iRREVERENCE

That's like reverence, but made out of Apples. Which reminds me of cider. Which reminds me of sex.

Just one of those things, I suppose... it wriggles and tickles.

So how is everyone on this glorious Friday afternoon? Cape Town has been reduced to a tumbleweed ghost town. Only a handful of old bags were observed shuffling across an intersection in Sea Point, holding up traffic and mumbling something that ended in "deary" under startling barnetts of fresh blue rinse...

Everyone, you see, has hauled ass on over to Darling and Rocking The Daisies. It's like the first week after Summer when all the Gauteng holiday makers go back home to the Big Smog. You can almost hear a city breathe a sigh of relief and put its feet up - looking forward to a well deserved break and a long cool alcoholic drink on a sunny balcony.

Alas, this is not the fate which awaits me. I am on my way to engage in a 5-a-side football game. It's like squash, only the court is bigger. If I don't die of cardiac arrest, I am hoping to be at least lucid enough to realise I'm having a good time. I'm so looking forward to it I could just shit. Or is it the inevitable ice cold beer afterwards?

I'll tell you what's going to be ice cold. And wet. And unpleasant. My pants after tomorrow's ice skating. You know you've reached a certain age when all you friends organise parties behind your back solely to suit the needs of their offspring, even if the birthday is for one of the adults. Problem is, that while they're all going to be sitting in the stands discussing school fees or pooh or whatever, I'm going to be flinging this gangley body around the ice on razor sharp blades of glory among those very offspring. I have a reputation already. I once panned my one friend's 5 year old daughter right on the pip with a hard lemon. This resulted in much recrimination and crying and the odd tearful glare from the inadvertent victim. I don't suppose being "record breaking" drunk at the time (with consequent poor aim) is any sort of mitigating factor...

Then - when I once again wake up in a cocoon of muscular agony - it's off to the sprawling wine lands of Constantia to enjoy a day of boozing in the sun with Rose Thorn, Commander Conquer, and the long suffering Hot Girlfriend. Can't wait! I'm particularly looking forward to the lunch I have planned at Raith. If you haven't yet, you wouldn't know, would you.

That sounds just long enough for me to have successfully forgotten the woes of a working life, only to be thrust nose-first back into the melee of whatever it is I do for a living. Next week I will also have some nifty reviews about some terrific artists, some old, some new, some buggered, some who have an element of the blues in their music. There.

NGDG: Heavy eyebrows are very (I'm sorry to use this ghastly phrase) "on trend" this season. Nevertheless. Maggie Siff. Unfortunate name, lass,

Spread The Love. Unless Confronted By A Hippy. They Want Everything For Free.