25.06.2013 Nelson Mandela - the Shadow Boxer

With the father of the nation and one of the greatest leaders of the 20^th Century now critically ill in hospital, I thought this might the right time to write something about Nelson Mandela's time in Johannesburg.

Madiba moved to Johannesburg in 1941 where he first found work as a night watchman at a local mine. He then moved to the Alexandra township and got a job in downtown Johannesburg working as a clerk at a sympathetic Jewish lawyer's firm. The building (just off Library Gardens Square on Harrison Street) housing the firm is now called the Nelson Mandela Building and has a school and various offices in it.

After completing his BA degree and embarking on a law degree at Wits University (which he sadly was not allowed to complete), Mandela and his friend Oliver Tambo opened a legal practice for black South Africans in downtown Johannesburg opposite the Magistrates Courts.

Chancellor House where Mandela and Tambo had their legal practice

As the only black lawyers working in Johannesburg they dealt with a huge workload and the offices were constantly filled with people. As arguably one of the most important places in modern South Africa's history it is now finally being recognised as the historical landmark that it is and is going to be turned into a museum. For the moment there are exhibitions in the windows which explain what Tambo and Mandela were doing here and how. Amazingly as recently as four years ago the building was half-derelict and occupied by squatters.

The corner offices face the magistrates courts where a striking new monument to Mandela was recently erected. It is based on a photograph taken of the young Mandela shadow boxing on a nearby inner-city roof. Boxing was very important to Madiba, it kept him fit and focused, he admired the self-discipline and strength it involved and under it all of course boxing was egalitarian - the colour of the opponent is irrelevant in a fight. Underneath the monument is a quote from Long Walk to Freedom about boxing.

The original photo on which the monument is based

"In the ring, rank, age, colour, and wealth are irrelevant."

As a seriously ill and frail 94 year old man, it is sometimes difficult to look back and imagine how Mandela was in his youth - especially given that most of the world only caught sight of him once he was released from prison and had already dramatically aged. Therefore this monument was a very smart commission. It shows Mandela as a fighter, as strong, focused, hands on and of course most of all young. It's striking and inspiring and I hope will become a place where people can remember the great things which he achieved and how hard the struggle was, long after Madiba is gone from our lives.

24.06.2013 Cullinan Diamond Mine

In 1905, 12 metres below the surface of the Highveld just east of Pretoria, the world's largest diamond, a 3,105 carat chunk of pure diamond magnificence, was found. The fellow who originally found it handed it over to his manager, who didn't believe that it was in fact a real diamond and - as legend has it - threw it out the window. It was then picked up by the foreman and sat on a desk for the next three months. Finally it was brought to the attention of the mine owner, Mr Thomas Cullinan, who recognised it for what it was, the world's largest gem quality diamond - now sometimes called 'the Star of Africa'.

With South Africa still heavily under the influence of the British crown, Thomas Cullinan sold the diamond to the government in Johannesburg, who then gave it to King Edward VII. A fake diamond was sent to the UK by ship with a police escort, while (having much faith in the postal system of the day) the real diamond was mailed all the way to Europe. It then took Dutch diamond cutters eight months to cut and model it into nine massive diamonds, which now form part of the British crown jewels.

Thomas Cullinan

Replica of the Cullinan diamond and the gems it produced

Cullinan is still a working mine employing some 1,000 people. It digs up diamonds for jewellery (the $5 million diamond necklace which Burton gave to Liz Taylor came from here) as well as tiny 'industrial diamonds' used by people like NASA. Apparently they are also now going through the very first slag heaps to search for more industrial quality diamonds which may have been discarded.

The highlight of any surface visit (1.5hrs, 105 Rand p.p - you can book them here www.diamondtourscullinan.co.za/) is reaching the lookout point where you can gaze out across the one kilometre wide expanse of the open part of the mine, which is over 500 metres deep. On an underground tour (takes four hours and sounds kind of scary), they take you down over 800 metres into the earth (in the next few years they will dig down to over 1100 metres!) where there are over 700km of tunnels.

At the top edge of the hole is a petrol station (with red roof)

Helmets are necessary when visiting the Big Hole as you have to walk right under the huge conveyor belts which carry the tons of rock dug out of the mine to extract diamonds. The mine produces 4,500 carats of diamonds everyday which involves blasting 11,000 tons of kimberlite out of the earth. Due to the seriousness of the illegal diamond trade in Africa, if you try to take anything from here, even just a bit of kimberlite which you find on the floor, you can face six years in jail.

The rocks come up in the lifts on the left and the people go down in the cage on the right

The town of Cullinan itself is lovely and a much nicer small town than Parys in the Free State, which the guidebooks all seem to rave about (that said the area around Parys is very pretty). All the houses are built from local sandstone and along the main street leading towards the mine there are dozens of cute little shops, cafes and restaurants, which make a perfect place to relax after an absorbing historical tour.

How we got there: Cullinan is easy to find by car. Heading north on the N1, just as you pass Pretoria you will find the turn off to Cullinan. The journey takes about 1.5hrs tops.

19.06.2013 Joburg antique and second-hand furniture shops, Newlands

Having just moved into a completely unfurnished flat for the first time in our lives, we have had our work cut out filling it up beyond the small amount of furniture we had brought with us from Moscow. Once we had the essentials (such as a fridge - they don’t even come with a fridge here!) sorted, we then decided to head off on a second-hand hunt to find ourselves some good quality extras. 

The Newlands area of the city - and in particular the workshop lined Long Street - came highly recommended and certainly didn’t disappoint.

With a careful eye and some good bargaining you can get some great deals. Our ultimate bargain had to be this huge wicker chair which we got for just 200 Rand (about 15 pounds). With some effort we even managed to get it in the car too (although we did have to drive home with the rear window totally obscured).

Some of the shops (such as the guy who sold us the chair) are quite junky, whilst others are seriously posh and have some very fancy antiques. In between you can find all kinds of random bits of cool bric-a-brac such as old-fashioned tills, street signs, art deco crockery, old wooden chests, strange brass figurines and random animal skulls.

Everything in this 'kitchen' is for sale

There are also a handful of carpenter’s workshops where you can get all kinds of high quality furniture custom-made, from bar stools and shelves, to dining tables and bed heads. We picked up this sturdy Oregon pine bookshelf and a cupboard for the TV made by some guys in a workshop with the crazy name Cowboys and Angels. They even varnished it for us before they delivered it. You certainly don’t get that kind of stuff in Ikea.

Retro Noah, one of the workshops dealing in custom-made furniture

Books and shelves

How I got there: If you are headed to Newlands, you really need to go by car. It’s not well serviced by buses (Melville’s e-tuk tuk is probably your best option) and you will inevitably want to take lots of things away with you. Incidentally, delivery costs between 100 and 250 Rand depending on what is being delivered where.

09.06.2013 Market on Main and Maboneng property

This Sunday we headed down to Maboneng's Sunday market, Market on Main to shop, eat, drink and look into the properties on offer in this growing inner-city gentrification project.

Somewhat similar to the Sunday pop-up markets in London's Brick Lane, Market on Main is largely focused on selling fresh food made from local products cooked right in front of you. Stalls sell all kinds of tasty things such as Thai noodles, dim sum, Ethiopian platters, gourmet burgers, sizzling paella, Durban style curries and barbequed pork ribs. On the drinks side there's homemade lemonade, mojitos, craft beers (that's South African for real ale/microbrewery), good strong Ethiopian coffee and, as we are now in South African winter, hot toddys and mulled wine. The food hall is constantly jam packed with fashionable foodies grabbing lunch at the communal tables and is hectic, but in a festive way.

On the upper floor of the former warehouse is a smaller market selling vintage clothes, funky furniture, handmade jewellery, artworks and some beautiful African fabric inspired shoes and handbags. The selection is small, but enticing. Back down in the warehouse's courtyard entrance you can also find little studios with art exhibition spaces and galleries, which form both the creative and commercial spaces of the artists who live here.

During our exploration of these little studios surrounding the market we came across the Smack! Republic Brewery (do they know that 'smack' is slang for heroin in the UK...?!). Smack! is two months old and run by two young craft beer lovers who had the dream of creating Joburg's first inner-city microbrewery. Their brewing space was most definitely micro - I think even my local pub in England has a bigger production - but we could not fault the beer. This was absolutely delicious, seriously some of the best I have drank in a long time. I can't wait to find it in some bars around town. And check out the bottles, very cool.

At Smack!'s terrace, fancy loft conversion in the background

Bargain Maboneng property

As we sat up on Smack!'s balcony with our pints of Bree Street Belle, we spotted a house viewing across the courtyard. We had landed in Maboneng on open day and the local sales team were there in force to tell us about the area's excellent investment gains. Apparently properties here see about a 12-14% yearly value increase, easily beating inflation. Furthermore, by 2015 the Maboneng precinct plan to develop an incredible 25 more buildings which they now own in the area (I didn't quite catch what that means in unit numbers, but I would say they are looking at adding thousands more flats). More and varied retail space is their next big focus (an area can't survive on a Sunday market alone) and they also plan to build student housing to bring some economic variation to the area, and of course to make it really, really cool.

The first property we saw was a converted factory loft. The ceilings were sky high leaving potential to add space with a mezzanine, although noticeably there were not many windows in the main living space. The showers (two, one for each bedroom), with old industrial windows used as doors, were about the size of your average bathroom and from the balcony you could easily zip-line your way over the courtyard and straight into the brewery bar. It was a large (125sqm) and unique space, which would suite young creatives with imagination and I can only imagine the kind of parties they could have there. Price? 1.5million Rand, which is around  £100,000.

Designer bathroom

Next we moved over to Main Street Life, a seven storey building with a boutique hotel on the top floor and an independent cinema and theatre on street level. The cheapest properties here are the studio flats (around 33sqm), which with their current furnishings unfortunately resembled hotel rooms. These units are on sale for 360K (about  £23K) and apparently rent for around 2,000Rand per month. For something slightly bigger they also still had a corner studio left, which came in at a considerably larger 55 square metres and was surrounded on two sides by full length windows (with views). Price? 550K (about  £35K).

Every floor of the building has its own artworks

The view from the top of Main Street Life

Maboneng are also selling properties 'off-plan' in two other nearby building starting at 580,000Rand for 50sqm in 'Revolution House' and 650,000Rand for a 65sqm loft style space in a building which, when construction finishes, will offer balconies and a communal swimming pool.

The redevelopment of this part of the city is certainly ambitious, poses many questions and has raised its fair share of controversy. The property mogul behind it all, Jonathan Lieberman, believes that in order to really redevelop and lift this tough inner-city area out of poverty and neglect, middle income and rich residents need to be looked after, as well as the existent poor population. Hence high-end properties, bijou dining spots and artisan shops have taken centre stage in the first part of the development. However, many people also argue that Maboneng currently only caters for those with money to the detriment of the local population, and certainly judging by the prices in the local bar I'd have to agree, life is pricey.

More local buildings slated for redevelopment

However, when all is said and done, as the endless spread of Joburg's northern residential sprawl is unsustainable, the regeneration and re-branding of these downtown areas is essential. Getting well-off South Africans to change their perceptions of inner-city living is a highly commendable thing. What these new urbanites do when they get there is another story.

01.06.2013 Bar hopping in Johannesburg CBD

Gerald is a bubbly Johannesburg tour guide, who has also written a popular book detailing all the best that the city has to offer called JoburgPlaces. Gerald had the genius idea of combining drinking with touring the city centre and after a tough few days of moving chaos we certainly needed those beers.

Unfortunately due to a long and tortuous morning of getting involved in something we hadn't really thought we had signed up for (we were just trying to make the TV work, we ended up with a satellite...) we missed the start of the tour.

Here's where we went (excluding a bar in a gold vault in the Mapungubwe Hotel and Darkie Cafe which is opposite it). Note we travelled around in a mini-bus. According to Gerald it is now safe to walk in the CBD after dark, but it is not safe to cross the bridges:

Guildhall Pub

Corner Market and Harrison Street

Downstairs at the Guildhall

Reputedly the oldest pub in the city, the Guildhall first opened in 1888. The bar itself and the panelling surrounding it is all around 100 years old, while the building's facade, including a wrought iron balcony, is also an important historic relic of old Joburg.

We sat up on the balcony overlooking the library square and the Nelson Mandela Building (the place were Madiba first got a job as a legal clerk at a Jewish firm). Most of the locals tend to sit downstairs at the bar. I've actually popped by here before whilst strolling the inner-city and can confirm that it's got a proper bar buzz in the post-work hours, is safe and the owner is lovely. There's also karaoke on Thursdays (I haven't been...yet).

I read that back in the 1970s the Guildhall was the bar of choice for foreign correspondents working in the city. It was reputedly a bit rough at the edges, but an essential venue for journalists getting their teeth into reporting the madness of apartheid and swapping war stories. How things change.

Reef Hotel 
(not to be confused with Gold Reef City), 58 Anderson Street

The funny tower on the right is all that remains of a grand old Joburg building. It was demolished to make way for a new bank HQ, but the project fell apart after demolition and now it's just a car park.

This is a lovely business hotel, with outstanding staff, very close to the main mining headquarters (hence the name). The restaurant on ground level does an excellent lunch buffet deal on weekdays for local office workers. Meanwhile upstairs there's a very respected gourmet restaurant where they train youngsters from poor backgrounds to become top chefs.

We headed all the way up to the roof (currently only open for private parties) for our drinks. The views from up there are incredible. Hopefully they will open it up soon as a proper bar. It is seriously one of the best 'sundowner' locations in Johannesburg.

Great Dane

6 De Beer Street

After picking up my poor husband (who had only just escaped the TV fiasco) we went to Great Dane, a very popular student joint in Braamfontein. It is next to Kitcheners which is probably my favourite bar in Joburg right now and has a similar crowd. The Dane was absolutely packed and everyone was dancing to Cee Cee Peniston's 90s house hit Finally, even though it was only 7pm. A proper party place filled with outrageously hip looking African students.

Parktonian Hotel

120 De Korte Street

For our final drinks gazing out over the lights of Saturday night Hillbrow, we went to the roof of the Protea Parktonian Hotel in Braamfontein. Again I think this place is only open for guests and private parties and again they are really missing a trick.

As this was our final destination we all had a Springbok shot (mint liqueur and kahlua) and listened with amazement as Gerald explained to us the ins and outs of how downtown Johannesburg fell into decline and why business and upmarket living is now spread across the 'northern suburbs' instead. I'm not going to go into the whole incredible story here, but in a nutshell - this city is changing all the time, and in the CBD things right now are only changing for the better.