‘You either have a good time, or a good story.’ 

Well, strap yourselves in for a heroic tale about air travel, the weirdest guy on the aeroplane, an early morning hunt for a clinic at Nairobi Airport, a busting suitcase of pharmaceuticals, and Chlamydia.

For an extra bit of razzle-dazzle, throw in a high dose of sweating and fever and the moment where I, the hero of this tale, nearly found religion and prayed the plane would crash. But we’re jumping the gun here. 

It’s taken me just over three years to be able to write this story. Not because I’m ashamed, I’ll tell this shit to anyone who’ll listen. It’s just doing this story justice takes some mental gymnastics, and a good dose of Cystitis to relive the authenticity. So, fasten your seatbelts, put your seat in the upright position, and make sure your tray table is secured (both kinds). 

I decided to fly Kenya Airways because it was cheap and I boycott certain airlines for ethical reasons. My destination was London, and as I sat at Cape Town airport sipping on my farewell chardonnay I was excited because I don’t hate air travel. I’m lucky that I’m short, and I like free booze. This means flying isn’t kak, especially if you procure the right seat (I’m not here to give away my top travelling secret). What I will tell you is half my secret– I always go for the aisle because I get toilet anxiety. I like to move around, and I also like to see what people are watching on their inflight entertainment. This is a game I play and it never disappoints.  

I boarded the plane with giddy excitement and got settled in. I don’t need a lot to entertain me so I can break records for settling in. Meanwhile, Roger, two rows up was embracing his inner Mary Poppins. There he was vacillating over whether or not he needed anything out of the pink and white zip-up bag, and particularly anything from the yellow and green zip-up. As he spilt his contents over his aisle mates I took a moment to muse about how much I dislike people. Because really, is there anything worse than the anxiety-inducing goosebumps that come from being deathly still while waiting for everyone around you to settle the fuck down.    

Sit the fuck down Roger. 

A polite air stewardess gave him a settle the fuck down smile.

Then it happened. The human version of the artist’s rendering (in this case Larson). The guy coming up the aisle sweating and looking hella twitchy. Losing momentum as he got ever closer to his destination, “Oh for fuck’s sake!”

That’s correct, the middle seat, right next to me. Beyond kiff.

He didn’t say a word, which comforted me. Chatty, sweaty, and nervous is one of my least favourite trifectas. 

He swaddled the shit out of himself in his static aeroplane blanket and we prepared for takeoff. 

Things went as they usually do. Pre-dinner drinks, go through the entertainment console to decide on inflight viewing, “chicken or beef”… You know the drill. 

But here’s a bit of a departure from the prescriptive nature of cruising at whatever altitude the pilot just announced. Something really weird happened during my dinner. 

Sweaty-nervous-now-swaddled guy decided to use my tray table instead of his. Honestly, it was what I can only describe as trippy beyond reason. Usually, I’d speak my mind but this dude was so strange, all swaddled and away in his metaphorical manger. So I just gritted my teeth and willed a flight attendant to adios my tray pronto a la Hugh Grant in Nottinghill. I’ve never had someone push things aside on my tray to make space for their tasty beverage and bit of a bread roll they were still in the throes of working on. Still, my heinous travel mate was not the worst thing about this flight.

Shortly after dinner, I had to go for a wee. 

And particularly my fellow bitches, you’ll know all about the genuine terror of this scenario. Unless you’ve never encountered the absolute shithead that is Cystitis. As this is an aeroplane tale, and not a delightful 3 Act play, Cystitis entered like the nuclear winter that can only come from removing the foil lid off an aeroplane eggy breakfast. I’m not sure what kind of a psychopath wants to be awakened by excitable long-haul eggs at 5 am shortly before descent, but I, my friends, am not one of those humans.

This bout of Cystitis came with the usual constant need to wee and the unbridled pain involved in weeing out a quarter of a teaspoon every 30 seconds. Lucky for me, it also came with the fever that just courses through you and invades more than your tray table. After the denial passed, I knew I was in for some of the worst hours of my life. I may or may not have prayed for the plane to fall out of the sky, which means I must have been very bloody delirious to think that anything other than Urizone could save me.

The flight attendants smelled a rat, given how often I was going to the loo. Eventually one of them cornered me with a face muddled with concern and suspicion. Mostly a lot of suspicion. She was gracious when I explained that I was at the apex of the UTI journey. Sweaty swaddled guy meanwhile wasn’t looking so sweaty. I was now the weirdo.

The decade-long flight from Cape Town to Nairobi eventually ended and I was told that Hallelujah there is a clinic at the airport. In retrospect, it’s quite astonishing realising that airports have a whole host of behind-the-scenes shit we don’t know about.

Anyway I made it off the plane and wandered through the terminal in a fog of sweat. This is when the Ebola tent came into focus, like some sort of deranged mirage. One of the symptoms of Ebola is a fever so the red flags literally started surrounding me like a host of Beliebers. There’s no hiding how fucked I was and I tried my level best to explain that I had a bladder infection. A UTI. Cystitis. This got helpfully translated as a blood infection so the next thing I was hauled into Ebolaville for a welcome party. I asked to speak to a woman. Reluctantly the swarm of men gave me over to some woman who re-diagnosed my blood infection as a bladder infection and called off the hounds. But she couldn’t help me. This was a place for Ebola, nothing else. She gave me some vague directions to a clinic just outside the airport. 

So the next fun leg of my trip was to clear customs and enter Nairobi to locate the clinic in an underground parking. I have never been so grateful to have a South African passport so I could fuck off into the balmy Nairobi morning without much hassle of a visa. After a bit of a walk and several toilet stops, I found the clinic which had a helpful sign saying it was closed.

‘I could just curl up and die here?’ I thought to myself cheerfully. No such luck, it turns out I do have somewhat of a survival instinct after all.

I soldiered on like the rabid little bladder infection kitten that I was. Meow. 

I don’t remember how I found the information office containing those three very cheerful morning people. They informed me that there’s a doctor at the departures desk where people check in for their flights. Trust me when I say that I was dubious about this. You mean to tell me that qualified doctors in High Visibility vests just hang out at airports all Dr Willy Nilly? 

Dubious. 

But desperate.

So back I trotted on the hunt for this mysterious doctor who was beginning to seem more and more like a fob off.

So there I was, looking for a dude I was told would be in a high-vis vest with a suitcase. Now I don’t know if you’ve ever been to an airport before but this seemed like a helluva ask. A bit like finding a needle in a massive fucking stack of needles if you ask me.

Persistence, fever, and the urge to wee spurred me on and the next thing I’m consulting with a bearded chap who asks if he can borrow a pen. I explained my symptoms and he gave me a lovely concerned bedside manner. He didn’t continue with the patient-doctor caper for very long and eventually, he reached next to him and heaved a massive suitcase onto his lap and began unzipping his Aladdin’s trove of pharmaceuticals.

He asked what I would like and I politely told him antibiotics.

“Super,” he said and began scrappling around like a kitten in a litter box.

He gave me some vague options, so like the former PhD student that I am, I opted for the fastest and shortest course.

The box is something I wish I had a photo of. 

If you’ve ever seen a company logo designed by the owner’s daughter who’s “a whizz with computers,” it was not even in the same ballpark. I did more impressive shit with Word Art in 1998.

Dubious… but desperate I chugged the first little white pill with as much spit as I could muster. Then I tried to close the box containing the blister pack but it came apart. Obviously.

For my troubles, the consult was 30 American dollars because that’s how much I had on me. I also received a scrap piece of paper with scribbles on it. The legitimacy quite frankly astonished me. Plus he pocketed my pen.

The next part of my quest was a bottle of Citrasoda. The excellent doctor told me where I could find a pharmacy in the departures area so off I trotted, buoyed by vaguely-modern-medicine. The pharmacy felt like one of those shops where “if you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it.”

Seriously okes, literally no prices on anything.

Oh fuck, here we go.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, my friendly doctor was there smiling and rubbing his hands together. He ushered me to the pharmacy guy (pharmacist?) and they had a huddle over a very small bottle of Citrasoda. It was decided that the going rate was 24 of her majesty’s finest pounds. More than a pound of flesh by any measure, but if you’ve ever had Cystitis in Nairobi Airport with a devastating 6-hour layover and only one working women’s toilet, it’s money well spent. Or stolen.

I bade a fond farewell to the charlatan doctor, because apart from the fact he had just ripped me off spectacularly, I had an antibiotic coursing through my fevered sweaty bod, and a bottle of Citrasoda worth more than saffron. 

When I landed in London I felt magically healed. The next few days went without much incident, minus a few absolutely banging hangovers and some poor decisions around late-night chicken. It was the morning after spending a night in Bath that things really took a turn for the worse. Not only was the hangover el diablo, but my wee was a melange of rust and razor blades. The journey back to London in heavy traffic with two delightful crying children was the stuff of dreams. There are moments to treasure, and those 5 hours spent on whichever one of Satan’s motorways we were on will remain etched into my memory forever.

I’m grateful to the NHS and the fact I’m still registered with a clinic. I was told to wee into a cup and then hold my sample while I waited for the doctor. People looked alarmed and impressed and I thought this could be my time to forge a career as an Influencer and snap selfies with my scarlet urine. I could call myself Crimson Tide.

The doctor eventually called me in and remarked that it was some of the gnarliest she’d seen. For context there were homies sporting Croydon facelifts in the waiting room, so forgive me for bragging amongst such stiff (pun intended) competition. I regaled her with my story and I don’t think she was with me at all. It was only when I produced the scribbled bit of white paper with only one eligible word, “doctor”, and the empty box and leaflet for the antibiotics that she seemed mildly convinced.

She scrutinised exhibits b and c. Exhibit a was still chilling there all red and angry looking. 

The doctor sat back and looked like she was on the verge of a faint chuckle.

Well, my dear, I’m happy to say that after this dose of antibiotics, you won’t have any issues with Chlamydia. Unfortunately, you have a ferocious case of Cystitis that we’ll have to throw the book at. 

Talk about silver linings.

If you like duck I’m about to share one of the best ways to cook it. How do I know it’s good? Well, I have this on good authority from my family. Why should you trust them? Well, there are several PhDs among them so you can trust them as experts. And they’re experts, not because they are smart (which they are), but mostly because academic culture is a culture of food vultures who only go to conferences and meetings for the free scoff.

But before we get to the recipe I’d like to throw some irony into the ring.

You know those sanctimonious laborious preambles just before recipes about how joyous the author’s life is, and how she discovered this amazing recipe…?

Por exemplo…

I was on holiday in Sardinia the first time my fiancé Clayton and I tried North Peruvian pate de fois gras and Venezuelan Beaver Cheese. It was a sultry day and the crisp Sauvignon Blanc was the perfect foil to cut through the richness of our lunch platter. Clayton and I met at the Royal Society for the Association of Cheese Knaves in 2016 and our love for traditional methods of cheese making led us to completing not one, not two, not three, but four cheese pilgrimages. I made Venezuelan Beaver Cheese after our experience in Sardinia and I tried many recipes before I found the perfect one. [Insert pop up ad.] [Insert another pop up ad.] After months of trial and error here are the recipes that I tried that didn’t work. Scroll through them they’re pointless. Now enjoy the photos of Clayton and I in Sardinia with captions such as “say cheeeese” and “meant to brie”….

Recipe Blogs Can Fuck Off.

Don’t you just want to punch recipe bloggers in the choux buns for this kak? And the problem is that these preambles are part and parcel of the recipes that have 4.8 star ratings. So you have no choice but to engage with “Candy Floss” and her utterly naff parochial writing if you want a decent recipe. People like Candy Floss need to be told that no one cares about anything other than the ingredients and basic directions. Seriously how do you think Betty Crocker made her fortune? Not by inserting a copy of her memoirs into every blueberry muffin box. So apologies “Candy Floss” but just give us the recipe and go back to watching Cupcake Wars and creating an aura of “happiness lives here”… You really deserve it.

I’m all for recipe sharing… this is one of the main reasons why I collect cookbooks that I never cook out of. I just like to have unfettered access to recipes. I’ve yet to use Manifold Destiny and roast a chicken under my car bonnet. However, I really like that I have that option available to me if I ever feel like making something enticing out of the roadkill I find on the Heidelberg stretch of the N3 towards Joburg. Imagine the sheer delight of presenting a welcoming hostess with the gift of manifold genet just as loadshedding kicks in. I’ve also never trussed a chicken even though Thomas Keller tells me that only assholes neglect this absolutely vital process. Who even knows where their household string is? Seriously Thomas, get a life. Also what’s with calling it the French Laundry… do you even know how to use your washing machine?

This is why I don’t understand “Secret family recipes”. As far as I’m concerned they can piss off. Here’s the thing… I’ve shared loads of recipes and then had them served up as “Jaqui’s apple pie” or “Jaqui’s Yorkshire puddings”… And trust me when I say I wasn’t exactly jazzed that the shit being served up had my name attached to it. Anyone who watches cooking shows or cooks, knows that recipes don’t guarantee shit. So all I ask is that if you make this banger of a duck pie and fuck it up, please attach your name to the recipe and leave me out of it. Obviously if it’s a roaring success then I’m happy for you to take all the credit. I would.

So annoying “called it ironic to try get away with it” preamble over… let’s get you to where you belong… in the kitchen.

OK so the deal is I don’t use recipes but for the benefit of helping you create the best bloody duck you’ll ever eat… I tried really bloody hard to be accurate.

• 2 ducks (I get mine from my mother-out-law Her ducks are the best)
• 250ml-300ml decent/drinkable dry red wine
• 1.5 tbl spoons sugar (no one cares what kind you use or if it has a few coffee granules left behind by that heathen in your household)
• 2 tbl spoons of my secret ingredient for everything… Chinkiang Vinegar (photo below)
• 1 tbl spoon (make it generous) soy sauce
• 1/2 cup gravy powder (only Woolworths or Ina Paarman will do)
• 4-5 ClemenGold yuppiefruits from Woolworths (If you can afford tinned mandarins congratulations on your success in life and in that case you’ll need a tin) Okes, you can also use cherries if you aren’t paying off a bond or have school fees to think about
• 1 roll of puff pastry (if you’re the type who makes their own then you’ll have lost interest in this recipe after reading gravy powder)
• 1 egg for egg wash
• Water. It’s free

So you may think that this must be lank fancy because there’s some boujie shit on the list. Well try order duck pie at a restaurant and see how your overdraft facility looks. The other thing is please don’t try to use naartjies or oranges. You want fancy sweet fruit for this… and hard pith is the actual devil. Have some self respect and put that naartjie you’re holding into your child’s lunchbox, not in this epic pie.

So here’s what you do.

1. Roast the two ducks side by side on a wire rack placed in a big ass roasting tray. Pat the ducks dry. I often give them a good go over with a hairdryer (if it’s not loadshedding). Season the ducks with salt. Pour water in the roasting tray. The idea is to slow roast and steam. It’s a low slow cook so start with a hot preheated oven and then reduce the temperature to about 170ish. It takes about 3-4 hours.
2. While the ducks are roasting you make the luscious sauce. You need a big pot.
3. Reduce the red wine with the sugar. About half way through reducing the wine you add the vinegar and the soy sauce. Then you reduce some more. You’re looking at reducing by about half. Don’t make a sticky syrup or burn it. I can’t help you if you do that.
4. So a note on the vinegar. It’s the one vinegar I cannot live without and you can buy it from Asian supermarkets and online. You could probably use red wine or sherry vinegar if you can’t find it but honestly love yourself more and hunt it down because it makes EVERYTHING taste better.
5. OK now you make a gravy paste with the gravy powder and about 1/4 cup water. Then add the paste to the red wine story. Whisk so there aren’t lumps and add about a litre of water. This is the part I didn’t measure out. You want a nice sauce the texture of blood or whipping cream if you’re squeamish. You’ll need to whisk the gravy and adjust the thickness with more water or more reduction. Make sure you can’t taste raw gravy powder.
6. You’re going to need to taste it and adjust the seasoning.
7. OK so now for the mandarins. Peel them and de-pith. You want minimal pith. I cut some of the mandarin segments in half and left some whole.
8. I then squeezed in the juice of one mandarin.
9. When the duck is done this is the annoying but necessary part (and it’s so worth it). You need to strip the duck. Flake and peel off as much duck as you can and add in some of the crispier skin. I don’t like too much fat so I go easy on the skin.
10. Taste the magic you deserve it. Does it need more soy? Does it need more vinegar, more sugar, more citrus? This is your pie it has your name on it.
11. Right pie filling done. Stick the filling into whatever pie receptacle you fancy. I use Mauviel because have you seen it? Now you roll out the puff pastry so it’s a bit thinner. Then you chuck it on your pie filling as a lid.
12. You might be thinking I’m a heathen for not having a pie bottom… and usually I’d be right alongside you nodding my head and detaching a retina, but this pie is so rich and saucy that you won’t miss its panties/underpants. Trust me. Or don’t.
13. Egg wash next. If you don’t know about egg wash then I’m not sure I trust you roasting anything other than a Woolworths Chicken Schnitzel.
14. Bake at about 200 until it’s done. You’ll know it’s done because the pastry won’t be raw and it won’t look like Boo Radley.
15. I serve it with a smug face and whatever potatoes my ass fancies.

This may be controversial but this is better than a garage pie after a night at Crowded House.

You literally won’t believe who isn’t getting a good morning this morning.

The truth is that clickbait is bullshit.

However you clicked on it. It wouldn’t exist without you.

Ignore it.

Scroll past.

Engage with the good shit.

So every time you click on clickbait… that’s one less good morning.

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.

At Gallery ZAZA, it’s about more than just the art on the walls, it’s about what the walls say – whether it’s gallery walls, or public walls festooned with the imaginings of a street artist or young upstart. This is important, because we’re about to empty the gallery walls for our second exhibition. We’re starting afresh. Wiping the slate clean. And if I’m honest, it’s really difficult to say goodbye to what have become the best work colleagues I’ve ever had (sorry Ron Irwin).

On the mistiest of Hilton days, sodden and a bit miffed, opening the gallery doors to Hussein Salim’s aptly named “Sunny Day” and “Longing,” has been more powerful than my first mug of tea for the day (for those of you who have encountered me sans tea will understand). I’m so attached to “Longing” that I get genuine separation anxiety thinking about saying goodbye. And so I was eternally grateful when Hussein said we could keep this absolutely ravishing canvas in our foyer. Longing.

And then bit by bit, Siyabonga Sikosana’s canvases have started exiting the gallery for what some (not me) would call their “forever homes”. Paintings literally being hugged by their new owners beaming with smiles as if holding a new excitable puppy. I pause to imagine how much colour and joy these artefacts will bring. How they’ll pass between generations, echoing stories of their first home.

Sakhile Mhlongo’s two troublemakers have been “most excellent” colleagues. They’re so badass. These paintings are alive and stare at me every day, as if threatening me that I’m not working hard enough. They’re constant reminders of the beautiful juxtapositions in my life, and they always draw a crowd. I often catch myself looking at “the dude’s” jeans and then feel completely inadequate in my craft. They bring balance, and longing.

Then there’s the absolute joy and terror of being a temporary home to Logan Woolfson’s Rubik’s cube family. “Lucky Star” started to show his rebellious side, or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t dig Hilton weather and wants to adios back to Joburg STAT? In contrast, Logan’s other pieces have adjusted well to their temporary home. But Lucky Star just refused to comply from the get go. And then, one morning, the damp weather proved too much, and instead of opening the doors to an expectant Longing, I was greeted by the gallery floor, completely scattered with kamikaze Rubik’s cube shrapnel. Taking a leaf out of Tracey Emin’s book we improvised, and adopted “art installation,” and it’s amazing how many people haven’t even balked at this. “Lucky Star”, now affectionately known as “Unlucky Star” has become a metaphor for 2021… It really is how you frame it.

The gallery walls are ephemeral, ever changing, and we love that, because nothing lasts forever. It makes us want to live in the moment and to cherish what we have. To stop when we see something beautiful, and to soak it in. The other day Jono and I spent about half an hour watching a troop of monkeys use the parking lot carport netting as a trampoline. We witnessed a baby monkey steal a plastic bag from the alpha male and tease him with it. It was completely magic, and a reminder that there is so much beauty in the world. If you just stop. 

Which leads me to one of those juxtapositions I was banging on about earlier. If you have driven down Chief Albert Luthuli Road recently you would have seen the end of an era. Burczak’s Picture Framers has moved to their new and magnificent site in Victoria Road, and the old building is under construction. All of this seems like progress, except that the Basquiat mural has vanished.

It started with a red tag, blood was drawn. Then a few markings were made on the wall. Scars. Then a few pre-emptive holes were bashed in. Now I’m what some would call a “romantic pessimist”, so I went deep down the path of “no worries, nothing to see here, they’re going to work around it”.

‘Hi my name’s Jaqui, and I’m in denial.’

The thing is, I did actually know what was coming, I just refused to believe that I had to start adhering to all of my ideologies about public art… and ditch the hypocrisy. Street art is by its very nature, temporary. I know this.

But what if you really love it? I am, after all, the child who clapped her way through Peter Pan when Tinkerbell needed reviving, so I’m all on board for a bit of a “if you really believe” chumbawumba. And my internal dialogue was in overdrive thinking, ‘Absolutely some street art is ephemeral, unless you really love it, in which case you can save it by just believing that other people love it as much as you.’ Turns out this doesn’t work. Where the elegant Basquiat once was, is now a white wall and a couple of generic steel doors. Longing.

Ron English is a dude who theorises street art. He explains that street art is a cultural phenomenon, it’s not an art movement. This distinction is important because the very nature of phenomena is that they are beautifully transient, they are the fabric of our memories. They are what Abraham Lincoln would describe as, “the mystic chords of memory”. They form part of those spaces we look back on, they form part of the dialogue of, “remember when that used to be…” or, “there used to be something magical there.” We engage, and we remember, because they’re gone. They remind us not to take what we have for granted. They activate the “better angels of our nature”.

What a dazzling reminder of how to live and how to experience the world. And what a great way to engage, and to share our stories and lived histories. And I really should give you this banger of a Lincoln quote because it’s bloody lovely, ‘The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.’

‘The ghost of Belle Starr, she hands down her wits 

To Jezebel the nun, she violently knits

A bald wig for Jack the Ripper, who sits 

At the head of the Chamber of Commerce.’

Bob Dylan: Tombstone Blues

Fancy a nun being influenced by the 19th century outlaw Belle Starr, the Queen of the Oklahoma Outlaws herself? The female Jesse James. A woman who could outperform most men with a gun, who rode sidesaddle. Belle was probably considered to be too stylish to be an outlaw. Famed for her black velvet riding habit, feathered hat, and festooned with more ammunition than you could shake a stick at. Not to mention the two pistols she was never without. Belle was quite simply, completely kickass. Her death was gruesome, as is the case with most legends. She died fearless and punctured with shotgun bullets. A helluva role model for a nun. 

They say I’m wasted being cloistered in a nunnery. That I’m not investing, or not “cashing in” on my ultimate value. My beauty. Women diluted into loose change. Value being synonymous with external beauty. Woman being exchanged and sold as a type of cryptic currency.

And furthermore, isn’t it cripplingly boring, the simple life? But there’s nothing simplistic about being busy. The simpler you live, the busier you are.

How many individuals are cloistered by things? Stifled by stuff. Smothered by excess? Some of the most bored people have the most. They’re the most ravishing of all the conspicuous consumers who worship false profits. Consumers who judge simplicity as a failure to accumulate. Consumption is the paradox of choice. It debilitates us to the point where we’re so busy choosing that we forget to live. Decisions eating into the currency of time. Commerce is a silent assassin, a killer. It sneaks up, and leaves receipts as the ultimate calling card. 

Maybe I’m playing the fool. Perhaps I really am too beautiful to be a nun? Be wary of false prophets. I could be a rogue Jezebel. 

An impossible oxymoron.

Maybe you think I’m one of those hipster coffee shop lurkers because of my hair and thrift shop sweater? The type who take over the best table and charge every device they own, assault the free wifi, and pretend their lingering presence is because of how ‘mmmm that’s really good coffee’ it is. Hanging on every word.

Coffee is sexy, coffee is reassuringly expensive, coffee is no longer just black or white. Coffee is suggestive. It’s something you come up for, if you’re up for it. But be careful, because coffee also has the habit of kicking you out in the morning. 

And sure, coffee may be a culture, but tea is a lifestyle. It’s an affordable lifestyle, or an ostentatious one. It’s the same brew, it’s just dressed differently. 

The first cup in the morning, the late night natter, afternoon tea with grandparents, Birthday Tea, tea and a biscuit, Christmas Morning Tea, post-breakup tea, celebration tea, apology tea, tea delivered on a tray to a sick bed, school tea out of an urn with the faint glow of burnt milk, the quick chug it down while locating miscreant car keys tea. ‘Quick cup of tea?’ Tea break. ‘Fancy a tea?’ Tea will help. ‘Let’s discuss this over tea.’

‘Ooo I’d love a cup.’ 

Tea is what Cosmo might refer to as the “perfect little black dress”. You can dress it up, or dress it down depending on your mood. Throw in a lovely pair of scones, accessorise with some sugar cubes, ‘How about this understated cucumber sandwich?’ ‘Oh go on and splash out on that slice of Victoria sponge.’ You can’t go wrong with a chic retro teapot, or how about something more boho with a vintage set of cups and saucers? Or just embrace the simplicity and chug it out of a mug while avoiding dropping biscuit crumbs on the floor.

Yes. Perfect for every occasion.

Arguments about milk first or after. Is sugar sacrilege? How long to brew? What brand is best? Is rooibos even tea? Do you squeeze the bag? ‘You use teabags and not leaves?’ ‘Oh my god he squeezes the bag!’ Cup and saucer? Mug? And does anyone own a tea cosy that hasn’t been worn as a hat? 

My paternal grandmother never pretended to be posh but she took tea as seriously as she took the television guide. ‘Albert there’s no way that’s Morse, the television guide says it’s Only Fools and Horses now!’ Tea arrived in a metal teapot, with Dutch white and blue striped tea cups (mostly chipped), saucers, and a matching milk jug. Cake was offered randomly and understated. ‘Who’s for some stale cake?’ On the other hand, my maternal grandmother reckons she’s lank posh, and we don’t argue because she showed us the grape scissors that she pretends she inherited (she bought them). She’s the reason I drink my tea with a whisper of milk so that it looks close enough to coffee to get away with using a mug. Tea is never served in a mug. Never. When grandmother comes to visit we put out a universal call to borrow a tea set, so she can be lulled into a false sense of security that we’re not foul heathens.

Speaking of grannies, in Hilton in the 1980s Five Roses had what they aptly named the “Five Roses Tea Party”. It was hosted at the Hilton Hotel and there was great excitement because Scot Scott arrived in a helicopter. The big show piece was that a bunch of grannies had to do something in order to win the grand prize of their weight in R1 coins. Just before the weigh-in the winning granny went absolutely gangbusters over a black forest gateaux. It wasn’t quite the rumpus of the Boston Tea Party, but it did put Hilton firmly on the map, and on M-Net.

And on that note, is there anywhere you can get a decent cup of tea around here?

Who decided Wayne wasn’t just some juvenile delinquent with a penchant for adrenaline seeking behaviour, but actually an artistic genius who pioneered a movement? What is, after all, art?

I’ve lost count of the occasions walking around a gallery, where some bombastic parent, with a muted pastel crew neck sweater, scoffs about the fact that his son or daughter could do loads better than the artist in question. This dude’s prodigal kid meanwhile, has a sticky lacquer and is busy groping every available artwork and yelling about an imminent snack emergency. Maybe this is performance art? Father and Child: Seen in a Gallery, 2018. 

The perennial question looms, ‘But is it art?’ And our response to this seems to all be in the title, or in the location, or perhaps, it’s all in the frame?

You may be familiar with My Bed. Not my literal bed obviously, this is a family show. My Bed is probably my favourite contemporary example of The Emperor’s New Clothes. And, this is a grandiose claim because for those of you who’ve heard me bleat on before, you’ll know that I am bossies for the Emperor’s clothing metaphor. But stay with me, this is a greatie. My Bed is a 1998 artwork by Tracey Emin, and it is just a dazzling display of how to reframe domestic ineptitude. Watch this space for My Sink, My Laundry Basket, and My Bedroom Chair. I have an overactive imagination and I’ll find a story out of absolutely nothing, but even my propensity to BS my way out of a hat was tested by Tracey’s siff bed. 

Yes, Tracey’s bed is grim. It’s reflective of depression, and a foray into alcohol abuse and using sex as a coping mechanism. Wikipedia nails it by saying, ‘When she looked at the vile, repulsive mess that had accumulated in her room, she suddenly realised what she had created.’ I think the key here is “created”. What a loophole. One woman’s mess, is Charles Saatchi’s next exhibition. And to those parents, and critics, poo-pooing this, Tracey defends herself as a lank trailblazer at the apex of creative genius. Sure your teenager can have a filthy unmade bed, but their failure to exhibit it in a prestigious white-walled gallery is where Tracey’s got the edge. Emin points out, ‘No one had ever done that before.’

That sure is dope Tracey, but is it art?

Is the crux of the matter that art is just about blazing new trails and being the first person to push boundaries a step further than anyone else? Is it by testing the very geography of art? Michael Ondaatje poignantly said, ‘Do you understand the sadness of geography?’ The very fact that geography stifles us is because it draws lines, defines boundaries, and declares borders.

So is something art because of its geography – where it’s placed?

As we understand it, art happens in a space. If tradition is anything to go by, these spaces are white walls owned by white faces. Traditionally, art is art, because it happens in a vacuum. But what does this do to storytelling and expression? Mapping, boundaries, ownership, geography, are prescriptive, and that’s not to say we don’t need structure, of course we do. However, we need to be able to reframe, to break rules, to make a mess. As my legendary English teacher Moira Lovell told me, ‘You can break the rules when you know them.’ 

Is rule breaking the essence then? Is it in understanding the distinction between a morose teen scratching their initials into a desk, using a permanent marker to write E+K 4Eva on a bathroom door, spraying YOLO over an existing piece of street art, or actually understanding how rules can be broken to create order?  

Creating order out of chaos is no mean feat. It’s an exercise in “iconoclashism”. Tension occurs when we observe clashes between cultures, where we change the visual landscape of public space, when we create, react, and respond. In short, it’s when humans move from passivity to interactivity. And it’s in asking questions about whose public space we are cultivating.

The normative happy medium is the reason we have Christmas cracker jokes, beige colour palettes, and elevator music. These “inoffensive” public systems are developed because they’re neutral and therefore no one can take umbrage to them. But what happens if you’re not neutral and are highly offended by panpipes playing Strangers in the Night, or working in a municipal building with yellowing beige walls? Is public life supposed to be moving from one space to the next in a state of catatonic bland liminality. Should we not be engaged in public space?

The theorist Clements highlights the fact that we need to engage with communication and space. We need to look at context and discourse. He observes that a shift happens when art is ‘displayed in public as opposed to hermetically sealed white cube gallery spaces’. When this happens we can change the frame and art can ‘become the central focus for a range of competing discourses.’ Applying this argument, we become better citizens of the world when we are faced with questions, when we encounter struggle, and when we observe clashes. 

The latest clash in Hilton is not just manifesting on election posters (yuck), but it’s being whispered in passing. To be honest I’m surprised Hilton Chat isn’t going gangbusters about it, but I think electricity is occupying most of the bandwidth. Here’s the thing, someone has “vandalised” the community Rainbow Bridge. A woman literally came into the gallery and announced that everyone needs to be angry about this. It’s “unacceptable”. It’s “diabolical”. It’s “not right”.

Jono and I immediately drove to the tunnel to look for the offending graffiti, and I won’t lie I was hoping for more. I was hoping for a rich combustive expletive. Instead I got “YOLO”.

Although well done, is there a more offensively beige phrase than YOLO? Are the millennials trolling us?

Sure, there was a time when YOLO was cool, and for a moment it was akin to saying cowabunga in the early nineties. But, like cowabunga, it was a fart in the wind. Maybe, in a few decades YOLO will be like high waisted jeans and make a comeback?

Ideas and trends spread through innovators and cavalier mavericks who take hold of something and share it with the world. Then early adopters weigh in, paving the way for the masses to climb on board. The masses are what make something go from alternative or counter-culture, to mainstream, and they’re the reason we have fashion and trends. Finally, the trend drops off when the laggards come on board. They’re the very late adopters, usually old folk, and they’re the death knell to something being cool. Close your eyes and remember the first time your mum said YOLO. It was probably the last time you said it. 

So, there Jono and I were, looking at the word YOLO painted over the rainbow. My knee-jerk reaction as a writer was to be offended by YOLO. I wanted better. I wanted poetry in motion. I thought to myself, ‘If people are going to lose their shit over this, it needs to be worth losing their shit over’. Of all the words to choose, they chose “YOLO”.

Jono, however, smirked in a satisfied way, and said, ‘I like how they’ve gone over as many colours of the rainbow as they can which will make it harder for people to fix.’ The artist in him was looking at the big picture. He was changing the frame.

Street art is not hermetically sealed. It’s communal. It’s a changing landscape and a changing story. We can feel nostalgic for what came before it, and we can be sad when things feel like they’ve been ruined. But reframe. Ondaatje explains, ‘We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience.’ And I for one am bloody grateful for that, because panpipes suck, and apparently you only live once. And everything changes, even art.