Caffe Magnifico, Canal Walk, Cape Town

Saturday, July 03, 2004

Service: * *
Food: * * *
Ambience: * *
Babe Count: * * * * *

In Cape Town, there are two types of women. Beautiful women. And extraordinarily beautiful women. There's no such thing as a dog in this town. And because there's a shortage of men, it seems that all of these outrageously gorgeous babes have some sort of self-esteem way going on.

Pick out a supermodel stunner from any mall passage at random, and say, "You're really beautiful," and she'll go, "Oh, no! I'm average at best."

I like competition. Survival of the fittest.

Canal Walk is in Century City near Blouberg Strand. It's in an area that used to be the arse end of Cape Town, but it's the latest area of Growth. This particular shopping mall is the biggest in the Southern Hemisphere.

I'm sitting at Caffe Magnifico, slap bang between two escalators. I get to see up the skirts of the babes as they travel up into shoppers' paradise, and I get to see the faces of the beauts coming back down, bathed in radiance and bliss.

I'm here because Leigh has taken Oscar to go and see HARRY POTTER III, which I've already seen. Oscar's been with Leigh since last night, and he had no problem at all with me colonising his bedroom. He's cool to sleep in Leigh's bed.

"How come?" I said to him last night.

"Cos you snore," he says.

"How do you know I snore?" I say.

"My dad told me."

Leigh's nodding hugely. "When I went to work this morning, you were snoring your head off," he says. "I could hear you all the way from the kitchen downstairs."

The film finishes, and Leigh and Oscar approach.

"Do that magic trick!" Oscar commands.

"I can't," I say. "Harry Potter is the magic one."

"Do it! Put the coin in your ear and make it come out of your other ear! DO IT!!!"

I've made the fatal mistake of doing the kind of trick you are expressly forbidden from doing in front of a five year old: any trick which involves the placing of small objects in any body orifice is just verboten. But I forgot to self censor when I first showed him the trick, and now he can't get enough.

"Promise me first that you WILL NEVER PUT ANYTHING IN YOUR EAR, OR MOUTH, OR NOSE!" I say.

"Do the trick!" he says.

"Promise first," I say.

"I promise."

I do the trick. And like all good tricks that involve a coin passing between the ears, straight through the brain, the pain is immense! But I survive.