Originally written on Sunday, 31. August 2008.

A one hour flight from Dresden down to Frankfurt followed by a ten hour over night flight and one arrives in the South African city of Johannesburg. Luggage arrived, a car was waiting for me, despite that I was two hours late, and I was as far south as I had ever been. And yes, even though it is winter it still feels like the sort of English summer that Laurie Lee would eulogise about for page after boring page.

Still, it was somewhere new to explore, somewhere new to find out about.

Johannesburg has, after two weeks, struck me as a peculiar place. It really only dawned on me after a week or so what it was. It reminds me of England. Not in any great overriding way, but the small things, the subtle things. Cadburys chocolate everywhere, which is always, without exception, a good thing.

Cars drive on the left, Fishermans Friends are made made in Fleetwood in the north of England. English news papers, English television, English football everywhere. English beer and so many Land Rovers that it feel like being in the Yorkshire Wolds on a fine sunday afternoon.

All very well and good. But this is not England, despite what I have said above. First of all, there is a certain tension in the air. As is by now fairly well documented, the recent history of South Africa is one of mild disagreement about who should be running the place. Forty years ago a black man was put in gaol for blowing a power station and various other government run buildings. In 1990 he was released and most people saw that as the renaissance for a new age in South Africa.

Nearly 20 years later and it seems that, in some ways things are actually worse than they were. There has, for example, been little or no investment in the power network, resulting in fairly regular electrical power cuts. There is also a little tension in the air. I had often heard the phrase “gated community” but had never really experienced it.

Until I reached Johannesburg. For my 30 minute drive through some quite salubrious suburbs I have yet to see a single house. I have seen a few ridge tiles and the occasional chimney but the over riding view is of high walls topped with flesh shredding razor wire or heavily rusted barbed wire. Surely though, I hear you say, this is all changing and eventually these walls will come down, once people move home or renovate ?

Well, no. Actually, I’m told, all these walls have been erected in the last two decades, ever since F W de Klerk released some of the longer staying guests of the countries gaols. And the new developments are being designed with security as the main selling point. The walls, razor wire and gate house are built before the actual houses they are there to protect.

So, is it all bad ?

Well, no. Despite the fashion for calling everything “Mandella something or other” which does make it very confusing for the pale faced English gent to find his way around, Johannesburg is quite a nice place. There is nothing outstanding to note about Johannesburg, no outstanding architecture, old or new, there is no fascinating history, no culture. This is not a Glyndebourne view of culture. Not at all. It is just that there is nothing to stimulate the old mind cogs.

There are lots of places to have a drink and even more places to consume copious amounts of dead cow, grilled, fried or, on a bri, which I am told is a barbecue. In fact, the two main social activities for white South Africans seems to be eating and drinking, or drinking and eating. Having said that, judging by the size of some of the black women here, eating seems to be a cross denominational thing. I’m pretty sure I saw a woman who had inflated a dinghy down the back of her pants.

I use the distinction between black and white after a very interesting conversation with a colleague and his wife, who, despite the evidence to the contrary, describes herself as coloured, a phrase which is seen as distinctly unsavoury in England, but more of that in a minute.

During this conversation I learned that blacks and whites will or will not drink certain alcoholic beverages because they are being consumed by the other lot. For example, Carling Black Label, a fairly tasteless lager from Blighty, will not be drunk by whites, because it is mainly drunk by blacks, mainly because of its football links, and football, especially African football, is seen as a black sport. Whites will and do watch football, but only the English Premier League. Whites will drink lager, but mainly Castle, another pretty tasteless South African Breweries beer or some of the imported and therefore more expensive european imports.

I will add at this stage that the nicest beer I have found is Windhoek, pronounced Vindhook, a Namibian beer brewed to the 16th century German brewing laws known as Reinheitsgebot, which is considered to be the oldest food law still in existence. This edict permits the use of only malted barley, hops and water in the brewing of pure quality beers. It strictly forbids the use of any additives, colourants or preservatives. And very nice it is too.

And so, with this in my ears, I took my hired Toyota Yaris into the Kingdom of Swaziland from where I write this missive.

So, if you want to know more of Swaziland, then dear reader, plough on…..