The first thing you notice when arriving in a city or country is obviously the airport. Unless you are a Mongolian trekker and you walk everywhere. Or you drove. Or ran or swam or whatever. But if you fly anywhere, the first impression is of the airport.

Well I tell you what, our boys at Cape Town International are PROPERLY throwing our name away. I will get into ACSA later because they are a disaster. But let’s take the News Cafe crew and their service.I might add here that I’m actually in no position to complain about their service- because there is none.

This is now at International arrivals and departures. Which means they should be making a damn good impression. But obviously News Cafe have other ideas.

Firstly we arrived and waited…for a waiter. Naturally my dad was a glass maker though and so I am see through. I’m like the invisible man on E TV’s late night. You cannot see me and therefore don’t need to serve me, or the 4 other people that I’m with. Cool, let’s take a stroll to find a waiter.

Find one just chilling at the front, mulling a couple of ideas around in his head probably:

“I wonder how I can be less helpful?”

“Did I pay the electricity bill?”

“Why is the earth round?”

He seemed like a cool guy though. But cool people are not necessarily intelligent. Like me. I’m a cool guy but I’m quite stupid. Fortunately for me I’m HILARIOUS and have a massive piece so all is forgiven. Plus I wear pink, drink Savanna, right now I’m listening to Rod Stewart and bizarrely I’m not gay. Awesome! Where was I going with this?

Ok so he was a cool guy. We tried to place an order.

“Wicked cool, go to the pool, back to school, to show daddy that I’m not a fool” I rapped to him.

I never did that but I felt it pertinent that I add that in to this article. That line has been in my head for absolute yonks doll! I sound like my aunt from Joburg. She wears a lot of gold. I think it’s my aunt. Call her that just because it’s easier than actually trying to find out exactly what she is.

“Cool, can I get two Amstels, one plain Coke, two double vodka’s with Coke Light and a Savanna”

“Ok sir”

I turn to leave.

“Sorry sir”

Wept.

“Yeah?”

“Just to check. Two Amstels, two double vodka and Coke and a plain Coke”

“It’s two double vodka’s with Coke Light and also add in a Savanna”

“Ok. Sir there is no Coke though”

Mother of Joseph! Is this guy trying to make my head implode? Is News Cafe going to be the final straw to shatter my back?

“No Coke at all?”

“No sir”

Ok well THAT is useful then. What’s next, there is no gravity at News Cafe? There is no oxygen?

By this stage the manager has arrived. Big guy, in need of a haircut maybe. Doesn’t look too clued up.

“Sir there is no Coke but we do have Pepsi and Pepsi Max. We are actually trying to promote Pepsi at the moment”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes sir”

“Ok well the girls aren’t keen on straight vodka so make the Coke a Pepsi then”

“We do have cans of Coke though, but they are only 200ml and we have machine Coke”

By the mother of God, was this guy being serious? Is he honestly trying to shatter my nerves?

Ok well now that Mr Manager has magically combined our waiters one brain cell with a Pepsi Max, by an act of the Gods they have managed to make Coke out of this concoction.

“Ok well just get us the two beers then, two double vodka’s with that watered down machine Coke, a plain Coke and a Savanna”

Finally we were allowed to go back to where we were sitting and actually spend some time with the person we were at the airport to see off.

About 15 minutes goes by when our boy arrives with the drinks. Somehow he managed to stuff the order up. He arrived with two plain vodkas and absolutely no Coke.

“Bud we need the Coke, I’m not about to eyeball Paul the vodka”

“Yes I’m getting the Coke now”

Well that’s expected I suppose.

He arrived back, gives us the Coke and scuttles off to go do nothing again.

So we tracked him down after that and ordered more booze.

This was one of those defining moments in my life.

He arrives back with our drinks order, everything perfect. He then says

“And the milkshake?”

Our boy was standing with a chocolate milkshake in his hand. Not one of us had mentioned “chocolate” or “milkshake” in our previous order.

He looked at us confused as though we were trying to trick him.

“Sorry that’s not ours, you must have the wrong table”

Off he went.

Eventually, on the verge of a nervous breakdown, or something lighter, like suicide, we ask for the bill.

We ask again.

We ask a third time.

No bill arrives.

Ok well it’s free then. If we literally have to beg to pay these people, and they don’t budge, then they obviously don’t need the money.

So we just got up and walked off. Suddenly our boy got a bit of Maurice Green in him and sprinted after us.

“Sir you never paid”

“Yeah I know. Well I can’t pay without getting a bill, and I can’t wait an eternity for the bill”

Eventually we paid, had a massive argument with the manager, who was now someone else as our other boy had obviously gone for a little siesta. Because he had spent all day not managing his restaurant.

So when the new Oxford Dictionary comes out, look up the word “disaster” and you will see next to it two words:

News

Cafe

Well done guys, humour like that is definitely not found on a cereal packet.

To find News Cafe on the internet click HERE. You know…if that’s your thing.

Sean Lloyd

Editor

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So we headed off to the 2008 Blog Awards last night at UCT and then I was going to write something on it. But then I found something that I could not have written better. Come to think of it, I did not even think of writing something so good, and so quickly after the awards. I will give you the link to that article now.

The one thing that was weird last night was the fact that I ordered a double vodka and coke and the bardude said it was R30.

“Jeez Louise, are you on low grade tik buddy?”

He then mumbled something, looking a bit confused and gave me R10 back. As though he was cheating me and he knew he had been caught. Funny then that earlier I was charged R20 for a single vodka and coke. With a 200ml Coke can. Clearly the CO2 shortages have affected our boys brain. That’s neither here nor there though.

I was highly impressed though that Butler’s delivered 50 or so pizzas. I was not as impressed by the pizzas though as I was OVERWHELMED that they had sent Cape Town favourite Butler to do the delivery. ROBBO! If you ever get delivered a pizza by Robbo, you are in the presence of greatness. You will notice that after Robbo has delivered your pizza, your 14 year old son has been cured of asthma.

Your debt has been paid.

Your husband has stopped drinking beer and has lost his beer belly.

Robbo is an enigma of sorts but goes about his work like a miracle worker.

Anysideways, congratulations to all the winners, and as the article which I will give a link to says, these awards are going to grow blogging in South Africa.

More than we could have ever imagined or dreamed.

I was at Cape Town International Airport on Tuesday and it is literally the most disorganised place I have seen in my life. From News Cafe acting like amateur hour to ACSA maintaining the general cleanliness of the place, I was not impressed. Don’t worry they will hear about it.

And so will you, it should be awesome.

HERE is the brilliant article found on Ideate and written by Andrew Smith.

Sean Lloyd

Editor

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What started off as a little trip to the V&A Waterfront a couple of weeks ago turned into full on debauchery complete with copious amounts of alcohol and a near arrest of the editor and his SLXS party crew. We were going into some old school journalism to find out what exactly Semester at Sea was. Here we give you the true story, a 12 hour drinking binge that has us being found out by Waterfront security and nearly arrested. Just because we wanted to have some fun!

The day started off calmly with myself organising a meeting with my shipmate who was on three month leave, because that’s how the industry works. Massive amounts of time spent at sea away from women and anything normal followed by massive holidays where you get so bored you don’t know what to do.

I had heard a couple of days prior that Semester at Sea was docking in Cape Town and it was going to be a boat packed full of American students. Not a boat as such, but rather an ocean liner of sorts. I was hectically excited as students who are only in town for a week are going to be keen to party. Always game for a bit of a smash up 6 or 7 times a week, it definitely appealed to the party boy inside me.

I met up with the shipmate for our first beer of the day at Quay Four and from there we quietly meandered around the Waterfront, scouting for student looking people. The day seemed to be going nowhere and after a little while we decided to cut our losses and go home to shower and change as the days heat was beating us down. We went home, refuelled, showered, changed and then made our way back to the V&A Waterfront to see what evil shenanigans we could get up to.

Semester at Sea: Daytime, sober.

I was chilling at home, knitting and having a quiet Jack on the rocks when I received the call:

“Bugger we hitting Fat Cactus now, meet us there. Bring your A game”

“See you now”

I knew what had to be done. I knew that tonight, more than any other night, I needed to have a liver on me. I had to bring out the A game like I had never brought it before. I kind of had this idea that American students were brought up on Bud Light and had no chance against us in the drinking stakes. Raised on vodka and whisky, I was in with a fair to middling chance of walking away with the game. And possibly four or five smoking hot American students who I would then make tea for all night.

I arrived at the Waterfront at around 9pm and my drinking partners for the night were still not there. So I casually walked into Fat Cactus where there was just loads of sex available! But not quite the type you want. There were the usual Waterfront hookers, just chilling there. But not in any inconspicuous way. You are chilling there with your mates in jeans and t-shirts, all the normal girls are in jeans and whatever. And then there are the slags of the night. Short PVC skirts, high heels and just chilling at the corner of the bar by themselves. They aren’t shy either to approach you.

I nearly had to whip out my 9 and bust a cap in someones ass. So after being in there for all of two minutes I had scoped out the situation. Keep away from chick in PVC skirt in corner of bar. Keep far away from her to avoid even breathing the same air as her. Prone to airborne diseases. Move closer to American students, who are looking extremely stunning. All hot, all students, all drinking tequila.

I met up with my crew outside Fat Cactus and told them the situation:

“Ok, beware of the ladies of the night. Kick them if you must to keep them away from you. Everyone is drinking tequila. Some weird people around though, especially the guy in his ship uniform thing. He thinks the chicks dig him. They think they need more Mace for him. Stun gun even. We need to find out as much as possible about Semester at Sea. It’s work related so the hangover will be well worth it. Maybe.”

We literally rolled into Fat Cactus and as we walked in, and got our first beer, all the students decided that they would be leaving. We were left with PVC chick and a bunch of sailors. I have NEVER been that disappointed in my entire life. Anyway as the sailor got out of control and literally started spear tackling people, we decided to cut our losses and head for another drinking spot. We were learning nothing new here.

Off to Mitchell’s it was where we were to meet all the students. It was a very strange atmosphere there that night. There were a lot of very drunk and disorderly people there, and they were acting strange. I was just outside the front door, and there were two girls sitting at the table right next to the window.

But there were two middle aged guys inside, just staring at them like stalkers. They were literally just staring at these two girls. Then it got more bizarre as they started tapping on the window to get these girls attention.

I always wonder how on earth middle aged guys think that they actually have a chance with girls in their twenties. Unless they are rich or famous, there is no chance. These guys were overweight, balding, sweating and drunk. Look I won’t ever claim to know exactly what women want, because they constantly confuse me, but I know they don’t want fat drunk guys! I think it’s a case of “Ah we have nothing to lose, we might as well act like stalkers” Maybe if you lost some weight and stopped drinking so much you would attract a different sort of person. Just a thought.

It was about this time that we met three girls, who we won’t name. Maybe because we forgot their names! No we remember them, it’s just that…you know not everyone is keen to be revealed. They came up to me, one girl grabbing my hand and saying “Did you get my drink?”

Right about now I was not quite sure what was going on. I was a little under the weather, but this was bizarre. I then realised what was happening. Clearly this night was stalker night, and I looked behind these three girls to see yet another middle aged fat and drunk man just chilling there staring at these girls, and now staring at me. So I played it:

“Of course babe, where have you been?” I then looked at this old fat guy and said “Hi can I help you?”

He then just kind of stumbled away. Which was lucky for me because he was about ten times bigger than me.

We then started chatting to the girls, apologised that there were so many stalkers out on this particular night and just chatted about what it is exactly that I do. I don’t really tell anyone what I really do. I mean obviously I write…but that’s just one part of the multi faceted equation. I just told them that I run a website and basically play in and amongst the beautiful people of Cape Town all the time.

Everything was going alright when I started enquiring as to how much it costs, what their curfew was etc.

I found out the three month trip costs a cool $20000. Even better was the fact that the students did not have to be back on the ship at any given time. We could literally sit there the entire night drinking whisky and eating roofies, and it would all be cool. So the night went on and on and on, I drank more and more and before long I was speaking in morse code.

The girls decided that they were going to leave at around 2am mainly because all the pubs had closed. I was not really keen to sober up though and people who I party with consider it a sin to end a party before 3am at least. So I said to the girls that we should head back to the floating university AKA the Semester at Sea cruise ship.

They mentioned that security was quite tight around the ship. Which was a given, given that it’s American students. I mean you carry one extra tube of toothpaste and they think it is some mix that can be conveniently chewed, then stuck to the starboard side, and when ocean air has mixed with it for ten minutes it blows the ship up.

Fearing that security would be tight, I never really considered actually getting on board. Because once you are on board and you are caught, you are probably sent to a jail that you don’t want to know about. Anyway it all seemed so easy.

There was a security guard at the entrance to the berth that the ship was docked at. We literally breezed past him without having to say much. I flashed an old student card or something. Then there was another security guard at the stairs leading up to the ship. Once again he seemed to be on standby mode, and while other students stopped to show him their cards, I made direct eye contact with him and just walked on. There is nothing quite like ignorance like this. If anything does happen, just act stupid.

Nighttime: Drunk, speaking in morse code, near arrest

So now we were walking up towards the ship, and I was nearly on board. It all seemed ok. Until we met the Asian security force.

Sweet mother of God.

We arrive and we are made to walk through a metal detector. All three of us go through and we are then asked for identification. Now we are supposed to have identification to identify us as students on the ship.

So this Asian lady with absolutely no personality or sense of humour asks us what we are doing on board. So we say:

“We’re just coming to visit, we know these students(Point to girls) and we are just coming to have a look at the ship”

Bear in mind that this is now around 3am in the morning, I am about twenty drinks down in the day, and we are somehow trying to convince the strictest security guards on the planet that we are just trying to get on board with three girls “to have a look around” Which funny enough was our honest intention. It’s not like we were actually trying anything more, we are really quite respectable. I just thought that it would be the coolest thing to crack ship security and make it on board because it would be a cool story to tell.

So now things are getting a bit hectic as we are forced to show some sort of identification. So myself and L pull out our ID’s and hand it over to the Asian chick, who at this point looks like she wants to take a cleaver and chop my main chap off. It was getting even more weird because the more people get pissed off, the funnier I find it. So while this little lady was going off her rocker, demanding to know why we were on board, I was laughing hysterically. My laughing was cut short when an Asian guy came walking out with my ID book. And a photocopy of it. They were obviously doing background checks on it to see that we were not outlaws.

I am writings current outlaw but that does not show up on criminal records.

The Asian guy comes out, wearing his poker face (Not to be confused with his “Poke her” face. I was wearing my “Poke her” face two nights ago and I got pepper sprayed. Chicks are hectic these days. One wrong word and they kick you and spray you with mace and literally nearly kill you. I literally just said “You have great tits” Hectic) He looked like a proper poker player but I found it odd that he was wearing a ship uniform of sorts.

From what I gathered I think he might have been the captain of the ship. And we had just pissed him off beyond belief. I was tempted to take the joke beyond this, but at this time, for the first time in my life, I was sure I was about to be arrested. I was on the back foot, ready to run like hell out of there. But I wanted to say to him:

“Hey son, why the poker face?”

CAN. YOU. IMAGINE.?! He would have had me deported to some place where I sure as hell don’t want to go. I don’t think he spoke that much english though so I could have always fooled him with my ways of the english language. Or I could have thrown him a curve ball:

“Ergo concordantly vis a vi, wearing out the hedge fund on the bull end of a bear market, we need to cross reference Bear Sterns first quarter results”

He then asked G(Unit) where his ID was. G had forgotten it at home and was now in BEEEEG trouble. Somehow this could have had him arrested on grounds of being a terrorist or something. Wild! Now this guy was treating us with large amounts of suspicion and massive amounts of silence. He repeatedly asked “Purpose for visit?”

To which we would reply “To visit”

His English was horrendous and he never realised that we were just tuning him absolute shite! I was both scared and excited at the same time. I was nervous he would go through my wallet and find my cards, thereby finding out that I’m a writer. Even worse was the fact that I had my camera on me, and it had photos of the ship on it. This could have been construed as me trying to infiltrate the ship and find out secret information about it. I watch too much CSI but security love portraying people in the wrong light, to PUNISH them.

Anyway after sitting there and on the verge of a nervous breakdown, more security arrives. By this stage the students are trying to convince the captain dude that we are good people and are just wanting to have a look at the ship. He is not even looking at them.

Then the security from the stairs of the ship arrives and tries to make out as though he never let us in. So on the back of trying to convince the Asian security forces that we are not here to do harm, we have some security guy trying to get himself out of trouble. He tries to make out that we are suddenly bad people. We pay taxes, we don’t steal, don’t dabble in drugs and crime and yet here we are being portrayed as some sort of trespassers.

With the security forces now fighting it was time to take out the big guns. L has connections within the shipping industry and managed to throw a couple of names around to at least get these guys off our backs. I was sweating bullets. I wasn’t too concerned about arrest on these shores, but in my drunken state I thought they would ship me off somewhere and jail me! Ha ha not like it would ever really happen, but the fear I was feeling can only be desribed as “The Fear” you get when hitting a gravity bong and instead of becoming mellow, you get “The Fear” You freak out. Some people run away.
The Fear that Damian at Casa del Sandenbergh gets from time to time.

L was in negotiations with the Asian and SA security forces, and in the meantime I had slipped off the ship with G(Unit) and was running for my life down into The Waterfront. I had drunk so much though, and our extended stay on the ship, combined with nerves had me seriously needing to go to the bathroom. Unfortunately it was so late that the entire Waterfront was closed. I considered taking a piss just anywhere, but the V&A Waterfront is littered with security cameras and security guards.

I decided that the parking lot would be a good idea. So I just let go…into the gutter right near the parking ticket machine at the parking opposite Mitchells. And by some force of nature, or Miracle of God, a security guard walks out and nearly catches me. I quickly zip up my jean pant and pretend to pay for my parking.

The only difficulty was that I was not driving back and so had no ticket. I basically just said “Ok I’ll be back now” and then disappeared.

And so a night that started off calmly ended in me drunk, pissing in a gutter after nearly being arrested on a floating American University.From what I have learnt, don’t ever try to get on a ship without permission. People in the shipping industry don’t take any trash talk from anyone. Not even the SLXS crew. They will literally rip your head off. It’s exciting doing things like that, but they can end in disaster.

It’s crazy. It’s wild. It’s my life.

On a side note here: It’s been a couple of weeks and there have been no warrants out for my arrest. I have been allowed back into the Waterfront and everything seems to be pretty safe. Great success! Next time Semester at Sea docks in Cape Town, I’m making proper plans to get on board.

Do they know who I am?

For more information on Semester at Sea, please click SEMESTER AT SEA

Sean Lloyd

Editor

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I might be a bit slow in writing. It’s just that people are leaving for London, The Cape Argus are running a lame April Fools joke, Casa del Sandenbergh in Hout Bay packed up and went touring Namibia, people want to start new things, I need to write more, more easy access to alcohol, more time in the gym, more business, less pleasure, and to top it all off I’m currently trying to watch this Robbie Williams DVD “Live at Knebworth” It’s insanity.

It’s all a bit scary to be honest. I’m losing my flair a bit here but I think I have something funny to write. Everything is up in the air at the moment and I think I might just drop everything.

I’m a mess.

Donations of bottles of Jack to the usual address.

Sean Lloyd

Editor

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