Oh look! We got some jobs!

We’ve been quiet. We know. We’re sorry. We have a good excuse, though. You see, by some incredible stroke of luck, we have ended up employable. That’s right folks, we got some jobs! Hooray!
 

We’re still mildly confused by what has happened to us, but we’re sure we’ll get over it. However, this new state of affairs does mean we have to be a bit responsible from now on if we wish to keep our new jobs, so we may have to slow down on the posting thing for a moment. And we do wish to keep our jobs. We really do. 

How else will we pay for those delicious and rather expensive ice lollies we like so much?
Check out our celebratory pre-spending of our still-to-be-paid salaries below. 

If YouTube is being lame, try this. 
 

2010: So last year

Well, we had a ball launching the Secret City Project last year. We met some incredibly odd people, we did some extremely cool things, and we learned a truckload about the city we live in.  So, in an effort to be extremely sentimental, we’ve put together a highlights reel. You know, for prosperity’s sake. If you feel the need, please feel free to download this video and create a PowerPoint presentation from selected stills which you can play at the next wedding, 21st or silver anniversary you attend.
 

We’d like that.
 

Check out the vid below.

If YouTube is being lame. Try this.
 
   

Joburg Special - Part 5: Lize "The Unicorn" Kay

Lize is a mover-and-shaker within media circles. She has a résumé that will frighten the words right off most people’s humble CV’s. Lize is fuelled by Cosmos and cupcakes. And, while her unicorn alter ego isn’t fighting crime, Lize is working for 2oceansvibe radio, Jacaranda, SuperSport and writing a very successful blog. It seems that Lize is the Yellow Pages of what is hot and happening in both Jozi and CT. Definitely one to keep on speed dial when you need to know… anything. Check out her video below. 


If Youtube is being lame, try this. 

Joburg Special - Part 4: I Collect Gingers

We collected a ginger to chat about her project “I Collect Gingers”. Anthea Pokroy is a fascinating artist with a passion for gingers. She collects them in large numbers and photographs and interviews her ginger subjects. She chatted to us about everything ginger. Check out her video below.


If YouTube is being lame, try this.

Joburg Special - Part 3: The #MINIgetaway Mini Countryman

For those of you that thought we were selfishly driving around in the #MINIgetaway without running you through some of its awesomeness, you’re wrong. Check out the hottest 4-door on the market. IT HAS EVERYTHING. Brandslut, Mike Sharman and Chris guide you through some of the awesomeness in the video below.


If YouTube is being lame, try this.

Joburg Special - Part 1: Brandslut and Mike Sharman showing Chris around.

Having met the “Amazeness” of Mike Sharman in Cape Town we couldn’t miss this opportunity to hook up with him in his hometown, Jozi. Mike helped us “Make out with our steak out”. He was one of the awesome and worthy benefactors of the Mini Countryman launch and kindly let Chris jump in and smash out some Secret City Project interviews in his #MINIgetaway. Mike lined up some of the hottest local bloggers and we were whipped around town to see the best of Jozi.

As a Cape Town lover Chris couldn’t help but admit that Joburg is doing something very right. Check out Brandslut showing Chris and Mike some of the sweetest hidden spots. We were taken to the insanely cool 44 Stanley and educated on the ways of the Jozi town. There was a lot packed into a short time, as Joburgers do.

Check out the video below.


For those of you with lame YouTube try this. 

Caroline Vincent

Caroline is one of the bright new talents stepping out of Michaelis School of Fine Arts in Cape Town. We heard about her awesome new project and decided to swing by and check out what all the fuss was about. We hardly expected to be led under a staircase and into a mysterious closet and bathroom… Needless to say, we were pleasantly surprised; we found a fascinating collection of beautifully sculpted bathroom products meticulously carved out of Sunlight Soap and wax. Caroline spoke of her personal experiences and let us into the thinking behind her exceptional installation.

Check out her video below. 


If your YouTube is blocked try this.

Herman the Hare Krishna

We picked Herman up on Kloof. He appeared to be talking very seriously to someone about a pamphlet or something, so, when he'd finished, we offered him a ride around the block. Turns out, Herman is a newly converted Hare Krishna. He now stays in that beautiful, massive temple in Rondebosch, and follows a really hectic daily routine of meditation and vegetarianism. It was really interesting to hear how he got where he is today, and what his religion means to him. Check out the video below.


Try this if YouTube is blocked.

Jared's Taxi Ride

Chris met Jared in a photography store. Unsurprisingly he is a photographer. He's from Long Beach, California and of South African decent. He is passionate about this country, and particularly about Cape Town, where he now lives. Jared has spent the last six years and his entire life savings shooting and self-publishing a mammoth compilation of photography chronicling the life and culture of South Africa. The work is catagorised and then graphically augmented by a tribe of the country’s best graphic designers and tattoo artists. The result is seriously impressive. We picked Jared up and gave him a ride to his latest exhibition and performance space in town. Check out his taxi ride below. And his blog here.


YouTube Uncool. Try this.

Eunis

We picked Eunis up on Adderly Street. She was on the way to the deeds office to locate the title deed to her house, which she is trying to sell. She was accompanied by the prospective buyer of said house, Thando, and we couldn’t figure out why they were both so pissed off. You could cut the tension with a teddy bear. The situation was further aggravated by our inability to locate said deeds office, due to our extremely unacceptable taxi driving skills. OH well.

However, Chris soldiered on, and the pair relaxed eventually. He even pulled out some suiwer  bombaliscious Afrikaans moves. Extremely funny.

YouTube blocked. Here we go...

The Unfortunate Consequences of Common Sense

After our incredibly inspired reworking of our corporate ID, we hit the streets to try and garner a few customers for interviews and Free Taxi Rides. Now, dear reader, it is not easy to convince people to get into our Free Taxi. This is because most perambulating potential passengers are in fact in possession of a fair deal of common sense, which, it seems, makes them reluctant to hop into a strange vehicle with some strangers offering, strangely, a FREE RIDE to wherever they want to go. Perhaps they think we are part of some scary cult, recruiting members for unfortunate human sacrifice. Perhaps they think the camera on the dashboard is there to capture their imminent demise for a leisurely viewing with friends later. We’re not sure what people think, but we are sure that it makes our job a little tricky at times.

We did, however, think that the lack of cardboard in our new CI would give the Taxi a more legitimate feel. Apparently, it doesn’t. Poster paint and the new shade netting addition seem only to make people more reluctant to hop in. Regardless, we shall persevere! The ones who get in are the ones who we want to talk to anyway. Well, that’s what we keep telling ourselves.


Blocked YouTube??? Try this :) 

Sandboarding and the Great Dune of Pain

A guy by the name of Dylan from Sandboarding Cape Town dropped a link on our page a while back. We contacted him and offered a write-up in exchange for an experience. So we trekked out to the dunes in Atlantis for a morning. We couldn’t believe what we found.

So, we don’t know where we’ve been all this time, but it turns out there is a massive Mad Max-like dune system just 20 minutes out of Cape Town. You drive down the West Coast road, stop in a parking lot, go over a small little hill, and there, laid out before you, is another world. How have we not known about this for so long? How do you hide a massive dune system from everyone? Not cool! In all fairness, it is almost completely concealed. Populating the dunes is a whole other subculture. Tribes of tanned and toned local kids with 4X4’s pulling trailers carrying quads and boards and braai’s. They sandboard, quad and drink all day in the blazing sun. It’s like a secret, sandy Utopia.

Dylan took us through the basics of sandboarding. We were doing well until we got bored with the little slopey slope and decided, while Dylan was momentarily distracted, that we hadn’t fallen over yet and were, therefore, way too awesome for baby slopey slopes and obviously ready for the biggest dune in the whole world. A grave miscalculation, we discovered, and although our sandboarding pursuits ended shortly after that, we had a great day regardless.  Check out the video below, and check out Dylan’s link.


For those of you in offices that ban YouTube. Try this :)

Jan Braai

When we were missioning around with Mike Sharman, getting into scrapes with hairy-sweary guys, he introduced us to a man called Jan Braai. Jan Braai was a CA, until he quite his job to follow a passion – bringing people together through South South Africa’s only truly unique pastime: braaing. He is now behind Braai for Heritage he invented National Braai Day. How awesome?

We caught up with Jan at the Cape Town Beer Festival, where he told us about a new sport he’s invented – the Braai-Athlon. Extremely funny.

For those of you in an office that does not allow YouTube, try this out...

Jeff's Taxi Ride

We picked Jeff up on Kloof Street. He was on his way to the other side of town (the old post office near the station) after a job interview. It was a glorious day in the City, and he was cheerfully walking down the road in a full suit, despite the heat. He said he didn’t mind the walk. We gave him a ride. He told us his story – how he was the “so-called first white twin to be born in the False Bay Hospital”, how he’s looking for the love of his life, yet spent his life in love with his City.

A truly positive and friendly guy, check out Jeff’s video below.


For those of you in an office that does not allow YouTube, try this out...

Maverick. Legend. Extremely Reliable in an Argument About Parking Spaces. (Part 2, Who knew?)

We ended up close to the V&A Waterfront (not too tricky) – the only place in SA where you can drink on a beach due to the fact that they built the beach themselves. It’s an awesome spot, right on the water and a little tricky to find. More impressive than their ability to create natural environmental features are their cocktails and their extremely round pebbles. We chilled on some white couches on the sand, sipped pink drinks and had a great chat with Mike on blogging, his company, Retro Viral, and why he loves South Africa.


After the beach cocktail, Mike took us to & Union on Bree. The place has it’s own brewery somewhere in the building, and it makes some really awesome brewsky’s. Whatever you do, however, DO NOT attempt to park anywhere near the place. You will be denied access to visibly unoccupied public parking spaces, and then you’ll probably decide to park in a bay marked ‘Cab Films’ because you happen to be driving a cab and you also have a camera with some film in it, and that’s kind of funny until you are ACCOSTED by a giant man in ILL-FITTING PANTS who will SWEAR at you a lot and refuse to let you leave, using his belly as a weapon. Extremely amusing, if you’re into that kind of thing. Unfortunately, we didn’t get it on camera. But rest assured – Mike showed him who’s boss.


Thanks to Mike for a seriously awesome morning. Check out his blog, Sharman and Hobbo, as well as Retro Viral, and, of course, his video below.

Maverick. Legend. Extremely Reliable in an Argument About Parking Spaces.

A friend of ours put us in touch with Mike Sharman, a Jo’burg based blogger and online marketing aficionado who is apparently pretty big in Chad (the place, not the guy.) He was in town for a couple of days, so we offered him a Free Taxi ride. Being a completely legend guy, he accepted.


We picked him up in Woodstock, where a security guard flashed us his big clamp because we, obviously, parked badly. We escaped our brush with ill-wielded Oh-thoree-tay and ended up spending the better part of a morning with Mike, during which we discovered that among his many talents is an aptitude for winning every competition he ever entered. This dude has some rad karma. He recently returned from a stint in the UK, and he told us why he’s glad to be back. Check out Mike’s Taxi ride below.

Roger Ballen Exhibition

You remember where they did the Adidas Three Stories Pop-Up bar during the World Cup? Well, that place (66-68 Albert Road, Woodstock, just follow the rad graffiti) is actually called the Woodstock Industrial Centre, and it’s fast becoming a hub of the art and design scene. It’s where you’ll find /A Word of Art gallery, which is hosting a one-night-only exhibition of celebrated photographer Roger Ballen’s work tonight to mark the opening of his exhibition at the Iziko museum tomorrow. The photographer will we be giving a talk, and we hear there’s going to be champagne, which thereby eradicates any excuse for not being there entirely. Come check it out.

Also opening tonight is Bibliophilia, a new bookshop in the Centre which carries all the books you can never find anywhere else. It’s open daily from 9.30am to 4.00pm for an ultimate paper fix. Check out the vid below.

For more info on Roger Ballen, visit www.rogerballen.com. His stuff is incredible.

Poster Paint – The Ultimate CI Solution

As you may know, our first attempt at branding of the Free Taxi didn’t work out so well. In fact, our ingenious cardboard signage caused several innocent motorists the inconvenience of near death when it blew off on the highway. Twice. But we’d rather not talk about that. We also rather not talk about the way masking tape sticks to things. Pretty darn well, it turns out. Anyway, we’re prepared to overlook these grave miscalculations if you are. They need never be mentioned again, especially now that we believe we have solved the signage problem forever.

Poster paint. Glorious. It’s cheap. It’s sassy. You can steal it from little children. AND it washes off, sort of. The powdery residue that remains is a small price to pay when you consider it’s general amazingness. Well, that last part is questionable. Tell us what you think.

How to Throw a Kick-Ass Dinner Party in the CBD:

Step 1 – If you don’t have a rad CBD apartment, find someone who does...

A little while back, on the day of the epic Crash Course in Cape Town Taxi Driving, we found that Ethiopian restaurant in town, Addis in Cape, for lunch. While chatting to the restaurant’s owner, Senait, she happened to mention that she was thinking of throwing a dinner party for her housewarming. She’s just moved into the most insane spot in the Piazza on Church Square, and she wanted to celebrate, but she didn’t want to cook.

Well, we thought. Chris can cook like Jammy Olive Ear. Shannon believes she is Tom Cruise in ‘Cocktail’, which means we’ve got food AND drinks covered. We would do the dinner party! What followed was, well, a blast.

 Step 2 – If you can’t cook anything, call Chris.

Due to his prodigious culinary skills, Chris was in charge of the menu. Senait couldn’t remember whether or not she had an oven, so he decided to do things on the Weber. Eventually the menu consisted of:

With Drinks:
- Baked bree and artichoke on baguette.


Starters:

- Rocket, gorgonzola, parma ham and walnut salad with a balsamic reduction. 
- Haloumi on Ciabatta  

Mains:

- Butterflied leg of lamb cooked on a bed of rosemary with braaied lemons
- Kingklip with white wine, lemon zest, spring onions and BUTTER in a poofey foil parcel. 

A wicked chocolate Secret City Project cake from Charly’s as desert.

Step 3 – Don’t get complacent when things look delicious.

Once the several shops were done and we had all the ingredients, we rocked up at Senait’s place on Thursday afternoon and began preparations. Things went smoothly. It only got "random" when the guests arrived and requested grapefruit mojitos and vodka mules in large amounts. These are excellent cocktails to do, because they’re simple, inebriating and delicious.

The Vodka Mule:

Some vodka (how much is directly proportionate to how late dinner’s going to be)

Fresh mint

Ginger beer

Grapefruit juice

The Grapefruit Mojito:

Bacardi rum (see above for amount)

3 lime wedges

Brown sugar

Fresh mint

Crushed ice

Muddle the stuff at the bottom of the glass, add booze, add ice, top up with the juice. Delicious.

Rad as these apartments are, the kitchen tend to be rather small, about the size and volume of a large animal, making cooking rather tricky. Chris is a champ. Check out Chris juggling food below. 

Step 4 – If you make pancakes for a living, and you once owned a discoteque, you are awesome.

Among the guests at Senait’s dinner party was an extremely interesting man call Jean-Luc. He is from France, and he accidently landed in Cape Town one day. He has never left. Jean-Luc once owned a number of discos. He sold them all and retired. Bored, he decided to buy a trailer and sell pancakes on the Camps Bay strip. Just for fun. Now he’s a feature. He promised us as many free pancakes as we want, so we’re definitely going to make a turn soon.

Check out the final dinner party video below.

Thanks to Senait for letting us commandeer her kitchen, and to Charly’s Bakery for making us an amazing Secret City Project cake. It was incredible.

Speed shopping

When it comes to shopping Chris believes that there is only one way to execute it. Fast. He took Senait and Shannon on an adrenalin driven shopping spree, designed to make sure Senait did not realise how much cash she was dropping and that we could make our afternoon meeting. Check out speed shopping below.