Document

THE FRANSCHHOEKMONTH

PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER

[email protected] 2009 A buSiNESS-TO-MARKET Hub iN pRiNT ANd wEb MEdiA

How Logan you go? Our new motoring spread - PAGE 12

Bliss on a fork

No bull, Buffalo Mozzarella is here - PAGE 9

Roll over BeethovenBy The Staff ReporterIn Norway they play classical music to cows to improve milk production; in chemother-apy wards music helps patients convalesce; and some gardeners even swear that playing music to their plants makes them grow fast-er, but maturing wine to the sound of Mo-zart – surely that’s a bit far-fetched?

Not according to Robert Jørgensen, the owner of La Vigne boutique wine estate in Franschhoek. The former sound engineer plays classical mu-sic to his maturing wine, gloriously loudly, 24/7, in the belief that it changes the wine in a positive way. He has even had to build a new wall at his cellar to contain the sound - which has to be played at 95 decibels to penetrate the oak casks. Each vintage is matured for twelve months to a different composer.

He got the idea after watching a TV programme on Japanese scientist Masaru Emoto, who has shown that classical music harmonises water molecules. As most of the human body is wa-ter, this is Emoto’s explanation as to why music has such a great impact on human beings.

Jørgensen’s brother, bjorn, in his native Nor-way, has been playing classical music to his cows for twenty years, “because it gives not only more milk, but better milk”. No-one in Norway considers this strange, but convincing local winemakers that music makes wine taste better is going to take some doing.

To prove it, Jørgensen (who has owned La Vigne since 2004) has devised a scientific ex-periment that will involve attaching transduc-ers (little speakers) to his maturation barrels so he can keep music away from a few without altering the overall cellar conditions.

when it proved impossible to buy the right kind of transducer, Jørgensen commissioned an underwater sonar expert with the bulgarian navy to design them. He is expecting the dHL delivery any day and is considering patenting

the design, having discovered that he cannot patent the process of playing music to wine. The bulgarian is also sending an underwater microphone so that Jørgensen can hear what the music sounds like from inside the wine bar-rels, or what the wine “hears”. He was consid-ering going down in a tank in scuba gear to hear for himself, but his horrified friends have

managed to talk him out of it.

Now he just plans to relay the sound from the microphone to his website so everyone can hear what Mozart sounds like at 95 decibels after it has penetrated an oak cask - like someone sing-ing with a blocked nose?

A year from now, once the wine has matured, Jørgensen plans to call in Stellenbsoch univer-sity to arbitrate a blind tasting of his musical barrels versus the rest.

“it will be difficult to admit to it if it [playing music] destroys the wine completely,” he says, but this is not his expectation. So far his wines have garnered surprising accolades.

La Vigne’s 2006 bordeaux blend, the Owner’s Selection, was the highest ranked wine out of 55 wines in wiNE Magazine’s “new releases” tasting in 2007. it was matured for 12 months to Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg.

Last year, Jørgensen’s winemaker, Ossie Sauer-man (28), was named the diner’s Club Young winemaker of the Year for La Vigne’s Single Vineyard Shiraz (2007) which also won a gold medal at the SA Young wine Show. So either it’s beginner’s luck, or there really is something in it.

Robert Jørgensen – on to something?

MARCH 2009 www.tHeMontH.Co.zA PAGe 1

www.tHeMontH.Co.zA MARCH 2009

from the editorFROM THE EdiTOR

PICNICS AT NOBLE HILL WINE ESTATE

MAURITIAN FESTIVAL AT DIEU DONNÉ RESTAURANT

FRANSCHHOEK CHEFS & CHAMPAGNE

BACKSBERG JAZZ SEASON CONTINUES WITH ‘SIDE EFFECT’

WHAT’S IN STORE @ IN TU IT

Enjoy a bespoke picnic on the lawn at Noble Hill Wine Estate in Paarl: we provide the food, cutlery, linens, and romantic scenery so you just need to bring your family or special someone. Relax, play croquet or boules, fish onthe dam or just relax on a comfy blanket. Baskets are available for 2 or 4 persons and include a variety of delicious platters. Advance booking is recommended. T: 021.874.3844, E: [email protected]

Celebrate DIEU DONNÉ RESTAURANT’S 1ST BIRTHDAY PARTY IN TRUE MAURITIAN STYLE with Mauritian Guest Chefs & Sega Dancers.Book now on 021 876 3384 or [email protected]

Over the weekend of 27-29 March, the Gourmet Capital will once again be showcasing the expertise of their inimitable array of celebrated chefs and acclaimed wine-makers. A novel and exclusive experience, Franschhoek Chefs & Champagne is bound to take the culinary calendar by storm and whet the appetites of foodies and wine aficionados alike! Savour the intoxicating flavours of Franschhoek, with delectable cuisine, prepared by the Valley’s most accomplished and highly acclaimed chefs, while sipping on the fizz of so-fizz-tication … . One will be spoilt for choice with a superb range of local bubblies on offer, as well as an array of exquisite French Champagnes. Booking at the FWV Tourism Office on 021.8762861 or email [email protected]

Relax in our beautiful gardens and enjoy our delicious Mediterranean platters and Backsberg wines against the backdrop of fine Jazz music featuring the well-known four piece Stellenbosch band, SIDE EFFECT. “Lounge room jazz meets unconventional wisdom”. Freshly-baked Ciabata Bread filled with slices of Spit Roasted Lamb; Italian-style cured meats and delicious cheeses matched with preserves; Sun-dried tomatoes, olives, feta and a trio of home-made dips served with savoury biscuits and farm-style bread. R125 per person from 18:30 onwards. Bookings Essential. Contact Lee Ann on (021) 875 5141 or Email [email protected]

Come see “What’s In Store” interior lifestyle store and studio by In-Tu-It Signature Concepts. Open Monday – Saturday, at Bosman’s Crossing in Stellenbosch. Call 021 883 2466

MORE AT: WWW.THEMONTH.CO.ZA/WHATSON

2 THE MONTH MARCH 2009

Dear Reader,

A couple of people doubted the leopard sight-ing reported in last month’s edition, so this month we go one better. Something was steal-ing the fowl and eggs at La Ferme farm just outside wemmershoek in the early hours of the morning so the owners hired a trap, threw in some bait and waited. if you go to www.themonth.co.za/leopard you’ll see on video what they caught three nights later; a large juvenile leopard. Nature Conservation were called out and promised to return with dart guns et al, but in the meantime the leop-ard toppled the cage and escaped. it has since been seen on the La paris farm nearby.

in the last edition i asked the Municipal di-rector for planning and the Environment, Mr. Marx Mupariwa about the calculation of parking requirements and he was kind enough to respond in writing, a summarised version of which now follows (full script @ www.themonth.co.za/parking_response):

“Relative location of residential areas (and densities) do play a crucial role in determin-

ing the parking requirements of a shopping centre, or a town for that matter. It is for that reason that one cannot simply import a park-ing rate that is applicable in a particular en-vironment to an area where the circumstanc-es are completely different. It should also be noted that, the provision of more parking in a sensitive environment such as Franschhoek may actually trigger the “law of unintended consequences” in that, Franschhoek may be-come more attractive to motorists which will result in more cars coming to Franschhoek causing congestion. Whenever there is “ex-cess” parking provided in a town or shopping centre, more development will be attracted until such time that there is equilibrium be-tween land use and parking available. The challenge lies in determining that equilib-rium point. While we do not, by any means, underestimate the traffic and parking situa-tion in Franschhoek, we however would like to caution against knee-jerk reactions which may have a boomerang effect in the long run. Council has recently appointed CNDV Africa to draft a Sustainable Development Frame-work (SDF) for the area that includes Fran-schhoek. I would welcome input into the SDF process from the Franschhoek residents to come up with long-term holistic strategies to deal with the traffic situation in your lovely town.”

Clearly we need some coordination of local groups concerned about development and preservation (highlighted both at the public Meeting held at the Town Hall on the 11th February and in Alan Saffery’s column on page

26 of this edition), to speak with one voice to the Municipality. whether, given its constitu-tion and the fact that it receives funding from the Municipality, the FwVTA should be that coordinator, or whether it should be done in-dependently by ‘a Franschhoek Ltd. CEO’ is the next bone of contention. Either way i think we have witnessed the birth of the Franschhoek united Conservation Front in one form or an-other. Go to www.themonth.co.za for a look at Mr. Maingard’s plans for the centre of town and make your own mind up.

Some good news: the writer of the waiter dia-ries (whoever he may be) informs me that he has been contacted by a publisher who likes his work! Look out for the waiter diaries in hard back at all good book stores by Christmas. And just to let you know, we felt we had to put the musical wine story on the front page this month because if we’d run it next month you might have thought it an April fools joke!

And finally, our topical quote of the Month: “The owners of capital will stimulate the working class to buy more and more expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits un-til the debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to the bankruptcy of banks which will have to be nationalized, and the State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to Communism.” who said this? Karl Marx, in 1867..

Enjoy the Month, david

DAILY

27&28MAR

27-29 MAR

27MAR

MON - SAT

INTERACT WITH US ONLINE at

www.themonth.co.zawhere you can leave your comments, post pictures and videos or just read more about what’s happening in and around Franschhoek.

The leopard captured at La Ferme

Letter from London

TEA @ KLEIN OLIPHANTS

BELUGA BEAR IS SHAPING UP!

After the recent successful open-ing of The Restaurant, a new and exiting addition to the Klein Oli-phants Hoek family has just been unwrapped. The Tea Garden @ Klein Oliphants Hoek is the per-fect present after a long morning in the village taking in the sights and sounds of Franschhoek. Set amongst stunning gardens with mountain views on the horizon, The Tea Garden @ Klein Oli-phants Hoek offers a delightful range of sumptuous sweet and savoury creations as well as a wide range of teas sourced from around the globe. Open every day from 3pm to 6pm.

beluga bear stocks simple, moveable and stylish gym wear made of the highest quality (seen left modelled by local personal trainer, phia-Lee). Their leading brand is the STRip label whose underlying mantra is the fashion of movement. it is a philosophy stitched into every garment and re-flected by those who wear them. The emphasis on movement, freedom and loss of inhibition is what gives STRip its competitive

edge. The unique detail and personalized touch comes from creative designer Lisa Fisher. STRip is 100% South African and available at beluga bear - Shop 1 `The ivy` corner Huguenot and Kruger Streets, Franschhoek.

The de Savoye family arrived in the Cape in 1688 and were granted Vrede en Lust by the then governor, Simon Van der Stel, shortly thereafter. On Savoye day on Sunday 8th March from 11am, newly harvested grapes will be pressed in the old-fashioned bare-footed way in a Celebration of the Vine.bring white clothes (prepare to get dirty!) and enjoy a food and wine synergy of eight wines paired with food, savour the natural beauty and enjoy live music, petanque and kids entertainment. (see advert on page 21)

VREDE EN LUST CELEBRATE 350 YEARS OF SOUTH AFRICAN WINEMAKING

The harvest is in and it’s time to party. The second annual Franschhoek Oesfees (Harvest festival) will be held at the Solms-delta wine estate, on Saturday 4 April 2009. Eight hand-picked ensembles will again perform vernacular music of the rural Cape. From goema to langarm and vastrap to boeremusiek, this year’s exciting line-up of musicians includes legendary South African saxophonist, Robbie Jansen, the ‘Karoo Kitaar blues’ star Hannes Coetzee, famous for his spoon-in-the-mouth slide style, and the Gramadoelas, with soulful lyrics from the pen of guitar-guru Les Javan, and the baardskeerdersbos Orkes, widely known for their nostalgic songs, played on the banjo, concertina and accordion. Tickets to the day of musical celebration include two glasses of wine and a hearty traditional meal of Cape Malay, boere and Khoisan foods. Come and relax on a picnic blanket or at tables under the shady trees and revel in the pleasure of a perfect day out in true Cape tradition.

Tickets cost R150.00 per person through Computicket outlets countrywide. For ticket enquiries or more information please contact Therese on 021 874 3937 or Cathy on [email protected].

FRANSCHHOEK OESFEES - A CAPE MUSICAL AND FOODIE FEAST

To The David, he of the “Double C” and questionable fashion sense:

By the time this gets printed I will have spent a total of 2760 minutes over the last 5 months sitting on my butt on a spin bike in my livin-groom from 5:24am to 6:15am watching my trusty “4 Passes” DVD while sweating my brains out before jumping on a train to help defend global capitalism from the forces of socialism. Now, your faithful readers may ask two obvious questions: “How did you figure the minutes?” and “Have you lost your mind!?” To the first question I must answer using some higher math, so hang with me. As most people know The David isn’t too good with Math, usually rounding your Fri-day night pizza and beer bill at the “2C” up to the nearest R100 and then miscalculating in favour of the house until the ever honest and far more mathematically astute Atwel does an audit of the bill and apologetically corrects it. Atwel knows the boss sometimes gets Chocolate Block confused with Fat Bas-tard Chardonnay and due to failing eyesight thinks the waitress’ order of Margarita pizza meant pizza with Veal and Abalone. Honest mistakes...

Now back to my formula: 5 months of train-ing, 3 times a week for 46 minutes each (1 minute for each year of my life) and voila, we have our number. (Trust me david, it works). Of course your more attentive readers remem-ber there were two questions and the second answer is quite easy: not at all. i’m training for the greatest, best-run and most exhilarat-ing cycle race in the world: The Cape Argus. Last year a whole contingent of Franschhoeki-ans (including the Cheese King and his uber-babe, the lovely and talented Saskia) enjoyed fabulous weather as we covered the stagger-ing beautiful 109km course. This year most of us will endeavour to do so again; however i have the extra incentive of a bet i have with

Athi, my protégé from The Kusasa project who is making his debut ride in 2009. while i won’t disclose the full terms, let’s just say that this will be a titanic battle between maturity, good looks and intelligence vs. brash, raw, big-talking youth. Some may see it as an old guy trying to prove he’s still “got it” vs. a strong,

healthy fifteen year old kid who will just wait the old fart out before kicking his butt to the line (or leaving him panting on Chappie’s). On the line are a year’s worth of bragging rights. Lest any of your readers worry about me, hav-ing been dragged up Matoppie by “Man on a Mission” Matt Gordon and the ever calm Mike browne recently, i can assure our readers that i am mentally prepared for whatever the Argus throws my way. Anyone game enough to fol-low Matt, paul Meihuizen, Mike, and the other

mountain men on a Sunday morn on their treks into parts previously unexplored will enjoy the magic of this beautiful region.

Since the ever-commercial editor of The Month has asked his fine crew of writers to cut down on our articles in order that he can increase ad-vertising space i have condensed my LFL this month. i do feel it is imperative though that i pass on to Lance Cyster, Anne van zyl, Melvin King, Chris boonzaaier, Lucy Mbenenge and the other fine educators of the Valley a little story which will dispel a myth about the se-riousness of british education. it all begins a few weeks back when the snow-gods decided to break the eighteen year drought of decent snowfall in the London area. upon waking up on Monday morning in Tunbridge wells – a lovely town about forty miles southeast of London in the county of Kent, known as “the Garden of England” where the Riordan boys live and are being educated at Hogwarts School of wizardry and wiseguyness. Hogwarts ain’t cheap – thus one would expect outstanding teaching, discipline and every minute spent imparting wisdom to future scholars, philoso-phers, doctors, MOus, nurses, rocket scientists and creators of the next big thing (you know super cool and useful things, like Velcro, heat-ed toilet seats, self-raising flour, long-life milk or light, folding camp chairs). well on this day, as snow fell steadily and heavily and the roads became slicker than a greased pig on a waterslide, Hogwarts reported that school was indeed open and all youngsters were expected to be there. And so, the boys were duly depos-ited at school in the midst of a blizzard: Snow or no snow, british Education never stops. Or so Kathleen and i thought.

As the day wore on and my trains were all can-celled leaving me homebound, we were noti-fied by the school that given the deteriorating conditions if parents were worried about 5pm traffic when picking up their kids they could

collect them early. After negotiating the treach-erous roads for the ten miles it took to get back to Hogwarts at about 2:30, i found my three studious boys in the back paddock of Hogwarts with two hundred other kids and their teach-ers, engaged in what must have been the big-gest snowball fight i have ever witnessed! if not sliding down the hill on cafeteria trays, they were wrestling with the headmaster and other teachers, getting belted with snowballs and generally having a fantastic time of it. So much for the “seen and not heard - always at their desks” philosophy about children that the brits are so famous for. After getting hit in the mouth by a well-packed snowball i did, how-ever, have a stiff upper lip.

Stay well.

Dave (the old, slow, gimpy Dave)


MARCH 2009 THE MONTH 3

Huguenot Hotel Demolished By The Staff Reporter

Logo or no-go?By The Staff Reporter

“What do you think about that?” said the friendly guard outside Pick and Pay, early in February. I looked out towards Assegaai-bos, expecting to see fires on the hillside or a colony of vultures when the absence of the Huguenot Hotel, which should have been at the end of his quizzical gaze, caught me by surprise. Literally overnight, or so it ap-peared, what some had suggested was an his-torical building and the oldest hotel in Fran-schhoek had been demolished to make way

for something new – and at that time quite mysterious. A Woolies perhaps? An office park? A public pool? The speculation was as varied as it was vehement. The vultures, it seemed, were here after all. The brick and wood carcass made for a sombre picture in the rising sun.

i contacted Graham Goosen, local architect and designer of the development that will re-place the Huguenot, for his comments and some clarity. Franschhoek Square is a retail

space that will bring a number of small shops, some restaurants and limited parking to the heart of the village. plans for the Square, which were approved by the Aesthetics Committee in November 2008, are available at the local municipal offices and on The Month’s website (www.themonth.co.za/plans) and the planning process has been on the go for some time now. i suggested to Graham that a woolies or an of-fice park may have a marked impact on this sensitive part of the village. Neither is on the

cards. despite the concerns raised by a number of locals i was struck by the vision that both Graham and Robert Maingard, the developer, have for this important space in town. Graham highlighted a passage from the motivating doc-ument submitted to Stellenbosch Municipality in support of the application to develop the site: “[The development] will provide Fran-schhoek with a square and a centralised dense commercial area which will be well landscaped and treed. [The Van wyk street] frontage will have a residential look and the area from the

i read Siegfried Schäfer’s recent informative article on the plans to brand and market Fran-schhoek through a local main street business, The Logo Store, with some hesitation. i had heard about the move of our info Centre to the Logo Store. A subsequent visit to the store had left me unimpressed. while the branding of the village was certainly taking place – un-der the well-known ‘Eat Sleep drink’ mantra, there seemed to be very little tourist informa-tion available. More importantly there didn’t seem to be any place to put information such as brochures, flyers, books or even people. i mentioned my concerns to someone at lunch a little later and a voice from the neighbouring table said “The info Centre has been stolen!”

The man’s wife looked a little embarrassed and then leaned towards our table and said reassur-ingly “Actually, they gave it away.”

i phoned Reg Lascaris, owner of the Logo Store, and spoke with Siegfried and Jenny prin-sloo of the FwVTA, to find out exactly what the facts are.

The info Centre is going to be based at The Logo Store. The central location, high levels of exposure to passers by and an alignment with an active marketing business is sure to give far more exposure to the members of the FwVTA than its present position at the old station. pairing an information centre with a market-ing business is not a first – but it is new in the South African context. The branding of the vil-lage is to become synonymous with the mar-

keting of it as a tourist destination (in much the same way as the London underground or New York are branded as destinations). in principle this idea is sound and with the likes of Lascaris involved, success is more likely than not. but if, like me, you thought that what you see in the Logo Store right now is the sum total of all that they intend to do – think again. Reg informed me that the process of moving the information from the info Centre is still on the go. The Logo Store will add more display areas and more opportunities to provide informa-tion to those looking for something to do or somewhere to go in the village. it will be all that the present info Centre is and more. but it isn’t there yet. in fact i was surprised to find

the ‘old’ info Centre fully functional and far from closed, as my lunchtime neighbours had gone on to suggest. The store will also increase its stock of merchandise and focus on making the brand more prominent in and out of Fran-schhoek.

Jenny and Siegfried went on to tell me that the professional marketing of the village will bring many benefits to FwVTA members and the village at large. increased tourist volumes (es-pecially in the ‘off season’), consistent quality and more things to do are some of what we dis-cussed. i didn’t get a list of all the things that Jenny is in the process of working on, but i did get the sense that the info Centre was not given away, and that it certainly wasn’t stolen.

Time will tell if it was a fair trade.

street to the building setback will be well planted and treed. [The development] will con-tribute to the urban structure of the village.”

i asked Graham about the rather reactionary nature of many of the comments made and the apparent suddenness of the demolition. He shared with me that the Huguenot Hotel was in fact owned by Robert Maingard. The hotel and the allied businesses in the Huguenot Square were informed of the intention to demolish some time ago and the plans for the develop-ment as a whole were in the public domain. The hotel was certainly not a historical build-ing and far from Franschhoek’s original hotel. in fact until just a few years ago it had the kind of façade that would have lead to some calling for its very demolition today.

Graham spoke at length about his passion for the careful development of the village. As i looked at various site plans and did a virtual tour of the main road and some prominent residential developments, i realised that many of us are simply not well informed about what’s on the go in the village. i suggested to Graham that being properly informed is at the heart of meaningful involvement. He agreed. Together with Robert, he has made it clear that he is willing to discuss many aspects of their involve-

ment in the development of Franschhoek.

The Month is committed to making informa-tion, site plans, impact studies and residents’ views (amongst other things) accessible via the website. Everyone is encouraged to use the site as a platform for debate and the responsible stewardship of Franschhoek. The Franschhoek Square will not disappear as quietly as the Hu-guenot Hotel did – and neither should our voices! The brick and wood carcass of what was the Huguenot Hotel

Where do I find information in this place?

PAGe 4 www.tHeMontH.Co.zA MARCH 2009


Recent Property Salesin FranschhoekThe following table shows details of the last three months’ sales of property in Franschhoek drawn from deeds Office records. October is the last month we have shown because typically there is a three month delay in registration. Clearly, there may be other transactions on delayed registration that are still to be logged by the deeds Office.

October is the first month with no sales. Clear-ly, we have hit the bottom. Although there is some evidence of increased activity in the mar-ket since then, we shall have to wait and see if these levels are sufficient to start to generate a recovery. Year-on-year sales of residential prop-erty in Franschhoek (excluding sectional titles) have fallen by approximately 28%; R329mil-lion in the year to October this year against R454million last year. The number of trans-actions has fallen by over 40% from 132 last year to 77 currently. This has been offset by the increase in the average price of property sold which has now reached some R4.3million, up by some 24% year-on-year.

For more information contact paul Eccles at Engel & Voelkers on 021 876 4485 or e-mail [email protected]

The Lemon TwistBy Clive Alexander of the Franschhoek Travellers’ Lodge and Group Accommodation

“Life is like a sewer. What you get OUT of it, depends on what you put IN to it” – Tom Lehrer

The difficulty with writing a piece for a peri-odical that only comes out once a month is to remain topical. because of the dreaded “dead-line”, we have to be ready about 5 or 6 weeks before publication date. This makes some of the things i write about “old news”. A case in point is the new president of the uSA. From where i am standing as i write pres. b. H. Obama is a relatively unknown quality. Things might be different in six weeks time. So this is my take as of now.

Here we have a guy who has shot up from no-where like the proverbial jack-in-the-box. He has made some very interesting promises and said some startling things. He has said them very well, mind you. what a powerful orator. i have only heard one or two speeches, notably the inaugural address, but anyone who is not impressed with this man must be brain-dead.Much has been made of the fact that he is the first “black” president. in a seriously racial and class-conscious country like the uSA, this is big news. i don’t think anyone else is terribly impressed by this. what does concern me is his possible unknown or hidden qualities. Anyone who has read Tim le Hay’s “Left behind” books will recognize Carpathian. THAT would be very interesting.

Have you noticed that the public broadcaster, SABC, (as well as the two independent TV sta-tions) is now broadcasting exclusively to under 10’s? At least this is what it seems like. This is a world-wide phenomenon, of course. Dumbing Down is the name of the game, and selling mer-chandise is the overall justification. The largest buying power apparently belongs to pre-teens, so they are targeted with all the advertising junk we see every day. In order to get them to see the adver-tising, the programs are tailored to suit their un-developed taste. Watching some of the American sit-coms is very painful. You must be just about brain-dead to appreciate them. Mindless sex and inane, pointless dialogue is par for the course.

I remember with nostalgia some of the local dra-mas we watched when our TV was new. Mostly Afrikaans series, such as “Arende”, “Agter Elke Man” and others. They were well written, well acted, intelligent plays. English TV did not do so well, maybe because they relied on imported stuff, but series such “The Villagers” were very popular. Even the children’s programs were pretty good, so much so that many adults were captured by them. Contrast that with today’s offerings of Japanese

Anime, (cartoon type stories, with monsters, and robots armed with nuclear cannons) and other horrible stuff. It’s no wonder some kids go off the rails, being fed rubbish like that day after day.

Another of my pet hates is the patently dishon-est way most retailers price their merchandise. The “99” habit seems to have taken permanent hold on our society. They seem to think that pricing something at R999,99 is somehow dif-ferent from R1000. does that really fool any-body? All it tells me is that this shopkeeper has no respect for my intelligence.

is it aimed at the less aware folks in our midst? in that case it is even more reprehensible. Tak-ing unfair advantage of an uneducated person is pretty low. This is all the fault of those low-lifes in the advertising and marketing industry, of course. My dislike of those cretins is well known.

I read in the Argus that my old nemesis Political Correctness is raising his slimy head again. The Loony Left in Britain is well known for some re-ally stupid ideas. Examples include banning Enid Brighton’s “Noddy” from libraries for being gay and “Black Beauty” for being racist. The latest is just as crazy.

As kids we all learn nursery rhymes and “sea shanties” to sing around the camp fire. Remember “What shall we do with the Drunken Sailor”? To encourage children to read, which is a laudable idea in itself, song sheets have been distributed to British libraries across the country by a govern-ment funded charity, Bookstart.

But, and here comes the rub, the words have been sanitized. Just listen to this idiocy.

The “drunken sailor” has been replaced by the “ grumpy pirate” “put him in the brig until he’s sober” becomes “do a little jig and make him smile” “round with the rum and scotch and whisky” has been replaced by “tickle him until he starts to gig-gle”

Incredible isn’t it?

we all know that blondes are dumb... don’t we? Of course we do! we have been taught that with mother’s milk. well, maybe.

i found this story on the internet. i thought it was so good that i had to share it with you.

A blonde and a lawyer are seated next to each other on a flight from LA to NY. The lawyer asks if she would like to play a fun game? The blonde, tired, just wants to take a nap, politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks. The lawyer persists and explains that the game is easy and a lot of fun. He ex-plains, “i ask you a question, and if you don’t know the answer, you pay me $5.00, and vice versa.” Again, she declines and tries to get some sleep. The lawyer, now agitated, says, “Okay, if you don’t know the answer you pay me $5.00, and if i don’t know the answer, i will pay you $500.00.” This catches the blonde’s attention and, figuring there will be no end to this tor-ment unless she plays, agrees to the game. The lawyer asks the first question. “what’s the dis-tance from the earth to the moon?” The blonde doesn’t say a word, reaches into her purse, pulls out a $5.00 bill and hands it to the lawyer. Okay says the lawyer, your turn. She asks the lawyer, “what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four legs?” The lawyer, puz-

zled, takes out his laptop computer and search-es all his references, no answer. He taps into the air phone with his modem and searches the net and the Library of Congress, no answer. Frustrated, he sends Emails to all his friends and co-workers, to no avail. After an hour, he wakes the blonde, and hands her $500.00. The blonde says, “Thank you,” and turns back to get some more sleep. The lawyer, who is more than a little miffed, wakes the blonde and asks, “well, what’s the answer?” without a word, the blonde reaches into her purse, hands the lawyer $5.00, and goes back to sleep. And you thought blondes were dumb?


THE MONTH - HuMOuR 5MARCH 2009

We’re not looking too bad

“Light the Candle” says FISBA entrepreneurBy The Staff Reporter

It was his toughest budget and he did the

only thing he could

In last month’s budget, Finance Minister Trevor Manuel suggested South Africa will grow at 1.2% during 2009 whilst many of the world’s economies are contracting. If we do not grow above the rate of inflation we are becoming poorer.

we asked financial journalist, and local Fran-schhoek resident, Claire bisseker, to explain how demand is managed in the economy and why growth is so important.

The Month: The budget deficit is forecast to be 3,9% of Gdp. This means that we, as a coun-try, are spending about 4% more than we earn, right?

Cb: Yes. The centre piece of the 2009 budget was Manuel’s decision to budget for a R95bn

deficit. A household would be foolish to re-spond to recessionary conditions by borrowing so it could spend more than it earns but for a government the opposite applies. it is govern-ment’s role to counter the downturn by stimu-lating the economy.

Even if SA avoids an outright recession, growth of 1.2% is going to feel like one because the economy will be shedding jobs. There is little chance that many of the 400 000 school-leav-ers who enter the economy this year will find work.

Slower growth also means less revenue for gov-ernment from taxes. by budgeting for growth to slow to 1,2%, Manuel is anticipating R50bn less revenue this year and that means either borrowing or spending less on schools, hospi-tals or roads.

The Month: How is the government able to manage the level of demand through borrow-ing?

Cb: Thankfully, SA is not borrowing to rescue failed banks. by looking to borrow R239bn over the next three years, Manuel plans to stim-ulate economic activity in several ways. Firstly, it allows him to give R13,6bn in tax relief this year. This puts money directly back into the hands of the consumer, mostly the poor and

middle class as they have a higher propensity to spend.

Secondly, it allows Manuel to expand the pub-lic infrastructure programme, which was al-ready massive at R600bn, to around R787bn. This labour-intensive programme will not only keep the construction and related sectors alive during the downturn, with strong ripple ef-fects throughout the rest of the economy, but by creating more efficient public transport and municipal infrastructure, it will make the economy more competitive in the long run.

The Month: is this similar to president barack Obama’s $800bn stimulus plan?

Cb: The uS package is divided between big spending on new infrastructure and welfare support for the recently-retrenched. SA is for-tunate that it launched its plan years ago so many projects are already turning sods, unlike in the uS. SA’s 2009 budget was also strongly pro-poor.

The Month: So it was a good budget? Manuel did the right thing?

Cb: it was his toughest budget and he did the only thing he could. The consensus is that a strong fiscal stimulus was required and Manuel definitely provided that. However, the concern is that if global conditions worsen and the in-coming ANC administration is unable to rein in spending, the 2009 deficit will not be just a temporary hump but the beginning of a down-ward slide in public finances.

Our FISBA “Entrepreneur of the Month” for March is Sefeke Molutsoane who, with his wife Judith, owns and operates the general cleaning business Pholo-Ka-Hola in the val-ley. We asked him how this came about and his thoughts on the future.

“i arrived from the Mount Fletcher district of the Eastern Cape, near the border with Lesotho, looking for work in Cape Town” he says, “but i struggled a lot, working on farms and doing part-time construction work.” Having settled in Franschhoek, he won a sub-contract to help construct the houses at Mooiwater and this led him (with other local sub-contractors) to form a company through which they tendered (and won) a contract to build twenty houses for the TCTA at La Motte. “This was a tremendous learning experience for me and we built beauti-ful houses there.”

but having his own business made him real-ise the difference between having skills, and having the skills to run a business, and that’s what drove him to co-launch FiSbA (the Franschhoek informal and Small business As-sociation) of which he is now the Vice-Chair. “There are lots of artisans out there with skills, but they don’t grow their business because they don’t understand the equally important other side; the administration, dealing with people,

banks and accountants, and that’s the hard bit” he says. FiSbA aims to assist entrepreneurs with administration and services leaving them to do what they do best – follow their passion and develop their trade.

pholo-Ka-Hola is a general inside and outside cleaning business that also does bush clearing

and grass cutting. The name is Sotho for ‘now i’m growing up’ and the business certainly is. under Sefeke’s guidance the company now has a municipal contract for the maintenance of the ablution blocks in Langrug and is looking for work from farmers for bush clearing, small tree removal and general garden work. “we now employ five staff” says Sefeke, “and that’s

my greatest pride and my constant challenge!” Through employing staff he has learned how to deal with people, understand them emotion-ally on all levels, deal with their problems and, most importantly, understand that different people do things in different ways. in growing the business he is now confident to offer small building work, repairs and odd-job services, ac-knowledging the demand for this in the valley. He is optimistic for the future, he says, but people must express themselves now, not wait. “The ex-president said some people enjoy curs-ing darkness but don’t make any attempt to light the candle. people must try things and, if they do, most people are willing to help” For the young people, especially, he sees mas-sive opportunity and challenges the youth “do something! if you need help, first answer this; have you asked for it?”

Sefeke Molutsobme can be reached on 073 6446505 or [email protected]

As FISBA we would like to encourage all those who registered to vote to go out and vote on the 22 April, it is important that we engage ourselves and we have our say in shaping the destiny of the country and the future of our children, it’s all up to each one of us.

FISBA Vice-Chair, Sefeke Molutsoane

Resident financial journalist –Claire Bisseker


6 THE MONTH - buSiNESS/MARKETS MARCH 2009


THE MONTH 7MARCH 2009

Bits and PCs 7-8-Nein?By Guy de Wit

An AppealDear Editor,

Thank you for an enlightening local newspa-per. i am one of the privileged who can call Franschhoek my home. whenever i tell people i live here, they always tell me how much they envy us. i love the fresh air and the beautiful mountains and the uniqueness of this histori-cal town. As a descendant of the Huguenots, i have always wanted to live here.

but today there is a dark and ominous cloud hovering over my home. it is all the more sinis-ter because it can not be observed with the na-ked eye. i can taste it in the back of my throat and i know it causes my nose to bleed. i can already feel the congestion building up in my lungs.

i heard the engines starting up early this morn-ing at daybreak and i knew they were going to spray the orchards behind La petite provence with a deadly poison. i love the orchards in spring when it is filled with blossoms; in sum-mer when the fruit begin to appear; in autumn when it is covered in rich colours of gold and red and even in winter when the bare stems are etched against the cold sky. but this spring i was the victim of the twice weekly spraying and ended up in hospital with serious lung prob-lems. i am allergic and very sensitive to chemi-cals, but even so, i know that the concentra-tions of inorganic insecticides cannot be good for anyone.

At a time when our planet is in such desperate peril, it is unthinkable that farmers in a pro-gressive place like Franschhoek can be allowed to use such backward methods of pest control. i do not use any chemical pesticides in my own garden or vegetable garden and have a multi-tude of ladybirds, frogs and birds helping me with pest control. in addition, i use organic pesticides and even make my own solutions of garlic, basil (which i also grow in my garden) and canola oil, as recommended by Margaret Roberts and other experts. Although my small garden cannot be compared with the commer-cial orchards, i cannot see why organic pesti-cides cannot be used just as economically and effectively, given the frequency of spraying.

it is even more disturbing to know that the pes-ticides leach into the stream that comes from the mountains and runs through the estate into the ponds where ducks swim peacefully. Maybe that is why all the frogs and ladybirds have tak-en refuge in my garden.

i appeal to the owners of the orchards and all other farmers in the area to consider the resi-dents of this beautiful village and the planet at large when they make decisions regarding pest control. Although commercial farmers are ul-timately in it for the money, they should also leave a garden behind for their descendants.

- Norma Rossouw

From the ‘Art and Soul’Just off Lambrechts Road, right where Unie starts in the South, is a modest sign that simply says ‘Atelier’. This is the studio of Jo-hannes du Plessis. Local. Artist. Personality.

He is well known to Franschhoek residents and those familiar with the Hospice will recognise both his work and his name. After a fascinat-ing viewing of his various artworks we settled down in the kind of garden that has seen him featured by the likes of Top billing, to chat about his passion for art and his upcoming solo exhibition.

Johannes was born in Craddock but let slip that his forefathers were members of the origi-nal Franschhoek du plessis family. despite growing up in the Karoo, living in Cape Town and more recently in Greyton, he is once again a local, through and through. His artistic tal-ent was never a secret – at four he could listen to a piece of music and effortlessly replay it or he would watch a movie and return home to draw complex scenes and re-live the drama. in a time and a town where art wasn’t offered at

school, he was spotted admiring a painting in a museum one day and taken on as a pupil by a local artist in the small town of Adelaide in the Eastern Cape. From there his life as an artist took shape.

As an arts student he focused on sculpture – which comes very easily to him, but he pre-fers the challenge of painting. He stops himself suddenly “This is what i love about Fran-schhoek. it’s the people. but i find i get verbal diarrhoea.” Years ago he spent time as a pot-ter in Hout bay, with very little time to work on canvas. An exhibition in Sea point, called The Naked Truth, saw him make his break as a painter. The title of the exhibition elicited a frenzied response – with many Cape Town locals coming to see what exactly was naked or true. His motivation was the political climate of South Africa in the 80’s. The result was that he sold nearly all of his paintings and he was soon invited to exhibit locally and internation-ally. His work is now found in homes, offices and galleries in Canada, the uSA, britain, Eu-rope and South Africa.

despite his accessible manner, Johannes has an air of mystery about him. His artistic nature runs close to the surface and i found it almost impossible to drag myself away form his com-pany. His artwork, in whatever distinctive style he has used over the last number of years, is equally intriguing. Lines and shadows conjure up shapes on the canvas and yet when i look again at the image, to ask him if it’s intentional, i battle to define what it is that i saw, or where exactly i saw it. His smile suggests that the effort and hours he put in were worth it. He seems less concerned about what he drew, and more excited about what it is that i see.

His upcoming solo exhibition at Galerie L’Art is titled ‘diversity’. it runs from 29 March to 11 April. More information is available from Galerie L’Art.

Johannes du Plessis

Windows Vista – the much maligned Win-dows operating system – is set to be replaced by the new Windows OS – Windows 7.

windows 7 will be available in 2010 (some say it may even be a few months sooner), but the pre-beta release has been available for down-load from Microsoft for some time. At 2½ Gb it isn’t small and is best downloaded by

a friend! installation is a breeze and i have it running as a dual boot on my Xp machine. be careful though as it does want to ‘upgrade’ your current OS and it’s too soon to do that. You’ll

also need to reinstall all your apps – so you’re going to run into licensing issues if you intend to carry on working on the one OS while test-ing the other.At first glance (and this is a pre-beta, so there

is still a lot to do) it’s very much like Vista. if you like the Vista interface, online activities and music, movies and pictures – this will be the OS for you. but you’ll need a machine that can handle the pressure as the pre-beta cer-tainly looks as resource hungry as Vista does, albeit that there is some improvement here and there. The most notable change for typical us-ers is the revamp of the Control panel – mak-ing adding a printer or getting onto a wire-less network tricky if you aren’t satisfied with windows doing it automatically. Should you get windows 7? if you like win98 and Xp, are intimidated by change or hate Vista – NO. if you have a spare over-resourced machine and want to mess about, then this is a great way to waste some time.

Another release is the almost finished internet Explorer 8 (iE8 is part of the windows 7 instal-lation – but also available for download sepa-rately). i can’t say i have been overly impressed. it is quicker, looks a bit more like Firefox and has the option to browse the web without storing private data (which is good when surf-ing in public or when you’re up to no good). At 14+Mb it isn’t big – but it will download a bit more during the install process. You’ll need to restart your machine and complete the mandatory wizard the first time you run it. but after that it’s business as usual. i had to reload my default home pages – but all in all nothing to stress about. Should you get iE8? Yes. if you don’t fetch it, Microsoft is going to send it any-way in the next big update!

The new Microsoft Windows 7 default wallpaper



Bliss on a forkBy The Staff Reporter

Allora tutto bene!By The Culinary CorrespondentAllora is an italian word that is always used ex-pressively and means something like ‘and now’. philip Aplas, owner of Allora in Franschhoek, describes it thus: ”Allora was started on the back of the sale of interests we had in a large restaurant. After a short sabbatical my brother and i met in my small office at home and i said ‘Allora?’ meaning ‘what now?’ He didn’t want to go into the food business again – but we

did. Six months later we opened Allora in bed-fordview and six months after that we opened a second in Sandton.”

According to their website Allora is “an arche-typical italian restaurant, meaning it purveys authentic Mediterranean cuisine with, in this case, the distinctively italian articulation that has made italian food universally popular.” whatever that means, i was immediately im-pressed by the style of the restaurant which is at once sophisticated and relaxed. it’s the kind of thing that would be perfect for a romantic din-ner, a meal out with all the kids or a business meeting. More than that there is a vibe that seems unrelated to the number of people in the restaurant – or even the time of day you visit it. philip tells me that one of the motivating fac-tors that led him and his brother to devote so much time and energy to the business is their desire to see the staff grow and develop. This level of investment in them is translated into the excitement the staff exude when preparing food and interacting with clients and each oth-er. This energy, says philip, is the kind of thing you would see in any old fashioned small ital-

ian village where the communal ovens formed the heart of the social scene. people would bring their prepared ingredients, ready to be cooked, pay a small fee for a space in the com-munal oven and while the food cooked they would socialise as a group. Allora is modelled on the idea that everything happens around the pizza oven. Their menu does however in-clude far more than pizza and philip tells me

that their vision is to provide food for every taste. philip is from Johannesburg. He studied in pE but returned to the Highveld because of the attraction of the big city buzz. That buzz is however no match for Franschhoek. He beams as he speaks about this little village: it’s close to Cape Town; it offers his kids a chance for a good education; there is a strong community of welcoming people and there is place for hard-working people to make a good living. He ad-mits that both he and his wife, Amanda, are working a lot harder in the Franschhoek Allora than they have in any other. He tells me “if you aren’t hands-on there’s always a chance that it won’t be done just right. i don’t want satisfied customers. i want raving fans.”

philip’s passion for food, his staff and clients is always evident. despite running the local Al-lora, being involved in the kitchen and man-aging the expansion plans that he has for the business he was gracious in giving The Month his undivided attention for an interview. How do you manage all of this and stay so relaxed i ask. He smiles and says “Allora tutto bene!” (Everything is fine, you see.)

Next time you’re dining out in Franschhoek and are tempted by a starter of buffalo moz-zarella - choose it. You won’t be sorry.

The buffalo mozzarella being served up in the village’s top restaurants, including Le Quartier Francais, Reubens and Grande provence, is made on a farm just outside wellington from a herd of fifty enormous imported water buf-falo.

The farm, buffalo Ridge, is run and owned by wayne Rademeyer (42), a former Johannesburg lawyer. His passion for the soft, white cheese and his doggedness in the face of an obdurate bureaucracy saw him finally take delivery of twenty four water buffalo in late 2006.

“For six years we tried many avenues for im-porting the animals. it was an administrative nightmare and being an advocate actually helped,” he says wryly.

in the end, the herd came not from Campana in italy, the home of mozzarella di bufala, but from Australia, where the herds are disease-free. The gentle, intelligent beasts have acclimatised well. At the end of this year, the first calves will themselves become milkers.

until Rademeyer’s entry into the industry, only Australia and the uS had managed to breed water buffalo for mozzarella outside italy. He is the first and only person in SA to do so though he claims there are a few charlatans trying to pass off cows’ milk mozzarella as the real deal. The difference is in the taste.

Mozzarella is a stretched curd cheese that re-

quires patience, physical effort, and just the right technique to produce. Add cracked black pepper and olive oil and it’s bliss on a fork.

Last year, buffalo Ridge mozzarella won the prestigious overall prize of best new product in the annual Eat in RMb private bank South African produce Awards.

“Everything we do is focused on trying to get

the same results as they do in Campana, where the cheese-making process is highly regulated,” Rademeyer explains. “we do things in a similar hand-crafted, traditional italian manner.”

Locals can buy the cheese at any Melissa’s out-let, Giovanni’s in Cape Town and Cheese with Charles in Somerset west, in addition to other speciality shops. it retails for around R50 for a 125g ball and, unlike its imported equivalent, contains no preservatives, additives or color-ants and is delivered fresh.

INTERACT WITH US ONLINE at

www.themonth.co.zawhere you can leave your comments, post pictures and videos or just read more about what’s happening in and around Franschhoek.

Philip Aplas, owner of Allora, Franschhoek

Buffalo Mozarella - like no udder



food & wineFOOd & wiNE

Tortilla SoupCourtesy of Cosecha Restaurant at Noble Hill Wine Estate

Looks tasty

Wishing they could blend like us

Tortilla soup is a popular dish from the southwestern US. The style served at cosecha blends a thick peppery tomato stock with shredded chicken breast, and a variety of fresh condiments, including the namesake fried corn tortilla strips, and is topped with spring onions and cheddar cheese. We offer a “sidecar” of homemade jalapeno cornbread to spice it up a bit. Enjoy!

Serving suggestion: Serve cooked chicken, fresh condiments, and tortilla strips in a warm deep soup bowl. Serve the soup stock in a pitcher. pour the hot soup over the condiments at the table and sprinkle with shredded cheese, finely chopped chilies, and spring onions. A dollop of sour cream adds rich-ness.

Ingredients:3 Tbsp light cooking oil4 corn tortillas cut into strips8 cloves garlic, peeled500 ml fresh onion puree1 liter fresh tomato pureeHot chilies to taste, deseeded and finely chopped2 jalapeno chilies, chopped well

1 Tbsp ground cumin2 Tbsp chopped fresh cilantro (coriander)1 tsp ground coriander1 bay leaf1.5 liters chicken stockSalt to tasteLemon to taste

Garnish:Cooked chicken breast, shredded1 avocado, peeled and diced135 g shredded cheddar cheese4 corn tortillas, cut into strips and fried crispSpring onions, choppedChiles, chopped to taste

Method:Heat oil in large saucepan over medium heat. Sauté garlic and tortillas until golden. Add onion puree and cook for 5 minutes, reducing by half. Add tomato puree and all other soup ingredients. bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer about 45 minutes. Remove any fat from surface. Season to taste with salt and lemon. Fill warm soup bowls with selected garnishes. Ladle the soup into the warm bowls. Top with ad-ditional cheese, chilies, and spring onion. Serve immediately. Serves 4 – 6.



The French are comingBy The EditorDominique Maitre, Claude Reynes and eighteen wine school students from the Belair Wine School in Beaujolais, France, visited Franschhoek during February and stayed at the Franschhoek Travellers’ Lodge and Group Accommodation. We quizzed Dominique on a number of topics and these were his comments: SOuTH AFRiCAN wiNE:The quality of wine is very good, he felt, but very different to France. in South Africa we have the freedom to make whatever we want, and can blend any variety we wish. in France

they cannot do this since the Appellation d’origine contrôlée (AOC), the French certifi-cation granted by the government, stresses that ‘AOC products will be produced in a consistent and traditional manner, and in designated geo-graphical areas’. under French law, it is illegal to manufacture and sell a product under one of the AOC-controlled geographical indications if it does not comply with the criteria of the AOC. They can’t blend Cabernet with Shiraz, for example, and they are envious that we can water our vines since, under AOC, they cannot. The idea is to protect the French wine business and make the terrior count. Here we bring grapes in from all over the place. it is interest-ing, he says, for the students to realise there are different ways of making wine in the world.

wHAT iMpRESSEd THEM:He felt the Hermanus and Elgin areas had fantastic wines, singling out paul Cluver and Hamilton Russel as exceptional. He was pleased to see a number of French students working in wineries here. in Franschhoek he was impressed with La Motte, Solms and boekenhoutskloof where he noted that Choc-

olate block has become known worldwide.

THE pROduCTiON pROCESS: Claude, who is an oenologist, was surprised by the low yields and summised this was probably due to the climate. The length of ageing in oak is very long at 24 to 25 months compared to beau-jolais, and so ours are more like bordeaux wines. They produce young wines in beaujolais, to be drank early, and don’t age past five or six years.

THE STATE OF THE wiNE buSiNESS HERE:Generally, they felt, the wine business here looks in good health with the quality of wine

improving all the time. They can’t buy our wines in France but would like to import them. They felt that because of protectionism it was a pity the French did not know SA wines. All the students very much enjoyed our Cap Clas-siques which they felt were good compared to Champagnes, particularly the Cape Jazz Shiraz and Colmant MCC’s. THE FuTuRE:They want to arrange further visits for their students and will look at exchanges, especially for previously disadvantaged wine makers, and are working on this with Elsenburg. At their school they have premises, course, teachers and structure on a proper estate of fifteen hectares where the students study viticulture and oenol-ogy and learn about global wine production. Franschhoek is perfect for them to visit (being French) since, besides the few remaining prot-estants, most French people don’t know about Franschhoek. Finally, said dominique, there is the llinguistic aim to get used to English and, ironically, poorer spoken English is more prev-alent here than in California and New zealand where the students feel less comfortable!

food & wineFOOd & wiNE

The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre

woke up in a surprisingly good mood – hango-ver only at factor 5 – this was a good thing. Then reality struck: Valentine’s day. i made a mental note to buy an extra-large bottle of anti-nausea tablets on the way to work (and perhaps some insulin to counteract saccharine sweetness of customers in love).

The miserable chemist said i needed a prescrip-tion for insulin. Some buggers have just got no bloody sympathy, i thought. Resigned to my fate i headed back to the salt mines. The Manageress (who happened to be in a new re-lationship) had happy love hormones coursing through her veins. This was very good news for the staff – three of the kitchen crew actu-ally smiled at me as i came in. All was going well until the dog arrived. The angelic looking

husky walked into the restaurant and looked me straight in the eye. i was just admiring the hound when it became cross-eyed and squat-ted, depositing a landmine in the middle of the floor. Since i was carrying a tray of drinks at the time i hurried off to deliver them, return-ing just in time to see the flustered barman step on the landmine and fall arse over tit onto his back. The evil hound had vanished.

Having located the owner of the dog eating outside i asked the old biddy to please clean up her dog’s mess. She came running into the shop with a single Kleenex. Taking one look at the horror on the floor, she said “Oh no, it looks like the poor dear has an upset stomach.” i snuck off to the bathroom to take some more anti-nausea tablets, loitering long enough to be sure that somebody else would have to clean it up.

Eventually got to the bar where the sweet ro-mantic couples had turned into unrepentant sexual predators. Reasoning that since i had an elephant’s dose of anti-nausea tablets inside i could order a bottle of tequila and a straw and be fine.

i woke up at five in the morning, still in the bar but nobody else was. deciding that there were worse places to be locked in, i helped myself to a pint and went back to sleep. The hango-ver the next morning was not as happy as the previous one.

The struggle continues…

The Waiter DiariesThe views expressed in this article are solely those of the anonymous writer and in no way reflect the views of ‘The Month’

The temperature dropped by 4-5 degrees. A shadow passed over half the interior of the res-taurant. i looked to the door and realised it wasn’t a bird or a plane…it was Madame-up-Size-Every-Meal. She was large. Actually, she was huge. well, to tell the truth, she was a continent all on her own and barack is now her boss.

She entered the front door and i approached her with my bookings list. unfortunately she didn’t notice the small step (or in her case - a hurdle). Things happened in slow motion after

that, and it wasn’t pretty. She tripped, grace-lessly. in my mind’s eye i could see Tchaiko-vsky compose the Swan Lake follow up called: Hippopotamus dam. A primal scream escaped from her strangely thin lips. She desperately looked around for something to grab onto. what a surprise, i was the closest.

As she lunged at me, i realised my life was about to be cut short. There were so many im-portant things i had still wanted to do and see in my life – like watch Madagascar 2. Right there and then survival kicked in. My ances-tors spoke to me in a very clear voice, “Grab the desk” they said. i did. Mrs. Eatalot’s ances-tors said, “Grab the shirt sleeves of that unsus-pecting, short person”. She did.

My blouse started to protest and i had a deci-sion to make: do i continue hanging onto the desk and end up looking like Rambo’s sleeve-less character? Or do i let go and “come what may”? My knuckles turned white and my face red. Not to mention i had had onions for lunch and was fearful of releasing gas under such great pressure…

i released my grip and closed my eyes. Surpris-ingly my landing was soft. And wobbly. To tell the truth i was getting a bit seasick. The silence was deafening. As i gained consciousness i was face to face with Madame Eatsummore. be-ing the professional that i am, i asked the first question that popped into my mind, “Have you made a reservation?” -Anon

Manager Nightmare

Wine etiquetteThe importance of good glasswareYou would probably be surprised as to how much of an impact your choice of glassware has when it comes to enjoying wine. In fact, the right glass is probably the most impor-tant factor.

Good wine glasses are constructed so that the aroma of the wine is pushed up the glass and in to the nose. The general rule of thumb is the bigger the bowl of the glass, the better you will be able to smell all of the wine’s aromas. A big bowl means you that you can fill your glass one third of the way and still have enough room to swirl and release the nose of the wine. if you re-ally want to get the most out of your wine tast-ing experience, use a delicate, thin glass with a tapered top to trap the bouquet.

Never drink wine out of a glass that doesn’t have a stem; holding the glass by the bowl will rapidly increase the temperature of the wine and change its complexion and it will also leave unsightly fingerprints on the glass. Also, try to avoid cut glass or coloured wine glasses - you want to be able to observe the wine as it moves around in your glass.

when drinking a champagne or sparkling wine, always use a flute. A thin, tall, slightly tapered

glass means that the bubbles can’t escape the liquid as quickly as they would with a wider-bowled glass. This means that your sparkling wine will stay bubblier for longer.

Caring for your wine glasses is also crucial - when washing a wine glass, always do it by hand with a small amount of liquid soap and running hot water. To dry your glasses, use a clean, lint-free cloth. Once dried, store your glasses in an upright position in a well ventialt-ed cupboard, protecting them from dust.

if you’re looking for a good multi-pur-pose glass, Riedel’s “wine” range in-cludes a Shiraz/Sy-rah glass (pictured left), which is almost ideal for most red wines and is more than acceptable for white wines as well. So go on, treat your-self to a good set of wine glasses, you won’t be sorry.



How Logan you go?By Our Motoring Correspondent

Wednesday, 08:15, Bangalore, the backseat of a Tata Something 1.2LE. Surrounded by kamikaze motorbikes, oncoming traffic and tuk-tuks scraping our doorhandles as they squeeze past to the kerb, it dawns on me that this may no longer be the content of post-holiday regales.Certainly, the behaviour of taxis is enough to convince you that the cha-os of the developing world is not far away, but even the worst offences committed out in the suburbs pale when compared to the rolling maelstrom that engulfs India’s major cities daily.

but my concern is not a Mad Max level of law-lessness. post-apocalyptic traffic is not as worry-ing as the post-apocalyptic cars that constitute it. Made from melted down plastic toy soldiers, motivated by scooter engines and endowed with mechanical integrity that would shame a soap box, these may very well be the cars of the future. Anyone who thought that we’d have flying cars by now may take a moment at this point to weep into the page.

Given the current state of economic decline and dwindling sales, one day even the reason-ably wealthy may be forced to drive these cyni-cal attempts at corner cutting simply because they will have nothing more to choose from. i would rather spend an eternity as Julius Male-ma’s partner in Strictly Come dancing.

Yes, there will always be the super rich with ga-rages of rare exotica able to fund the world’s ex-clusive manufacturers, but what about the frag-ile middle ground that mainstream producers rely on so heavily? Sales of new vehicles have dropped off so steeply worldwide that even stalwarts like Honda and Toyota have suffered. Motor manufacturers are famously slow to re-act to change, so instead of revising their strate-

gies to cope with a downward turn of the mar-kets, most will (in the short term at least) drop volumes and increase unit prices in an attempt to maximise operating profits. it is predicted that by this time next year, we will pay 25% more for the same models that stand on the showroom floor today.

Thus, thanks to The Great depression v2.0, the cars of the future will not be more efficient, well designed, friendlier to use or generally better. All they will be is cheap. but yet, expensive.which leads me to the subject of this column – the Renault Logan. i’ll be forthright and say that i have never driven a Logan, which is why i’m unable to write about a specific version fit-ted with specific options, and i cannot tell you specifically how it drives. That i am alive today is proof that it goes where you point it, and if

this car is on your list then little else probably matters.

what is quite specific is where i first encoun-tered one, which is what brings us back to in-dia.

Out there in the crowded, potholed and crum-bling roads of an exploding civilization, the average car has to be able to take more than a couple of knocks and stand to fight another intersection. That means no complicated body-work which can’t be fixed with a hammer, and suspension travel up to the job of handling a lane change which may or may not involve mounting the pavement. it needs a simple power plant that can cope with a lifetime never exceeding 2500rpm, as the careful driver max-imises every vapour of fuel. And more impor-

tantly than anything else: the toughest hooter in the world. Given that there is a Renault badge on the Logan’s nose, my time as a passenger was spent predicting which driving manoeu-vre would leave it complaining with a series of warning lights, but to my surprise it took all situations in its stride. Maybe that’s because it’s not actually a Renault. in truth this car is a dacia which has been sold under a myriad of labels for a while now – developed in an emerg-ing market, sold in emerging markets. And now it’s here.

while you may think we live in the developing (or, as we all call it: 3rd) world ourselves, the mere fact that when you see a bMw 3 series on the road you would never expect it to have a driver behind the wheel and the owner in the back seat, means that ours is a very different country to those which have played host to these simplistic vehicles so far. At first i looked at cars like the Logan as regressions of the breed. They represented a time when the engineering was worse and consumers didn’t know better. but as i’ve mulled it over, and as the economic mess we’ve has made has come to light, i’ve re-alised that these cars really represent our future. depressing? Yes. but at least it comes with an air-con and an indestructible hooter. Our motoring correspondent Tim brophy be-came enamoured with the automobile on his first drive home from the hospital and his pas-sion has yet to abate. Numerous friends and family have suffered through endless mono-logues about cars since he learned to talk, and he still considers the day he was issued with his driver’s license as one of the most signifi-cant dates in world history. His favourite car remains undecided, but it rotates weekly be-tween the porsche 917K, Ferrari 288 GTO and Renault Clio williams.

de Villiers wins 2009 Dakar RallyBy The Staff Reporter

Last month, local hero Giniel de Villiers was hosted by L’Ormarins and the Franschhoek Motor Museum in honour of his victory in the 2009 Dakar Rally. With this victory – a first for a South African – he has now become an international hero to boot.

At 36, the soft-spoken rally ace impressed the assembled petrol heads and others with his genuine humility and boyish charm. He downplayed the inherent danger of driving at average speeds in excess of 140km/h on poor-

ly marked or even non-existent roads. when asked about his decision to become a profes-sional rally driver he simply smiled and said “i was never big enough to play rugby. but i have always enjoyed driving really fast.” He spoke openly about the hard work that has gone in to making Volkswagen the dominant constructor

at this year’s rally – explaining that their win was down to five years of preparation. For a man who has come close to winning in the past and who has given his all to see Vw hone and tweak their racing machines into reliable win-

ners the victory was more about his team than individual glory.

ironically he has a bigger following in South America and Germany than he does back home. Equally ironic is the fact that, despite spending a lot of time in Europe as a member of the Vw team, he is still seen as a second choice because his employers would prefer to have a German or even brazilian hero to lift their trophies. He shrugs his shoulders and says “i can understand it. South Africans make up such a small per-centage of Vw’s sales. They would obviously love a German up there to boost their figures.” His level headed approach extends to his views on his future in the sport. At 36 he isn’t ready to retire – but he would prefer to race on roads that don’t require three pain relieving injections a day into his back. He has his sights on com-peting for Vw as they enter the world Rally Chamiopship but is happy to ride the present wave of fame and a sizeable fortune.

He was also happy to tour the museum and raved about the work done by Anton Rupert and the L’Ormarins team both with respect to the museum and the wine farm. in a no-holds barred display of true power the Ferrari screamed from the corner of the main hall while the porsche’s exhaust fumes brought about as much pleasure to some as the very good wines did to the rest a little later. The Franschhoek Motor Museum is on L’Ormarins wine Farm off the R45. Open Tuesday to Friday 10:00 to 16:00 and Saturday and Sunday 10:00 to 15:00. Call them on 021 874 9000 – you’ll be as impressed as Giniel was.

Giniel de Villiers with former rally-driver, Sarel van der Merwe


12 THE MONTH - MOTORiNG MARCH 2009

Franschhoek Youth Am-bassadors hard at work

A screaming successBy The Staff Reporter

The Youth Ambassadors have been hard at work planning and strategising their project plans for the year, with support and guid-ance from last year’s winners, the Youth Af-fair. Now it is all systems go for this team, pulling up sleeves and getting their hands dirty!

Focusing on arts & culture, education and the outdoors/environment, the youth ambas-sadors decided to start by targeting our high school learners in the valley. They propose educational camps, which will focus on career guidance and social issues facing the youth. The idea was inspired by the need to improve year end 2008 school results. The word camp implies the outdoors, which will help to create environmental awareness. To add to the fun element, the arts & culture team will provide

the entertainment.

publicity and marketing is big on the agenda for this team. Their first formal introduction was to the Stellenbosch directorate and coun-cilors in december. plans to visit drakenstein prison and our local High Schools are in the pipeline as well as working together with the Stellenbosch municipality and the Franschhoek Literary Festival. with the overall award win-ner Nolan Hoffman riding the Argus on March 8th, the team will be there to support him on the day, sporting their Youth Ambassador t-shirts. Look out for regular updates on the project in the papers as well as on Franschhoek FM.

Our personality Ambassador of the month is Jom-ine Johannes, also nominated as the administra-tor of the group. Jomine is a 22 year old informa-tion consultant for Franschhoek tourism, and has been part of this team since 2006. She is known by most of the valley’s members for her friendly and efficient customer service, with a smile. Her academic achievements obtained at Groendal Secondary School, together with various diplomas achieved there each year, resulted in her nomina-tion for a Youth Award. One of her successes was being nominated for Dux learner in her matric year. Not only did Jomine excel in the classroom but was also a keen competitor on the netball court. She is a confidant young lady who is not afraid to lead, speaks her mind and admits that she loves the limelight. Jomine has a passion for her career and the hospitality industry in particu-lar, and considers herself Proudly Franschhoek. Creative and innovative thinking is what sparks her interest. She is focused on the arts & culture part of this year’s project.

Few Franschhoek residents will have heard of Screaming Eagle wines, or be able to con-ceive of any wine being worth over $1000 (about R10 000) a bottle.

Screaming Eagle is a tiny, cult winery in Cali-fornia’s Napa Valley which produces arguably the most sought-after wine in the uS. Last year, one of Screaming Eagle’s owners, Charles banks, a former money manager for NbA players, dined at Le Quartier Francais in Fran-schhoek and toured some of the Cape’s top wine farms.

“it was full summer, it was beautiful...who wouldn’t fall in love with the region,” says his host Andre Shearer, the CEO of Cape Clas-sics, the largest importer of fine South African wines into the uS. “As far as towns go, Fran-

schhoek is the most glorious wine town in the nation, a wonderful tourist attraction and the centre point of food and wine tourism.”

As a result of their visit, banks and his partners who make up Terroir Capital, are considering several investments in both the wine and hos-pitality industries in the Cape. Among their plans is the creation of a boutique hotel and small, top-end winery making predominantly red wines for export.

The SA-born Shearer will have pulled off some-thing of a coup should their investments (po-tentially worth several hundred million rand) proceed. Not only is he the local partner to their projects, but Cape Classics will also rep-resent the wine they produce.

“Terroir wishes to develop the most luxuri-ous, environmentally-conscious, beautiful yet discrete projects possible,” says Shearer. “im-agine the statement it will make in the uS if the Screaming Eagle brand becomes associated with establishing a winery in SA?”

Shearer is a former King Edward Vii School head boy, wits med school drop-out and in-ternational model. He started Cape Classics in New York in 1991 with his brother Gary and wife-to-be Ange Lock. After seventeen years of hard slog, Shearer feels he has finally cracked the uS wine market.

Cape Classics now accounts for one out of every five bottled, fine SA wines imported into the uS and represents eighteen of SA’s finest estates, including Kanonkop, Rustenberg and buitenverwachting. it also releases its own wines under the indaba label which are pro-duced at Lourensford Estate where Shearer keeps an office. The global crisis has played to Cape Classics’ strengths as uS consumers are

searching for better value. Over the past twelve months, the company has experienced 50% growth in turnover in the indaba range with Robert parker’s The wine Advocate recently complimenting it for offering “truly mind bog-gling values”.This has a direct spin-off for local disadvantaged communities as a portion of the proceeds from indaba wines support several annual scholar-ships to study aspects of winemaking.

Last year, Shearer orchestrated the single larg-est restaurant placement of SA wines in the uS to date, benefiting Rustenberg, Mulderbosch, Raats family wines and Rudi Schultz wines in a deal with a massive steak house chain. Shearer expects it to generate sales of up to 20 000 cases a year, about 2% of the total amount of SA wine sold in the uS last year.

Shearer says SA wine has typically battled to crack the uS market as the barriers to entry are high and SA has tended to flog inexpensive, lesser-quality wine - the same wine it has been exporting to the uK and Europe for the past decade - whereas uS consumers favour fruit-forward, sweeter wines without a hint of green-ness.

For years, Shearer has acted as SA’s unofficial wine ambassador, using the wine industry to showcase the country as an investment destina-tion through wine-tasting dinners at top New York restaurants in collaboration with uS fund managers.

The fact that Mark Schwartz - a former chair-man of Goldman Sachs Asia and a former ad-viser to George Soros - acquired a 35% stake in Cape Classics last year has helped to open

doors. perseverance, uncompromising service and business ethics, and phenomenal contacts have done the rest.

Shearer spends every alternate month at his Somerset west home and the rest of the time at his New York head office. The distance has made him no less passionate about the land of his birth, but he is eternally frustrated by the local wine industry’s inability to collaborate and sell SA as a destination.

This anecdote, recounted recently to Shearer by a large uK wine chain buyer, says it all. when a South African wine seller comes to the uK, he says: “why don’t you take that other South Af-rican wine off your shelves and replace it with mine?” but when an Australian comes to the uK he says: “why don’t you take that South African wine off the shelves and replace it with one of ours”.

Jomine Johannes

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

��

Andre Shearer


MARCH 2009 THE MONTH 13

www.tHeMontH.Co.zA MARCH 2009


Black and WhiteBy The Staff Reporter

Local resident Jessica Gretschel chatted to The Month about her new shop, black and white. despite the strong theme of contrast that will dominate the shop and compliment its name, Jessica is sure to bring a colourful mix of pas-sion, artistic flair, thoughtfulness and common sense to the photos and clothing found in black and white.

“i want bring some life, something truly funky, to the fashion scene in Franschhoek” she says. She goes on to point out that there are many fabulous clothes for sale in Franschhoek – but she feels that there is a need for clothing for

younger, fashion conscious women who are looking for classic but vibrant pieces. This will extend to jewellery, shoes and bags. The clothing will all be sourced from South African young designers.

Jessica’s interest in the contrast of black and white stems from her childhood where she be-came enamoured by pictures of African wom-en. To this day, she says, the walls of her room at her parents’ home in Germany are adorned with the pictures and African masks she col-lected as a young girl. She qualified as a hair stylist and make-up artist overseas and visited South Africa for the first time six years ago. She bought a hair and make-up studio in paarl and has built up a strong following in the thriving town. Her move to Franschhoek with her hus-band and son meant giving up the studio – but she speaks fondly of her many clients who have subsequently become friends, and she misses the buzz and throng of Lady Grey Street on a Saturday! it is this love for people and her need to share the energy she draws from the world around her that gave rise to black and white. She jokes and asks “why is Cape Town known

as the Mother City? – because everything takes nine months!” despite the frustration of open-ing a shop she has nothing but hope and opti-mism for the future. She points to a number of black and white photos around us (many of which will be available in the shop) and it is clear that ‘hope’ is a strong theme in the work she enjoys. Even photos that might appear at first to feature a sad face or desolate scene evoke

an encouraging sense of anticipation. Her abil-ity to see the potential rather than the problem is sure to see black and white become a re-sounding success.

Black and White is open daily and can be found in Huguenot Square (behind Es-sence). Call Jessica on 021 876 2736.

The art of matterBy The Staff Reporter

Galerie L’Art recently opened its doors in the Ivy Centre, just off Kruger Street. The gallery plays host to a number of paintings by well-known artists and will soon display a solo exhibition by local artist, Johannes du Ples-sis. The Month was able to track the owner, Dillie Grobbelaar, down to ask her more about her vision for art and the gallery.

The Month: what effect has the present eco-nomic climate had on the art world and on art dealers such as Galerie L’Art?

dillie: interestingly it seems to have had a very positive effect on the kind of art we deal with. in the past, as stock prices strengthened, we found that art sales generally weakened. peo-ple would buy shares – not art. South African dealers were spoilt somewhat in that this trend was less marked over here when compared to international markets, particularly for the last eight years or so. with the lack of confidence that people have in the stock markets we have seen many more people choosing to place their money in alternative investments and better artworks are becoming very attractive. Having said that i must stress that art is not a short term investment and shouldn’t be bought as a speculative item. Count on keeping it for ten to fifteen years. After all, buying art is about

the response it invokes in you, more than the return it may give you if you were to sell it. possibly one of the biggest problems in the art world at present is that there isn’t much stock. it’s difficult to find truly valuable art work. Galerie L’Art aims to change that.

The Month: why did you choose to open a gal-lery in Franschhoek where there are a number of existing galleries already?

dillie: i have a passion for Franschhoek. Fran-schhoek has always been about good food and good wine. And the perfect compliment to good food and good wine is art. Franschhoek also appears to be very well managed and mar-keted. The Tourism Association is unreal – it seems as if Franschhoek is one of the few towns where there is always something going on! i don’t think there is another town that comes close. we see it in our weekend visitors – most of them have made the trip out from Cape Town specifically to visit Franschhoek – not the other towns or areas on the way. The fact that there are a number of existing galleries is also a big plus. Few people will visit a town to buy art at just one gallery. when there are a number of galleries to visit, it is more likely that you’ll see something that speaks to you, even if the galleries keep paintings by the same artists. we’re planning to concentrate on the sale of paintings by established artists such as pierneef, boshoff and Gregoire but we will in-troduce a number of emerging artists to the vil-lage by way of regular exhibitions and events.

The Month: Given your passion for the town and that Franschhoek is a good place to do business, would you ever consider relocating to Franschhoek as a resident?

dillie: Oh yes, we would love to stay in Fran-schhoek. but the property prices! i suppose, to be fair, Franschhoek is a work of art – so price is relative and you have to respond to the way it makes you feel. who knows, maybe we’ll be here one day!

Visit Galerie L’Art, Shop 3 at The Ivy, Kruger Street. They’re open Monday to Sunday 09:30 to 17:30. Contact them on 076 2792175

… her need to share the energy she draws from the world around her gave rise to Black

and White

Jessica Gretschel

Dillie Grobbelaar



The beautiful gameBy Aaron NemarereThe countdown to the 2010 FIFA World Cup is now on. No doubt virtually everyone with-in and outside our borders is eagerly await-ing this historic event to take place for the first time in Africa. Businesses are expect-ing huge profits while communities and the country in general look forward to benefit immensely from the infrastructure and other growth opportunites availed to them in the run up to, during and after the event.

but to the community in Franschhoek the spir-it didn’t begin with, and neither will it die after, the 2010 event.

So much is the love for the game in the Groen-dal area that weekends have become busy and exciting as over sixteen teams share a single pitch to stage what they term ‘challenge match-es’.The matches might not be of the highest quality but the interest and talent displayed is very captivating. Even the dismal condition of the pitch doesn’t discourage them. Although things seem to be flowing week in and week out, the greatest undoing is the unavailability of proper administrative structures and a lack of sponsorship.

“we don’t have a formal league. we just meet on weekends and plan what to do on our feet” said one of the coaches. Most of the times they play friendly matches but to raise the level of competitiveness, challenge matches or rather mini-tournaments are sometimes organised. “what we do is we pull together our resources with each team making a certain contribution. The money is then put at stake as prizes for the winning teams” he said.

There are seventeen teams that are involved and these include: black Aces, Mighty broth-ers, peacemakers, bombers, Franschhoek pi-rates, All-Stars, Junior Celtics, King pioneers, Strikers, Scorpions, Home defenders, Revolu-tion, Eleven Attackers, Sea Lions, Franschhoek united, Green Lovers and Try Again.

“we don’t benefit anything materially. we just love the game. it’s the passion in us that drives

us. we don’t have sponsors, each team con-tributes towards its own welfare. it’s the play-ers who buy the balls, the uniforms and all the equipment that might be needed. Even when we organise these tournaments, the prize mon-ey comes from the player’s pockets.”

The last organised tournament staged at the ground was won by black Aces mid-last year. They beat Junior Celtics in a penalty shoot-out in what was dubbed the ‘Franschhoek Cham-pions League’

“Now we are planning to form a proper league which is a bit more organised. with the staging of the Confederations Cup and the world Cup tournaments here in South Africa we are also hoping that something will come our way. This will surely rekindle the spirit of football in the community.”

It costs about R4000 to kit out a 15 player squad with shirts, shorts and socks and all teams look for sponsorship


There are no mirrors in radio studios, not even in the Franschhoek FM studios. Men (!) design the studios and fill the space with technology, lots of machines and buttons, but no mirrors. You will notice that the men who work at our radio station always have good hair days because they do not have hair, they generally shave their heads and do not need a mirror. The ladies on the other hand often have bad hair days. The thing is we use headphones when we broadcast and put them on and take them off constantly. This exercise messes up one’s hair and so we become aesthetically unpleasing. we cannot fix it, because we cannot see it, so please forgive us. In the past month interviewees in the Fran-schhoek FM studio provided us with valuable food for thought. Tony Frost is a case in point. In our conservation conversation we discussed the horrific fires in our area. We know by now that fires are a necessary occurrence in the lifecycle of fynbos, but Tony emphasized that when fires occur more frequently than the cycle requires, the fynbos can be destroyed. The other concern is that cli-mate change has created hot dry conditions which are eminently conducive to veld fires. Everything burns more easily now. we invited professor isak Rust to come and talk about pebbles. don’t you love the Afri-kaans name ‘spoelklippe’? He explained the dif-ference between beach pebbles and river peb-

bles. The ones from the beach are smooth and round, and the ones from the river are smooth and flattish. The sharp-edged triangular stones are not fashioned by stone-age ancestors in search of tools, but by the relentless scouring of wind and sand. professor Rust also explained the composition and colour of stones and here the glacier pebbles provided much interest.

Rowan Millson was great company when we dis-cussed his new Franschhoek A-Z. He says the book has now achieved maximum thickness. It can grow no more. Although it appears pristine in its new glossiness, one or two mistakes did creep in. They’re mostly due to information which was not updated. Here I plead innocence, as we at Fran-schhoek FM encouraged Franschhoekers to contact Rowan and update their information. The medical chats were a treat as always. doctor Hellig spoke on strokes, scary stuff, but one can minimize the risks by adopting healthy lifestyle habits. She said mini strokes are a blessing be-cause they serve as a warning of what might be. Gerhard the pharmacist talked on hormones; said we needed them, could be pretty miserable without them, but had to have a prescription to get them from the pharmacy. doctor de Kock accepted an invitation to talk on periodonti-tis. This apparently happens when we become long in the tooth and unfriendly bacteria find a home in our gums. He gave an interesting explanation on caries being prevalent in young people and gingivitis being the curse of older people. Lovely ballet teacher Valda Joubert came to the studio. It is really easy to feel like a klutz in her company, she is supremely elegant and refined. She encourages ballet training for everyone, adding that girls and boys should be in separate classes, because the focus of their training differs. Her em-phasis on fitness, strength and gracefulness make one feel like going to class immediately. we’re keeping our broadcast roster pretty steady now and would love to hear from more people in our valley who have something to say on air or would like to become involved in news writ-ing and reading on radio. So do contact us. Cheers and happy listening!

Behind the MicWith Helen Naudé from Franschhoek FM


Rob Armstrong, Haut Espoir

My answer to this month’s question is: yes, we should. unless a development is undertaken in a sustainable man-ner, then it should be opposed for the long term benefit of the valley. As a proud custodian of a little piece of this beautiful valley, it upsets me greatly that there is hardly any consideration paid to the natural environment by certain developers. There is no excuse for the levels of pollution which are taking place. if this is the spirit with which development is undertaken, it is clear this is an un-sustainable practice, and the valley we live and work in is suffering as a result. E.Coli bacteria and Fecal coliforms, leaching of marine contaminants into groundwater and raw human sewerage into our river systems, these are the nasty elements of development that place the biodiversity of the valley at risk. Needlessly i must add. There is no reason why these issues could not have been dealt with from the start in a manner which does not impact on the environment.

we have so much natural beauty to be proud of, rare and endangered species of fauna and flora, magnificent moun-tain scenery and until recently clean abundant water. The animals, the fish, the fynbos and the mountains do not have voices, they cannot appeal to municipality or dwAF, they suffer due to choices we make as human beings. i appeal to the better sense of developers to consider the environmental impact first, and make the right choices. Sure, there is a positive spin off for the broader economy and people’s lives which are bettered by the experience, of either visiting or working in these establishments. How-ever; the key issue of sustainability is being ignored. Our natural environment cannot cope with the stress it is being placed under when it comes to unsustainable and greedy developers. in a relatively pristine valley such as ours, to believe that development will not continue is naïve. it will carry on. However there needs to be a major paradigm shift in the way these properties are operated. There is a key word missing here; that is SuSTAiNAbLE.

without a healthy natural environment to support us as a community living within the finite borders of firstly, this planet, secondly this valley, does it really make any sense to place our biodiversity at further risk?

Jack Hrad, Pearl Valley Golf Estates

Yes, and no. Franschhoek is one of the more charming vil-lages of the western world, and even more so because the pioneers have taken great care to assure architectural and business integrity. No fast food, thank God and only one petrol stop! Clearly it is important to protect that integ-rity, but without penalizing those pioneers who invested their life savings: is it fair to prevent them their dreams, by stopping all development? Of course not. Municipalities around the world have adopted standards to protect their culture, while not preventing beneficial developments. improvements over time at Akademie Street Guesthouses, Le Quartier Francais and the new L’Ermitage are consist-ent with the ‘flavour of Franschhoek’. we should establish a volunteer team of professional specialists to assure that any future plan meets specific aesthetic standards. And parking? Remote non-farming land and a romantic peak-period shuttle service, funded by a 2% levy on food and beverage and 1% on lodging, would complete the per-fect scenario. Just the opinions of a fairly new resident, who admires and supports the Franschhoek you know and love.

Elizabeth Rossouw, Col’Cacchio

development is inevitable. it is the sign of a healthy and positive economy with belief in the future. it is the kind of development that needs scrutinising and consideration. we have a responsibility to maintain the “quaint” and “small town” atmosphere in Franschhoek. Feed-back from “swallows” who have visited Franschhoek for the last five years or so, have made comments to me about the village losing its charm due to continual development, increased traffic flow and lower quality restaurants (with exceptions of course). i believe we should start at the beginning and look at the basics; sewerage and other basic service capac-ity, availability of parking, architectural restrictions with regards to style and height (who wants to lose the views of our beautiful surroundings?) with regard to further devel-opment of guest houses and restaurants – would it be wise to allow this, when feedback from guests suggest a steady decline in standards and services?

Helna van Rooyen, Epicerie at L’ermitage

development is good for the village because it creates work and feeds the local economy; but to keep the uniqueness of Franschhoek intact, there must be clear guidelines. For example: i think L’ermitage is a unique development that suits Franschhoek. it’s like a small French village within Franschhoek, with accommodation, a deli and a restau-rant. However, as soon as you allow a free-for-all with ho-tels, guest houses and developments all over the place, the town will become so commercialised that there’s nothing special about it anymore. developers must also be sensi-tive to the needs of the local inhabitants of Franschhoek. if all the developments are aimed at high-end tourism, the locals who live and work here will find it increasingly difficult to do just that. in general i support development – as long as it’s done responsibly.

Louis Matthee, La Petite Dauphine

what an easy question! Yes, but do not over restrict and most important leave space for progress. There is a fine line between development and responsible development. we do need to cater for the needs of our discerning clien-tele but must also pay careful attention to the needs of the local residents and visitors in general. As a community we will need to interact and communicate if we wish to look after the Franschhoek we have come to know and love.

The vision of the Franschhoek wine Valley & Tourism Association is to target ‘discerning, high-yield, independent travellers and wine con-sumers who want outstanding wine and food, heritage, quintessential shopping, events and nature-based experiences’.

If further significant growth in guest accommodation and restaurants inhibits Franschhoek’s ability to attract high-value travellers, should we restrict further development (in terms of size, location, type or architecture) to ensure that it retains its appeal for these ‘discerning’ travellers?

question of the monthTHE MONTH’S



The beauty of MathematicsBy Stephan Willers“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, with-out appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the great-est art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.” -Bertrand Russell (1919).

Mathematics is a discovery and a way of under-standing the simplicity of the complexity of the world around us. One of these discoveries starts around the year 570bC; a man called pythago-ras was born on the Greek island of Samos. in his life he became known as a great Mystic, Mathematician and Scientist. At that time the line between scientist and “Mystic” was a bit blurred. pythagoras also believed that the earth was round years before bruno was burned at the stake for this belief by the Roman Catholic Church.

we all remember the school theorem1 but one of his greatest discoveries was the existence of irrational numbers2. irrational numbers are a bit like women, there is no way of understand-ing them completely, but without them our universe will stop moving. From their work the pythagoreans (followers of pythagoras) discov-ered and defined the first irrational number √2. From this followed the discovery of two of the most amazing numbers in history. The number π (pi)3 and the number ø (phi).

we know the number π, but the number ø is known as the golden ratio, it has captivated and fascinated man for millennia. The golden ratio is defined to approximate 1 : 1,618… . This ratio can be found in several famous ar-chitectural buildings, the parthenon’s façade and the Great Mosque of Kairouan, to name only two. in great art pieces, the ‘Mona Lisa’ and Salvador dali’s ‘The Sacrament of the Last Supper’. in nature the arrangement of leaves on plants stems, the spiral rings of the Nautilus shell and it even appears in the ratio between the lengths of the grooves in the major and mi-

nor spirals of dNA.

This remarkable recurrence of the ratio all around us, and the unconscious way we per-ceive it in Art and the way we create “beauty” is amazing. There are truly thousands of pages on the web and books that proof the recurrence of this irrational ratio in the universe. One starts to get the feeling that the universe has to con-form to this ratio to exist not only on the sub atomic level but also on the divine.

Even the human body conforms to this number: Take your height and divide it by the distance from the tip of your head to your finger tips. This is only one example; the ratio can be found in many parts of the human body from the cellular level up.

Getting back to pythagoras; the idea of the ir-rationality of numbers and ultimately nature, was seen by many as blasphemous and the py-thagoreans were persecuted and exterminated. The story goes that at the height of persecution the last of the pythagorean where locked into one of their schools and burned to death. This ended the pythagorean movement, but their ideas and mathematical theorems are still used today in construction, music and many other areas of our world. So next time you look at something you find beautiful try and look for the golden ratio and then think of the beauty of Mathematics.

“Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.” -Galileo Galilei.

1. The square of the hypotenuse of a right angled tri-angle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two shorter sides.

2. irrational Numbers are numbers that cannot be written as fractions. There is also no pattern to the numbers’ decimal part and it continues to infinity.

3. pi is defined as the Circumference of a circle di-vided by the diameter of the circle. An approximate value of pi is 3,141592654…

Looking at the world around us it is easy to notice crime, corruption and injustice. Many of these issues reflect a distorted value system – money, status and things that are often considered to be more valuable than people.

For children to enjoy the possibility of living in a moral world they need to be educated in ways that teach them the worth of their and other people’s humanity.

At school, children learn this by interacting with other children with different cultural back-grounds and from different income groups. in so doing they learn the value of their own iden-tity and that of their peers. Educators are able to facilitate this by teaching them to respect one another and take someone else’s feelings into account.

As parents we are even more responsible for teaching our children values – almost entirely through the example we set. The way we as

parents prioritise our time with our family, speak of and to others and manage our own lives will become entrenched in the value sys-tems of our children.

perhaps the values we are teaching our children are wrong if we are so stressed out at work that when we come home we are too tired to deal with scribbles on the wall, sibling rivalry and homework; or if we look for a school to place our children in where the hours suit us more than them; or if our pre-schooler is involved in several extra-mural activities per week because it makes fetching times convenient.

when last did you take the time to read a story to your child or have breakfast together as a family before rushing off to work and school? if you can’t remember then its time to start thinking about the values your child will in-herit.

-The Month Education Correspondent

20 THE MONTH - EduCATiON MARCH 2009


Pilates: a foundation for wellness in body, mind and spirit

A weight off my shoulders aka: My life in the sweat shop

For readers who have a vague and possibly misdirected understanding about what Pi-lates is all about, allow me to explain a little more about this brilliant scientific concept.

• Pilates is not some bizarre religious cult!pilates is not a religious discipline and neither is it a derivative of Yoga. it is an internation-ally acclaimed exercise regime that incorporates the discipline of both body and mind. it is a precise, developmental scientific discipline and has its roots in its founder, Joseph pilates “… who emphasizes the balanced development of the body through core strength, flexibility and awareness in order to support efficient, grace-ful movement”. (http://pilates.about.com/od/historyofpilates/a/Jpilates.htm).

• Pilates is a quick fix for Abs! pilates is in fact, a fix for flabby abs. However, it does far more than this. Structural integration and learning to create a flexible, strong body that can move freely and efficiently are impor-tant goals of pilates fitness. To this end, pilates works all body parts in a very balanced way, not just the abs. For example, alleviating back pain (which most of us seem to have at one time or another) is not just about strengthening the abs, but taking on board the integration of the whole body and mind at a much deeper level of understanding. Successful application of this concept demands the basic pilates principles of control, centering, concentration, breath, flow, and precision.

• Pilates is for wimps and women!indeed, this is a very frustrating perception to debunk. This assumption is held by many within South African society. Firstly it is adaptable in that it can be very easy or very hard, depending on individual needs. This ability to modify exercises for individuals is one of the greatest strengths of pilates.Secondly, the increasing popularity of pilates has meant that there are many entry level class-es in practically every gym and studio. people are therefore not immediately exposed to inter-mediate and advanced levels of pilates and nei-ther are they exposed to the highly specialised equipment.

Thirdly, pilates is often done slowly with the emphasis on awareness and control, and this can make the exercise look easy to the casual observer.

i personally believe that given a highly skilled teacher, the most fundamental workout will demand depth of focus, concentration and a continuous challenge to our innate intelligence. The physical and mental spin-offs are assured.pilates has never been “just for women”, and its benefits are certainly not gender biased. Af-ter all, pilates was developed by a man, Joseph pilates (1880 – 1967). He was a gymnast, a boxer, and a military trainer in his early years, and pictures of pilates even into his eighties, reveal a very strong, fit physique.

• Pilates is expensive!pilates is not overly cheap, but neither should one view one’s health as cheap. pure pilates demands highly specialized teaching skills and equipment that accommodates a diverse clien-tele, and only works effectively in the appro-priate environment with very small groups or one-on-one training.

Making a decision about joining a pilates ses-sion is more about how much value you place on your health and well-being, rather than viewing it as an expense. investing in a con-temporary, well researched discipline that will directly benefit your wellness in body, mind and spirit might be well worth thinking about. An open day will be arranged in the near future to enable the interested and curious to see and experience what pilates is all about.

For details please contact:Pamela Hammond StudiosPilates and Life CoachingBSc. (Hons.) Pysch.Post Grad. Cert. Coaching (SACAP)ACE Certified (USA)083 358 [email protected]

First of the month. Start gym today. weight: 84kg. waist: 94cm. Meet buff the Vampire at the door. despite my inherent fear and his menacing left eye, i smile a lot and nod repeat-edly. Yes bench press; Yes Lat Extensions; Yes bosu ball (i’ve been reading Men’s Health to appear knowledgeable) but know that when he hands me the 5kg barbells the wheels will come off the bus. At least i have gloves for the barbells.

He shows me the showers, loo, ice tub and sauna. if i can get through all of those each ses-sion i’ll be late for work. decide to keep public ablutions to a minimum. Sauna once a week. Must remember to bring a big towel on that day. wonder if my hefty monthly fee includes free aftershave. don’t see any.

A check of his watch and we have just under an hour for my first work out. An hour – who’s he kidding? we negotiate a 25 minute session. Chest, back, upper legs. i rest often. He ex-plains the importance of breathing, diet and sex. i wonder if he means gender – but no, he means sex. i wonder if he’s new. decide not to tell him i’m on Facebook.

At 26 minutes i escape to the bathroom. i think but don’t ask: Should i remove the gloves or must i wash them in the shower? Can’t lift the shampoo to my head, so wash under my arms. Get dressed without putting socks on – cant bend and don’t care. Go home to sleep.

4th: 84kg. 94cm. Slip in very early. Hope to avoid buff – had missed our scheduled session. phoned in sick then saw him at the pub. pre-tended not to see him. Have my programme and a big towel. back, stomach and calves. Look down on the third abdominal crunch and realise i’m shaking, not the seat. Finally get to the bathroom. desperate for the loo but beaten to it by Mr. Friendly. Find his singing distract-ing and decide to skip shower and sauna. Make it to work but find typing difficult. Call for pA to take notes.

13th: 86kg. 95cm. Very busy at work. Missed a couple of sessions. decide to gym twice today. Cardio first. Chest, back, legs at night. Run for 10 minutes on level 4, 0⁰ inclination. Forced to use Emergency Stop button. Skinny Girl looks worried then smiles reassuringly. She also

battled with the treadmill at first she says. She shows me a picture of Elana Meyer giving her a hug. don’t give up she says. i leave soon after, forgetting my water bottle. Skip evening session.

16th: 84kg. 94cm. Have lost 1cm. Feel-ing strong. decide to join an aerobics class. Next month. Shoulders and Abs (buff’s lec-ture on stomach vs. abdominals still fresh). pull down on Lat Machine – have forgot-ten to add weights. Hit head and curse. No-

tice a couple of stares. Can hear Skinny Girl laughing. dread buff’s appearance to remind me ‘of the ropes’. Quickly add 6kg and try again. decide to remove gloves before show-ering. Still hoping to find some aftershave.

17th: 83kg. 93cm. Run to gym. Marvel at the quiet streets and notice the smell of coffee. Start my session with a Java. Ask for a chocolate as well. intend to eat it on the run home. Focus on ab-dominals. Only start shaking on second set. Eat chocolate. decide to sauna and phone for a lift.

23rd: 85kg. 94cm. Tired of gym. Notice debit order went off early. will keep going for an-other month. buff has added more cardio. Sug-gests i modify my diet. i bite my tongue. Run. Row. Cycle. The vibrating stepper makes me nauseous. End session early and have a long shower. Mr. Friendly invites me for a drink. i suggest we check our schedules when both fully dressed. Leave while he sings in the shower.

25th: 82kg. 91cm. So happy with my progress i skip gym. Enjoy a big breakfast on the way to work. buff phones. pretend to be sick.

29th: 84kg. 94cm. Realise i used the old tape measure. Need to appease buff. Run, cy-cle, chest, shoulders and abs. Shower, sauna, shower. Try the drier – but makes me sneeze. Stop for a coffee on my way out. wave at Mr. Friendly and Skinny Girl. Get to the car and notice the toothpaste on my cheek.

Jim Waite Jim arrived in Franschhoek 4 years ago and has been sweating ever since.


THE MONTH - HEALTH 21MARCH 2009

FLF – some of the writers coming in May

André Brink, distinguished SA novelist and academic, writes his novels simultaneously in English and Afrikaans – and they’ve been translated into over thirty languages. He has won the CNA Award three times, has twice been shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and was awarded the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize (England), the Premio Mondello (Ita-ly), the Prix Médicis Etranger (France), and the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur (Officier). He lives and works in Cape Town and will be bringing his newly-published memoir, A Fork in the Road (’n Vurk in die Pad) to the FLF.

The introduction reads:

André brink grew up in the deep interior of South Africa, as his magistrate father moved from one dusty dorp to the next. with searing honesty he describes his conflicting experiences of growing up in a world where innocence was always surrounded by violence. From an early age he found in storytelling the means of rec-onciling the stark contrasts – between religion and play-acting, between the breathless discov-ery of a girl called Maureen and the merciless beating of a black boy, between a meeting with a dwarf who lived in a hole in the ground and an encounter with a magician who threatened to teach him what he hadn’t bargained for.

while living in paris in the sixties his discovery of a wider artistic life, allied to the exhilaration of the student uprising of 1968, confirmed in him the desire to become a writer. At the same time the tragedy of Sharpeville crystallised his growing political awareness and sparked the decision to return home and oppose the apart-heid establishment with all his strength. This resulted in years of harassment by the South African secret police, in censorship, and in frac-tured relationships with many people close to him. Equally it led to extraordinary friendships sealed by meetings with leaders of the ANC in exile in both Africa and Europe.

André brink tells the story of a life lived in tumultuous times. His long love affair with music, art, the theatre, literature and sport il-luminate this memoir as do relationships with remarkable women, among them the poet in-grid Jonker, who have shared and shaped his life, and encounters with people like Ariel dorfman, Anna Netrebko, Nadine Gordimer, Günter Grass, beyers Naudé, desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela. Above all, A Fork in the

Road is a love song to the country where he was born, and where, despite its recent troubles and tragedies, he still lives.

TOM EATON INTERVIEWS TOM EA-TON

Hello Tom, and thank you for taking time to talk to us.

Hello. Who did you say you were with?

The Franschhoek Literary Festival. They asked me to –

I thought you told me you were with Paris Match.

I may have exaggerated.

So this isn’t being syndicated to AFP either.

Probably not.

Are you in fact a journalist?

I will be when I get my certificate. But what I really want to do is direct. In fact I’ve got this screenplay here with me right now, and I was wondering if you could have a look at it, and maybe just, you know, give me some pointers.

No. Please get on with it.

It’s called Bleeding Nubbins of Treacle Prose: A Writer’s Agony.

Golly. Please ask your questions.

You’re an Aquarius, aren’t you?

Seriously.

Okay. So, you’ve written two funny books –

The De Villiers Code and Texas, yes.

Oh, no, I didn’t think Texas was funny at all. It totally creeped me out. I meant The De Villiers Code and The Wading.

No, The Wading is a more serious piece of work.

Than what?

Than what I’ve written before.

You’re so intense! Okay, so you’ve written three funny books, and a movie, and you’ve co-written a sitcom, and you’re a sports writ-er, and you run Hayibo.com. All of which raises the question: do you write on a com-puter or by hand?

Don’t you want to ask me about the Bob Woolmer cricket book?

Totally. What’s the Bob Woolmer cricket book?

Bob Woolmer’s Art and Science of Cricket. It’s a fantastic coaching manual that I was lucky enough to be involved with. Bob, Tim Noakes and Helen Moffett spent about ten years pro-ducing the definitive book on the game, and it’s really turning into a wonderful legacy for Bob. If anything happens on a cricket field, it’s in the book.

I once took 2 for 10 in a social game. Is that in the book?

No.

Well then you and I have different defini-tions for ‘definitive’. Tom, our time together has drawn to a close because I see the drier has finished its cycle. But thank you again.

Thanks.

Satirist, scriptwriter and novelist Tom Eaton lives and works in Cape Town, and will be appearing in various guises at the FLF.

Edyth Bulbring is a journalist and novelist who lives in Johannesburg. She writes with some angst about…

MY CONCERNS AS A wRiTER

i worry about everything. At the core of my anxiety is guilt, the product of a protestant up-bringing. Towards the end of last year i prom-ised myself two things: i would stop agonis-ing about it all and just let go. And i would quit apologising; for being too happy and too rude and too everything. i was going to live the guilt-free life.

My good intentions came under attack early on in the new year after i gate-crashed an Old Year’s Eve party and committed a litany of sins i am still trying to remember. My first im-pulse the morning after the night of debauch-ery was to grovel to the offended parties with words flayed with remorse. but i recalled my new year’s resolution and resisted. Screw it, i whimpered to myself. And tried not to feel too troubled.

Letting go is hard. i need always to be in con-trol. i fret all the time: Are my children sleeping too much/too little? Should i wash the sheets on Mondays/wednesdays? if i don’t put stones at the bottom of my pots, will the soil get com-pacted? My brain sometimes feels like implod-ing with all the minutia that obsesses me.

but the one area in my life i have very little concern about is as a writer. i know i should be tormented about the state of literature in Southern Africa; whether my protagonist is a psycho barbie or a feminist icon; why book-shops kill local fiction by hiding it in the Afri-can literature section or don’t bother stocking it at all. These are the sort of baffling questions i am asked in interviews all the time. Questions that reduce me to sweaty panic as i realise i have spent many shallow nights not thinking about very much at all.

My lack of concern as a writer worries me a lot.

why am i not weighed down by meaningful issues like other true writers? when are peo-ple going to realise i am just pretending to be a writer until i get invited to play in that big poker game?

FRANSCHHOEK LITERARY FESTIVAL15TH MAY - 17TH MAY 2009

ADVANCE BOOKING ADVISABLE

Booking for numbered events opens on Monday 16th March 2009, go to www.webtickets.co.za or visit the Fran-schhoek Tourism Office at The Old Station Building.

André Brink

Tom Eaton

Edyth Bulbring

22 THE MONTH - LiTERARY FESTiVAL MARCH 2009


Credit Crunch: Cut or Capitalize?By Chris von Ulmenstein of Whale Cottage Franschhoek

Most Franschhoek businesses silently ac-knowledge that they have been hit by the credit crunch, but no one is putting a figure to it. Generally, accommodation bookings are said to be down by 20 %, but in the ab-sence of comparative figures, it is difficult to estimate the cost of the Credit Crunch to the Valley. The fantastic February, and the mag-nificent March lying ahead, may make busi-nesses forget that the world is in its worst economic situation ever.

i was intrigued as to how other business per-sons are reacting to the credit crunch. Are they more cost conscious, locking away that credit card, and paying by cash, which is harder to do? Have they become meticulous in scruti-nizing every invoice before paying? Have they started focusing on cash flow, by paying suppli-ers late? Are they taking on fewer staff? Are they looking to find creative ways in which to grow their income from new sources of busi-ness? Are they eating out less, as suggested by financial whiz Suze Orman? Are they driv-ing more slowly to save on petrol and speeding tickets? Are they visiting shopping centers less often, so as to not be tempted to spend? Are they dropping their prices? How do they plan ahead in terms of stock holding and staffing, given that bookings are so last minute? Are they penny wise and pound foolish?

i surveyed a cross-spectrum of businesses in the Valley, and found that most of the above is not happening.

plumwood inn wrote confidently, by saying that they have not seen the credit crunch at their guest house at all, and therefore they have not had to make any cost-saving adjustments. “To be honest, forward bookings and enquiries have never been so good! So, as a result, we aren’t doing anything about increasing business or reducing costs”.

Arthur Mcwilliam Smith, the doyen of the guest house industry, agrees with plumwood inn, in that his business has not felt the credit crunch. in fact, Arthur boldly states that he has not seen it hit Franschhoek at all yet. He advises business against cutting costs, and feels that they should rather put such money into marketing, or offering specials and promotions like add-on services or products. He laments the dearth of good statistics about the size of the accommodation and tourism industry in Franschhoek, which makes it hard to gauge if the tourism businesses have been affected at all. Arthur does advise one to avoid more debt, to eat out less and to pay off the bonds more rap-idly, but he says, “human nature what it is i cannot see it happening”!

An honest assessment of the impact of the crunch on the accommodation industry comes from Jenny at Le ballon Rouge. She sees guests as being far more demanding in negotiating lower prices, especially as walk-ins at her door. Her guest house lowers its rates late in the day, to ensure that the bed is filled. She also is focusing on cost cutting, doing without casual staff, and keeping telephone and electricity costs down. Laundry is now done in-house. Staff are encouraged to help save costs and to reduce wastage.

dick borsje of The Corner House gave very detailed hints and tips in growing one’s busi-ness and in cutting costs. His accommoda-tion growth suggestions are to translate one’s website into other languages, utilising Google,

proactively handing happy departing guests one’s brochure in that word-of-mouth is the best and cheapest marketing one can do, in-centivising performing travel agents and tour operators and to drop the non-performing ones, optimising search engine performance, reacting as quickly as possible to enquiries via a blackberry or similar phones, networking with restaurants and accommodation colleagues, and learning to speak the language of our tour-ists: German, French and Spanish.

dick provides really practical cost saving tips to his fellow tourism colleagues, which restau-rants and non-accommodation businesses will find useful too: watering the garden early in the morning and putting wood chips on the ground to save on water usage, replacing all bulbs with energy-saving ones, replacing elec-tric with gas stoves, using automatic day/night light bulbs and solar powered garden lights, reducing the pool pump running time, install-ing geyser timers, having clear guidelines for guests who want towels to be replaced, reduc-ing usage of tumbledriers to a minimum, using wood fires instead of heating with oil or electri-cal heaters in winter, and insulating hot water pipes in winter. dick advises to not use geyser blankets as they are a waste of money, he says.

Graham beck’s Sales and Marketing Manager Etienne Heyns says that the wine estate focuses on offering cellar door visitors special offers. “bespoke quality at an affordable price makes our visitors feel special during these inflation-ary times”. The estate also has a Graham beck Signature wine Club, and encourages locals to join, so that they can enjoy special offers, as well as a 10% discount on wines and merchan-dise bought when visiting the cellar.

Mark Solms is upbeat in many respects about the future of his wine estate, in that he has seen a doubling in the number of visitors to his wine-tasting facility in the past year, and his wine sales have grown by 20%, but mod-estly ascribes his growth to the newness of his wines, growing off a low base. Export sales to the uSA have been slower than he would have liked it, and a pR campaign will commence in the uSA in June. The Solms-Astor range will be launched in the uSA in May, a year ahead of target, and is already doing very well in the uK. He asks whether he would have done even better had there not been a credit crunch. “Our own ability to raise credit finance has not yet been affected, but we are probably more ex-posed to the vagaries of the foreign (mainly uK based) capital markets than most local produc-ers; so we are certainly nervous!” he says. He states that “brand Franschhoek” must stand or fall together.

The restaurants are trying hard to stay afloat, and have given good thought to the matter. They face the reality all businesses face – i.e. staying alive in winter, when things become really quiet in Franschhoek. Haute Cabriere is riding the credit crunch by taking stock of its staff, in trying to not retrench them when it gets quiet. The restaurant already has a policy in place that it will not necessarily replace staff who resign, or whose contracts have ended. Nicky Gordon says that Haute Cabriere will focus on containing expenses, and on offering its patrons value for money winter specials and promotions.

Reuben Riffel reiterated what Nicky Gordon said, in that he has stopped recruiting new staff, and is diversifying by doing more outside

catering, and also extending his trading hours. Reuben cautions businesses to not neglect the small expenses, which do add up, such as water, electricity, gas, and encourages the more effi-cient use of consumables.

burgundy’s is a tough negotiator with suppliers, and the owners get involved in this themselves, rather than leaving this to their managers, they say. They push suppliers to the limit to give the best prices. if they refuse, the restaurant switches to other suppliers. invoices are scru-tinised, and prior notification of price increases is demanded. proper and strict stock control is done, and purchases are made in bulk, to save suppliers unnecessary trips and therefore fuel costs. The restaurant group operates to a “model stock” system, creating a balance be-tween input and output. Stock that does not move “is dead capital and has a direct influence on cash flow”. Gas and electricity are switched off where possible in quiet times, and the out-door signage is electricity-intensive, so is only switched on from 7–11pM. Equipment is maintained regularly, to prevent costly repairs. Staff are given a meal per day, to prevent them from “eating the food intended for the cus-tomers”! Shrinkage is one of the major issues affecting a restaurant’s cash flow, say the own-ers. Staff have good ideas on saving costs, and

should become part of the cost-saving team.

The burgundy’s team wants to encourage other restaurants and accommodation establishments in Franschhoek to work together with them, in sharing taxis for their staff in the evening, and for joining together to create stronger bargain-ing power with suppliers.

Col’Cacchio focuses on serving the main meal smartly, and has seen that, if it does so, the restaurant patron will probably have a desert and/or a coffee as well. The restaurant too has become tougher on its suppliers, in negotiating better prices, and it also focuses on eliminating wastage of its stock where it can.

bouillabaisse says that it is feeling the credit crunch in that it does not turn over its tables as much as it used to, nor does it have waiting lists for tables as in the past. its day-time trade “has almost totally fallen away”, and therefore the restaurant is now offering salads, burgers, fish and chips, and gourmet sandwiches. it has opened for lunch on Sundays, to increase its revenue. As fish is expensive, and not eaten by all customers, the bouillabaisse menu has more meat and vegetarian dishes, with better cost-ing for both the restaurant and the customer.

wine is served in 250ml carafes, to encourage wine sales. The Franschhoek restaurant hands out gift vouchers to its patrons, offering them a free glass of cider with their pancake ordered at the new sister restaurant Crepe Suzette in de waterkant in Cape Town. ingrid Haas says: “if you are well established and consistent and have a popular reputation, you could survive the recession.”

David Walters is a real do-good Fran-schhoeker, who gets involved, and brings his energy and enthusiasm to projects that benefit lovers of music and other things classical. He laments the support of locals for his products, believing that the majority of the lo-cals have never seen his work in his studio. Last month he exhibited at the Design Indaba for the first time. He too is diversifying, making porcelain dinnerware that is “high-fired, tough and white, so that they show off the food first”. He has made the dinner-ware for a number of chefs, including Top Ten chef David Higgs from Rust & Vrede, as well as for Camil Haas in his Franschhoek and new De Waterkant Bouillabaisse restaurants.

Jenny prinsloo, CEO of the Franschhoek wine Valley and Tourism Association, calls for inno-vative packages for the slow months, to offer travellers added value in the difficult economic times.

One thing is certain – employment of staff will decrease in the Valley, given the feedback above. This may lead to social problems. It may also be an opportune time for the Valley to have a staffing policy whereby businesses do not take on the “bad apples” of other businesses, without doing thor-ough reference checks with previous employers. Also, we should not be appointing the staff that have run away from other employers, or who have cheated them out of money or stock items.

Nicky Gordon from Haute Cabriere ended off on a positive note: “we are optimistic that the 2010 Soccer world Cup will bring good business to not only the country but more specifically our valley and perhaps we need to brainstorm as a village as to how to ensure that Franschhoek is seen as a “must visit” destina-tion for the foreigners hitting our shores.”

David Walters - the ‘do-good Franschhoeker’ that even looks like Santa Claus



This March, the Month’s intrepid reporter in-terviews Ta Ta (Father) Gilbert Macosana on the question of ‘Who is responsible for the betterment of Langrug squatter community, and what can be done?’ Ta Ta Gilbert is one of the elderly members of the Langrug com-munity and a leader of the St. Paul’s Church. This interview was conducted in Xhosa and translated into English.

The Month: Ta Ta, please share with us your background and experience as one of the first members of the Langrug community

GM: Thank you. i have been in this valley for a very, very long time to the extent that it has be-come part of my life. i arrived in Franschhoek a young man under the dutch Reformed Church. At that time there was no black people’s settle-ment. i stayed at a farm where i started the St. paul’s Church, using my room at the farm.

The Month: what made you leave the farm and stay in Langrug?

GM: The white farmer sold the farm, so we had no choice other than to leave, but ‘where to?’ was the question. The white people did not ac-cept us, and the law dictated that blacks must stay at Mbekweni, a township in paarl.

The Month: what was the way forward, what was the feeling?

GM: i came to understand that apartheid comes from the mouth, that the heart has no apartheid. The feeling of suddenly finding our-selves strangers in the fatherland triggered us to take what we have without permission or au-thority. we started building our shacks up on the hill, today called Langrug. it was the first black settlement in this valley.

The Month: what was the reaction of the au-thorities and the white community?

GM: we knew what would be the fruits of our cause. Another river to cross, that day came a vehicle and police and without wasting time asking questions, we watched them breaking down our shacks. in that same day the people rebuilt their shacks and it became our strategy of resisting the system. in the end they gave up.

The Month: in what year did these events take place?

GM: if i remember correctly the year my child

was born, 1977.

The Month: How do you feel about the situa-tion in Langrug today?

GM: The situation in our community is pain-ful. we are not happy here and from what i see it’s becoming worse. we elderly people are becoming heartbroken, at weekends we don’t know what it is to sleep, with noise and screams everywhere, loud music playing in taverns. This place is chaos, there is no order, people do as they please. i have been to other places and it’s not like this. There is much to be concerned about: toilets, health, etc., but the people don’t seem to care.

The Month: what other challenges do you face daily?

GM: it’s difficult for elderly people like me to travel to the clinic at Groendal. when you get there it’s full sometimes, you can’t find a place to sit. The other thing, little children play in dirty water and all sorts of filth surrounding our area causing sickness. don’t mention the toilets, i do agree the municipality made some improvements, there are people employed to clean the toilets but i see no change; people re-peat the same things, worse still, doors are sto-len or damaged, when you get there you walk in water everywhere. Some of the toilets are not working, people have to wait, it’s disgusting really. The toilets and street cleaners are good things we have achieved but it soon becomes meaningless without the co-operation of each individual in our community. we need to start electing street committees to make it easier to identify our needs.

The Month: As a community how do you deal with such matters?

GM: There is no order and where there is no order the people are not organised. They are divided making it difficult to challenge the problems. i can go around with a loud speaker calling people to a meeting, but only a few will come.

The Month: The youth of today will be the men and women of tomorrow. what can you tell young people of the role they play and how does this affect them?

GM: (lowering his eyes and shaking his head) it’s pain you are talking about. i tried my up-most best to keep the youth from the dangers and evil in the streets. i did everything to guide them but when they are out there they forget all. i tell you, in my lifetime i never saw children of twelve years heavily drinking, it’s a shame. There are youths here who the only thing they want is to drink. This house is opposite the Tavern – i see all these things, some lying flat in the street, cannot wake up, so heavily drunk. i don’t talk about the night when they throw empty beer bottles on our roofs. The youth in our community are a dis-grace. Yes, some play soccer but after that they go to the taverns where they stab until they kill each other. don’t want to go to school, don’t want to work, girls have baby after baby and since the Child Grant came in things are worse; this money won’t fulfil the needs of the child. Something needs to be done – what will they teach the coming generation?

The Month: in your opinion, Ta Ta, what can be done? is there hope for the youth?

GM: Yes, there is always hope for change but people must help themselves. These youths need to organise themselves and do some plan-

ning for their future. They need to put their ef-fort into the betterment of their wellbeing and their community. we will help if they try. They CAN do it if other youths can.

The Month: do you think the Municipality has done enough or, at least, come half-way in helping the community of Langrug?

GM: For me i can see no change, no, i have to be honest. They talk and talk until you get tired. it’s hard for this Municipality to give us ground to build a church. we, the church leaders in the black community, have tried in vain to prevent our children from going astray. i’ve seen many people starting small businesses like spaza shops, and within three months, go bankrupt. if children do something good, like

singing or dancing, you don’t see them again. it’s just quiet, no meetings, nothing is happen-ing. The only thing i see is people suffering while others have more than enough. where is the change? i don’t see it.

The Month: who is responsible for the better-ment of Langrug?

GM: it is our responsibility to make our place become a better community, with moral values, a determined, progressive and united youth. The first step is unity. when people are united it makes it much easier to deal with social is-sues. when united, we can combine ideas, set ourselves goals to achieve for our community. Striving for our goals we must be willing to ac-

cept our faults, sit down again and find a better way forward. we must not fall into the deadly trap of being united against, or in defence, of any side but as one community of Franschhoek. And not exclude the white people, they need to stand shoulder to shoulder with us, we worked for the white people, our children still work for the whites. is it not true?

The Month: Yes it is true, but can Ta Ta explain it in a broader sense?

GM: i’m trying to say we are dependant on each other, we are fashioned that way by the Creator, one cannot live without the other. Just like we cannot survive without water so we each are human beings each with our special qualities, not to compete but to combine our thoughts and ideas for the benefit of all, equal-ity and the right to enjoy the gift of life. The Month: we are looking forward to the next election, how is the mood of the people of Langrug?

GM: when it comes to politics i don’t have much to say, i’m not a politician, maybe i dedicated myself too much to religion. what i can say is all these people were together against apartheid. why do they fight each other when it’s their time to rule? How are they going to lead?

The Month: we are humbly thankful, Ta Ta, for your time, sharing your life experiences, opinions and wisdom with us.

GM: i’m really thankful, i feel relieved inside, i had kept too many things inside and not only my congregation, family and friends know how i feel, but now it shall reach to others, may my words bring about change. Thank you.

“Ta Ta” Gilbert

Voice of the voicelessBy intrepid reporter Jabu Mpayipeli



The Wilfred Moses Column

A FEW MYTHS AND MISCONCEPTIONS IN THE LABOUR MARKET

From time to time employees claim to have been treated unfairly and in many instances these claims were found to be without sub-stance. This month I want to address a few of these myths and misconceptions in the minds of both employee and employer. What concerns me most is not so much the level of ignorance showed by employees and em-ployers, but the way in which employees are encouraged to believe that they have a case, and by doing so raise unfounded expecta-tions, when they clearly don’t.

MYTH 1: (EMPLOYEE)

After many years of employment for the same

employer, the employer owes me compensation for the years of services i rendered to him. This is also known as “service money”.

whenever i ask people to quote the applica-ble Act upon which such a claim is based, they simply react, “but the law says so”. Nobody, to date, has shown me which legislation requires employers to compensate employees after years of employment. THERE iS NO SuCH ACT OR LEGiSLATiON. You can only make such claims if you belong to a provident or pension fund and even then, the claim is not against your employer, but the relevant insurance or investment company. The only possible expla-nation is confusion with retrenchment require-ments. in terms of section 189 of the Labour Relations Act, terminated employees due to operational requirements, must be compensat-ed with one week’s wages for each completed year of continuous service. The other instance where an employee can also claim similar com-pensation (due to economic reason), is when the employer is sequestrated in terms of the in-solvency Act. Employees must understand that there is no entitlement to any compensation for years of employment, except for under the circumstances stipulated above.

MYTH 2: (EMPLOYEE)

i absconded or resigned from my employment, and now i am going to apply for my unem-ployment (uiF) benefits.

You can forget about unemployment benefits the moment you disqualified yourself by stay-ing away from work or decided to quit your

job. unemployment benefits are not for people like you. it is meant for people who have lost their jobs for a variety of reasons such as re-trenchment, dismissal or incapacity and who have become dependant on the unemploy-ment insurance fund for survival. Obviously if you resign or stay out of work, you are not desperate for an income and thus the fund is not meant for you. it is an insurance mecha-nism, to insure the unemployed, and not those who willingly and purposely quit their jobs. it is like an insurance policy. it covers you in times when you need desperate assistance. The fund is also intended to cover situations such as maternity leave, dependants’ benefits when the contributor has died and adoption benefits. Also remember that it is a criminal offence to apply for unemployment benefits whilst still employed.

MYTH 3: (EMPLOYER)

in my guesthouse or restaurant, i don’t pay overtime, because my workers know that we work long and flexible hours in the hospitality industry.

This is wrong. For many years in the hospi-tality industry people have been working for extremely long hours without being paid for overtime. Although it is very difficult in tour-ism to stick to specific working hours, employ-ees were (and in some cases are still) exploit-ed, to say the least. Fortunately this situation is now regulated by the basic Conditions of Employment Act. it goes without saying that employees are of course entitled to compensa-tion for working overtime. The determination

states that no employer can require or permit an employee to work overtime unless there is such an agreement between the employer and employee. it is further stated that such an agreement is valid for only one year. Normally any employee should not work more than ten hours overtime per week or more than twelve hours on any day, including overtime.

As far as payment is concerned, the employer must pay the employee a minimum of one and one-half times the employee’s wage for over-time worked or alternatively pay the employee her ordinary wage for overtime and grant her at least 30 minutes time off on full pay for every hour of overtime worked; or grant her at least 90 minutes paid time off for each hour of overtime worked. Time off granted must be given within one month of the employee be-coming entitled to it. This period, however, can increase should parties agreed thereto in writ-ing and the number of overtime hours worked reflected on the payslip.

Finally, if we want to eradicate myths in our society, training sessions in various aspects of labour legislation are strongly recom-mended. Such sessions will only be fruitful if both employer or senior management and employees attend. An informed employee is a literate employee and a literate employee can only add value to a business.

‘Till next Month.

For any queries or consultation, please contact wilfred at 083 3175 335 or email at [email protected]

As host venue of the SA Open, Pearl Valley Golf Estates is rated as a ‘must-play’ by local and international golfers, amateur & professional alike. As a “The Month” reader, you can also walk in the footsteps of legends for only R 750. Rate is inclusive of a shared cart and a R100 Clubhouse voucher, redeemable in the Golf Shop, food and beverage outlet or The Spa.

Rate only applicable if booked in advance by calling +27 21 867 8000 and quoting “The Month”as reference. Terms and conditions apply. Offer valid through April 2009 only. Regular rate: R 1 095 per person.

Come home to a legend pearlvalleygolfestates.com

COME PLAY WHERE THE LEGENDS PLAY

A LEISURECORP DEVELOPMENT

330_PV_The Month March Spa Ad_FA_v1.indd 1 2/18/09 5:13:24 PM



Did we really splinter?By Alan Saffery

Book reviews for MarchBy Rene Brophy

SPLINTER GROUP: -noun; a small or-ganization that becomes separated from or acts apart from an original larger group or a number of other small groups, with which it would normally be united, because of disa-greement - RANDOM HOUSE DICTION-ARY 2006

uniting the various Franschhoek ‘Splinter Groups’ as well as engaging local residents for the good of the town, appeared to be two un-derlying themes of the public Meeting held on 11th February at the town hall. with the ‘ur-gent need to preserve urban heritage’, solve the ‘severe parking crisis’ and debate the ‘threats of inappropriate development’, many of those at-tending wanted their voices to be heard by the absent Municipality and the town’s developers, upon which much of the blame was laid.

A number of times, the term ‘Splinter Group’ was used, suggesting that fragmentation of the Franschhoek community groups was partly to blame for the lack of local empowerment and the inability to prevent allegedly inappropriate development. but did our community ever act

with one voice? because a ‘splinter group’ actu-ally denotes a small organization that becomes separated from an original larger group with which it would normally be united.

Since 1986, we have had the Franschhoek Val-ley Conservation Trust to lobby for conserva-tion and protection of the Valley’s architectur-al, cultural, environmental and social heritage; our sense of place. As a result of the 1985 Land use planning Ordinance provisions and with pressure from the Conservation Trust, the Aes-thetics Committee was established to liaise and comment to the Municipality on planning is-sues. The Ratepayers Association was formed to ‘safeguard and promote the interests of rate-payers and to act in the general interest of the community’. Another major body is, of course, the Franschhoek wine Valley & Tourism As-sociation. All these groups were formed at dif-ferent points in the past for different reasons. However, each of them is now, to a greater or lesser extent, but somewhat independently, fo-cusing their efforts on development and plan-ning issues.

why is this? when it comes to the preserva-tion of town character and heritage, why are we not uniting behind the Franschhoek Valley Conservation Trust, which is already mandated to deal with such issues and which continues its own battles with the Municipality? it ap-pears that the direction we are going in is to create a new body to bring together all other community groups to deal with heritage con-servation and development. but from discus-sions i have had so far, it appears that each group, plus a number of individuals, feel that they should be the ones to start this new coor-dination body. plans are being made with...... little coordination. in an attempt to become more coordinated and unified, are we actually becoming more fragmented? Are we going to end up with another association basically doing the same thing?

if we go ahead and create a coordination body to attempt to unify views on heritage and de-velopment between associations and commu-

nity groups, does that mean we then go on to create another coordination body to harmonize views when it comes to tourism development, and then another body to direct views between associations and community groups on mu-nicipality services?

Who does the municipality then work with? We already face the situation where the exist-ing groups fail to be consistently informed by the Municipality about planning issues. Additional bodies may aggravate already weak relationships. As I have already stated, it is not clear for many, due to the lack of sufficient information availability, particu-larly online, what each of the existing groups does, how someone can join, and what vol-untary assistance is in need. The creation of new committees and coordination bodies will surely only complicate things further.

Coordination is certainly required but not through the establishment of splinter groups. An evaluation of the existing groups should be made to firstly assess whether the role they are now performing is as appropriate as it was when the group was formed. This would re-quire cooperation between the boards of each association and a public consultation process. perhaps we should have the next public meet-ing focusing on each of the associations and community groups?

The community groups then need to ensure that they keep their members and the wider community fully informed about the activities they are involved in. A shared website could easily be created that provides the agendas, minutes, goals, plans and strategies, as well as more general information about each associa-tion. in fact the Municipality does a very good job in providing similar information about their meetings online. perhaps a public no-tice board could be placed near the town hall for those without internet access. The groups should also make some improvements on their management and operation; development of professional charters, for example, where they do not exist already.

i am aware that there is some dissatisfaction amongst residents on the operation of the vari-ous groups. This may be because of a perceived lack of success in fighting inappropriate devel-opment so far, limited representation of the wider community, poor communication or limited engagement due to poor communica-tion. but it may also be due to the lack of ac-tual support for each of the groups. we have a number of dedicated individuals who must be tired of doing so much on their own and then being criticized when things do not go to plan or desired results are not achieved. To what ex-tent are our current obstacles related to general apathy, perhaps in the past, by residents; a gen-eral willingness to leave town battles to others to fight? Are we only seeing a greater level of interest now because of the extent of develop-ment taking place and due to the fact that so many of us are affected? Are we only now will-ing to be more actively involved because many of us are suffering from NiMbYism (Not in My back Yard)?

whilst i am not in favour of, and advocate against, new bodies to be formed to fight or unite behind particular issues for which asso-ciations already have a role, i do believe in im-proving coordination between associations and community groups in terms of clarifying roles and responsibilities, promoting one another and encouraging resident engagement. we (as residents and community groups) should rally behind existing groups.

A United Nations Development Program website on governance states... “Multiparty systems are criticized for lacking political stability. It is argued that too many compet-ing interests makes it difficult for parties to work together, form stable coalitions, main-tain general organization.... A coalition of parties may unite to form a government, but governing together often proves difficult. Perhaps we have something to learn from this?

Title: The Hour I First BelievedAuthor: Wally LambPrice: R215.00Publisher: Harper CollinsPublishers

A moving story filled with lines you will want to read out loud.

by the author of I know this Much is True comes an unbelievably complex and beautiful

new novel which combines real events with an amazing fictional story. Caelum and his wife Maureen move to Colorado and find jobs at Columbine High School. while Caelum is away tending to a family crisis Maureen hides in a cupboard from two angry teenagers who have embarked on a shooting spree. They de-cide to move back to Caelum’s family farm to try to move on with their lives but the trauma of what has taken place stays with them. in-terlaced with the story of Caelum’s life is the life story of his fascinating ancestors. The book deals with trauma, infidelity, addiction and slavery in a touching and real way.

Title: Run Your Own Business and Make Lots of MoneyAuthor: Eric ParkerPublisher: Frontrunner Publishing Price: R139.00

The ultimate South African Entrepreneurship guide. Now more than ever Entrepreneurship is a crit-ical subject in South Africa. The previous edi-tion of this book sold 30,000 copies and this new, revised edition is even better. Run Your Own business is an accessible guide to starting and growing your own successful business. The book is a thorough and complete guide written

in simple language and covers all the impor-tant areas of running a successful business. it includes full-colour photographs, illustrations, useful tips and information boxes.

Title: My Fairy FunfairAuthor: Louise ComfortPrice: R225.00 Publisher: Pan Macmillan Publishers

A gorgeous novelty book you would want to stash under your pillow while you are sleep-ing.

Every now and then a book comes around which makes you wish you were ten again. This is one of those. The book allows you to interact with and to recreate the story of petal, poppy, Rose and Acorn as they experience the funfair. The book includes a delightful story, press out pieces and an amazing pop-up which will make you gasp.

Alan Saffery



SIYASEBENZA PLATINUM RECRUITMENT AGENCY ccSick ‘n tired of recruiting & administering labour force? Let us

do the recruitment and/or put your staff on our books so that youcan focus on your core business. we take the hassles of labour

legislation off your shoulders. permanent/temporary staff. After all, we are locally based.

Cell. 083 3175 335

The Franschhoek A to Z wishes to thank the Hoberman Collection for providing two beautiful photos for the front cover of the 2009 edition. See www.hobermancollection.com.

The Franschhoek Month

pO box 191, Franschhoek, 7690

Editor: david Foster mobile: 084 827 3986 [email protected] Advertising: Craig McNaught [email protected]

www.themonth.co.za

classifiedsCLASSiFiEdS To place an advertisement in The Month, visit www.themonth.co.za/advertising or email [email protected]

LiGHTwORKS pHOTOGRApHYLightworks Photography offers a wide range of photographic solutions to suit the needs of any business or person. From studio and outdoor photography to retouching and post-processing - we’ve got it covered.Call: 084 510 1496 or 073 648 7991 [email protected] www.lightworks.za.net

winelands iT - 083 2600 453

Firewood For SaleLogs and chopped wood for those long winter nights or lovely braais. Alien or bluegum available.Call Tommy on 0710839391

1345: Saturn, Jupiter and Mars line up and is thought to be the cause of ‘the plague’

1457: Gutenberg bible becomes the firstprinted book

1530: King Henry Viii’s divorce request isdenied by the pope so he declares himself supreme head of the English Church

1558: Smoking tobacco introduced to Europe by Francisco Fernandes

1647: discovery of the Cape of Good Hope when the dutch ship Haerlem runs ashore in Table bay

1790: The shoelace invented

1854: Charles Miller patents first u.S. sewing machine to stitch buttonholes

1864: Rebecca Lee becomes the first African-American woman to receive a medical degree

1870: Thomas p. Mundy of New Jerseybecomes first African-American to vote in the u.S.A.

1876: Alexander Graham bell patents the telephone and calls Thomas watson

1878: Sabi Game Reserve, the world’s first official designated game reserve, opens

1898: The bENz becomes the firstautomobile sold

1903: Niagara Falls runs dry

1906: A “Census of the british Empire”shows England rules 1/5 of the world

1933: Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurated as 32nd president, pledges to pull U.S.

out of Depression and says “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

1945 New York is the first state to prohibit employment discrimination by race or creed

1946 british Government takes control of bank of England, after 252 years

1955: Elvis presley makes his first televised appearance

1958: The South African government bans the ANC

1959: barbie, the popular girls’ doll, debuts and will sell over 800 million

1961: South Africa withdraws from the british Commonwealth

1965: First u.S. combat forces arrive in Vietnam

1970: Concorde makes its first supersonic flight at 1,127 Kph

1971: winnie Mandela sentenced to one year in jail

1971: South African broadcasting lifts its ban on the beatles

1981: Russian spacecraft ‘Venera 14’ lands on Venus

1986: Martina Navratilova becomes firsttennis player to earn $10 million

2005: Steve Fossett completes the first non-stop, non-refueled, solo flight around the world in 67 hours

2008: A 415 square kilometre Antarctic ice shelf disintegrates

March in history

Dr. Tracey Garner General

Practitioner

1 Kruger St Franschhoek 021 8764622 082 5641797



CLOCKWISE FROM TOP-LEFT

Author and historian, Neil Veitch, who spoke on the urgent need to preserve urban herit-age at the Town Hall meeting on the 11th February.

pieter and Fransie pepler tie the knot at the NG Kerk in Franschhoek on Valentine’s day. A full house enjoyed the first in a series of spit-braai evenings held at The bistro, Fran-schhoek.

Matthew Tracey from Tracey’s diamonds in action for Groot drakenstein Games Club in the boschendal six-a-side tournament earlier this month.

the social pageTHE SOCiAL pAGE



Document

Documents

Transcript of Document