DIARY
JUSTIN MAROZZI Aa student of the Free Nelson Man- dela generation, I have always wanted to visit Robben Island, the prison off the coast of Cape Town where the great man was incar- cerated for much of his 28 years behind bars. I had it all pictured in my imagination: hideously primitive conditions, a tiny, dark, dank, rat-infested dungeon with walls of rock and roughly hewn stone, and a miser- able little window through which sea storms raged day and night. Our guide, a former Robben Island inmate, led us to Mandela's block. I should have known better. Here was a line of smart, airy cells. By most African, Latin American or Asian standards, we were talking plush. Smoothly finished grey walls and windows on one side, conventional bars on the other. A light breeze blew along the corridor, sun streamed through the windows and birds chirped outside. Was this where Africa's most celebrated freedom fighter wasted away three decades of his life? It could have been one of the smarter British prisons except the weather was too good and there were no beds. The guide told us how the prisoners had slept on thin mats. 'Broth- ers and sisters,' he boomed magnificently, `there were no beds for political prisoners. Brothers and sisters, we were sleeping on the floor.' For some reason, this recalled the Monty Python sketch in which a group of northerners vie with each other for the most deprived upbringing. One of them boasts that his early years were spent living in a cardboard box in the middle of a motorway. `Cardboard box?' sniffs his companion con- temptuously. `Looxury!'
Rather more mediaeval than Robben Island prison are the conditions in which your average black family lives in South Africa. In town after town the contrast between the prim lawns and neat bunga- lows of whites and, a safe distance away in the townships, the squalor of the corrugat- ed-iron garden sheds inhabited by blacks is enough to drive a liberal-minded visitor to communism. You wonder how sustainable is a country in which a white minority owns next to everything and the overwhelming black majority almost nothing. If Zimbab- we is anything to go by, the outlook is omi- nous. Only a few weeks ago, white South Africans were saying that the Hansie Cron- je match-fixing scandal was the worst thing to happen to the new Rainbow Nation. Now they find they have a lot more than cricket to worry about.
There is something about driving in a foreign country which inspires heady feel- ings of immunity from local law enforce- ment. Heading south from Bloemfontein, rejoicing in the expanse of open road, I put my foot down to see what our little VW Polo 1.8i could manage. Cruising along quite happily at 115 mph, my girlfriend and I were staggered to see a black man jump suddenly into the fast lane frantically wav- ing a flag. We swerved off the motorway, narrowly missing him, which was just as well because he turned out to be a traffic cop. He was shocked by our speed — it was way off the list as far as normal fines were con- cerned and constituted reckless driving and somewhat uncertain about how to treat a British journalist. Normal procedure, he told me, would be a night in prison before appearing in front of a judge to face a fine of R10,000 (£1,000) or so. 'I think you do not want to spend a night in prison,' he observed correctly, 'and I do not want you to write bad things about my country. Do you have any suggestions?' I didn't. He did. We came to a private arrangement which involved neither paperwork nor prison. Four hundred rand changed hands discreet- ly and we zoomed off unscathed.
Matjiesfontein is surely one of the most bizarre places in Africa. Tucked away in the wilderness of the Karoo, it was developed in the 1880s by James Logan, a Scottish entrepreneur, as a wayside station serving the trains passing through en route to the Kimberley diamond fields and the gold mines of the Reef. In time it developed into a Victorian health and holiday resort, much frequented by Cecil Rhodes and other assorted grandees of the Cape and the home country. During the Boer War the sleepy railway hamlet swelled into a garrison town of 10,000 troops and 20,000 horses, a size it would never match again. Today the village is a high street perhaps 200 yards long, con- sisting exclusively of Victorian buildings. These include the Lord Milner Hotel, the Laird's Arms pub, the post office, Standard Bank (open one hour a week) and Tweed- side Lodge, home to Logan's 86-year-old grandson, Major John Buist and his third wife Joyce, who together represent the per- manent white population of Matjiesfontein. The billiard-room was once Douglas (later Earl) Haig's operations room during the Boer War and is crammed with colonial and family memorabilia. Ramrod straight with a handsome white moustache, Buist still car- ries with him the fusty whiff of Empire. 'I believe blacks need the guiding hand of the white man,' he says, adding other remarks too reactionary even for most Spectator read- ers, and arguing that Mozambique, Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe have all gone to the dogs since blacks took over. But the sun is setting, too, on the Logan family connection with Matjiesfontein. Buist sold the entire vil- lage to the South African hotelier David Rawdon in 1968 and has the use of Tweed- side Lodge until his death. 'David can't wait to get his hands on the place,' says Joyce, `but John has a lot more life in him yet.'
From forgotten colonial outpost to com- mercial wine country. Boekenhoutskloof is perhaps the most beautifully situated vine- yard in Franschoek, centred on a lovingly restored 1784 pioneer dwelling high up in the Huguenot Valley. Marc Kent, a bearded young thing, runs the place and does a very decent line in Syrah and Semillon. His 1997 Syrah is a masterpiece and represents a more challenging experience than the usual knockabout Chardonnay. Why is it that wine buffs and restaurateurs feel compelled to go so over the top even with these most straightforward of wines? In nearby Stellen- bosch, the wine list of the well-stocked Wijn- huis makes for farcical reading. The War- wick Pinotage 1998, for example, has 'sweets, banana and liquorice on palate with a hint of chocolate on finish'. The Rustenberg Five Soldiers 1998 presents 'lime, marmalade on toast on nose and palate', while the Morgen- hof Chardonnay 1997 offers 'discreet melon and fig tones'. How long before we read of `gentle undertones of stir-fried broccoli and garlic with shades of tobacco and yogurt'?
Returning to the benighted streets of Hoxton in Shoreditch, I find my new flat surrounded by graffiti. NEW MEDIA ARSE WHORES has sprung up everywhere. I pre- sume this cannot possibly refer to old media like The Spectator, but it is good to feel wel- come in one's new 'hood nonetheless.
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