There are many reasons to go venture into the urban paradise of Constantia. The main reason though is because the amount of hot Constantia mommies are ridiculous. You can basically close your eyes, point anywhere and there will be a MILF. I know this because I tried it and I landed on the fittest, tightest body I have ever seen in my life.

Definitely keeping it in shape for the hubby.

But while the Constantia Pick ‘n Pay is a glorious field of cuisine, it’s the sushi bar that is the attraction.

They have authentic chefs at the sushi bar, and not Ronel from Bellville, so you know it’s good!  There is an actual bar where you can sit at and eat, or you can just have a take out like I did. I ordered the take out and headed back to Casa del Lloyd to listen to some Roger Goode and eat some sushi.

Only then would I touch myself…

And let me tell you…it was good. The sushi.

I got 14 pieces, and it was the “Rainbow roll selection” I thought it appropriate because I saw a rainbow today. The pieces were divided up as such:

6 vegetarian

4 tuna and avocado

4 salmon, crab and avocado

All inside you

In and around your mouth

I also creamed myself with this:

Yeah, I basically bought half a litre of mayonnaise, and that is the packet it came in. I put that mayo in and around my mouth. And my pants. I’m not sure it was such a good idea ingesting it though because the ingredients list is in foreign. And we all know how dangerous that Chinese sounding stuff can be. Remember? Not? You obviously aren’t well read then. You might recall stories of dodgy ingredients being put into their foods. But I ate an hour ago and I still seem fine so I’m fairly confident that I will live few more days.

I do however think that I ate some pieces of a baby, because on the mayo packaging, there was a picture of a baby, and “500g” next to it. So I paid for half a kilogram of a baby. Awesome. The FBI will be over any second now.

Babies: Tastier than you might think

Did I mention that for that sushi, it was R52? I think that’s fairly damn good! I will definitely eat that again.

Where? Pick ‘n Pay Constantia sushi bar

What? Sushi

When? All year round.

Extras? Hot, rich, tappable Constantia mommies

Sean Lloyd

Editor

Look, this does not happen at the finer establishments in Cape Town, but it does happen at some of the not-so-kosher places in Cape Town. I’m talking about that lying, conniving, blackmailing person.

The rose lady.

When you are out at a club at night you have obviously had a few drinks and sometimes your defences weaken. You show some emotion and are prey for these damn flower ladies that approach you, especially when there is a girl with you.

“Excuse me would you like to buy a rose?”

“No thanks”

“But it’s for a good cause”

“Does it make Herschel girls less snobbish?”

“No you see I work for this kids home and we are currently trying to fund re constructive surgery for little Timmy”

“Why?”

“He was walking down Long Street in the city centre and was attacked by a gaggle of silverback apes”

It’s normally at this point that you are sitting there, wanting to punch this chick in the ovaries because you know you are sitting on your last ten bucks, which is going to go to this rose scam. That means you won’t be able to get that last drink, and this frustrates the life out of you.

There are Facebook groups dedicated to these ruthless animals, with names going something like “Mumble mumble the rose ladies coming”

Rose ladies: Miserable

Because you will notice as people see the devil arriving, they start intense conversations, so when she does walk past, they can brush her off and make out as though they are discusing the Kyoto Protocol.

“Yeah bud I would totally SMASH that chick over there!  I’m SO boozed…”

Guy looks over to see the rose peddlar coming. Changes his conversation:

“Yeah well we were trying to cross reference the hedge funds on the raging end of a bull market, when the anomalies were just dissected by the NASDAQ and the FTSE lost 10 points”

Rose lady walks by, missing this crowd:

“Sick I don’t think she saw us”

I mean, honestly Basil, who on God’s green earth is going to want to buy a rose at 11pm, when they are drunk out of their minds and just trying to pull some hot chick? What the hell are you going to do with a rose, IN A CLUB?

Where do you keep it? And the clubs that these rose ladies wrangle themselves into are not exactly the most romantic places anyway. We are talking about Obz, Claremont etc and so most people there don’t give a toss about being romantic. They just want to come right and a rose is not going to work. If anything a girl is going to be embarrassed by this.

Why don’t they sell useful stuff that we can use. Sell me a hot poker that I can stick in my eye. Sell me bricks. Sell me roofies.

But please don’t ever try to sell me a rose, because I will punch you.

I don’t care that little George has no arms and legs and no eyesight. And you know why I don’t care? Because little George is a made up fairytale!

I know how you operate. You walk in, looking for the weak. You zone around, looking to bite into their necks and suck the life out of them. You give some stupid story about how Johnny was born with a penis on his head and he needs surgery to remove it and attach it to the Asian kid who was born without a penis.

I know you. You’re like a spider mixing up a web of lies.

If I wanted to be a miracle worker, I would have been Mother Theresa.

But I want to be a raging alcoholic on a Friday night and I want to get some action from some hot model.

So please…

Leave me alone.

Sean Lloyd

Editor 

Cape Town is a very, shall we say, shallow city at times. Everyone is more concerned about their looks and what other people think of them, than anything else in the world. This is true for all of us probably. Maybe…I don’t know.

I remember when vida e caffe opened in Cape Town and suddenly everyone and their dog was drinking coffee. People who never drank coffee were going “No bru I can’t walk if I don’t have my triple screaming foaming skinny mocha choca latte with wings from vida e”

To me this was always a little bit over the top. It’s not that I don’t think vida e are brilliant, it’s just that I don’t think the untrained palette can taste the difference between vida e and Seattle. However, vida e were(are) clever and created a young lifestyle brand. Vida e became a part of people just like Levi’s and other famous brands have over the years. But because we are shallow, and don’t like to admit it, we would always say

“No I only go to vida because they make the best coffee. No I don’t go there to be seen”

Yeah, AND THE POPE IS JEWISH!

This is rubbish because before vida e you never complained about Seattle. However, all the models and fashionistas attached themselves to vida e and to reaffirm your coolness you had to drink coffee there. Because all the cool people were going there and if was the place to be seen. Whenever I go to Seattle I see an older crowd there, and they don’t seem to think the coffee leaves a bitter taste in their mouths.

The coffee trend has died down a little bit and suddenly none of my friends seem to want to “go for coffee” anymore. Honestly, from someone calling every day saying “Let’s go to vida for a coffee” I have had no calls of the sorts in months.

You see, your shallowness has now been replaced with sushi, this seasons hot ticket.

“Bru do you want to go out for sushi at Beluga? It’ll only cost you like R150″

“No I don’t want to go to Beluga for sushi, but I’d love to take your MOTHER Jenny out for a nice seafood dinner and then never call her again” I’m tempted to reply.

Again, it’s not attacking any coffee or sushi brand, or coffee the drink, or sushi the food, it’s attacking the shallowness of people. Just like Cape Town girls had the whole Gucci shades and Vuitton handbag craze a while back, it seems to have died. Jeez Louise, what next?

Well, SUSHI is it for the moment!

Sushi has been around for ages, but once people caught onto it and it’s worldwide “cool factor” it became all the rage. The best thing about it is the fact that people actually think it’s cheap.

Like R13 for a sliver of salmon wrapped in rice is value for money! Jesus, I can buy an entire bag of rice for R20! For an extra R20 the Chinese kid who farmed it gets thrown in as well. And the tiny piece of salmon is hardly worth much itself. People will complain that a burger these days at a place such as Gourmet Burger or Forres is around R50, but they will happily pay R30 for a “plate” of sushi. To those of you aware, a plate for R30 consists of a piece of salmon wrapped in rice, maybe with a bit of mayo and seaweed. My God, are we all on drugs? Are we smoking the crack pipe and taking ketamine?

“You WON’T believe it” people say, as though they have discovered that the petrol price has dropped to R1 a litre, “but I ate like 10 plates of sushi today and it only cost me R150, they having a special on at the moment. Normally that would cost me like over R200″

Well I will be damned, R200 to eat? I can buy a chunk of salmon for R100 and a bag of rice for R20 and make enough sushi to sink the Titanic.

“R35 bucks for that is cheap!” They say, all giddy. “Yeah but your moms still cheaper” I reply.

What are these “specials” actually on? A special for all the stupid people out there that think R150 for sticky rice and raw fish is cheap? Since when did R150 for this become “cheap” I will smash a steak for that price. I will smash you for that price.

What is sushi cheap compared to? Gold? Heidi Fleiss in her day? Brent crude oil? Kryptonite? A trip to the moon?

And since when has sushi suddenly appealed to all our taste buds? What is SO great about it that has everyone talking? I mean, what specifically gets people in a big wank fest about it? Is it the plain rice? Is it really the raw fish? Personally I think people just dig the mayonnaise. But then a chicken burger is also a bit shit if you don’t have that nice big piece of mayonnaise in the centre.

I enjoy sushi, but I’m not tempted to pay R150 for lunch just because it’s cool. What do I gain from this other than to advertise my wealth on Facebook by saying “Sean has just eaten himself sick on sushi at Beluga”

Do I really care? Does anyone really care? Why don’t people put their Facebook profiles as “Joanne just ate herself sick on burgers”?

You know why? It’s because burgers are not cool and they don’t boost your status. It’s not the “Cape Town thing” at the moment.

I mean, for the love of child slave labour, it’s RICE and RAW FISH. Come on, get over yourselves.

You see in Cape Town we always have new ways to guage our success. You were not cool or successful if you didn’t drink coffee. Now you are not cool or successful if you don’t shout your love of sushi form the rooftops.

It’s like in todays blogging world in South Africa, everyone is suddenly an “online marketing guru” or “tech geek” or my favourite, which I gathered from Shaun Oakes, everyone is a “Web 2.0 expert”

Come on guys, the only thing you’re an expert at is being a fully fledged idiot. Just as the blogging world has it’s “cool things”, so does the city of Cape Town.

Not that I’m immune from all this. After all I do live in a consumerism based society and we all have our flaws.

But come on, let’s get over the sushi before I blow a gasket here. Someone get me a quadruple gin and tonic before I overheat and die or at the very least go burn down every sushi bar in Cape Town.

Honestly, you don’t understand how the sushi craze makes me feel inside.

As a little side note here, just to do the whole Cape Town name dropping thing, the first time I NEVER tasted sushi was on a movie set called Ask the Dust. I was a stand in for Justin Kirk, and one day they started walking around on set offering everyone sushi and I was asking people why they were serving such shit food because I did not eat raw fish.

That turned out to be the blindest thing ever said as Colin Farrell’s stand in let me know that Colin had in fact bought that out of his own cash as a treat for everyone on set. Whether that was true or not I never found out, but it sure as hell wasn’t craft service that made it! Once again…you can take the boy out of Claremont, but you can’t take Claremont out of the boy. I’m pure class!

Sean Lloyd

Editor

We just heard that The Roundhouse Restaurant in Cape Town opened today. I’m pretty sure we will visit it somewhere along the line. This is just a short mention of it for the meantime, with a link to The Roundhouse Restaurant over HERE.

For reservation please call 072 277 2236 or e-mail info@theroundhouserestaurant.com

Wooo hoooo another new place to eat and get drunk in Cape Town!

As if I need any encouragement…

Sean Lloyd

Editor

Remember when I spent some time in Epping a couple of weeks ago? Well I went back yesterday to find the Holy Grail!

Now it has taken us 23 years to find this. I was beginning to believe reports that it doesn’t even exist. Charlie V points right to the spot.

That looks delicious. I’ll eat there.

VICTORY! Apparently some American Medical Journal is coming to interview us later today.

We are like modern day treasure hunters.

Sean Lloyd

Editor

Obviously the other day when I wrote about the non existent service at News Cafe at Cape Town International Airport, I sent them a link to the article and explained what had happened. So…I received a reply yesterday:

Hi Sean

Thank you for taking the time to inform us of your experience at News Cafe and please accept my apologies for the poor service received.

News Cafe is at a key entry-exit point and therefore any experience created there, could have a lasting impression on a visitor’s overall experience of Cape Town.

Please be assured that this matter has been addressed with our managers at the unit. They do not take this matter lightly and are committed to providing a great experience everytime.

When you do pass by the airport again, please do visit us and rate our service; I would appreciate your feedback.

(I was then given the contact numbers of the operations manager and the manager at News Cafe in Cape Town)

Regards

Jacques James

So that is where we are at the moment and I will definitely make a stop past News Cafe next time I’m at Cape Town International Airport. The great thing is that I now have the managers number so if anything goes wrong, I can just give him a call directly from my table. Awesome!

I also has some readers e-mailing me asking if I made that story at News Cafe up. Trust me, you cannot make a story like that up! It’s too bizarre to think of a story like that. We left there with some anger but for me it was more amusement than anything else, just thinking that service like that existed in the world.

Anyway that’s the story at the moment I will let you know what happens next time.

I mean it can’t possibly get any worse, so anything will be an improvement on last time.

Sean Lloyd

Editor

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

It was a humid Wednesday afternoon in Cape Town and we had ABSOLUTELY nothing to do. As you all know, last Wednesday in Cape Town was seriously hot. And when the temperature behaves in such a way, what is a person to do?

Hit Forres!

Forres is more of an institution really than an actual pub. It’s one of the oldest pubs in Cape Town and the regulars who sit and pot away their time are hilarious to say the least. They are easily identifiable because usually they will be eating steak and chips, or a steak roll and drinking large quantities of beer. Their faces will be red( Booze) and they will just sit there checking out the talent that walks through the door.

If your parents ever went to Forres, then there is no doubt that you will go there too. In fact, there will be times when you will know more of your parents friends than your own friends. I called the beach off yesterday because I was just not feeling it…something inside me said “Sean you need inner cooling”

So I asked Charlie V “Whatever shalt thy do?”

Charlie casually replied “Thou shalt drink. Thou shalt drink until the cows come home”

And so we settled in for some raucous Forres action.

Arriving by ourselves we took a moment to scope out the action. Nice. Behind me, two angels. In front of me, two alcoholic looking guys with red faces. ON my left hand side, a kid with the most massive ‘fro I have ever seen in my life! I wanted to cut a little piece out of it just so he would turn around and say:

“Mr. You mess with the ‘fro, you gotta go!”

He would then roundhouse kick me over the table, my bulky frame snapping the table like a twig.

The first beer naturally went down in a moment. As we got settled in we realised this was not just going to be a “We don’t have anything to do let’s just get one drink to cool off and then go home” type of drink. The stage was now set and we were the performers in a bizarre show of food and drink reviewing. Beer after beer, my basic functions were falling out the window. Charlie V was staring at me as though he wanted to kill me, but I realised that he had just totally blacked out.

We started re-creating movie scenes, unaware of how loudly we were speaking.

“Sean go shag a goat!”

“Ha ha I already have! Come and get it!”

Disapproving stares from all around, especially some of the easier on the eye girls. Not to worry, are you aware who I am? No? Me neither but I do know that I AM drunk!

By the time the waiter came around again it was a dog show. It had turned into full on war as Charlie V and me made the most amount of noise ever. Two guys sitting at a table just going full out with the jokes, aware that people might hate us, but also aware that this amount of beer does not warrant us to sit quietly in the corner like naughty school children.

The waiter came round again and I just wanted to eat the menu when he gave it to me. I was close to gnawing at the table. So Charlie ordered some sort of pizza, absolutely no idea what it was because I can’t remember. I was going to go with something or other, but then the waiter recommended something else.

That’s what I put inside me

Absolutely no idea what it was called but it was some sort of a pita bread with strips of steak and rocket. If it was a person, I would have had kids with it. Oh and there was also garlic. I don’t remember this but some girl who I have never met in my life but later joined our table with another group of our friends and sat down and said “Has someone been eating garlic?”

I did the classic reversal saying “Has someone been eating garlic? Have YOU been eating garlic?”

She looked at me as though I had bird flu. Aware now of the state I was in, I think that sentence might have come out like this:

“Has yoooooooo eating gar…..lick? Someone in the pants parteeeee?”

Naturally I was not a hit with anyone in the near vicinity. My excuse was that this was a paid for food review and I had to bend it out of shape. On the one hand it was a food review, on the other hand it was a display of the drinking Gods like no other. It was actually not even a review, it was just a poor excuse to drink on a Wednesday instead of doing constructive and useful things, such as “freelancing” and “working” and “conceptualising over future references to the online media”

When the food did arrive though it turned into a play and we were the best actors around. At this stage, unable to move our mouths, we had taken to other forms of eating the food. Charlie V hoped that the pizza would somehow, through osmosis, enter his body. Unfortunately this did not work and he had to resort to chewing his food like a respectable member of society. The funny thing was, even after all we had drunk, we seemed to be getting more thirsty, and our mouths were getting dry.

Realising that the pizza needed to be washed down with something, Charlie V came to the logical (At the time) conclusion that Tabasco sauce was going to work wonders.

Naturally it burnt him to such an extent that even more beer was warranted to put out the fire. It was about another two draughts before he would be able to speak. But by this time he could actually not speak.

On the other side of the table from Charlie V, sat the editor, in all his glory. Unable to chew normally, and with a serious case of cotton mouth, he had resorted to playing with the food in his mouth like a silly little child who forgot his Ritalin that day.

Why don’t chicks dig me?

With a display like this from two grown men(Ah yes) people literally thought that we had just escaped from the insane asylum. Which was partly the truth, as work in the vicinity of SLXS has been known to release the child in all of us.

There was one intelligent remark from Charlie V though, and it was something that intrigued me. When girls are out at places such as Forres, how do they manage to sit there, in deep conversation, without once looking away from each other?

There were two smoking hot girls sitting outside, and we noticed that not once did they look around. Like seriously, we were there for hours and they stared into each others the ENTIRE time. And it’s not like they were diesel or anything, they were just really interested in the conversation.

On the other hand, at our guys table people were talking to me and I was chatting on my phone, drinking beer and not listening. I only heard selected words like “What a belter” and “Would you like another drink?”

When asked if I would like another drink I would just pinch my skin. The signs of dehydration include skin that does not spring back, but rather slowly goes back into position.

The waiter looked at me and realised that I was in dire trouble. I had pinched myself all over, and the skin refused to return to it’s natural position. The waiter, who had clearly worked in the trauma unit at a hospital, knew that I needed to hydrate, fast.

Before I could fall off my chair, an ice cold Hansa draught was waiting for me. As I sit here now, I am thankful because I could have died last Wednesday if it were not for his quick thinking. Not every waiter can look at a “patient” and know, without the patient saying a word, what medical attention is needed.

Back to the girls not looking around. We were constantly looking around, just seeing what sort of people were coming in and out of the beer garden. I might add here that the DNA pool at Forres was a good one. Nice touch of fitness, a fair amount of good looks and some very naughty smiles. Oh and that green dress. Thanks for that. Not to mention my table which looked like we had been hit by a freight train.

I was back to basic functions of staring, eating and drinking. I was at this stage unable to string a logical sentence together and was also unable to count my money to pay the bill. I just took out money and threw it at Charlie V. He passed maths in school and I failed. I think he took about R600 from me, and I’m pretty sure the entire bill only came to about R400.

Strange.

On a more serious note I tend to think that Forres do overcharge on certain things. Like R49 for a chicken burger. Then again, they are catering to a more well off crowd(The students there just drink, and if they do eat it’s pizza) I suppose it’s like saying “Caprice is SO expensive” It’s the crowd they cater for. People want to pay to be there and they want to pay for the atmosphere as well.

The rest of this review is lost in translation somewhere as I try and piece my life back together and try and reclaim some of my former reputation. To the people at Forres last Wednesday, we are not always like that. It’s just that we need to celebrate the little things in life. What these “little” things are tend to elude me.

I actually can’t write anymore as the rest of this is a blank. Come to think of it, I think Charlie V tricked me.

You see when I got one of the rounds of drinks, I conveniently slipped him a roofie. However, I think he double tricked me back. He pointed behind me and said “Looks it’s a leopard”

My head shot backwards and then I realised he was just fooling with me. Leopards don’t drink at Forres! But it took me a moment to turn around again.

And that was the moment. Charlie V had pulled the “Switcheroo” It’s that moment when you know a friend has slipped a roofie or a viagra(It’s a good laugh) into your drink, and you swop drinks with him. I fell victim to the switcheroo yesterday.

But Forres as you all know is more of a lifestyle than a pub. It’s a place for alchoholics, for students, for little minxes and for all the old people in between looking for a nice place to relax and blow their pension funds.

Words cannot explain to you how at home I feel at Forres. It’s a place that makes me feel safe, even safer than home. It’s like my caretaker, the place I go when I’m happy just to reassure myself that I am in fact happy. It’s the place where I go when I’m sad, because it makes me happy.

It’s a place for all ages and all seasons, all drinks and all food, all guys and all girls…but more important is the fact that it never changes. It’s always the same vibe and always the same sort of crowd.

Forres you’re my true love.

*tear*

Forrester’s Arms

52 Newlands Avenue

Newlands

Cape Town

021 689 5949

Sean Lloyd

Editor

“I’m alright!” are often the famous words quoted by some after falling down stairs, off balconies or out of hotel rooms. I was having a good chat the other day with a friend, and we were discussing the quality humour that is more often than not produced by Hugh Bladen being so blind drunk.

“And that’s a telling tackle!” or words to that effect are often used by Blades.

Anyway in my studies I had a lecturer named Malcolm and he was telling us the story of Hugh Bladen falling out of the commentary box or off his hotel room balcony or something to that effect(I had a copy of FHM a while back where they asked him about this, but I can’t find it now) As you can see, Hugh Bladen obviously survived the fall.

Then we go onto the case at out very own Charlie V’s place in Strusibaai. Struisbaai is right near Cape Agulhas, the Southern most tip of Africa. Anyway, after a drunken night, two of the guys were obviously going for the “I’m-so drunk-you-are-my-best-mate-I-love-you-we-need-to-hug” sort of hug.

In the process they both fell backwards, over the railings and landed neatly onto the grass and also onto the concrete driveway. One of the guys was knocked clean out, but after a little while they were back on their feet with absolutely no problems and no medical attention was needed. A clear cut case where drinking saves lives, because that fall is generally a solid case for turning peoples lights off forever.

There are some issues here though. If you are drunk you are more likely to actually do stupid things like fall off balconies or jump from moving machinery. So if you are drunk you might not get injured because your body is so lame it just turns into rubber and therefore you avoid injuries. However if you were sober you would probably not pull such stupid stunts and so it’s probably safer. Not jumping out a hotel room window sober is a lot safer than jumping out of one drunk.

However some professions are just loaded with danger. Take shipping. Being the captain of a ship is dangerous work and you are bound to hit swells the size of Cher’s daughter(The one with that ridiculous name) So you will fall. That’s why sailors are always drunk(“I’m a drunken sailor!”) because in their line of work the body needs to be supple in order to survive the myriad of falls that will take place sometime or another.

Drunk people just never seem to break things when they fall. Look at cycling and you will see a guy cruising on his bike slowly and he will just topple over, and immediately grab his collarbone because it has broken. A drunk on the other hand would probably fall off the bike and bounce into the gutter because he is so lame.

Drunks also seem to never have to do anything remotely normal. Look at those alcoholics at all the local watering holes such as Firemans Arms and Forres. Those boys have been knocking the barley and hops back for years, eating pub lunches and smoking like Paris Hiltons…and they just never seem to kick the bucket! It’s like they are cockroaches, they just can’t die! If I had to live like them I would give myself a year before I spontaneously combust.

Spontaneous human combustion is basically when people just kind of catch alight. Wikipedia offers us the following on how it may occur:

The wick effect

…thus the standard explanation offered by scientists is as follows(With minor variations):

-The victim dies suddenly (e.g, from a heart attack), or loses consciousness or mobility from excessive drinking.

-A cigarette or some other source of flame ignites the victim’s clothing, which starts to burn, possibly fuelled by the spill of distilled beverages, and kills the victim if he or she is not already dead.

- The wick effect occurs

All that is no doubt quite interesting to you. So that will explain, in the future, why that guy at Forres just catches alight. You know the guy. When you walk into Forres, turn left. Just where all the beer taps are the bar has a bend. There is a guy who always sits there boozing and reading the paper. Like ALL the time. He is a concrete case for spontaneous combustion.

So in this case drinking won’t actually save your life because you probably won’t have a heart attack. Booze also won’t be all over you so you will not be highly flammable.

It’s just strange how some people are healthy their whole lives and then still only crack like 90 years of age. Whereas drinkers punish their bodies constantly and still live to about 50. Which is actually not bad going. It’s like running your petrol car on diesel and it actually works, and still lasts for 12 years.

I think we could find out some interesting things about the human body by doing tests on the regulars at Forres and Firemans Arms and seeing what exactly these boys are made of. Their livers are probably like bricks and their kidneys are some sort of wire mesh filtration system. Their hearts are like stone and their bank balances survive on the goodwill of their pension.

The one thing that is amusing about these drinkers is the heavy incidence of gout. Gout is a buildup of uric acid and basically it resembles itself by swollen ankles and often,hilariously, the big toe. Many an hour can be enjoyed at Cape Towns watering holes as grown men trade gout stories, ones of Voltaren injections and pain so bad that they cry.

It is actually so hectic that even the slightest breeze will cause pain like you have never felt in your life. Nevertheless, these boys continue to subdue the pain with many more drinks and much more food. Too tough to cry, too tough to die! They are easily identified by their kankles (Click for link). Hilarious! If you are lucky they are wearing sandals and you will see a big toe that resembles a frogs expanded neck. These guys also hobble into the bar smoking and shout to the barman:

“Another cane for the pain!”

There are many medical miracles in the world, but the most incredible can be found at pubs anywhere in the world. How some of those guys are still sitting there reading the paper, perving young UCT students and laughing is beyond me and probably even further beyond medical science. Whoever it is that created those human bodies was an engineer. Probably German.

Cape Towns pub crawlers. German engineering where you need it most on a body.

Sean Lloyd

Editor

I came across Loading Bay after a friend told me about it two weeks after it had opened. Loading Bay is a coffee shop in Hudson Street in Cape Town and it’s unique point is that it is a coffee shop and a place that sells premium brand clothing, much of which you would have never heard of in Cape Town before.

 Loading Bay

It seems everyone the world over is addicted to coffee these days:

Like, my God, I can’t even concentrate at work without my Triple Foaming Machiatofdskjvdkjv Skinny with Wings BRU!

Obviously you are hearing about Loading Bay here at SLXS, I thought I better get onto it before places like GQ do! One of the exciting brands at Loading Bay is Blue Blood. SLXS were particularly intrigued by the Blue Blood range of denim jeans because of the quality and because they were available in a dry finish. This is basically raw denim that has been untreated and you will find that the denim has a bit of a harder finish without any pre-treatment such as sanding and bleaching.

I must be honest it is quite a novel idea to have a crisp pair of denim jeans, instead of the overly worn look we so often see these days.

Dry denim is designed to be worn in and it will take the shape of your body and the wear marks will be a reflection of your lifestyle. From what we heard you are not even supposed to wash them that regularly, but rather just leave them out to air. It sounds dirty but it’s what you have to do!

Raw denim is great because you can wear it to a club yet still wear it with a suit jacket to more formal functions and still look the part. It’s also cool to have a pair of jeans that reflects your life, instead of the work of someone who has sanded your jeans before you have purchased them.

NOT trying to pull a Fabio Blue Steel

Wicked

Sick!

SLXS got these Blue Blood jeans for R1300 which is competitive considering Diesel Jeans at the Diesel Style Lab at the V&A Waterfront are going for about R2000 per pair. It also means you won’t see someone with the same wear patterns on their jeans as on yours because they will wear in to suit your lifestyle.

You can then also say “True Religion, who the hell are True Religion?” when someone tells you that they spent R3000 on a pair of True Religion jeans.

The Loading Bay also stock brands such as Le Coq Sportif, Holland Esquire and Scotch & Soda.

Rad.

The Loading Bay

30 Hudson Street

De Waterkant

Cape Town

South Africa

Go there for coffee and good clothing.

SICK!

Sean Lloyd

Editor 

I was taking a look at that place now called “Blu Bar”(Spelling may be wrong, who cares) in Claremont in Cape Town, opposite God’s gift to the inebriated, the 24 hour Woolworths! By the way if you want to make lot’s of cash, just open a Woolworths in Cape Town. Anywhere in Cape Town. As long as there is some sort of life nearby, you WILL make money.

I dug deep to think of this places old name. Oh yes. Sobhar. I had one or two good times at Sobhar, but nothing to get aroused about. But then I thought back to the last good party I had in that building…and it was when it was Billy The Bums!

Billy The Bums for some or other reason was just the sickest place on the planet. If my memory serves me correct here, Bob Skinstad had something to do with Billy’s. It was so rad there that ever since closing, it just completely lost the vibe. Re-inventing it by changing the name has not worked either. It seems that when the name Billy The Bums died, so did the soul of the place.

I saw it across from Woolworths the other day, and tears started welling up in my eyes(Nearly) and I just wished we could turn back time. I remember partying there until no one knows what time. Clocks did not work that late. There was something unpretentious about it, even though the big names went there, especially after sports games.

It was one of those clubs that just captured the Cape Town spirit, but the relaxed atmosphere of it all was what made it good for me. Not to mention the fine looking people there! Ooooh…so fine! So fine to touch!

It reminds me of The Green Man which used to be next to Boardmans in Claremont, just outside of Cavendish Square. Joel Stransky had a hand in that, and then it moved to its current spot, which might as well be in the depths of some gutter. It also changed it’s name to Tin Roof which has become the ridicule of Cape Town. People call it the Tin Dog, The Roof and “THAT muck place, I’m not ever going there again”, but every now and then you find yourself on a drunken evening, in there with your mates, who are at least 8 years older than the regular crew, and you party hard! Its got to do with the booze. Tin Roof is not a pretty sight when you are sober.

Many people have two speeds. Sober and trashed. When you are sober you can watch a DVD of Finding Neverland. When you are trashed, you can dream of a bad land and head to “Tinners” as it is also now affectionately called. That’s if we can mention “Affectionately” and an offshoot of the Tin Roof name in the same sentence. I don’t think we can do that. So we won’t do it again.

The only places to really keep their soul in Cape Town seem to be the old watering holes. It’s no big secret that I’m a big fan of Kelvin Grove, which is more of an institution than a club. If your parents were a member there, then you are no doubt also a member there.

Forres also comes to mind as one of those places that you go to, and your parents went to, and everyone knows everyone there. I often find myself knowing more old people there than people my age!

If Joel Stransky and Bob Skinstad can make clubs have such a cool vibe, I think it’s time more sports people open clubs! I’m keen for an awesome party.

Rather don’t let Andre Nel open a club though…we are looking for a place where sane people can chill out with a cold one.

Sean Lloyd

Editor

I wrote a piece the other day called “Vida e Caffe- Pushing the franchise?” and received an e-mail from Grant Dutton from vida e caffe, just informing me of some more things.

Grant said that some of the points I raised in my article were issues they discuss in depth before opening any of their new shops. Furthermore, Grant made me aware that vida e caffe do not franchise, and that 90% of their stores are owned solely by their company. He believes this helps them keep true to their concept and passion which is vida e caffe, which is a good point. Instead of just randomly franchising to anyone who can afford a franchise, vida e caffe have a hands on approach to their stores.

I should add here that I never meant that each shop was losing the vida e caffe touch(Staff enthusiasm, good coffee etc), but rather that the sheer number of stores opening up in Cape Town was just making vida e caffe more of a common sight, rather than something special.

As Grant went on to say, there will always be a fine balance between growth and brand equity. This is true as we all know there is always going to be a problem in this sense when your brand becomes as popular as vida e caffe, and the need to open new stores arises.

One other thing I never mentioned is the sheer popularity of the vida e caffe brand. I read an article a few years ago which mentioned something about brand popularity and how you know when a brand has done something to set itself apart from others. I think the example was Coca-Cola, and when you order a drink at a bar you say “Vodka and coke” or “Vodka and cola” You don’t even think of saying “I will have a vodka and Pepsi” By saying cola or coke, you mean Coca-Cola. “Coca Cola” is a brand name of cola, and the brand is so successful that the brand name “Coke” has taken over the actual name of the drink which is cola. The particular brand of cola(Coca Cola) has actually taken over the name of cola.

To make this easier to understand in the coffee sense, I often get people saying to me “Let’s go get a vida” In essence, the name “vida” has come to replace the word “coffee” Such is the popularity of the vida e caffe brand. And this is something that I’m not sure you can particularly set out to achieve when starting a company. It’s just the merging of various factors of a brand that hits a note with the public, and makes that brand so much more successful than others. Vida e caffe have successfully managed to hit that note, and whether they know how they did this or not, they have done something right along the way.

Sean Lloyd

Editor

Vida e Caffe first hit me when I noticed their coffee shop on Kloof Street in Cape Town. My brother was working for a production company and he was always in town, so he would stop by at Vida for coffee. He was always telling me about it and would always make a mention of the fact that the people who went there were seriously good looking. Because most of them were models.

I always see the Kloof street Vida as the original seed, in what has turned out to be a forest of Vida’s all over the Cape Town. It’s kind of a sad thing, because I always saw the Vida brand as a smaller, more intimate style of coffee shop, where it was worth making the trip to Kloof Street to experience the art of coffee making. I still think Vida are good and it’s the combination of simple decor and enthusiastic staff that make it popular. However, their growth has just gotten out of control and personally, I fell as if they are losing that personal touch.

Currently, there are 14 Vida e Caffe stores in Cape Town, and soon there will be 16. According to the website, they have Vida’s in Greenmarket (I take it this is Greenmarket Square area in Cape Town?), Kloof Street, the V&A Waterfront and Green Point. Geographically, the space between these four stores is extremely small. In fact it’s too close for comfort. Their soon to be added stores are in Sea Point(Once again, close to the others) and Camps Bay. I’m not sure if the Camps Bay one is open yet, but it must be open or very close to opening.

It just seems that the franchises are killing the brand, probably not financially, but to me, in terms of exclusivity. I can now have Vida coffee wherever I want in Cape Town, because there is always a store close by. There was even a Vida in Stellenbosch when I went there last week. And it just seems that too much of a good thing can be a bad thing. I realise other stores such as Nandos and Steers will franchise, but to me coffee shops have always been about the vibe, the conversation and the relaxation. Coffee shops are there so you can stop in, read the paper, check e-mails on the laptop and enjoy the experience.

Now with Vida all over the place, it is not a special experience anymore to go visit the Vida in Kloof Street. It reminds me of the Louis Vuitton craze of bags that people went through not too long ago. Louis Vuitton bags were the hot ticket with girls, but now they are everywhere and you wonder how many of them are real. They have lost that exclusive edge, but this is probably mainly due to loads of them being fake. It’s still exclusive to own a real one, but who is to know if it’s real if you are walking in the street? Vida could have avoided this, because you can’t just open up a fake Vida e Caffe. However, you can make Vida too common(Like the Louis Vuitton bags) by franchising too hectically.

Most people will disagree, and refer me to the Starbucks craze overseas, but the fact is, we are not overseas, we don’t have to copy it’s business model. No doubt all the Vida’s that open will be successful, because there will always be demand for coffee. But for those of us who like exclusivity in our choice of coffee shops, we might feel that the Vida brand has grown too big and too quickly.

I guess as people in a modern world, we are all going to own something, or consume something, that comes out of a place that has been franchised hectically, but I always saw coffee shops in a different league. Obviously Woolworths is everywhere, but that’s more out of necessity. I need food. I don’t need coffee. Also, I don’t necessarily go to Woolworths for the vibe. I do however go to a coffee shop for the atmosphere.

I guess in todays age it’s a simply a process of supply and demand. We as customers make the brand popular, and so the brand supplies their services closer to where we live. I just think that placing stores in Greenmarket, Sea Point, Kloof Street, Greenpoint and the V&A Waterfront is way too close together and that’s my main concern.

I think I will end this here as I could probably go on forever explaining myself. Anyway, it’s something to think about, as to whether Vida are growing too quickly to still be personal. But it’s an interesting brand to discuss nonetheless due to their phenomenal success.

Sean Lloyd

Editor

It would seem that a long time ago I said that I would try out the new NANDO’S Mediterranean flavour, which looked rather good. Anyway, in the time that has gone by, I have tried the Nando’s Mediterranean flavour in the form of a Mediterranean quarter chicken, and in the form of the Nando’s Mediterranean flavour spicy chicken and rice.

To be honest, it’s not really to my liking. The flavour is quite vague, but on top of that it tastes too much like tomatoe, which I don’t really think suits chicken that much. I was expecting a more garlic, herb and tomatoe flavour but all I tasted was tomatoe. I’m sure some people enjoy it, but I would rather go with the Nando’s peri-peri, because that is some good stuff!

And finally, we have our first contribution to this website from the co-anchor! Amazing, she managed to help me out on this topic by uttering three words. This is what the sweet child had to utter on the new Nando’s flavour:

“It’s too tomatoe-ey”

Take a moment.

“IT’S TOO TOMATOE-EY”

Are you as shocked as I am? Because I’m positively shattered! Shattered that she actually managed to move away from the comfort of PASTI’S IN CONSTANTIA(Why am I shouting? To make you click the link!) to help me out. Obviously I paid for the Nandos as well, but let’s pretend for a moment that she paid for it.

Luckily for you, the readers, I have a photo of the co-anchor at hand, to show you what she does with her hours and hours of leisure time. Let’s have a look shall we? I think we shall.

Oh look, relaxing again are we?

So that’s it. She likes to look extremely pretty in expensive dresses, with expensive bottles of alcohol while eating sushi on the side and socialising in what “spare time” she has left. You know, “spare time”, meaning the time she is not dining on the finest, most intricately crafted food available, throwing things into one of the twenty handbags and whiling away time on the golf estate.

Like, you know, don’t worry about me. I’m cool. I will just write everything. Ok no it’s fine don’t go to the exhibition on Thursday to help me cover it for the website, I will go alone. Really, I LOVE doing things by myself, nothing makes me happier. I like going to events by myself because I really like socialising by myself. I also love the look on peoples faces when I arrive all by myself. All the invites say I should bring a partner, so I bring my cellphone for company. I love to play with thoughts in my own head at these events. I love to construct little stories in my head while other people enjoy themselves amongst company.

It’s not to say that I don’t speak to other people, because I do. I try my best and I make people laugh, but after all the laughs I give people at events, they inevitably and up going back to their “Crew” and leave me all alone, confused like a deer in the headlights. I try my best to make friends, but people are scared of me because I’m the guy who always arrives alone.

So just give it some thought. You don’t have to call, you can always just send an sms.

Obviously only once your right hand is free from sipping on yet another Cosmopolitan and your left hand has managed to free itself from the chopstick fest at the the sushi bar.

Sean Lloyd

Editor

Before I start this I need to tell you a little about what happened on Friday afternoon. I woke up early, sent my various power e-mails to heads of state and then sat back waiting for my empire to grow. Waiting around tends to get tedious though and Alain from Casa del Sandenbergh invited me over for “a drink” at about 11am. We all know that a Friday drink at this time will end in me naked running down a main road in Hout Bay. Fortunately for you, me and the residents of Hout Bay, I kept my clothes on. I sat back admiring the view, which is not a terrible one I won’t lie and got started on hydrating myself as it was a scorching Friday.

Before long I was chilling on the lawn with a Savanna in hand and just digging my own vibe.(What? You say Savanna is a girls drink? I will drink whatever I like when the mood, and the occasion strikes) Those early drinks ended with me making a sneaky exit at about 4pm when I decided to cut my losses because things were going to get pear shaped. Which they did indeed when Kieran and Simon arrived. That was how I “spent” Friday.

The view of Hout Bay from Casa del Sandenbergh. Not a terrible one. 

At some point during the weekend I got an sms from Carey(She is on BMP’s team) asking me if I was keen to go to the Ritz hotel in Sea Point for some or other Johnnie Walker party. I found the whole situation quite odd, you know, a friends girlfriend inviting me to a hotel in the evening. I said to her that I would sms back because I was not sure if I had any other plans and would need to consult the SLXS Entourage to see if they had planned anything else for me.

Anyway I sms’d Mike to see what he was doing, not telling him that Carey had invited me to the Ritz. He said he was going to the Ritz for some Johnnie Walker party and I should have received an invite from Carey. That’s when I told him that I had forgot about the invite, but I would indeed be going and I apologised for forgetting. Seriously, I was worried for a moment there that Carey was inviting me by myself.

So we rolled into the Ritz in the Mini, which is quite sick, nice one Carey darling. Now we are just waiting for Carey to go away for a weekend with family and then myself and Mike are going to take it for an advanced driving course. That car honestly handles on rails from what I have heard, and from what I will soon experience.

We arrived at the Ritz and were told by some foxy minx that we should park downstairs(Ha ha…You bet), which we promptly did. Now it’s not often that I get scared in Cape Town as I know everything. EVERYTHING. Except a few things which are not that important. And I usually have BMP close at hand to fend off random fans. But going into the Ritz parking I was scared. As in “I’m about to be chopped into a million pieces and fed to a pack of wolves” type scared. Scared like a scary movie scared.

The parking downstairs has an air of mystery and death to it, and the ceiling is only 1.8m tall. At times my head would have hit the pipes on the ceiling had I not crouched over into a foetal type position. The whole place just screamed freaky to me. There were cars parked under there that looked like they had not been moved in forever. Dust had been caked onto them and there were cars I had never even seen before because they were so old. Ducking and diving(And dodging and dipping naturally) we made it into the open, happy to have our lives intact. We then took the lift to the 21st floor where we were to be spending the evening.

The whole atmosphere in the Ritz is a little bit weird and I constantly thought I was on some sort of sleazy movie set. It felt so surreal in there, from the freaky parking garage to the old school decorating at the top floor with the red curtains and red lights. I’m sure this was for the Johnnie Walker red theme, but it felt sleazy. I think the photo below captures the strip joint vibe perfectly:

The sleaze factor was high

Anyway there was free food and booze which was nice, except when I bit into a staple in one of the pieces of food. At first I thought I had chipped a tooth and was chewing on it, until I bizarrely pulled a staple out my mouth. Are they trying to kill me? I think they are. So the top floor of the Ritz actually rotates which is quite a novel concept. I think it does one full rotation every 90 minutes which is quite cool.

We abused the food and basically just chilled by ourselves the whole night just eating and drinking. Well someone has to do it don’t they?

BMP and myself could actually not take the turning anymore and went down to the bar where the floor does not turn. Immediately I felt a bit better but I was still spinning somewhat. Clearly we had been completely abusing our free drinks privileges. Which we do from time to time.

The top of the Ritz is the restaurant and I suppose it’s quite cool to have dinner there and spin around, but the Ritz could do with a bit of a revamp to make it look modern and less like a place where the next thriller movie is going to be set.

The view from the Ritz towards Lions Head. 

Looking towards Green Point Stadium from the 21st floor of the Ritz

I must be honest the views are spectacular and I could have dinner there with no problems while looking over Cape Town and spinning(From the floor and the drink) I will ask them to hold the side order of staples though.

So where is it?

Click HERE for what you need to know on the Ritz in Sea Point Cape Town.

Oh and afterwards we went for a beer at Neighbourhood…It feels like I have to go there all the time now because it’s so much fun. And so we watched the Springboks win the World Cup there on Saturday night. Pictures from the debauchery to follow.

Sean Lloyd

Editor