Village gossip

Cape Town

Cape Town is as different from Johannesburg as Cheltenham is from London. Actually, this is to insult Cape Town. But whereas Jo’burg, being the country’s business capital with a population of nearly ten and a half million people, is a sprawling, bustling metropolis, Cape Town is a virtual village.

The proximity of so many people in Jo’burg, even if some of them might mug you, makes it a more hospitable city. Invitations fly in over the electric barbed- wire fences. In Cape Town, however, you are promised a vague invitation to dinner which is then cancelled as the sender has to mow his grass. Oh well, it is probably me.

Strangers can be exceptionally friendly. We met two middle-aged women in the bar of the Hotel Cape Grace on the waterfront. One was English — with a Hungarian father — and had lived in Cape Town for 20 years. She ran a letting agency. I asked her about life on the Cape, where there is noticeably less security. ‘Yes,’ she informed me proudly, ‘we haven’t had a tourist killed all season.’

She seemed to bemoan the lack of crime. ‘Nothing exciting of that kind really goes on here. You can’t even get yourself raped.’ The latter appeared her greatest grievance. She told me that she intended to walk the streets at night with a large sign around her neck reading, ‘Rapist Wanted’.

Cape Town is full of people called Cape Coloureds who are of mixed race. But the town is not aware of racism. Far from it. It must be the only major city in the world where everyone encourages minstrels. I do not refer to the chocolates. The other day in downtown Cape Town saw the annual Kaapse Klopse Karnival, with thousands of made-up minstrels costumed in top hats and twirling satin parasols like reincarnations of Al Jolson.