CITY LIFE NEWS

At 9am sharp, a minibus pulls up in front of my house with my guide, Greda, and driver, JJ, leaving Cape Town via the N2 in the direction of Khayelitsha. It’s Friday and the streets are full of people talking, eating and laughing. Our tour starts at Look Out Hill, the tallest sand dune that gives a panoramic view of Khayelitsha. Our local guide, Mteto, welcomes us with a warm smile and a hug. As I stand on the platform built around the dune, I can make out Gordon’s Bay, where I once lived for a year, Strand, Somerset-West, Mitchell’s Plain, the Cape Flats and Table Mountain in the distance. From this viewpoint the affluent suburbs seem next door to some of the poorest areas of Cape Town.  read more

021’s editor Bernard Franz stays clear of beaches, prawns and Rum & Raspberry as he investigates Mozambique’s capital.

Before I leave for Maputo, I get plenty of advice from my friends: Jerome recommends the fish market, where seafood goes straight from the sea via the grill onto a plate, with no sauces added; Senait reminisces about couples kissing and holding hands; Sofia, who is from Maputo, advises me to check out real estate on Ka Tembe, the sleepy peninsula just opposite Maputo, that is soon be connected with the city centre by a $750 million bridge; Moreira tells me about the lively music scene; Mark wonders if the bullfighting arena is still in use; Suzy fell in love with a sad gorilla in the local zoo, and Ryan, my neighbour, raves about the architect Pancho Guedes, who, in the 1950s and 1960s, helped transform the city into Africa’s most exciting architectural metropolis. Tristan Tsara, one of the founding fathers of Dadaism, remarked after a visit: “One has indeed come to the end of the world to find the most extraordinary things, a whole architecture of the imagination.” read more

Calling all fashion forward, freethinking creatives.
It's design indaba 2013, and of course Maggs on Media was there.

We’ll look at the mutually beneficial relationship between the event and its various partners, among them 021 Magazine, the country’s first carbon neutral publication.

We also caught up with Dutch digital designer, Daan Roosegaarde, who surprisingly, does not see himself as part of the ‘Twitter generation’.

Helene Lindsay from New Media Publishing talks pushy brand campaigns and content marketing done right, and after all that we swing by the
Mini Time Splice machine for some fun and then talk business with the car brands’ General Manager, Kabelo Rabotho.




Maggs on Media airs on Sunday mornings at 10:30 on the eNews Channel Africa (DSTV channel 403)

With rebroadcasts on the following days:

Sundays at 15:30
Mondays at 23:30
Tuesdays at 9:30
Fridays at 22:00 read more

In the light of bestseller 50 Shades of Grey, 021 wants to know what’s stirring the adult scene in Cape Town, and asked its own agent provocateur Ms Minx to search the deep end. Here is her report back to the editor.



Ms Minx, you went through considerable efforts to research the impact of 50 Shades of Grey. Do you think the book is changing sex in this country?
Even if South Africa’s adult population, or a part thereof, is still conservative from the outside, those 50 Shades are flying off the shelves, and now rumour has it that she will write the books all over again from his perspective, and this is already getting the women hot to know what he was really thinking. When you walk into a bookshop and see the sexuality bookshelf next to the gift books by the sales counter … this tells me that people’s attitudes towards sex and erotica really has changed. If it gets people talking, that can only be a good thing. read more

More than any other time of year, spring is dominated by runners rushing up, down and around the mountain, but not everyone likes to tackle the extreme in the Three Peaks Challenge, Cape Town Marathon or Table Mountain Challenge. 021 asked where you enjoy your fun run most. Here are some answers: read more

To say “The Winelands” evokes an image of a manor house with whitewashed walls, thatched roof and ornate gables, shaded by oak trees and surrounded by neatly arranged vineyards… and with it, almost inevitably, comes an expansive sense of luxury, historical depth and feelings of calm abundance. read more

About 300 years ago, Stellenbosch residents would keep a coffin in their lofts in case an
unexpected death left them with a corpse on their hands. Then it was a day’s journey between
Cape Town and Stellenbosch. Nowadays, our tour takes us from Cape Town to Stellenbosch in
30 comfortable, air-conditioned minutes. However, no matter how fast the journey, the oaked
city still takes visitors back in time. read more

What makes Cape Town one of the top commercial movie destinations in the world?
Bernard Franz asks location scout Gregg Stopforth.


Why is Cape Town so popular?

Apart from the predictable weather, and the complimentary season to the Northern Hemisphere, you can get distinct looks in small confined places. The city offers a helluvalot of diversity. You get old Europe around Greenmarket Square or Queen Victoria Street, the generic American downtown in Thibault Square, or the American-type suburbia in Voortrekker Road or the Northern Suburbs. The unfinished freeway in town is also a gift from the gods.  read more

If you see a giant aloe ambling down the Fan Mile, don’t worry – you haven’t eaten something funny. This is just one of the floats. Dawn Kennedy checks out the carnival preparations.

As I enter the workshop in Woodstock dedicated to building the carnival floats, a dreadlocked guy warns me, “This is a workshop; it’s dangerous; enter at your own risk.” Everywhere neon signs declare the omnipresence of “Danger!” My favourite reads: Don’t bleed on the floats. Sparks fly from screeching tools and the smell of oil fills the air. As I sit on a chair, a broadly smiling Rastafarian approaches and says, “You’re the first girl who’s come to visit; we miss that.” read more

I picked a particularly hot day to leap off Lion’s Head. The sun challenges me from above, flicks the back of my nose and whips my neck. As my pilot, Jan, straps me into my harness, I find myself looking at where I soon will have to “run and run fast” off. It's just a drop – a place of land, then no land. I will effectively be jogging off a mountain. However, whilst I stand, perspiring, the idea of getting down seems appealing. To be candid, the heat does strange things to the way I think. read more

021 was Media partner of the Cape Winelands Film Festival 2012, staged for 10 days, from 14–24 March. The selection of world cinema on offer included over 150 features, documentaries and shorts, which, combined, have won more than 320 international awards. read more

here is a list of the best markets in Cape Town, the Winelands, and beyond

CBD: City Bowl Market on Hope
9am–2pm Saturdays
Housed in an exquisite old building with a fascinating history (formerly a Zionist
hall, Jehovah’s Witness church and Hindu temple) the City Bowl Market on Hope is
the place to meet friends and feed the family, while stocking the larder with a range
of home-made delicacies. It caters for the whole family with a garden and jungle
gym for the kids, draft beer for the dads and lots of goodies to tempt and torment the
fussiest of foodies. Plenty of parking available. Every fourth Saturday of the month
the City Bowl Fashion Market hosts more than 30 designers here.
14 Hope Street, Gardens, 073 270 8043, www.citybowlmarket.co.za read more

Early seafarers referred to Robben Island as the Isle of Purgatory. However, for the 45 permanent inhabitants of the island, it’s called home. 021 goes off the beaten track to meet the locals.

This is an island ruled by feathers. Everywhere is permeated by the distinct smell of penguin poo, and the streets are decorated with Jackson Pollock-like white splashes. The roads are deserted, as though the people have been ousted by swathes of circling, squawking seagulls. We pass a grim, grey building with a low asbestos roof and only tiny high windows, with a sign declaring it a “former female insane asylum”. Seagulls have ambushed a deserted house... read more

The six-seater single engine hums along its circular ascent. Our tandem partners chatter on about earthly matters whilst I reprimand myself. I’m experiencing that post-idiotic-decision scolding, but my mother is a thousand feet below, so I do it alone. At this height everything is anorexic. The airstrip looks half as long as my shoelace, the hangar is about the size of a boulder on a diet and the bushes and sand have congealed into an unappetising vegetable stew. read more

Walking backward off a 1km-tall mountain is kind of counterintuitive, to say the least.
But it’s what Gareth Gibson persuades people to do on a daily basis. Makes you wonder what he could achieve if he employed his demonic powers of persuasion for more practical purposes. I hadn’t thought much about abseiling, adopting the same kind of feet-first, brain-later approach that had characterised my life so far. I’d been so busy persuading my friend, Valma Pfaff, that everything would be fine that I’d forgotten to think about how it would be for me. read more

Bernard Franz asks award-winning Mokena Makeka, the founder of Makeka Design Lab,
for his take on Cape Town’s architecture.
Firstly, how do you feel about our country’s architecture in general?
In terms of helping to shape society, I don’t think it’s in a good state. If I look at the nature
of our civic institutions (whether it’s police stations, train stations, libraries or clinics) there
is little appreciation of what architecture could be doing. There hasn’t been a real vision about
the public life of this country. It is mostly in residential architecture that South Africa excels,
which is ironic. read more

Nestled in the heart of Gardens with table Mountain as a backdrop, football enthusiasts from different social backgrounds, cultures and genders come together at african Brothers Football Academy. Their motto, Umntu Umngumtu Ngabantu (a person is a person because of other people), is the driving force behind the vision of those dedicated to this community upliftment project. One feels a sense of belonging here, a safe place that offers a range of football activities to be enjoyed by all. This academy is the brainchild of Craig Hepburn and Siphiwe Cele who started the project in the imizamo Yethu community of hout Bay in 1998. inspired by Nelson Mandela’s belief that “to be free is not merelto cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the lives of othethey decided to build a football academy where these dreams could be realised. read more

No self-respecting employer would hire a key staff member who hadn’t been screened and “recruited” by a professional. So why leave the selection of a mate – a choice with far longer- lasting consequences – to chance?

Shannon McNa ughton of Perfect Partners estimates that there are well over a thousand dating mediums in this country, ranging from online services to traditional matchmakers to agencies catering for specific niches, such as religious groups or even swingers. However, as she is quick to point out, there are professional agencies … and then there are the companies set up by wellmeaning people who were delighted when their cousin Sue hit it off with George in accounts, just as they predicted she would. The reality is that they’re dealing with their clients’ hearts and minds, and the psychological implications of a matchmaking service poorly rendered can be severe. Shannon leans on her background in parapsychology, the business acumen gleaned
from being a coach and mentor in the business-building arena, her extreme talent in the networking field, and experience in the HR/IR field of recruitment read more

For the first time in South Africa, Ana T. Forrest, a trail-blazing celebrity in the contemporary yoga scene, will be teaching students how to burn off their limitations using a dynamic combination of
heat, breath and vigorous yoga sequences.

Ana Forrest has been transforming and healing people’s lives throughout the world for more than 35 years with her unique blend of physical practice, Eastern wisdom, and profound Native American ceremony called Forrest Yoga. With her wild mane of hair and intense gaze, Ana is far from the wafer-thin, insipidly serene yoga model; the type that looks as though they only consume water and would crumple if as much as a nasty thought crossed their aura. read more

The wind whips up dust circles on the streets of Nyanga, Cape Town’s oldest township and home to over 10 000 people. People mill and congregate on the streets: a man holds a woman’s hand; a mother walks behind her three children wearing brightly coloured woollen caps; street vendors cook skewers of cow’s intestines braaied over fires in tin drums. Goats saunter down the street. The surprising sound of a bow being scraped slowly across a violin string accompanies this scene like a musical score to a movie. Follow the sound of Mozart’s Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, played with a beginner’s halting uncertainty, and you arrive at Hlengisa Primary School. Peer inside the window and see a group of six kids, violins tucked neatly under their chins. read more

Two unusual treatments at Lanzerac spa in Stellenbosch will leave you floating in an ocean of bliss. Isn’t life wonderful? Just when you’re getting a slightly jaded, ‘been there, done that’ kind of feeling, suddenly you hear of a new craze that restores your faith in human wackiness. Take the latest beauty fad: exfoliation by fish. Dubbed Dr Fish, the treatment consists of fish nibbling dead skin from your affected body parts. This raises a myriad of questions: Does it hurt? Do the fish get indigestion? Is it ethical to feed fish on a diet of athletes feet? On a quest for answers, I set forth to Lanzerac spa, the only place in the Western Cape offering this bizarre treatment. read more

Have you heard the eclectic beats coming out of Club Voom Voom, the newly refurbished Bang Bang club? Owner and DJ Fred Jaquier tells 021 about his musical odyssey.

My love of music began with listening to my mother play Chopin on the piano. I started playing piano at age four and began to play more seriously when I was a teenager. I was always more interested in improvising and creating music than learning to play existing tracks. In the 1980s, when a friend came back from London, he turned me on to the whole revival mod movement. I heard Jimmy Smith playing the Hammond organ. Amazing. I loved going to the second-hand markets and collecting vinyl records. I love vinyl. Now I’ve got a collection of 12 000 records. I started DJing in 1984 by accident when my friend was too drunk to play and he asked me to take over. After three songs, the crowd was grooving. It was so exciting. I rocked the party.

At the end someone asked me if I would play at their party for R750. Well of course I was going to do that! I was enjoying it and he was paying. In the early 1980s, there were no DJs playing my kind of alternative sounds. I started doing a lot of gigs and got my first resident DJ position in 1984 at The Monkey Business in Lyon. Until then I’d been doing a really boring job selling kitchens. I realized then that there was an opportunity for me to earn money with music, my passion. read more

Dragon Boat Rowing. 021 discovers that this oriental sport has profound philosophical implications.

The early morning tranquility at the waterfront harbour, with seals basking on the jetty and a solitary man engrossed in a book, is suddenly shattered with cries of “Let’s go! Dig in …1, 2, 3!” From around the corner, a Boadicea-like figure balancing at the helm of a long boat directs the rowers who, with Viking determination, faces strained and biceps bulging, leave a snail trail of a wake behind them. read more

An increasing trend among Cape Town’s Cosmopolitan crowd is to spend a weekend in a Local spa. One of the city’s trademarks is that it offers world-class spa facilities at a fraction of International prices, making them attractive to Overseas visitors and residents alike. “We could be in Monaco,” says the smiling Londoner, who is celebrating his honeymoon at O on Kloof. We raise our glasses of complimentary Champagne to toast our good fortune at having found a sliver of perfection in the midst of the city. It’s easy to miss O on Kloof. The nondescript exterior belies the chic comfort and understated elegance that await inside. read more

February 14th and love is in the air. But what if you are one of the many single people in Cape Town and Cupid’s arrows just keep whizzing past you? Dawn Kennedy asks professional
matchmaker Kate Shuttleworth, founder of Kingdom of Hearts, if a match made in heaven is possible through a dating agency. If February 14th brings stabs of longing rather than bouquets of roses Kate suggests that rather than committing Valentine’s Day massacre, you do something healthy – and legal – about your singleness.  read more

The Venetian chandeliers once again are glittering on sparkling occasions at the newly refurbished Casa Labia. The low hum of laughter and the sound of “happy birthday to you” drifting
from the café are music to Antonia Labia Hardres-Williams ears. While undertaking the restoration of the Casa Labia, Antonia’s vision was to create not a dusty Eurocentric museum, but a vibrant cultural centre that would entice people of all ages and backgrounds through its door. Casa Labia is the palatial Venetianstyle home built by her grandfather, Count Natale Labia, in 1930 when he was appointed Italy’s diplomatic representative in South Africa. If its silk-lined wall panels could talk, they would tell a story of adventure on the high seas: the panels were shipped from Venice to Cape Town by interior decorator Angelo Zaniol who had been employed to decorate Casa Labia in the style redolent of their Venetian family home, Palazzo Labia. read more

As most of the world struggles to get out of the recession, gardening continues to go green, edible, indigenous and more compact. David Davidson, awardwinning designer of sa’s Chelsea Flower Exhibit on display at Kirstenbosch this October, summarises the latest trends. As inner cities are being rejuvenated, people are swapping large houses and big gardens for lofts and penthouses. The result is that gardens, which used to be separate from people’s everyday life, have become as important as their living spaces. Inside and outside spaces have melded into one. The result is a huge demand for sculptural and architectural plants, such as aloes, cycads and other dramatic arid-region plants. Succulents are perfect. They are indigenous, water wise and low maintenance.  read more

According the World Sport Encyclopaedia there are 8 000 indigenous sports. Amid all the fuss about football, let’s remember some of our lesser known games. You can’t call yourself a true sportsman until you’ve tried the polish czoromaj, the Basque aizkolaris or the African zuar, If you can’t find anyone to play these exotic games with 021 suggests three competitive activities that are somewhat off the beaten track and growing in popularity in Cape Town.

Polo. 021 visits Val de Vie in Paarl to explore the aristocratic appeal of polo.

An inscription on a stone tablet on the Silk Route between China and the West declares polo’s regal standing: “Let other people play at other things. The king of games is still the game of kings.”
 read more

021’s Dawn Kennedy was initiated into ayurvedic massage at the Jiva Grand Spa in the new Taj Hotel. Ayurveda translates as knowledge of life in the Vedic science of health. My Ayurvedic treatment begins with a 30 minute consultation with Dr Hemanth Kumar, who was performing
surgery before relieving stress. As he peers at my pupils, I’m certain that late-night computer sessions and early morning jolts of caffeine are easily visible to his penetrating eye. Based on his observations, Dr Kumar recommends four specific oils to be rubbed onto my body during an
Abhayenga (A bee-yan-ga) treatment. Before the oil is applied, I dress into a dhoti, a traditional Indian loincloth. read more

I would prefer to turn over, sleep, and in the morning go on with my business. But sleeplessness won’t let me. Already it has a persona of its own, like an animal chewing my leg. I can’t ignore it. I’m awake because I forgot something dear and can’t find it even in my dreams. Isn’t it obvious? When last was anything strong enough to pull me out of my car, away from the gym, the job, the restaurant dinners? Even the mountain seems surprisingly static these days. Has it given up calling me? Cape Town is starting to look the same. How could that happen?

I’ve got to get up. I’ve got to get close to something important. As long as I lie around in bed, turning, asking myself why I can’t sleep, the more aware I become of a truth I must link to, a power I must dance with.
 read more

Passing through the threshold of the Labia is like entering a pleasant time warp. There’s an air of gentility and of old-fashioned good manners. It’s a place of romance and reminiscence, of tears and laughter.

The Labia started out as a ballroom to entertain Italian fascists. After the war, cinema was added but only few came to watch movies. The screen was positioned at the back of the stage, making sub-titles illegible and the movie invisible if a tall person happened to sit in front of you.
As soon as current director, Ludi Kraus took over in 1989, he used a crane to bring the screen from the back to the front of the stage, to make the Labia a more comfortable movie theatre.
Ludi grew up steeped in cinema. His father owned one in Windhoek and Ludi tore his first movie ticket when he was eight years old. He went on to manage the cinema, challenging his father to extend the repertoire beyond kung-fu movies. read more

They’re alive and clicking – Cape Town’s cyber-tribes – online communities bonded by shared interests and values. At the forefront of this trend is 2oceansvibe.com, one of Cape Town’s most popular websites. 021 slung on some high heels and went to explore a world where the Veuve Clicquot is always on ice and the vibe is all that matters. One simple word – vibe – defines the 2oceansvibe tribe. According to their ethos, everything – people, parties, brands – has a vibe, and the author of the website, self-styled, commitment phobic playboy Seth Rotherham, has made it his vocation to declare who, what, and where has the right vibe i.e. the vibe he likes. read more

There is not much of a warm welcome outside the Retreat Hotel on a windy Tuesday evening at 8 pm. The streets are deserted, and the Congolese security guard eyes any visitor with suspicion.
Inside, I expect to find klawerjas players flinging back whiskey and throwing down cards amid ribald commentary, like Hollywood poker players. But the hall, where 30 people are playing, is a sanctuary of silence. There are no cigars and no swearing. Klawerjas is played with Quaker-like reverence and absorption. The only refreshment is water, served in polystyrene cups. For the 90 minute duration of a round, not a word is spoken. Cards are held like secrets; kept close to the chest or turned face down to be glanced at surreptitiously. The game of klawerjas is held in respect in the coloured community. It’s not just about the game. It’s about family bonding, cultural identity and maintaining dignity in the face of hardship.  read more

021 spotlights those who are making a difference in our communities. This month, we feature the Observatorybased Peninsula School Feeding Association. In 1958, when the Government
discontinued school feeding programmes, the Rotary Club of Paarden Eiland recognised the
dire need to alleviate hunger in schoolchildren and established the Peninsula School Feeding
Association (PSFA), a registered non-profit organisation. Recognising that ‘you can’t teach a hungry child’, the PSFA provides nutritional meals designed to meet a third of a child’s Recommended Daily Allowance.  read more