I am not a copy-and-paste writer, but the latest statement regarding our City’s water crisis, and the severity of the drought in our province, warrants that I present Mayor Patricia de Lille’s latest statement regarding the water crisis in full below.
What concerns me as a citizen of Cape Town is that the City of Cape Town has taken no proactive action yet to augment the water supply from our province’s dams, Continue reading →
On Friday 15,September the Robben Island ferry Thandi close to sank in rough seas between the V&A Waterfront and Robben Island, with 64 passengers, most of them tourists, and five members of staff on board! It is the final straw of continuous problems linked to the Robben Island ferry service.
I was invited to attend the launch of journalist and restaurateur Tony Jackman’s new book ‘FoodStuff: Reflections and recipes from a celebrated foodie‘ at the Thursday Club lunch at Buitenverwachting Restaurant on Thursday. I was grateful to Club coordinator Sandy Bailey for the invitation, and for seating me next to Tony, allowing me to ask him some extra questions for this story. Continue reading →
Thursday Club organizer and PR Consultant Sandy Bailey invited me to attend the launch of Western Cape Premier Helen Zille’s autobiography ‘Not without a fight‘, at a sold-out lunch at Buitenverwachting in Constantia last week. The highlight was being seated next to Ms Zille. Continue reading →
I believe that I am a typical Western Cape resident, who thinks that toll roads are a Gauteng headache, and that City of Cape Town court cases against SANRAL (The South African National Roads Agency Ltd) have kept this scourge away from our province. A full-page SANRAL advertisement in the Cape Times yesterday made me sit up and take notice!
The advertisement is boring in that it is copy-based only, the SANRAL logo being the only visual element. The nonsensical headline makes it look like a ‘home made’ ad : ‘N1/N2 WINELANDS Frequently Asked‘! Looking at it broadly, the information is haphazardly documented, Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Exhibition space for Cape Wine 2015 is practically sold out, says Wines of South Africa (WOSA) CEO Siobhan Thompson. The largest wine expo in the southern hemisphere, it will be held from 15 – 17 September. A conference will run alongside the Expo, and speakers include Leeu Collection owner Analjit Singh, WOSA Chairman Michael Jordaan of Bartinney, and Western Cape Minister of Economic Opportunities Alan Winde. (received via media release from De Kock Communications)
* The Table Bay Hotel offers its guests special foraging tours in Cape Town, seeking wild sorrel, num nums, nasturtiums, and sweet peas on Table Mountain, as well as seaweed from the sea in Mouille Point, and dune spinach near the Radisson Blu hotel, ingredients which are transformed into a meal for the foraging guests at Camissa Brasserie. A foraging tour, cooking with the chef and a three-course meal with wine cots R5800 for four and R7000 Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* SAA is cancelling its Johannesburg – Beijing flights as of April, its acting CEO Nico Bezuidenhout said at a media briefing. Air China will service the route in a code-share agreement with SAA from May. The number of SAA flights to India has been decreased, and may be cut altogether, being another loss-making route. Changes to the USA route may also be made.
* SAA-owned low-cost domestic airline Mango will decrease its fares with immediate effect, by as much as 25%, due to the lower fuel price.
* SA Tourism is targeting India as its largest source market by 2020. Hanneli Slabber, Continue reading →
The Sweet Service Award goes to Checkers in Hermanus, and its supervisor Anita. I called a number of outlets in Hermanus earlier this week, to check their price of HTH, and that sold by Checkers was by far the lowest. Anita answered the phone promptly, unlike the other outlets. Having struggled to open the difficult-to-open security closures on the buckets in the past, I asked Anita whether she could assist in getting someone to open it. I arrived ten minutes after the call, and the HTH bucket was open, and ready and waiting for me! Continue reading →
Tourism, Food, and Wine news headlines
* Globally spirit sales barely grew in 2013, after a growth of 6,5% between 2007 – 2011. Vodka is the largest selling spirit category, at 496 million cases. Whisky/whiskey sales grew the fastest, and stand at 361 million cases. Rum sales were 146 million, a decrease on the year prior. Whilst the largest market for spirits is Asia, at 1,9 billion cases, growth was minimal.
* More than 70 World Design Capital 2014 projects are on display in the Civic Centre as the project reaches its halfway mark, reports the Cape Times. The projects on display include the MyCiTi Bus, Green Point Urban Park, and the Buitengracht Pedestrian Bridge. There is no entrance fee to view the display, which runs until the end of this year.
* Millennials will be the travelers of the future, being the biggest tourism spenders in the next 5 – 10 years, and already Continue reading →
The new immigration regulations, introduced late last month, are not only a deterrent to immigrants to our country, but can also seriously affect the R5 billion film industry of Cape Town, reports the Cape Times. The new regulations differentiate between temporary visas and long-term residence permits, and new procedures have been introduced to change from one visa type to another, amidst uncertainty of exactly how the new regulations are to be implemented.