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.