THE LOCATION: the Victoria Wharf semi-megamall, V&A WAterfront, playground of Cape Town's rich and famous; jewel in the crown of the city, and shit like that. THE VENUE (at the location): Caffe San Marco, fairly non-exotic coffeehouse on the wharf proper, overlooking quays 4-7 at the harbour. THE TIME (at the venue at the location): 4:30pm. Late summer afternoon; for once, the south-easter is blowing a tepid breeze instead of its preferred gale-force. THE COMPANY (I'm sure you get it by now. I mean, it's not rocket science): my mom, my ex-aunt (my mom's brother's millionaire former wife, a former top model of the 70s and 80s) and her multigazillionaire accountant current beau, executive partner in the world's top accounts firm as seen at the Oscars every year doing the vote-counting; they were in town for him to ride in the world's largest cycle race, the 35000-strong field of the Cape Argus Pick'n'Pay Cycle tour, held the prevous day in the aforementioned hurricane-force wind. So strong a wind, in fact, that it blew several cyclists off their bikes at one treacherous corner (and fractured one skull in doing so), and one "innocent" bystander was blown off the route and over the embankment and barriers and halfway down the steep mountainside into the deep blue sea off Cape Point, I'm told. THE REASON (etc): We were meeting them for coffee before they flew back up north the following day. The SMS (or text message, in European) from Justin (at the venue still, no prizes for guessing. Well done, though): Heard you guys had some excitement today. Are the Swedes ok? THE REPLY: No, Justin, we've had them all shot. Of course they're okay! Id have told you if they werent. Yeah, I was too lazy to stop the predictive text of my little phone to insert an apostrophe, so those were intentional errata. WHAT WERE WE ON ABOUT?: Well, Justin's new officemates are from Uppsala University, in Sweden. He's gone up there to develop his skills in nonMEM, some population modelling software thing to evaluate drug kinetics. On account of his expertise leaving the department, we are nonMEMless, as it were, and so his new masters have volunteered to come down here and conduct an intensive course in the basics to get everyone up to speed. They arrived on Saturday and came into the unit here MOnday morning. I DON'T GET IT: At about the same time Monday morning, the Prison Services people brought in a group of inmates who need more treatment than the onsite prison doctors can provide. They come up here twice a week or so, everyone in chains and bright orange clothes, and go to Outpatients for whatever dentistry or mole-removal or whatever is required. This particular Monday, as they came from Outpatients and were being led back to the van to go back to Pollsmoor Prison, three people leaped out of a nearby parked car with automatic rifles and opened fire on the whole lot of them. Managed to wing the guy they were trying to rescue, it seems, as well as take out two of the warders, one of whom died right there on the steps to the building next to the bus-stop and the fruit-sellers, before high-tailing it out of there and carjacking several people in and around town before being tracked down and hauled in yesterday. Needless to say, the Swedes were somewhat less than impressed. It's nice and safe in Volvoland. I mean, it's not like they've ever had their Prime Minister gunned down while walking home with his wife from a movie; or had their Foreign Minister stabbed by a guy on an escalator in an upmarket Swedish deparmtent store in 2003, have they? Oh, wait, hang on a sec... Exciting times. -d- In other news, I'm officially back on for my big tour. Confirmation arrived yesterday from the airline.