Come on Dover! Move Yer Bloomin' Arse ....

I had my own Eliza Doolittle moment recently at the annual cape town J&B Met ... our answer to Ascot (or the Kentucky Derby or something if you're a yank) .... apparently its been going for the past 30 years or so and is definitely a "Big Deal" socialite event on today's cape town calender ...

People plan their outfits for months in advance according to the annual theme (this year - Black White and Bling) ... and go completely overboard despite the melting hot summer .... everyone vies for one of the coveted hospitality tent tickets .... the whole day is about people watching, drinking and general flouncing around in finery ... with the horses coming in a poor second ....

This year rather nicely for me - Shashank was in town visiting ... and very serendipitously my mate Priya (a local radio DJ) was not only doing her radio show from the Met .... but was also responsible for judging the best dressed couple competition (for anyone who turned up in theme) .... so you'd think the stage was all set for me to win the first prize of a week in mauritius or several 1000s worth of diamonds as second prize etc etc .... but no ... sadly one of the - let's say idiosyncracies of dating an american .... is that his version of dressing up in black white and bling meant essentially a pair of khaki shorts and t-shirt ... yay me ...


That minor disappointment aside - the day was a cracker .... we had a huge picnic with several of my mates .... potloads of wine .... the weather was typically cape-town-beautiful ... and most importantly i/we won big including over 400 rand from one free bet .... although if we're being honest (and not to be all cockahoop) - we'd have won more if shashank had listened to my other race suggestions ... but we'll say no more about that except to note every time we've been gambling together we've won ... and that doesn't tend to happen when shashank gambles solo ...

Still we spent the winnings on the rest of the weekend generally pretending to ourselves after several hard weeks in the field (me in hiv-ridden township SA and S at the Somalian border etc) that we weren't really in africa at all - organic farmers chi-chi markets, gallery openings, yummy yummy food and wine tasting (and a lot of wine-buying) ... Cape Town - the Paris of Africa indeed .....