Hard Times Cafe, Melville

Friday, March 28, 2003

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

So why am I ogling Amanda, the manageress, wondering what she'll look like naked, when I've got a beautiful girlfriend in Somerset West, just waiting for me to fly down for another visit?

Well... easy answer... I don't HAVE a beautiful girlfriend in Somerset West anymore.

See, after I flew home on Sunday night, nursing my injured shoulder, I thought a lot about some of Heidi's closed body language over the course of our long weekend together. I thought long and hard about how we argued on Friday night after her friends left. I wondered why we were feeling increasingly estranged.

And of course, the answer came on Monday evening in the form of an email. Heidi was basically saying that we're incompatible. And she's probably right. Aside from sharing almost identical senses of humour, and both being great explorers of each other, and being interested in what the universe has to offer, we're really quite different.

So after an initial spurt of hurt anger on my part for being dumped via email, I made some peace with the situation. Thanks for a lovely few months, Heidi. It was beautiful loving you, and I think fondly of you. We've liberated things in each other, and we'll both be moving onto better life-opportunities. I wish you all the best.

Right. Back to ogling Amanda.

She smiles at me halfway through my meal. I'm eating the legendary Danish Feta, Avo, and Chicken Shwarma, the item that was taken off the menu about four years ago, but which regulars still ask for and get. Amanda waits for me to swallow before asking, "Everything all right?" That's so considerate. Most managers wait till you've taken a new bite before asking.

"Delicious," I say, and smile back at her. I wince a little bit, cos the smiling-muscles are loosely connected to the torn muscle in my back. I've been to two superb sessions of physiotherapy, and I'm on the mend. But my shoulder's still a tad tender. A bit like my chicken in the schwarma.

And I'm also still a tad tender about Heidi. A bit like the mashed avo in the schwarma.

Tallahassee Spur, Somerset West

Thursday, March 20, 2003

Service: * * *
Food: * * *
Ambience: * * 1/2
Babe Count: * * *

I'm sitting with Heidi. Two and a half months have crept by without any physical contact between the two of us. We've run up hundreds of rands worth of phone bills, and now we're together again. Sigh. She's a babe. And I would walk 500 miles...

Actually... I ran 500 metres for her. At the Joburg International Airport. Damon gave me a lift to the airport yesterday, and it took 90 minutes to beat through the traffic, and I had exactly four minutes to make my Kulula.com flight. And I didn't know the aiport had changed. If you've ever flown Kulula, you'll know that once their boarding gates have closed -- thirty minutes before the flight -- they DO NOT OPEN THEM!

So Damon hits the ejector seat in his new Renault Megane, and my backpack and I hit the tarmac, and I run with the thing over my shoulder. Get to where Kulula's boarding gate used to be, and find a sign pointing me South. Hundreds of metres south. So I start running. And put my backpack on in mid-run. And rip my shoulder.

But it's all in the name of love, and I'm desperate to see Heidi, so I run more. And find the lifts are broken. So run up the three flights of rolling stairways. And get to the boarding gate 40 seconds late. And there's nothing that can be done, save to put me on the British Airways standby list.

Now it's around this point that I should have paused to consider what the universe was telling me. I think it might have been saying, "Uh, Roy... should you REALLY be going to Somerset West right now?" But I wasn't listening. I was trying to get my breath back, and ignoring the pain in my shoulder, and phoning Heidi to tell her I'd be late, and phoning Damon to tell him I missed the flight, and sweating.

And I got my flight.

And seeing Heidi at the Cape Town airport was a real highlight of my year. She's beautiful to me, and she was beaming. Both of us nervous as all hell. After all, this is the second time we're physically together over the course of a five or six month relationship.

So now we're sitting in the Tallahassee Spur in Somerset West, and the affable manager with no eyebrows, Barries, is agreeing to give me the kiddies burger instead of the adult burger. I love burgers, but they're normally way too big for me. Heidi goes for the normal sized burger with the mushroom sauce. I ask for pepper sauce.

And Heidi and I are settling down to being comfortable-ish with each other again. Last night was excellent, and I was able to easily forget my shoulder pain under Heidi's ministrations. But right now it's hurting. And there's no sign as yet that Heidi is shortly going to break up with me because we're incompatible.

Fournos, Rosebank

Saturday, March 15, 2003

Service: * * *1/2
Food: * * * 1/2
Ambience: * * *
Babe Count: * * * *

Damon Berry and I have my laptop plugged into the cashier's electrical outlet and we've just been bust bigtime by the woman behind the counter. She's laughing at us, and has her hand over her mouth. We smile back.

Bust doing what?

Perving, of course. It all started when the woman in the blue skirt and white blouse walked past about ten minutes ago. I knew something was up when Damon gave himself whiplash. "Roy!" he said, and I jerked my head around to look. We've got this system going to cover the perv action. If one of us sees some quality babeage, we'll point, as if we're highlighting something interesting in the middle distance. This means that the real object of our affections doesn't necessarily know that we're looking at her.

At this point, the blue skirt disappeared from sight, and Damon and I went back to work. We're doing a budget for our first commercial together. We co-wrote it, I'm producing, and he's directing. I can't name the client at the moment, since it's all hush-hush till their new campaign breaks. What I can say is that when I presented the idea to them, they loved it hugely, and have liberated a neat little portion of their budget for us.

So our heads are together over my computer screen as we try in vain to remove R35 000 more from the budget. We've got to come in at a certain figure, or else the client won't be able to afford it. And we're WELL above that figure, and we just aren't cracking the money-shaving exercise. Damon's just finished his spinach tramezzini, and I've stuck to a slice of hand-made ganache cos I'm still recovering from the damned SABC pie I ate some time ago. So Damon pushes his plate aside, and...

Zhlammo! Damon's in whiplash territory again. And yes... it's the blue skirt. And her butt is about one metre from our table. And she's standing at the cashier, waiting to pay. Both of us are staring. This is wetdream territory. Cos her tiny black thong panties are licking over the rim of the slinky blue skirt. And as anyone knows, the merest hint of panties showing is enough to cause sub-belt thrombotics.

And as the dark-haired butt-beaut pays and starts walking out, the cashier happens to look down and sees Damon and me gawping. So okay. Arrest us. We're grotesque specimens of sexist filmmakers who would run casting couches in an instant if we were famous.

Talking of which... I'm flying to Cape Town on Wednesday, and Heidi and I plan to spend a LOT of time on the casting couch together. Might even shoot a screen test of the two of us to counter these long days and nights spent alone in different cities!

(Some developments on the job front, but I can't say anything about those until I've got offers in writing, and those offers meet my exacting specifications for what a job should entail. You will be kept informed.)

In the meantime, it's three sleeps till Wednesday night.

My Flat, Cresta

Monday, March 10, 2003

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

The service here is terrible at the moment, and that's because I'm basically limping around in a musty red sarong, my throat all raspy and sore, clutching my stomach. I've been eating stale Pro Vita biscuits with no toppings. Why?

Because of a Cornish Pasty I ate twice on Thursday. Bought it at the SABC S1 canteen. They keep a stack of pies in a sort of unwarming drawer behind the counter. You choose one, they slap it into the microwave oven for forty seconds, and you pray that it's killed the botulism or bubonic plague or whatever has started taking hold in the innards. This particular Thursday, I was so hungry I ignored my tastebuds.

As a consequence, just as I was coming up the stairs of my flat on Thursday night to drop off my laundry and head straight off to a sneak preview of Charlie Kaufman's new movie, ADAPTATION, the sweating and fever started. And a long intimate relationship with my toilet bowl ensued. With me getting to enjoy the pie several times over. Hmm. That texture.

At around 3:30am I saw the very last bit of black gunk leave me on its journey down to the sewerage farm for recycling into the Johannesburg water. I wanted to phone them to ask them to take the SABC off that circuit, cos I'm sure it's dangerous, what with all the food poisoning coming back into the water supply.

But hey. Friday morning I woke up, went to the chemist to buy some anti-vomiting stuff, did my audio mix session on the promos I made for SABC 3 TALK, and then came home again, to sleep for around 19 hours.

Saturday, did the doctor thing. Got antibiotics. Took them. And promptly found myself revisiting them too. To the tune of several litres and several hours crouching over the toilet bowl.

Which is why I'm at home today instead of at work.

Which is great really. Gives me some time to work out how to earn myself a living down in Somerset West. But I wish I could eat something more substantial than a dry biscuit. And the service sucks! Wish Heidi could be here holding a wet facecloth to my dripping brow. Hmm. On second thoughts, I'd rather spare her the details.

My Flat, Cresta

Friday, February 14, 2003

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

So it's been a pretty eventful bunch of months, what with me heading to Somerset West to encounter my cyber-love babe in the flesh, trek 3288 kilometres along the coast in the same car as her, and then return to the bleak world of work, with her there and me here.

Which is all my way of saying that I haven't updated this site for a while cos I don't really wanna indulge in kiss-and-tell behaviour. So I won't.

What I WILL tell you is that Heidi in the flesh is way better than the electronic Heidi. And yes. We're in love. And we're putting out calls to the universe to allow us the opportunity to be together.

It'll probably mean me heading for the fairest Cape, since she has two kids and blah blah blah rationalisation blah blah. Actually, I could use a change of scenery. So Cape it is. And it'll probably involve me making movies and making serious money out of that.

Right now I'm sitting in my study listening to Warren Zevon's latest song -- "My Ride's Here". He's dying of inoperable lung cancer as I type, and that peeves me no end. One of the most brilliant musos to grace my eardrums.

Tomorrow morning, 9 o'clock, I go into the audio final mix studio at Henley to complete the sound work on my movie, ARIA. Guto and I shot a new opening sequence, and it's looking pretty damn cool. I'm starting to feel proud, and all those things artists get terrified about. You know the kind of thing... maybe I think it's cool, but maybe it's a total load of rubbish. But hey. I'm a happy man.

Drop me an email if you wanna be invited to the premiere. We'll be launching it sometime soonish in Johannesburg. Probably around end of April or middle of May. But lemme know now, and I'll include you in my planning. roy@royblumenthal.com.

This morning, I was up at sparrow's sphincter to get to a Valentine's event at work. I had been roped into performing a poem for my wonderful SABC3 colleagues. I wrote it specially for the occasion late last night at Nino's in Rosebank. And I'm glad I did it. Cos it meant killing two birds with one quill -- I got to entertain my work friends and wrote a Valentine's poem for Heidi.

Cool, huh? Wonderful to use art to get laid, isn't it? Now I just wish Heidi were here in Joburg so I could cash in on the sex appeal. Luckily, we'll be seeing each other soon soon soon. I'm invoicing that corporate video crowd who caused me some light brain damage when I did the scripting for their company-wank. So I'll hopefully have a coupla bucks to blow on an air ticket.

Here's the poem I wrote for Heidi...

LONG DISTANCE LOVE ON VALENTINE'S DAY

by Roy Blumenthal

Got a girl far away on this Valentine's day.
She's across the road, but not in my neighbourhood.
She's an ocean away but everything's okay.

Because...

I bench-press my love in the sweat of the gym
so she can know it in the flex of my limbs.
It's long distance love.

It's a tiresome chore when I open my door
cos my house is alone in calling itself home.
She's a continent away, but it's all okay.

Because...

I wave my love in semaphore
so she can know it from the 44th floor.
It's long distance love.

I spread out on my bed, might as well be dead
cos she's in her bed too with plenty of room.
She's a planet away, but that's totally okay.

Because...

I tap my love in speed-Morse-code
so she can know it at the end of the road.
It's long distance love.

I've got a portrait under my pillow so I can feel mellow
but a picture can't kiss or demonstrate bliss.
But it's way okay.

Because...

I surf my love with my tv remote
so she can get it from a satellite quote.
It's long distance love.

She's so far away
and we just wanna play.
So we croon on the phone
but her posture's unknown.
So we rant and we rave
then we sound quite depraved
and we groan and we moan
till we're both in the zone.
But she's out there
and I'm anywhere but.
Gotta jump on a plane
to figure this out.
It's long distance love.

But... in the meantime...

I bit-byte my love on the internet
so she can know it when her keyboard gets wet.
It's long distance love.
It's long distance love.

(c) Roy Blumenthal 2003

PS: Oh...I just thought I'd mention it... when Heidi and I drove 3288 kilometres across South Africa, from Somerset West, to Swaziland, to Joburg, in my red convertible with the top down almost all the way... we didn't have ONE fight. Nada. Zilch. This babe and I are so compatible. It's love, chum. And boy, are we compatible sexually, or what??!

Al's Gourmet Chicken, Greenside

Sunday, December 15, 2002

Service: * 1/2
Food: * 1/2
Ambience: *
Babe Count: *

"May I please have a quarter chicken -- the quarter with a drumstick -- some chips, and some iced tea, all takeaway?" I say to the dude behind the counter.

He barks the order to another dude, who wields a pair of scissors to snip through the flesh, skin, gristle and bone of one of the unfortunate chickens stewing in its own juices on the rotisserie.

I need it to be takeaway cos I've got to rush home and pack for my trip to Somerset West tomorrow. I'm in a frenzy of excitement, cos I'm finally going to meet Heidi face-to-face. She's nervous cos she and her friends performed some kind of avant garde op art on her hair. But that's cool. It's nothing compared to what I do to my own hair. Every day. With a razor.

But back to my order. I see the guy plonking the quarter without the drumstick into a box. "Uh..." I say, "I want the drumstick, please."

The guy who took my money barks at the snip artist. "Leg! With leg! With leg!!" I don't like it when managers shout at their staff to cover their own ineptitude. And then I don't notice that he hasn't given me my iced tea. It's only back at home when I see this. And I'm not wasting my precious packing time to go and get the damn thing.

The chicken itself is ultra oily. It's the smallest portion of chicken I've ever eaten from a takeaway spot. Literally a drumstick and a small piece of thigh. I estimate that I got six mouthfuls out of the chicken. The chips were made from glassy potatoes. And I'm still hungry. Looks like I'll be eating muesli later tonight.

Fournos, Dunkeld

Saturday, December 14, 2002

Service: * * * 1/2
Food: * * * *
Ambience: * * * *1/2
Babe Count: * * * *

"Excuse me!" I say to the waiter, as he disappears after giving me my bill.

He comes back.

"Uh... I'm just wondering," I say, "whether you've made a mistake on this price." I point to the R17.90 beside the entry that reads 'Snapple'.

"No," he says. "That's the price."

"Hmm. That's outrageous," I say, and pull out my 'Coffee-Shop Schmuck' business card, snapping it down subtly on the billfold. "Can I speak to the manager?"

It's a pity, really, this outrageous price. Cos I've just had the legendary Fournos Half Chicken and Salad, which is one of the best value-for-money meals I've seen in Joburg. With one reservation... the size of the salad seems to be dwindling as the months go by. My salad today was really just a few lettuce leaves, exactly two quarter-tomatoes, and three blocks of feta cheese. That's not a salad in my books. That's garnish.

But the chicken itself is unsurpassable. In terms of taste and tenderness, I have no doubt that Fournos makes the best roast chicken in Joburg.

I'm at Fournos cos I've just been to Stax next door to buy tapes. My sports car still has the original tape deck in it, so I have to transfer my favourite cds to tape to play when Heidi and I drive from Somerset West to Swaziland around New Year.

And I'm popping my car on a train on Monday morning before heading for the airport myself.

The manager arrives. She's the woman who came round a little earlier and asked me if I drive a white BMW. I said no, and she moved on.

"You have a bit of a problem with the Snapple price," she says, smiling slightly.

"Yeah," I say. "But first... did you find the BMW owner? Was there an accident?"

"He was parked next to my BMW, and someone smashed it. They thought it was mine. But it's all right. We found him. Insurance will deal with it. But the Snapple..."

And she went on to explain that the takeaway price is much lower than the sit down price, and that she's now paying almost R10 for a bottle of Snapple, and that she hopes with the improvement of the rand that the price will come down.

Which is cool. She's engaging me in a real explanation, and she's kind and concerned. But most importantly, she's not bullshitting me. She's telling it to me straight. And that's one thing I really appreciate in someone. So I end up smiling and paying the bill feeling satisfied by the Fournos ethic.

I'm packing up my various books and drawing books, ready to speed off home to tape the STEALING BEAUTY soundtrack when the manager arrives with a huge smile on her face.

"This is for you," she says. "Because of the Snapple surprise."

She's given me a bag full of freshly baked chocolate croissants. One of the many other things Fournos is famous for.

Thank you!

So yeah. I go away feeling pleased with the service, and delighted to have some tea later.

JB Rivers, Hyde Park

Wednesday, December 11, 2002

Service: * * * 1/2
Food: * * 1/2
Ambience: * * *1/2
Babe Count: * * * *

"Have you guys employed another chef?" I ask the waiter.

"No," he says. "Same one."

"Hmmm," I say, pushing my nearly empty plate away. "This Cajun chicken salad isn't up to your normal standards. There were very few pieces of avo, not much feta cheese, and overall, the portion seemed much smaller."

"Was the chicken fine?"

"Excellent. But something's changed."

He apologises on behalf of the restaurant, but I shrug it off, saying that the meal was enjoyable anyway. He promises to mention my comments to the chef.

I'm in a great mood. I've just left Dan Selsick's house, and I have in my hand the final music for my movie, ARIA. Dan composed the score, and a magnificent aria that the film is built around. I'll be giving the music to Philip Haupt tomorrow morning to begin the final sound design. We'll have a finished short film before the middle of next year!!! Viva! It's only been about two years and three months since we shot it!

Another cause for my good mood is that I've just received my new contract with SABC3. I'm signing on for another year as a promo producer making trailers for tv shows. My current favourite is FOOTBALLERS WIVES (no apostrophe). If I manage to go till the end of next year, I'll have smashed my previous employment record by three! Yup, three years! In one job. My last long stint was Hunt Lascaris. A year. I'm now on two years, going on for three. Sheesh. Who woulda thought.

When I pay, I slip my new "Coffee-Shop Schmuck" business card into the billfold. The waiter comes back with the card and says, "Why are you giving me this business card?"

I point out the fine print at the foot of the card: 'If you've received this card with Roy's payment in a coffee-shop or restaurant, you should probably check the website.' I say, "I review coffee-shops and restaurants on the internet. You should check it out."

"Oh," he says, and sneaks the card into his pocket. I'm not entirely sure he knows what the internet is, but if he does, he'll be sure to let me know when I go back there.

Which will be sometime in January, I reckon. That's if I can tear myself away from Heidi. As Billy Bragg says in his song, 'The Warmest Room', on the album TALKING WITH THE TAXMAN ABOUT POETRY: "We have such little time / at your place or mine. / I can't wait till we take our blood tests, / oh baby! let's take our blood tests now!!!" (Been there, done that, and we're both in the clear! Yummy.)

Koeksuster Stand, Gold Reef City

Tuesday, December 10, 2002

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

I haven't been to the circus since I was nine or ten or eleven or thereabouts. I remember it being a crowded place with weird people and strange smells and crazy outfits and animals and danger and freakishness and repressed violence and bizarre claims.

So here I am in advanced adulthood with Genée Heyl, the slinky blonde SAfm newsreader. Her sister is one of the star attractions of the show. Her twin sister.

And yes. They are identical. And yes. They are delicious. Which is a real pity, cos we're both flirting outrageously, with no goal in sight (at least for me), cos Heidi's firmly filling my horizon.

But sheesh. One of the circus dancers is just hormonal sideshow deluxe. She prances into the ring, and all I wanna do is mount the trapeze with her. Ouch. But she's rather on the thin side, and that's a bit of a turnoff for me. It's as Anthony Burgess remarked about having sex with supermodels: "It's like going to bed with a bicycle."

I don't know how to spell Liayne, but it's pronounced pretty much like the "Li" of "litchi" and the "ayne" of "danger". At first I think it's the radical Afrikaans accent of the ring master coming into play, but Genée assures me that I'm hearing right.

After Liayne swallows a sword and lies bare-backed on some freshly smashed bottles and glasses, it's interval. And we all rush out to devour the koeksusters made by the ringmaster's mother. I can assure you that the only koeksusters that come close are ones I tasted in Oudtshoorn several years ago at the Klein Karoo Nasionale Kunstefees, the festival at which I performed poetry with Bekgeveg. Top hats off to you, tannie! Excellent! And the circus had some moutwatering acts too.

Which is why I'm whistling like crazy whenever something wonderful happens in the ring. I LOVE the atmosphere of people enjoying themselves. And I'm a bit of a clown myself. So whistling loudly in pleasure is one of the great things in life. And Genée tells me that the performers really get off on whistles.

So I'm whistling like a banshee in a cauldron. And the woman in front of me is grimacing every time I cheer or whistle or clap. Until I aim one straight at her ear. Now before I go any further, I must mention that I've done tai chi for the last eight or nine years, and I've been doing it daily now for three or four years. Which doesn't make me a powerhouse monster martial artist. No. It makes me docile. And able to flow away from trouble.

But I'm just human. And when a woman just can't even crack a smile for the performers below, it pisses me off, and I want revenge.

So I take my glasses off and hand them to Genée. "I think I'm about to be punched," I tell her, and she clings to my arm in girlish excitement. "Uh," I say, putting my lip close to her ear in the extremely loud circus, "I'm left handed. I'm going to need to move fast if this lunk attacks me." She lets go, and my bicep is all warm where her breast was pouting against it.

The lunk I'm referring to is this massive strongman type. Not a circus strong man. Rather, one of those dudes who runs people off the road at night and mashes them to bits with a baseball bat.

So I wait for my opportunity and whistle super-loudly right in the woman's ear, and she flinches viciously and jams both hands over her ears and turns to scream at me. But her husband restrains her. Only, I notice that both of his hands have formed into fists. And he's flxing. He's trying to work out if he has the advantage over me in a surprise. Of course, the answer has to be no, cos I'm right behind him. I'm above him. And he hasn't had a chance to observe me properly.

Unfortunately, no-one hits me, and I don't get the chance to put my tai chi skills into practice. But hey. The circus is filled with danger. And freaks. And wild animals. And some of those wild animals have husbands.

Grand Cafe, Rosebank

Sunday, December 01, 2002

Service: * * * 1/2
Food: N/A
Ambience: * * 1/2
Babe Count: *

I'm procrastinating my late afternoon away, having an unnecessary cup of tea, and a delicious oversized slice of chocolate mousse cake at the Grand Cafe in Rosebank. It's raining sweatily outside, and even with the shopping mall's aircon, it's still quite a steamy day.

The reason I'm procrastinating is that I've got two promos to write for that client from hell that I fired a month or so ago. The production company was desperate, and said I didn't have to interact with the client. And anyway, making promos is what I do for a living, so it should take me less than an hour to bash out two of the damned things.

In the meantime, I'm chortling happily away over Safran Foer's amazing novel, EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED. It's quasi autobiographical, and involves a trip to the Ukraine to track down the place his ancestors lived. He hires an interpreter who is... let's say... relatively unschooled in the use of English. Hilarious. With dark clouds looming. My kind of humour. Black.

And I'm in that kind of space. Last week when I was having lunch in Melville, some dude scraped a tiny dent into my car as he parallel parked. He apologised, and agreed to pay. So I took it off to my mechanic and asked for a recommendation. He suggested a place where he sends all the classic MG sports cars he specialises in. One of these chip repair places. We're talking about a tiny dent, the size of half of my pinky finger.

So the dude gives me a quote for R450. I phone the chap who smashed my Mazda MX5's delicate paintwork. He agrees with the quote.

I say to Errol at the chip repair place, "Go ahead. But... NO body putty on my car! I want you to please PULL the dent out, and just buff it up. And if you have to use paint, it MUST match."

"No problem," says Errol. And his assistant whips out the automotive sandpaper and starts working on the spot, the spot no bigger than half my pinky. (Please memorise this size issue -- it gets important just now.)

"Uh... why's he sanding that spot?" I ask, suspecting that things are about to go pear shaped.

"No," says Errol, "he's gotta put primer on. Don't worry."

Now I dunno about you, but when I hear the words, "Don't worry," everything in me goes into alert mode. My hairs stand on end. My paranoia muscles twitch into spasm. It's like when the urologist starts babbling about the state of the Hong Kong stock market, and you go, "Huh?" and he waits for THAT moment to jam the Dickoscopy tool into your wee-tube. You just know.

"Hang on!" I say, as the assistant plops a blob of white goo onto a piece of cardboard. He then puts some blue goo with it and starts mixing. "That's body putty!" I say. "I TOLD you I don't want body putty on my fucking car!"

"No, no!" says Errol. "Don't worry. It's just primer."

Thwap. The dude slaps the body putty onto the dent. And proceeds to smooth it off.

"Come on guys! You're supposed to pull the dent!"

"Oh, we can't," says Errol. "They broke in last night and stole one of our compressors and all of the pulling tools. Don't worry. This isn't putty. It's microfill."

"Well take it out of the dent right now!"

"Can't. Once it's in, it's in."

Oh god. So now my original sports car, one of the very first to be shipped into South Africa in 1990, has body putty in a tiny dent. And these muthajunkas are busy sandpapering some more. And some more. And now, from a half a pinky, the area has grown to the size of a sideplate. And it's not even. And they're in a hurry.

We've passed the point of no return.

"Please at least get it straight and flat," I say, "and match the colour."

"No problem," says Errol, and I shudder. And walk away. I don't want to see my car abused.

And when I come back, there's a patch of orange-red paint on my firecracker-red car. And it's uneven. And there's paint spatters all over the door.

"Errol," I say, "I'm unhappy, and this is unacceptable. If this were your car, would you be happy?"

His chin is on his chest. It's three o'clock on a Saturday, and he's got a long drive home to Vereeniging. And he's messed my car up beyond belief. "No," he says. "You're right. It's not cool. Please bring it back on Monday."

Which is why I've accepted the freelance promo job. To pay for a full respray. Cos I know these characters are just schlumpers out to make a living, and that they can't actually afford to pay to have the job done professionally. And I'd be a schlumper myself if I gave the car back to them to mess up further.

So, I pay my waitress, say thank you in Zulu, which elicits a massive grin, and close my book. I've got some promos to write. I've got a car to respray before I get to Somerset West to meet my new soulmate, Heidi. Can't have orange spots on it, can I? Even though orange is one of her favourite colours.