Manhattan project

Why is life worth living? It's a very good question. Um... Well, There are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. uh... Like what... okay... um... For me, uh... ooh... I would say... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing... uh... um... and Wilie Mays... and um... the 2nd movement of the Jupiter Symphony... and um... Louis Armstrong, recording of Potato Head Blues... um... Swedish movies, naturally... Sentimental Education by Flaubert... uh... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra... um... those incredible Apples and Pears by Cezanne... uh... the crabs at Sam Wo's... uh... Tracy's face...

- Woody Allen in Manhattan

Post-apartheid Jo'burg

More than 20 years since apartheid was abolished, and Johannesburg still feels like (and is) a divided city. I was staying in a white suburb with 10 feet walls, electrified fences, boom gates, 24 hour patrols, the works. Decided to go for a walk to a nearby park and got stopped by a patrol car. The security guy wasn't rude as much as puzzled - "Why would you go walking about? This is Jo'burg".

I was in the city centre and decided to go for a short walk around the market place (against my host family's instructions to never leave the hop-on hop-off city tour bus). I must have been about for half an hour and I don't think I saw one white fella.

Well! in some ways it is not racially divided so much as economically divided. All cities have this inequity; amazing wealth right next to abject poverty and squalor. The contrast is just more visible here. And the Haves just happened to be white for the most part.