the disturbing “seeing inside” element that he creates with some childlike brushwork and some more realistic techniques. This fragmentation is key because Aryz creates a disturbance in his pieces, whether it’s between traditional and postmodern, the past and the future, or nature and unconventional scenery. You look at his art, and you see the world. 

For the avid art lover, Aryz’s art is steeped in a vast knowledge of art history. He references many famous works in his pieces– from frescoes, sculpture, canvases, etc. For the viewer, this means that there’s a familiarity when you look at the art, even if you can’t quite put your finger on it. This creates a sensibility that’s both comfortable and jarring, serene and turbulent. The collage-like quality also provides energy and movement and there’s a humorous nod to the past that he employs. In old paintings, masters would often “correct” mistakes by painting over them. So, if a limb of an animal wasn’t quite correct, it would be painted over and the artist would try again. Often these mistakes could still be subtly recognised in the finished piece. Aryz uses this technique to play on the past, but he also reclaims these “mistakes” as a way to create movement and vitality. In the world of Aryz, it’s literally the more limbs, the merrier. 

Our visual landscape is so oversaturated that we are in the habit of looking, rather than seeing. Aryz gives a lens to reclaim space, history, and how we see the world around us. His work is important because it shows that separating the past from the present, traditional from the modern, and urban from the old world is a recipe for stagnation. Street art and public art are a dialogue that can connect and inspire, and they open our eyes to a new way of seeing. To see the world as it is, and to inspire change, we need to engage, and we need more spaces that stimulate contemplation and reflection. 

The difference between a cellphone shop in Germany vs one in South Africa is the fucking temperature. If you want the experience of buying anything cellphone-related while on the surface of the sun, then Germany is your place. The okes who worked there were as useless as you’d get in the South African equivalent. We arrived at the shop, and explained that we were tourists and needed a SIM card for tourists, and we were told to sit down. While we waited we couldn’t help but notice, through the veil of sweating eyeballs, that like South African cellphone shop attendants they seem to spend a lot of time huddled and chatting with fashion haircuts and lanyards and iPads and not a lot of time helping out. Eventually, someone helped us and after a long explanation explained we’d need a resident to come and sign for us. We asked if this was the only option and he said yes. 

I didn’t believe him so we searched for the Vodafone shop and were absolutely jazzed to see that it was as packed as the Vodacom shop at Liberty Mall at month end. But hotter. Obviously. We realised that communication was not worth this, and getting lost again in a shithole was preferable to spending a second longer in the moshpit of connectivity. At this point, I needed the toilet so I had to do the usual pay 1 Euro for the loo. However, this was a Euro well and truly spent because I was greeted by a self-cleaning, self-wiping toilet. The seat spins around while the mechanism disinfects and wipes the seat. This is literally the type of shit that I go bos for. If I could give my Blessedies one gift from Europe it would be this. We’d have to have it as some sort of timeshare though. 

In a last-ditch attempt, we asked a random internet shop to help us with our SIM card problem and he told us we needed to go to Ortel just over there… He points. It took less than five minutes to be helped by a very friendly guy from Pakistan who espoused the virtues of Hansie Cronje while we waited.

When I look back on this trip, one of the things I’ll get misty-eyed about is the train trip from Hannover to Czechia. The first leg was pretty standard, except I got on my first-ever double-decker train and I nearly pooed with excitement. Despite all the train changes we managed a lot better and also scheduled a two-hour stop in Bad Schandau. I like to think Bad Schandau is an MMA fighter. But actually, Bad Schandau is one of the most glorious places on earth and everyone should go there immediately. The scenery is absolutely insane and the River Elba seems to be bookended by sandstone and forest.

We knew when we’d got to Czechia because the scenery rapidly changed and our last train was straight out of My First Siberian Picture Book of Communism. The doors were manual and one passenger had to ask Jono to help her get off the train because she couldn’t manage to open the door herself. 

In Prague, we were greeted by one of many really grumpy Uber/Bolt drivers. Not only are they grumpy but the driving is downright terrifying. The zeitgeist around driving seems to be “go like the fucking clappers and then slam on brakes”. Repeat until destination. The trouble is that zebra crossings are HIGHLY observed and there are very few pedestrian traffic lights… You cross and drivers will stop. However, the first time you try this it’s harrowing because the cars do about 60km per hour before slamming on brakes to allow you to gently amble across.

Our hostel, read hostile, was straight from the chapter “Hostiletality for Beginners,” in The Compendium of Eastern European Communism.  Despite the numerous “artworks” peddling toxic positivity none of it seemed to rub off on the staff. The hostel was clean but gave off the distinct whiff of those halcyon days when you could choose between beige or oatmeal.

Prague is known for its excellent beer. However, a lot of restaurants and bars in Prague serve Pilsner Urquell only. I don’t know why. We found some delicious beers including Kozel and Bernard. When it comes to service, in most countries it’s customary to say, “Cheque please!” I’d like to establish a new tradition in Prague, “Czech please!” Service is not fast, nor is it excellent or even good. What is excellent is the Kentucky Fried Chicken, which we nicknamed Kentucky Fried Czech-en. You might think it’s weird to go for KFC over local cuisine but I’m too old to be force-fed an assortment of beige food just so that I can have an authentic experience.

Old Town is a magical land filled with wonder and delight at every turn. There are bunches of jewellery shops, sweet shops, ice-cream shops, and places promising to have the best Trdelniks. I find jewellery shops in tourist areas really weird. Who can afford to buy jewellery when they travel? How much jewellery do you need? Is this just aimed at men keeping multiple women happy? Every country has some special stone or piece of glass or some sparkly shit that they claim is unique… Why are people duped by this? However, the sweet shops were like the kid version of the jewellery shops. I’m not even a sweet person (in all the ways) but I nearly bought my weight in sweets because environment influences behaviour. When I’m presented with a gajillion barrels filled with a gajillion sweets and then the sweet shop is themed as a mine with a mine shaft and wagons and shit I’m all in. I don’t know how those places make money though because you’d have to sell a lot of sweets to pay for the cost of the mise-en-scene they’ve got going.

Our British waiter at our favourite restaurant close to our hostel explained that the reason the sweet shops are there is because they’re a front for drugs and money laundering. I don’t even care if this is true or not. Good stories are more important than the truth (unless you’re a journalist). 

For anyone who cares, and you should, the best Trdelnik is from TRDLO 13 Karlova. Trdelniks are like those spiralled potatoes on a stick that you used to get at the Royal Show. Everyone is eating them so they’re a walking advert. You can’t help but want one, and the smell is intoxicating. However, unlike the potato on a stick, which is utter crap, these are glorious. One of our favourite games was to watch people try and finish them and then commentate on how they were doing and who was likely to win. In one memorable race, a redhead and brunette were tackling their carboloaded Goliaths. The redhead got off to an excellent start and the brunette looked like she was done before she’d even reached bite four of the cone. However, she got a blast of second wind and was absolutely smashing through rings and ice cream in a sugar rush frenzy. She had about three rings to go when the redhead came back with all the excitement of 1990s Jaqui at a cake sale and the race was over. Once they’d finished you could just see the regret. Folks, this is a sharing food. Trust me. 

Another thing you might want to share is a Czech meal. My one attempt at sampling the goulash was the worst I’ve eaten. If you want goulash, Google a recipe and cook it yourself. 

In a strange twist of fate, we got one friendly Bolt/Uber driver. He was one of those who would be rated as 10 on the over-friendly scale if there was a form involved. Sadly, there was no form, but like I say (thanks Mands), “You either have a good time or a good story.” This driver was friendly so we immediately said, “You’re not Czech are you?” No, he’s Ukrainian. Thus followed the usual flow of how these conversations go. He told us about the fact that many of his friends have died, his town is all but destroyed, etc. His disposition was matter-of-fact and lively and he did a lot of punctuating with laughter to make us feel awkwardly at ease. Things took quite a turn though when a woman sent him a voicenote and he put it on speaker. We didn’t take much notice of the voicenote because it was in another language and at that point a tram came dangerously close to hitting us and he said, “Oh shit, I forget about the trams!” Bowels safely reinstalled to where they were supposed to be, we continued careering towards our destination.

That’s when he said, “My girlfriend keeps fucking me in the head!”

I made a noise to indicate my interest that he should continue along this story path. Apparently, the voicenote was from his ex-girlfriend, who seems a lot to me like she’s still his girlfriend. The “sitch” is that she wants more money and he doesn’t buy her the right stuff. Hence why she keeps phoning him and leaving voicenotes.

I asked if she was Czech, thinking from the disposition of those we’d met in the service industry, this would compute.

“No,” he says, “she’s Russian.”

Insert long pause. 

“Russian?!” Jono and I exclaim in unison. 

Not one beat skipped… “Yes, every day I get to fuck a Russian!” And then he emitted the type of belly laugh I’ve only seen from arch-villains in really offbeat foreign films.

I was in bits. But then he ruined it with a sigh and… “What can you do, women…?!”

On his imaginary rating form, he lost a shitload of points for that one. But I was in too good a mood to tell him off and give him a lecture on feminism.

And speaking of telling off. We found this spectacular outdoor space that’s this deck/platform and there’s a mobile bar and really great buskers. We saw two superb buskers and it was one of the golden travel moments where you keep pinching yourself and wondering if you’re actually alive.

You’ll know that Jono and I believe in paying for art and therefore we tipped the buskers a healthy amount. We were the only ones to do so and so Jono took it upon himself to introduce the other patrons to the phenomenon known as “not being a dick and paying musicians.” He started his mission on a table with some of Czechia’s finest teenagers. I’ve seen some faces I wouldn’t want to tangle with, but these five were something else. I watched the whole thing go down and let’s just say Jono was schooled by some of the most expert eye-rolling and bitch-face I’ve ever seen. They should become soap opera villains. Not to be deterred, the good-natured Jono persevered and once again was not thanked for his trouble. When we left a lot of people whispered and made faces and I’m glad we didn’t stay til dark because neither Jono nor I are very good at violence.

As we walked past the scary teenagers I did mutter, “You guys better Czech yourselves before you wreck yourselves.” That made me feel a lot better. Passive aggression doesn’t win in Czechia… But it soothes some of the wounds. 

I Googled “Are people in Czechia Friendly” and “Is Czech service bad” just to do my due diligence, and it was a mixed bag. Our experience was that we met some amazingly friendly Czechs but that was not the overarching experience. In general, the service was pretty slow and a lot of the places seemed to be understaffed. I don’t really care though… When I’m on holiday I don’t mind waiting and I’m not going to moan. BUT I am going to write about it. What you should know is that the Czech currency will fox you and we found ourselves giving someone over R200 in tip because we had a bunch of not-very-fancy looking coins that turned out to be quite fancy. 

Next Time: Are you ready for some of the best fucking art you’ve ever seen? Jono and I discovered one of the greatest street artists (possibly the greatest) was having an exhibition and we went to Czech it out. You’ll see pictures galore and who knows, I might Czech in with some more puns. 

It’s more of a lot when you exit the station after a very long stressful journey and are assaulted by some of the worst Death Metal ever to grace anywhere. For context it was about 4:30, very sunny, vendors were selling strawberries and penis asparagus, and there was a general, yeah I’m gonna do it, sense of “Friday Feels”. Contrasting Friday Feels with Death Metal feels like a great metaphor for how weird and fucked up Germany is. In a great way. Minus the amateur Death Metal (which we can always do without). 

One of the first things we noticed was how many recycling vending machines there are, and how many people spend time collecting recycling from bins to cash in at these machines. The deal is that trash goes in, and money comes out. It blows my mind. If we could do this in South Africa people would be robbing recycling like cash in transit heists. What’s weird though is at these machines it says, “Donate your recycling”. Jono thought this was clever marketing wording to get people to be more socially responsible, but my hunch was that the Germans could be as bad as some of my former students with Microsoft Word synonyms. 

People are lank active here. Even pensioners cruise around the Maschsee (big ass lake) with Zimmerframes and walkers. Everyone is out running, walking, and riding bikes. Parks are full, and citizens do a lot of work to make it nice. We can’t even get people to donate a few bucks to establish a UIP in Hilton, but in Germany there are loads of people gardening in public parks and planting seasonal vegetables. And the municipality has big budget here, so, the “Why should I do it, the municipality should do it” argument falls a bit flat. Anyway, it was lank inspiring to see all ages enjoying the spaces, respecting them, and being very active.

Speaking of being very active. It was suggested that Cate, Jono, and myself go for a nice bike ride to explore. My anxiety piqued quite a lot. I haven’t ridden a bike since I was at Laddsworth and it was my brother’s blue BMX that was many sizes too small for my girth. Plus, my mother only let me ride a bike around a windy dryer so while I can “ride”, I’ve only really gone in circles.

Imagine my delight when I had to ride a bike, with right-hand side rules, in a straight line, amongst other humans who are infinitely more dextrous and savvy than me. Apparently, the scenery was lovely. When people say, “It’s just like riding a bike,” there’s an element of truth, but it will take me a bit longer to move from a spinning bike that stays still and doesn’t wobble or try to throw you off because you don’t know it’s a back braker. Yeah that was a jol. Especially cos I was going down a slope (when I tell the story later I’ll say hill).

Seriously though… Hannover gets a five-star review for nature and green shit. The forests are amazing and we even saw trees that had been cut down by beavers to use in their next building project. Those little beaver gnashers are quite incredible… There have also been  numerous environmental interventions like creating bug and hedgehog hotels. Shit not. You had me at beavers and hedgehogs. Take my money.

One of the things I love most about travelling is going to foreign supermarkets. I really think that Rodney from the Quarry Spar should capitalise on what a tourist hotspot grocery stores can be. And I think he could come up with a lot of fun games to confuse tourists. Yesterday I mentioned how we are sorely ignorant about how German works. There’s an assumption that it’s a bit like Afrikaans and you can “get by”. Trust me, you can’t get by. It’s not intuitive and you will make a lot of mistakes. Fortunately, mistakes make better stories than nailing it so I’m not about to sign up to another Duolingo course. Fuck that, I go rogue… Full baby eagle soaring gracelessly into the unknown… With an interesting array of results.

Jono and I discovered Edeke and I can confirm that it is a banger– minus the fact it was long weekend and shops are closed on Jesus/God days so it was packed with last minute shoppers. Plus, we got “that” trolley. Jono and I always end up with the dodgy trolley with the wonky wheel, which is usually fine, but when you’re a foreigner the Germans take it personally and think you have it out for them. There was a general cologne of eu de judge because of how we were controlling our trolley. It looked like we were dicking around with an ungainly runaway feral, while everyone else had reined there’s in like fucking show ponies at a dressage event.

So much weird shit to report on regarding this shopping excursion. The Edeke centre looks a bit like Makro, but with more flowers and fewer stoners. Because of the long weekend there was a whole bazaar outside with people singing and dancing, beer tents, pretzels, the whole scene. However, of all the nice places to go why would you pick this spot? There’s literally forest and lakes for days but the shitty carpark was crammed. They must know something we don’t. Or maybe it’s just that German thing?

Our first mission was to figure out the recycling vending machine. Trash goes in and bucks come out. Except it’s in German. We were so chuffed to see nearly 8 Euros appear on the screen, ready to reclaim. And because it was the highlighted choice, using our expert intuition, we selected “Spenden”.

“Hell yes, we want to spend this shit in the shop!” We pocketed the voucher.

Next up was navigating the selection of very nice looking food and the obvious weird shit that floats my boat. I spent a lot of time in the aisle with the jarred peas, carrots, and sausages. Jarred food often reminds me of museum exhibits and formaldehyde. Why the fuck would you buy shit like this? Apparently, the Germans go gangbusters for this because the selection of these jarred treats was bigger than the crisp section. Like double. Almost no options for crisps (and you should see the flavours… lank weird). BUT if you’re looking for jarred sausages you can have them sliced, diced, grated, tiny, large, curried… If you dream it, you can have it. But why would you want to?

Chips are called “Golden Longs”. 

German bread is the best porn movie you’ve ever seen. It’s just Sharon Stone level. 

There were also a lot of eggs at varying prices. Usually I opt for the more expensive eggs that come with labels such as organic, free range, and so on. In Germany, I go for eggs that are labelled the cheapest. After unpacking the shopping at home I noticed the off piste egg packaging and then opened the box. It took a while for my brain to process what had happened because I’m not sure what kind of maniac stores boiled eggs out of the fridge, not to mention sells this Easter “favourite” long after Easter. So that was the end of the promise of scrambled eggs. “We’re having boiled eggs kids! And you can choose whatever colour you want!” Talk about a less kiff version of our mini cereal assortments we would take on holiday to Banana Beach.

After we secured our haul of groceries we went to pay and were very proud that we remembered to produce our recycling cash back. We were bibbing at the idea of nearly 8 Euros worth of free groceries.

“My English is not very good, but how you say this…

Um…

You’ve donated it.”

Germany really is one of the greatest places on earth.

Next Time: The adventure continues… I might even tell you the closely guarded secret of how to get a SIM card in Germany.

But let’s hold up a bit. The Uber driver dropped us at the wrong terminal and drove like he was channelling Meatloaf… And he’d do anything for a tip except stay in his fucking lane. “Harrowing” is a comment I’d use if I could be arsed to review him. Anyway, airports are shit I won’t bore you with too much detail… But get this…

You know how I like being smug? Well I was saying to Jono that one of my favourite things is hanging out at the airport before a flight… Taking the time to chill out with a glass of crisp icy wine and watching people and planes. Just soaking in those good holiday vibes. Jono was not convinced by my get to the airport earlier request, but he humoured me. After getting through security and passport control we were free to insert ourselves in what I would imagine to be several options at South Africa’s biggest airport. Imagine our collective surprise when we realised our inflight meal was probably going to present more options.

I don’t know what’s happened at OR Tambs (I’m trying that out), but there’s one place that looks anything like a bar/restaurant, and you can’t buy alcohol there. You have to navigate the grumpy-as-fuck wait staff and eventually ask someone with an alcoholic beverage and a guilty shamed face to guide you to the holy grail. Apparently this “diner” doesn’t serve alcohol because it, and I quote, “Takes business away from our friends across there,” she points. Their “friends” (“Ooo friend!… Airport friend!”) are the fucking Duty Free Shop. And get this… Thirty Eight South African Rand for a can of warm Black Label. How is that Duty Free? I opted for the 350ml bottle of white wine (R47) which I planned to just neck out the bottle like a thirsty thirsty hamster.

We wedged ourselves into the smoking area of the “diner” (judge away they’re disgusting and really really gross… Feel free to send hate mail) and the only friendly waitress (I’m sorry but waitron sounds like a transformer) brought us plastic cups and ice. Not quite what I had in mind for my soaking it all in experience. Nevermind, onwards and upwards.

Highlights from the flight included me being amazing and securing us spacious legroom seats, and also looking like flight wankers with matching neck pillows #couplegoals. Less highlighty was the fact that Jono’s entertainment console didn’t work, and mine was patchy at best. Even less of a highlight was that Jono moved to the spare seat next to me and ended up with one of those “elbow guys”. Elbow guys are like guys who wee standing up on planes. Just tuck your elbows in you savage. To add insult to injury “elbow guy” got the last chicken curry so Jono had to opt for the veg pasta. When I asked him to comment for my diary entry (My travel diary is excellent FYI– I don’t care that you didn’t ask), he said, “It was alright… It was like they were trying to make pizza into pasta where they used pasta as the base and put all the other shit on top.” The other shit was basically a bit of tomato sauce, a few plastic olives, and mozzarella. My chicken “Cape Malay” curry was pretty decent, but it’s best not to tell Jono.

Breakfast was a high-octane romp that began at 4am. Jono didn’t get a bread roll (stale) on his tray… Or maybe he did. In any event somewhere in between ordering a coffee and stirring in the milk he realised it had fled into the vortex. What followed was inevitable. Grumpy and tired, laden with blankets and pillows, and our fucking neck pillows, trying to search for the rogue roll. Jono’s coffee ended the same way as the bread roll. Gone like a scone (we didn’t get scones).

To appease the caffeine-depleted Jono, I did the right thing and gave him the bread roll I wasn’t going to eat.

A long time later Jono flagged down a flight attendant and received a cup of shitty aeroplane coffee. 

Breaking news! Discovered the world’s best-behaved toddler/baby (who can tell?). This kid did not peep and was totally lush (as in “that’s lush” not “he’s a lush”). Although, why do babies complain so much when they travel? If you’re a baby every trip is basically Business Class… And they don’t even pay.

In a fun turn of events when we arrived in Frankfurt we were told it was 257 Euros for a train ticket to Hannover.

Fun fact about Hannover. English people spell it Hanover. This is how I ended up with the Hiltermann/Hilterman caper that still haunts me.

The alternative was 57 Euro for a regional ticket to Hannover taking a cool 6.5 hours and 5 delectable changes. We were so tired that there was a scary moment when we actually considered 257 Euros… Praise baby cheeses (there was no cheese on the plane) that we came to our senses.

By this stage, Jono and I were lank sleep-deprived and I was out to murder those smug travellers with the suitcases that glide elegantly. Jono and I dragged our suitcases around and if I’m honest they behaved like petulant children throwing tantrums and digging their heels in. But, as they say, there’s only one way through it. After our second successful train change, we decided to buy coke and beer (Coca-Cola). Our third train change was where disaster struck… There was a very late platform change and this involved us running and dragging our bags onto a train that was a 50/50.

In Germany, when you don’t speak the language… 50/50 is clean not a vibe. And trust me, I have been building a body of evidence to back this up. More about that later.

This is why we decided to get off at the next stop, and how we ended up in Sontra. 

Sontra sounds like a kiff spot, right? “Sontra…”

“Sontra…”

Cue the tourism video soundtrack…

Sontra makes shitholes look like Monte Carlo. Sontra is what you would call a place where people don’t go. No homies anywhere. Everything is boarded up and filled with the shittest graffiti Jono has ever seen. In the world of reliable sources, I think that Jono is pretty credible. But literally, anyone with eyes wouldn’t argue. Shit graffiti par excellence. The aesthetic is what I’d term hopeless.

The metaphorical tumbleweed was alarming and helped us paint a future story where lost travellers find our skeletons in a few decades time. Recognisable only because of our matching neck pillows. Stephen King hit me up and I’ll debrief you.

Another crucial element to the horror is that we had no SIM card and zero cellphone connection. We were well and truly up shitcreek with a bag of shit and shit bags.

I made the decision to do a bush wee and another reccie. Across the platform in the tunnel (mmm wee smell) there was a not very visible sign saying “Bebra”.

STOP! Dilemma time. 

“Do we go back to Bebra?”

I went back to the original platform and told Jono about my findings. Thus began the dance of indecision fuelled by over tiredness. Do we drag our increasingly heavy bags down a lot of stairs… Through the tunnel of piss… And up a whole bunch more stairs? While we were deciding a train fucking appeared and we watched as people apparated from nowhere and boarded. We blinked and it was gone. “What just happened?!”

“That’s it, we’re going back to Bebra!” Down the flights of stairs, through the tunnel of piss, up the stairs… Huffing and puffing and dragging. Setting fire to my suitcase was becoming an alarming possibility. And then I remembered my dad’s philosophy of “If you can’t carry it don’t pack it!” I’m with you Terry. If you can’t carry your suitcase to Bebra and back then you’ve overpacked. New rule.

Once we got our heartbeats back to below dangerous Jono saw a pretty ropey faded sign that alerted us to the fact that we were quite possibly on the right train to begin with. Which is the platform we’d just fucked off from. It became possible, through muddy translation that the one train (Platform B) goes back to Bebra and the other (Platform A) gets you to wherever we needed to get to change to the final train to Hannover. It was arriving in about 30 minutes.

So yeah, we had to drag our fucking luggage back to Platform A.

Sorry Bebra, we’re not coming back.

But we’ll always have Sontra…

Next Time… Cycling and Recycling. Jaqui rides a bike for the first time in over 30 years and Jono and Jaqui learn what “donate your recycling” really means.

Food is personal. 

Nothing proves this more than the the latest shitshow courtesy of the Department of Land Reform, Agriculture and Rural Development’s (DALRRD) Food Safety Authority (FSA). In a naming scandal that could rival the proposal to change Cape Town International Airport to Winnie Mandela Airport, the department is targeting the labelling of plant-based meat substitutes. Up until a few days ago they were actually threatening to seize these products using the product names “prescribed for processed meat products in terms of section 8 of the Agricultural Product Standards Act 119 of 1990…” 

There is definitely an agenda here. I’m certain that the issue isn’t that consumers can’t fathom the difference between pork and plant-based sausages. I’m also absolutely sure this isn’t about “safety,” despite the looming presence of the FSA. What it comes down to is naming, and naming issues are always a veritable hotbed of politics. In South Africa renaming and naming things is a bit of a national sport, and boy-oh-boy does it ruffle feathers.

The labelling of plant-based foods is opening a can of plant-based worms. Loose terms such as meatballs, nuggets, ribs, sausages, and even mince (according to some articles) have been flagged, and then there are the more descriptive terms like “chicken-style”. However, nothing is making okes want to moer each other more than disputes over South African specific words like “biltong” and “wors”. These foods are genetically hardwired into any “National Braai Day” stalwart, and no doubt the common or garden red-blooded South African khaki-wearer would rather make wors out of his trusty Jack Russell than braai a plant-only version.

Here’s the thing, food names can be lank complicated– sweetbreads, head cheese, Welsh rarebit/rabbit. In America there’s a famous Southern dish called “chicken fried steak”. Any guesses as to what you’re going to get? Clue, it’s not chicken. In the UK, if you ordered Glamorgan sausages you’d get menu envy if you expected porky treats. These sausages were originally meat based, but the recipe changed during WWII rationing.

Wartime Britain was a tough gig for foodies. Horrible recipes were invented by the Ministry of Food to keep the morale up, and despite their heinous “mock” recipes, no one took the ministry to task. Mock travesties included pork meatloaf masquerading as “mock duck”, and a devastating combo of margarine, milk powder, and sugar dressed up as “mock cream”. And what’s interesting is that while all this mock food might have made people mock charge, no one was bamboozled. No one. 

The world constantly evolves, and language adjusts.

Naming politics comes down to ownership and power. Who owns meaty terms, and who decides what constitutes steak, sausage, mince, milk, or butter?

I remember being horrified the first time I heard about cauliflower steak. But, I got over myself. Things can be more than one thing. If cauliflower wants to have multiple identities and troll us as pizza and bread, I say, “Bravo you cunning beast of a formerly neglected vegetable!” 

Things being more than one thing is great for choice. And, we’re helped to navigate choice because supermarkets are organised in specific ways. This is why we aren’t confused by the ingredients in Baby Oil, and why people aren’t spreading shea butter on their toast. Plant-based foods are found in a very specific section of a supermarket, far away from the butchery. What’s more, the boxes and packaging literally shout “Plant-based!” “Vegan!” “Hug the bunnies!”

My concern is if you battle to navigate a supermarket and are befuddled by “vegetarian”, “plant-based”, or “vegan”, then you’re going to be up shit creek in the chocolate aisle. Speckled eggs, creme eggs, Easter eggs, it’s a minefield. This is made more tricky because I defy anyone to locate eggs in a supermarket they’ve never visited before. I’m convinced there’s a conspiracy. Honestly, it’s not unimaginable to think that poultry eggs could be assigned to the chocolate aisle, especially since I’ve seen them next to the Handy Andy before.

The chocolate aisle is a rogue unit of shapeshifters. Chocolate pasta, chocolate prawns, chocolate cigars, chocolate nuggets, chocolate mushrooms, chocolate salami. It’s a helluva thing.

So don’t insult my intelligence by saying that plant-based labelling is about confusion and safety. The worst case scenario of being “hoodwinked” into buying a box of chicken-style nuggets, thinking they’re actual chicken, is a mistake you’ll make only once. And the consequence? Perhaps pissing off your carnivorous children? That’s literally the worst case scenario and to my knowledge no one has died from the disappointment of eating a chicken-style nugget.

What’s really going on?

Anthony Bourdain spoke a lot about the politics of food, and his food politics were simple, “You eat what you’re given”. This belief informed his views on vegetarians and vegans, he saw them as fussy eaters who must duck. I can let Bourdain’s dogmatic beliefs slide because he absolutely lived his food politics. He ate everything that was served up. I don’t consider myself a particularly fussy eater, but I will pick the onions out of potato salad, and I won’t eat armadillo, warthog anus, fermented shark, or maggot fried rice, no matter who is dishing it up. So I think the new rule should be that if you’re not prepared to eat maggot fried rice then sit in the corner and pipe down about what other people are eating.

There’s a culture of viewing vegetarians and vegans as a nuisance and fussy. From what I’ve seen on comment threads, these beliefs inform a lot of the discourse around this food labelling issue. In fact the attitude is that this food labelling wouldn’t be such an issue if the bunny huggers just stuck to the fruit and veg section and ate the rabbit food they love so much.

Plant-based eating is a lot more nuanced than that though. Veganism started gaining popularity in about 2010. Before this most of us were skeptical of meals that weren’t firmly centred around meat. This was a hummus-free world, a world where frozen veg was just as good as the real thing. Non-meat eaters were an anomaly, usually met with a scowl and a plate of chips. I remember sometime in the early 2000s being on kitchen duty at the Hilton Hotel and I drew the short straw and had to make the “only-option-vegetable-platter” for a vegetarian.

Let me tell you, he did not thank me for it. And to be honest, I don’t blame him. 

Most of us actively avoided vegetables, and most of us still suffer from PTSD because of how our mothers and grandmothers would boil the living shit out of veg. The narrative was “eat your vegetables, they’re good for you” and delicious wasn’t even on the table. It’s unsurprising then, that when people actually opted to eat only vegetables, we labelled them as weirdos from the wrong side of the Lentil Curtain.

People on the other side of the Lentil Curtain have the bad rap of being sanctimonious. Or, they are seen as militant and aggressive. You may remember those radicals who stirred up a culture war at UCT in 2015. That caper didn’t do a great job of shedding the “Veganism is for privileged whities” lark, and the issue became heavily politicised.

But, have you ever noticed that vegans and vegetarians can’t eat a meal without having to justify and argue their food politics? They’re bombarded by incessant terrible jokes– you know the one about chicken and salad being the same thing? Top that off with the disrespectful host who says things like, “They can just pick the feta out of the salad and eat that”.

It feels like a lot of this heckling is generational and it’s as if “oldies” are associating a plant-based diet with wokeness. Well, here’s food for thought, the World War II diet was predominantly plant-based, and it’s widely accepted that at this point in history, Britain had never been healthier.

The generation that followed these plant-based patriots, the “Boomers”, were fuelled by caffeine and cigarettes for the most part. This was also the generation that fed kids tartrazine and frozen food, so it’s a bit rich for them to say they’re experts on what constitutes enough calcium and protein. No judgement here, I’m hardly a paragon of virtue, but I cannot fathom how anyone could look at a plant-based bowl of delicious grains, legumes, and vegetables, and argue that there aren’t enough nutrients? Particularly because a bowl of Fruit Loops is credited with having “everything a growing child needs,” and no one bats an eyelid.

It’s not only generational, there’s also a pervasive gendered element to food. Did you know that it’s way more acceptable for women to be vegan/vegetarian?

Of course you did.

The French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1984) boldly stated that men are “the natural meat eaters”. I have him to thank for the time I went to a wedding and was served the dry chicken breast while my partner got the delicious looking sirloin. 9.5 times out of 10 a waitron will assume the man is having the steak and chips and the woman is having the Caesar salad. There are also rules about what “real men” eat and the belief that real men like their meat advertising laden with sexual innuendos and scantily clad women.

A 2011 study by social psychologists showed that meat and masculinity are directly linked. Vegetarians are seen as less masculine and more sensitive, hence more feminine. Research also shows that men are embarrassed to eat vegetarian or vegan food in public.

What’s actually embarrassing is how much meat we’re eating and how bad this is for the environment. I’ve heard all of the counter arguments but the heaps of scientific studies don’t lie. The fact is that in fifty years meat and dairy production has gone up more than four times. Every guideline advises limiting our meat intake yet 84% of the country is going heavily above these recommendations.

For the skeptics among you who’re wondering where I’m “cherry-picking” my facts about the environmental impact of the meat industry from? Here’s the deal – The United Nations, and an Oxford University study published in the highly reputable and aptly named journal, Science. And if you’re worried about the fact that maybe these homies haven’t done their research, in the Oxford study the research covered 40 000 farms in 119 countries. One of their key findings was that plant-based meat is up to 10 times better for the planet than meat.

Should I drop the mic or are you still Googling that one study you like to copy and paste into social media comments from that random journal funded by Meat Eaters Monthly?

The South African government is on board with the research and they wholeheartedly agree that industrialisation and agriculture need reform. This is a small start to paving the way towards “reducetarian” diets. And, although less than 5% of the South African population is vegetarian, about 20% are trying to limit meat intake. Maybe this statistic is at the root of what’s threatening the psyche of the South African meat industry?

Food evolves and so do diets. And the limited view that only vegans and vegetarians eat plant-based products is absurd. Furthermore, the view that if you give up meat you shouldn’t want to eat anything resembling meat is a sign you haven’t engaged with the myriad of reasons why people limit meat or stop eating it altogether.  

Going back to the crux of this… What the meat industry, DALLRD, and the FSA want us to think this about, is naming and confusion. So to bury that logic once and for all, let’s go straight to linguistics. And to drive my point home, I think my favourite scene from The English Patient does this better than I can. Katherine (Kristin Scott-Thomas) is presented to Almásy (Ralph Fiennes) and she says, “Jeffrey gave me your monograph when I was reading up on the desert, very impressive.”

Almásy, a man of very few words says, “Thank you”.

Katherine continues, “I wanted to meet the man who could write such a long paper with so few adjectives.”

Almásy jumps in, “A thing is still a thing no matter what you place in front of it. Big car, slow car, chauffeur driven car…”

At this point Jeffrey, Katherine’s husband, interrupts. “Broken car?”

“Still a car,” says Almasy.

Katherine then chimes in, “Love. Romantic love, plutonic love, filial love… quite different things surely?”

And with that Almasy is stumped, “Now there you have me.” [End]

Things can be more than one thing.

Today these two gorgeous young whipper snappers came into the gallery and “found it really interesting”. For context when they first arrived it was like they’d just been listening to Eye of the Tiger on repeat for premium ampage. There was a lot of running around and I was dubious about the “30 minute immersive audio-visual experience pitched at the older crowd,” and how long it would be before their frazzled mom packed it up and called Time of Death on Culture. 

I got down to some editing, thinking, “any minute now”. 

The minute didn’t come.

I love being surprised. These kids were magical. Afterwards, we had a chat and it turns out they love art and are en route to buy canvases and art supplies from, let’s call it “Bonkers Bazaar of Plastic Shit”. Apparently, they’re going to “buy the whole shop”. It made me think back to my school holidays and that feeling of being able to hunker down with Judy Blume and a cold glass of Clifton (because it’s holidays).   

Kids just look happier when they’re not in school uniform. It’s a fact. Or maybe it’s just that they feed off my happiness and can’t be threatened by my resting bitch face? 

And it’s not that I didn’t love school. Laddsworth was the best. Things just started to get a bit ropey in high school. Which is kind of where this story comes from. It also comes from Hilton Chat. 

Yesterday a rad dad posted this absolute cracker… Photos of his two girls going science befok. Apparently, their holiday pursuit is fixing broken electronics. Judy Blume and heaped teaspoons of Clifton just don’t cut it anymore. Rad dad says they have a 50% success rate, which I find astonishing. I’ve had maintenance work done and it’s a helluva mixed bag of Bertie Botts… I mean, when my mum accidentally programmed her dishwasher into Lithuanian or Latvian or whatever it was, she basically had to install Duolingo to fix the problem. Honestly, learning a new language was more straightforward than dealing with the hoards of “Mr Fix-Its” who crossed the iron curtain into her kitchen.

So there I was, 38 years old, looking at Facebook and thinking, “Jeez Dorothy we are not in Kansas anymore;” I’m Toto in case you’re wondering. Here are these two young girls buzzing off their collective nerdery/genius, and I reckon they’re between 9 and 11 going on height. I understand height is a stupid measure of age because I’ve been the same height since I was 14. But, my poor measure of height is by no means the dumbest thing about me. I’m loaded with stupidity. I call left and right “up and down”, and I constantly dazzle Jono with my inability to name colours correctly. His blue jumper is actually green, or maybe it’s the other way round, and today I told him to take the red pills. They’re pink. You can imagine how my colour deficit annoys an artist? Not to mention the real danger he has of killing himself accidentally by taking red pills instead of pink ones.

Which leads me neatly to one of my favourite stories about how thick I can be for a nerd. It’s 1998 and I’m in Grade 9, or Std 7 as I call it because no amount of Judy Blume could make me adopt the American system. I’m in “General Science” and the word “project” gets thrown into the ether. At this stage of my life, I’m terrified of Science and my creative brain just thinks it’s all connected to magic, and there’s no explaining that shit no matter how assertive your Science teacher is. This was before I listened to podcasts on magic and learned how David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Anyway, I can’t remember what the assignment details were, but it involved a poster (yay!) and research (not so yay). Sadly my poster-making skills were not enough to save this absolute car crash of a shitshow.

The research question I carefully cooked up: Are Ants Colourblind?

I can still imagine my poor Science teacher’s face, as she looked at the calendar towards her now-early retirement vision. 

Here’s how my rigorous research went down, in case any of you would like to replicate this study at home. 

First, you will need sheets of coloured paper (number of sheets and colours not specified).

OK, so you know I was bossies for making posters? Well, I had shit loads of colourful paper. I had rainbow-coloured pads busting with pastels and neons and good old primary colours. It really is a fucking wonder I can’t tell pink from red, or green from blue. Oh yes, cream is a universal colour for anything from beige to light brown. 

You will also need sugar (I used granulated white, the amount left in the Huletts bag)

So get out your best colourful paper, and go straight to the kitchen to grab the sugar. 

Identify a popular ant zone. 

Then make your way to the pool area because this has a “high incidence of ant activity”. Sadly, my proficiency in English and adopting the “bullshit baffles brains approach,” was not enough to save me from this horror show of quantitative research. Armed with paper and sugar I began. 

Randomly place sheets of coloured paper all around the pool. 

Place an unmeasured amount of sugar on each piece of paper. 

Return to the lounge to watch Echo Point and wait for ants to gather. 

After a few hours of K-TV, it was time to record my results. A few pieces of paper were in the pool, and the red, or was it pink, paper had the most ants from what I could gather. Green also had a lot of ants, which makes sense because nature is green, and ants like nature. I didn’t count the ants because I was on an advert break and the results… well this was hardcore academic rigour. The results spoke for themselves.

Or did they?

Obviously I didn’t have Google in those days, but this will blow your mind… ‘Ants do not have color vision and are red-green blind (able to detect only yellow and blue). However, their ability to distinguish between contrast levels is greater than that of humans. They can also differentiate ultraviolet light which helps them find food.’ (misfitanimals.com)

If you’re looking for a Science tutor for your struggling child, my Science teacher described me as “original,” I’m that good. 

The other day I emailed my hero. 

I was thinking about Jono and my vision for Hilton, BOOMTOWN, the gallery, and storytelling. Who’s the landmark writer that I want to attach to a mural? 

Only one name came to mind. A writer who can capture a space, bottle it, shake it around, make it fizz, and then pass it to an unsuspecting human as the ultimate thirst quencher. 

Ivan Vladislavic. 

Open the bottle. I dare you. 

I’d been avoiding writing to him, because we’re told to never reach out to heroes. 

Apparently they’re always a hot mess of disappointment.

Or they ignore you. 

Or worse, they provide a short perfunctory response. The kind of response where you don’t have to be part of the Bletchley Circle to read between the lines. They’re not actually delighted you’ve reached out. Fans are an annoying and necessary evil. And the “luck with future endeavours” they bestow upon you is about as genuine as Balenciaga’s socio-political statement.    

Anyway, luckily for you, and the purposes of this story, “throw caution to the wind” I do not. So taking a note out of my hero’s book I began writing…

Dear Prof Vladislavic… 

It takes only a few words to start something. The spotlight shines brightly, you’re alone on the stage. Self doubt over sounding like an asshole starts to creep in. It’s best to continue and go with it. Wit is there in the background to make a cameo appearance. Reflection settles down the nervous audience. The chorus is there to bring it back when you lose direction. Soon it’s an effortless dance with only a few miss-steps here and there. 

The curtain closes. You press send. You hope the audience is forgiving. 

You wait for the review.  

I expected a long wait. The forgotten ghosts of unresponsive emails egging me on.

And then, five days later, from his private email address, his reply brought the walls of my laptop to life. A voice from amongst the row of lonely silent open tabs.

A landmark.

A reminder to write. A reminder to be patient. A reminder that landmarks are created out of nothing. Every space has the potential to become something more. To become a place.

Stories create paths through the clutter towards landmarks. Landmarks that are created by artists. And if you’re lucky, the community provides the soft landing and believes in, and traverses towards these places.

Welcome to BOOMTOWN. 

PS: Ivan (we’re on a first name basis now) says once he’s finished his new book he might be compelled to write a mural. Luckily, for this developing story, “throw caution to the wind” I do not. Watch these walls.

By now you’ll know that there are no prizes for sitting in the corner, and if anyone loves a public platform it’s me. I don’t just volunteer to do speeches, I actively push myself into the programme. So it was a no brainer, I was going to haul ass to the microphone come hell or high water. And boy did we have both. Saturday was the Grand Opening of Gallery ZAZA, and I kind of knew what was on the cards for the weather (in some circles they call me Jaqstradamus). 

I was the child who never got to have a pool party because every single birthday of mine was an absolute fucking rotter of a day. Fortunately, I was the type of child who was more into the food table, and less into the swimming pool, but it would have been nice to have the option.

Typically, Saturday morning rolled in a bit wet, and as each hour towards 10am approached it got steadily more like the “vicious cycle” on the washing machine.

At some point you resign yourself to these things and just open a beer. The breakfast beer helped to settle the nerves and things started to look up. However, Murphy was having a whale of a time, and so, as if by magic, things started to snowball spectacularly. The only thing keeping my sense of perspective intact was the wedding we had at the Hilton Hotel where the marquee literally blew away, tables ended up in the pool, and a tree split the best man’s car in half. The bride and groom ended up having their wedding in the Mist & Drizzle pub because every other venue was occupied. Turns out it was the best wedding ever.

I’d like to maintain the illusion that everything went according to plan on Saturday, but when the hail started and the generator flooded my adrenaline decided it was going to go into hyperdrive. Jono suggested cancelling speeches altogether, and for a few seconds I agreed. Then I reassessed, and decided I was completely keen to get up there and do my shit. Sadly there are times when the body and the mind have what some would call an “unconscious uncoupling” and others would call a cataclysmic divorce. My brain, it turns out, has still not grasped that “mind over matter” thing. Cue Uncontrollable Shaking from stage right. Of course the more I tried to control it, the worse it got. It’ll be chalked up as one of those performances that I’d sooner forget, but I guess I can reframe it and say it was special because it was so shit.

Anyway, here’s what I said. (For authenticity, if you read it out loud I suggest sitting on your washing machine and setting it to take off mode.) 

I remember when David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear, it was pretty dope. My question was, what’s next David? Get better David, do more! 

Magic in this context is about instant gratification and constantly seeking to amaze an increasingly unfocused and overstimulated audience. 

Perhaps it’s time to reframe. To slow down. To bask. 

As a child, magic was the recesses of imagination, it was the slow and lingering anticipation of the Easter Bunny, Father Christmas, and the Tooth Mouse. It was waking up on Christmas morning to the crumbs of a mince pie, an empty glass of brandy, and a nibbled carrot. It was that first pair of ballet shoes, putting Dubbin on a first soccer ball, watching a movie on the big screen for the very first time. Smelling the birthday cake fresh from the oven. 

For me, magic is about finding stories in strange places, but it’s also the ability to create them out of banal familiarity. Magic is painting pictures from nothing, from procuring sounds and smells from a string of small words, it’s the art of making a world out of nothing. Magic takes effort. 

Magic is home. Magic is place. Magic is community. It’s quite literally the stories we share. 

So allow me to share a story. 

My very first home was the cottage at the Hilton Hotel, further up the road from there is the Shell garage which was the only petrol station in the village. In those days Hilton was a village. Opposite the Shell, the Hilton Town Board Hall. This is where I’d spend Tuesday and Thursdays at Ros Nicholson’s School of Ballet. Here I proved my inability to live up to the expectation of Jaqualina Ballerina. The Town Board Hall was also where our folks went to pretend to look at our kak art, while they drank beer at the annual Hilton Lion’s Fair. Where every skottel braai in Hilton met once a year to play host to lashings of frying onions and sweaty wors. Carry on over the bridge, now festooned with flowers… If you were to sneak under that bridge you might happen upon me, in my later years doing rebellious things. If you take a right, you get to Laddsworth, a place that forged me into who I am. A school filled with the Sally Kellys, Pete Liddles, and Flick Wrights of the world. Humans who inspired magic from within the linear face brick architecture. 

Not far from Laddsworth is Hilton PrePrimary, the biggest most magnificent place on earth. Sandpits the size of Olympic swimming pools, a race track like Monza, a woodworking table fit for Santa’s elves, jungle gyms, and a crown for when it’s your birthday.

After school, if we were lucky, we went straight to the Fruit Basket, since demolished, or the Spar owned by the Footselars (I’ve used bad phonetics here) for a Super Moo. Sometimes Dave Hansmeyer would give us biltong. Often we’d have to hang around in Hilton Drapers waiting for our mums to have hour long “quick chats” and buy fabric to turn into matching tracksuits. All the kids in Hilton were dressed the same. Primary coloured tracksuits, gumboots, or Bata takkies from the Aladdin’s cave that is Kubela Stores. On Sundays we’d head to the Hilton Tea room clutching R1 coins to buy our candy cigarettes and other contraband sugar laden guilty pleasures. Terry the Greek would know which kids’ parents gave permission to buy the Benson and Hedges Special Milds for the dad in the car rushing to get to Opstal to blast clay pigeons out of the sky.

We had to make our own fun. Kid friendly bars and restaurants were basically those that allowed parents to push two bar stools together for small bodies to nap on. Communal parenting was everything. Wherever you were at 4pm is where you bathed. BMXs zooted down every road, pizza came out of a freezer and into an oven. We ate polony sandwiches by the dozen. Juice was red, green, or orange. It was an adventure to open the post box at the Post Office and see if there was anything exciting. Tupperware parties and book clubs were touted as these mysterious and magical events for our slippered feet to peek in on. 

Hiltonians have a history of seeing potential, as if looking through the mist and imagining what lies beyond it. And it’s up to us to create, to build, to explore, to play, and to throw glitter, confetti, and magic markers at every single problem.

Gallery ZAZA was an empty blank corporate office. It was the ultimate blank canvas. Now it’s the product of the passion and vision that only Jono Hornby could have cooked up. Even the starlings are dazzled. It’s home, and now things are appearing, not disappearing, as if by utter magic. It’s up to us, we can appear, or we can disappear. 

Special thanks to the amazing Hilton community for the awesome turn out, we had the best day sharing the space with you, and making it a place. There’s so much more to come, and I’m super jazzed!

On this occasion, it was 3 am, I was in Room 36 at the Hilton Hotel, and my brother Nicholas thought it would be bloody hilarious to wake me up from my slumber to enjoy a few seconds of euphoria, before realising it was March, and the Royal Show was a few months away. What an asshole. He really is brilliant. 

Fast forward to July 2021, and I found myself waking up to go to the Royal Show. And yes, I did have a tremendous sense of euphoria. This was despite the news that the showgrounds have been sold, and the days of the Royal Agricultural Show are another vestige of the past. 

Vestiges of the past. Remember going to Mike’s Kitchen and trying to get as many lollipops from the barrel by the door? Remember the fish tank at Da Vinci’s? Remember going to Capital Towers to watch a movie? Remember soft serve from Icy Cool Piping Hot? Remember being underage and trying to get into Buzz Bar? Remember Shuter and Shooter and getting lost in the sea of shelves? Remember going to Super Bodies to watch your mum do aerobics and being blinded by the men in unitards and leg warmers? Remember having a K-TV sticker on your space case and buying a snap bangle from the Lion’s Fair? But most of all, remember the Royal Show. 

I still remember going on the “baby rides” and anxiously looking for my mummy amidst the crowd of parents. Fast forward a few years, and I’m on the carousel, and my dad is standing on the platform next to the pink horse that I’m riding. He’s there in case I get scared, which is almost inevitable because if my Pre Primary report cards are anything to go by, I have the coordination and balance of an inebriated baby giraffe. On ice skates. Later that day, we’ll stand in the queue so my brother and I can get temporary passes to go into the members’ stand so we can watch horses do things I don’t really understand. The name Gonda Beatrix echoing through the loudspeakers. In those days, there was candy floss, those shakey balloons, and toffee apples that I still don’t see the point of. Siff. 

Then it was off to the army display, which was the same every year, but we still went because that’s just “what you do.” A visit to the rabbit hall, which incidentally I got banned from because one year my best friend David had the temerity to ask a woman with a very large “friend of the bunnies” rosette, whether they supply the Boston Barbeque. Sheep shearing, cows on parade, dodging animal crap, lots of hay. The smell of animals with a whiff of doughnut. Lining up to go through the “this is the rainfall cycle” just so that you could get a free Clover yoghurt. And speaking of free food, trawling through the food hall for free samples. Pretending you’re a connoisseur of preserves, with R25 to spend on a jar of posh jam, just so that you can carry on scoffing. Giggling as you walk away thinking you’d hoodwinked the cross jam lady with an ‘I’ll come back later and buy a jar.’ 

And then the second-best bit of the show. The much-underrated hall with all the weird shit made by grannies, bored homemakers, a few house husbands, and kids. I once entered a rock animal, and I’m proud to say that I got a “Commended” award. The judges’ comments applauded my imagination, but were stern in the amount of glue I’d used. ‘Take care not to use too much glue,’ they said. That’s right kids, stay off drugs. Obviously the kid who won had an overzealous mother, or maybe was just blessed with better artistic genes than me? Perhaps this child with the ravishing Highly Commended Rosette was given proper modeling glue instead of a bloody glue gun? Who knows. Safe to say I didn’t enter an artwork again; the judges clearly don’t know genius when they see it. 

In the early days, the arts and crafts hall was the main hall. You entered, and it was just chockablock with shit that would give Marie Kondo a cardiac infarction. I don’t know who makes and collects porcelain dolls, but can I just be clear? Porcelain dolls are more terrifying than clowns. They’re also porcelain, so you can’t play with them. Stop being weird and just buy your kids a Barbie. After the terrifying children of the corn exhibit, it was onto the cake decorators. The same woman won every single year, and I don’t know why other budding cake artists even bothered. 

But the best was looking at the scones. I’ve had a fascination with scones for a very long time, and I really think that if you need two women to judge a scone-off, you could do worse than me and my Emotional Support Animal’s mum Hester Joseph. Hester Joseph is a sconnoisseur, and if you try to deviate and make scones in a muffin tin, or make them square, you won’t get any support from us. There are firm rules about scones, and I’ve done a lot of research into where you can get good scones. You can’t. Bake them yourself; it’s the only way. If you want disappointment go out and order one, they usually crumble into dust, are served with marge, don’t have nearly enough cream, and come with that weird grated cheese that is all melted together in a mess. Have some respect. 

My young self used to spend hours lingering over the glass display cases scrutinizing the scones. Before I’d read the judges’ comments, I could tell that Sheila had overdone done it on the baking powder or Neville had overworked the dough. I could tell Doris had gone rogue and used margarine instead of butter, and that Maureen had nailed it. I didn’t even need to shift my eyes left to the purple ribbon claiming Maureen Queen of Scones for the third year running. 

No matter what age you were, the Looping Star was the major showpiece. Sure the Enterprise, the Breakdancer, The Ship of Death, The Wall of “What The Fuck We’re All Going To Die,” The Swings of “Don’t look up at the rusty latches,” and the House of “Horrors” were all worth a go. But in the end, it was the devastating and sheer Russian Roulette of the Looping Star that made all of us queue up in delighted terror. I maintain that it is the most dangerous roller coaster in the known universe, and it was out of order for most of the show, so it really was a race to get on it. One year people were left dangling upside down from the loopy part, and not even that stopped hyperactive kids from gamboling up the metal stairs once the out-of-order sign was removed for the umpteenth time.

Where were our parents, you might ask? Well, as we learned later on in life, they were off getting pissed at the Foaming Tankard. As we grew up, our priorities changed. Sure we still went on the Looping Star, but not before we tried to sneak in a few Hunter’s Gold, Solanti’s Spices, or good old Black Labels from the well-protected beer tent. Some of us had connections, others relied on older siblings, and some used their powers of persuasion to get any kind of illegal booze past the gates. The trouble is nine times out of ten, someone’s mum or dad recognised you, and then the game was up. ‘Terry, I saw Jaqui and her mates trying to get into the Foaming Tankard.’ Shit. 

And then it was the era of “the big field” where we’d all congregate with a bottle of Mokador and a few Peter Stuyvesant Blues we’d knicked off some suspecting parent. Dressed in our washed-out grey outfits and Dr. Martens, we’d mosh to The Narrow, sing along to Just Jinger, Wonderboom, Sugardrive, and the Springbok Nude Girls, and lose our shit to Fokofpolisiekar. Later we traded our washed-out grey outfits for Coco Bay; some of us held onto our DMs, others opted for Turtles. We were always late for whatever parent drew the short straw and had to drag our teenage asses out of there, still yelling “Lonely Lonely Sunday Morning” at the top of our lungs. A few days later, pneumonia nearly always kicked in. Worth it. 

2021. Everything is so still. So quiet. I can still hear the creak of the turnstiles, the soft crunch of the hay underfoot. I can smell the frying onions and burgers from the Hilton Lion’s Stand, and those doughnuts stationed around almost every corner willing you to be tempted by their tiny hot bods. A crack from a child throwing a pop-pop onto the ground, a sobbing child who’d just dropped an ice cream, and in the distance, the thunderous roll of the Looping Star. Beckoning. 

I get to the Olympia Hall. It’s so quiet. No one is looking at the building built in 1930. People are transfixed by their phones, tapping away. I feel like I’m part of the cow parade, but none of us are mooing; we’re just being herded into the various areas. It’s efficient; it’s cold, the lights flicker. I hear the laugh of a porcelain doll’s ghost in the distance. But I don’t care. I’m as excited as I was to climb those damn metal stairs up to the Looping Star. As the vaccine jabs into my arm, I feel the wind rush on my face as I approach the loop. 

‘Next!’ shouts the nurse. 

And like that, it’s all over.