Cupcake Glory

Because my life is like that...(glamorous, unexpected and celebrity-studded, of course!)... I was an uninvited guest at a stylish launch in Johannesburg last week. It was the flamboyant opening of a cupcake shop in a small mall.

No, that's not a typo - thanks for trying - I did mean cupcake shop and not red-carpet premiere or Oscar Awards Ceremony.

However, my friends and I had our picture taken by the press contingent there (read, cute girl with camera) so perhaps we'll be in the Sandton Chronicle - can anybody beat that?? AND... I know the Chef who hosted the event and turned it into a cupcake-and-champagne-appreciation-session personally. I'm quite convinced that gives me huge glamour points.

The Chef had very carefully paired different champagnes to cupcake flavours and we were under strict instructions as to when to take a mouthful of champagne and which cupcake to lead the tasting with.

Take another mouthfuuuuul of champagne to clear your palate, and now sample the strawberry-chocolate-cupcake pleahseh. Don't be shy, ladies, to take the whhhhoooooole cupcake in your mouth at once and ahnjoy!

Of course, the food and wine combining chef is French and of course, he is the husband of a friend of mine! It was a lovely surprise to run into him when I gatecrashed this gourmet event. Just goes to show how well connected am I in stylish circles. You didn't hear about the cupcake shop? Well, clearly you don't count - it was huge.

Jozi street life

I'm in Jo'burg, standing at a traffic light with my car window open this morning. The Bokke arrived at the airport a few hours earlier at 7am and all the radio stations are talking about Rugby and nation building and standing together as one and how many people pitched up to give the team a heroes welcome. A guy approaches my vehicle with a window cleaner, to wipe my windscreen. I signal to him that I'd rather he didn't. He leans into my window and says:

I'm not gonna clean your windscreen. It looks fine to me. Just give me five, you know you are my favourite white girl.

We do the fist-to-fist 5er. Then he goes on in his odd mixture of a South African/American accent:

You didn't come with me to France, but you should have seen. Paris was green and gold! Green and gold - aahhhhh, it was beautiful there in Paris! And you know me, always seeking attention - I was all over the show!

Really, hey?

Yebo. Paris was great, sister! Now, why did you say you won't give me anything?

I have nothing with me in the car. Everything is in the boot, so tsotsis don't put a brick through my window.

Ah, yes I know. You have to put everything away. Sharp - give me five - I'm outta here!

And with another fist-to-fist 5er (clearly, I don't know the correct lingo but I know the moves, bra!) he ambles on to the driver behind me.

The Bokke have done a great job making people here happy and proud. And while the English continue to sulk, I don't think they will ever appreciate that this victory is far more significant in our country than it would ever have been in theirs. In England it's a sporting event, in South Africa it has become a whole lot more than that - it is a story about a people finding common ground and getting fired up together - standing behind their team unconditionally, and by extension standing behind their country and their fellow citizens, unconditionally, even if only for a moment. It's an important moment. We saw it in 1995 and now again in Paris. And that's why even people like me who don't really care for the sport stand up and shout in the stadium at the semi-finals, dress in green and gold and eat lots of broccoli and bananas.

Viva Bokke!