I preferred MC when he was a humble tree hugger.

I arrived at the office at 7am to find MC standing outside my door with a bunch of dried flowers. He wanted to know why I hadn’t responded to any of his messages and he wanted to let me know that God is starting to lose his patience. I took that as an indirect threat and called security. He managed to squeeze out “I’ll be waiting for you” as he was marched out the building. What freaks me out is that it looks like he spent the night outside my door. Oh, the fine line between romance and stalking. How I would have melted if the British director with the Lindt voice had spent all night outside my office with dried flowers – I would even have been fine with stalks – and swore to me that the creator of heaven and hell was desperate for us to make love on my desk. So my first phone call of the day was to a lawyer to obtain a restraining order against MC followed by one to the Maitland mortuary to make sure the Brits had made it there in one piece for their interview with the head pathologist. I made up the excuse that I needed to sort out filming permits so couldn’t be with them. I don’t need to have the image of a foot sticking out of a white sheet turning different shades of blue to spoil my pleasant memories of Cape Town. Thanks to their Nav., they arrived on time and are already inspecting the results of a bloody weekend on the Cape Flats.

Later I joined the crew for a live demonstration of another inventive crime prevention product dreamed up by another South African getting rich off our horrendously high crime rate. This high-end security company installs 7-8 night vision cameras at their client’s home or business. Back in the control room the images are viewed on a wall of monitors, 24 hours a day, by some poor buggers who are assigned to stare at this panel of revolving black and white images. If they see anyone suspicious on the property, the first step is to give them a verbal warning over a loudhailer. The unsuspecting intruder must nearly wet his pants when a booming voice stops him in his tracks, “You are trespassing on private property and have 5 minutes to vacate. I repeat, you have five minutes to vacate”. Now he either heeds this warning or, if unluckily for him he decides it’s a Leon Schuster prank and he proceeds, he will be sprayed with teargas and pepper spray which the officers in the control room can release. While he is still lying helplessly on the ground, the security company arrives and arrests him. That’s only if the security guard on duty wasn’t on the crapper reading a ‘You’ magazine when the intruder slipped in.

We all get into our separate cars and follow the security company director to one of the fancy houses in Clifton that sport their product. On route I notice an old orange Ford driving in front of me. It pulls to the left and then back in front of me. This goes on until hospital bend where I overtake and glance into the car and see 3 men who seriously look like gangsters. The one sitting in the back gives me a Queen of England wave accompanied by an equally spine-chilling smile. Our eyes lock.  I alert the Brits to the fact that possibly one of the gangs is making their presence felt. Toks, one of the security guys, offers me his protection and we swap numbers.

We end the day filming the presenter walking down the beach and return to our dusty cars to find the name ‘Ernie’ written on the front windshield. Great. For once, it would be reassuring if this had simply been as a result of MC trying to send coded messages or, even more benign, a leathery old standloper named Irene with terrible dyslexia who was just marking her territory.