Fairlady March 2017

Years ago I belonged to a club called The Dangerous Lunch Club. At the time, there was quite a famous club of the same name in the UK, where a group of people would go out in their lunch break and do something very exciting and dangerous, like abseil off The Shard, or trapeze off Tower Bridge. Our Dangerous Lunch Club was nothing like that: we had only two members and it involved no strenuous activity at all – it was all about eating a proper plated meal, with chairs, a table, tablecloth, napkins and chilled wine in an odd place, with a straight face. We set up on little rocky outcrops down the side of Chapman’s Peak Drive, or next to the reservoir, or on a beach – and…

1. MOONGLOW BY MICHAEL CHABON No fence-sitting here: I think Michael Chabon may be the best writer alive, even if I found his Telegraph 2 Avenue completely unreadable. Moonglow has made me fall completely in love with him again; he’s funny and smart and profound… 2. THE DUCHESS NON-GIN AND NON-TONIC It has no gin, no tonic, no sugar and no carbs – but it tastes just like a botanical craft gin and tonic. It’s absolutely delicious (and 100% virtuous). 3. THE ALEXANDER BAR CAFÉ & THEATRE I’ve mentioned it before, but was reminded again of how good it was when we saw Jemma Kahn in In Bocca Al Lupo there two weeks ago. SO GOOD – but don’t take your kids. 4. DR PAWPAW BALMS…

WINNING LETTER Another perspective on divorce The article ‘Should you stay together for the kids? (January 2017) has not left my thoughts since I read it. Discussing the topic with others, it became clear, within my circle at least, that much of what the article says goes against the grain. I greatly appreciated hearing an alternative argument about divorce – it was what I needed to hear. The two things that struck home most were, first, about mourning the loss of your marriage in the marriage and, second, restoring your sense of self-worth as lovable. I am in a difficult relationship and I have been unhappy for some time. My husband has been depressed for so long, and all his energy goes into coping and being a father, leaving nothing…

An Egyptian cotton hamper, valued at R3140 Enjoy five-star treatment in your own home by shopping at MRP Home, where you will find a gorgeous variety of luxurious and sophisticated bed linen from their premium range. The 500 thread count bedroom hamper is made from 100% natural Egyptian cotton, which has a refined texture and provides a super-soft and silky-smooth feel, perfect for those lazy mornings in bed. You wouldn’t be blamed for thinking you’d spent the night at the Ritz! Check out the MRP Home Facebook page or visit www.mrphome.com to shop the range.…

On a wintry day in 1986, a teenage girl with wide eyes, high cheekbones and long legs left the small town she had grown up in and took the snowy road to the big city. Only to discover that Ljubljana, the picturesque but sleepy capital of Slovenia, was nowhere near big enough. Soon, Melanija Knavs, now an aspiring model, was heading for Milan, then Paris and on to New York where, adorned with a $200000 Dior wedding gown and her name changed to Melania Knauss, she would become the third wife of controversial billionaire Donald Trump, now the president of the United States. A sense of wonderment hangs over the town Melania left behind. Snuggled into the bend of a river, Sevnica is the kind of place even its own…

‘This turned into an amazing seven-year journey that motivated me to further explore how technology can be used to provide solutions to problems, on a scale we never imagined possible.’ REKINDLE LEARNING Rapelang Rabana Start-up costs: I put aside R65000 of my savings at the start of the business. But I have continued doing consulting and speaking engagements to generate cash flow. Turnover: Now that I have identified how to scale the business and where to make major investments, I have raised an additional R2 million in capital for our technology platforms. Our turnover is approaching the R2 million mark. When she was still at school, Rapelang Rabana noticed a problem in education: students were not learning from their mistakes. The assessment and grading were there, but not the actual…