Carol’s Column

Guns & Mobile Phones

There I was, sitting at a restaurant in Johannesburg enjoying cold butternut soup with sour cream and chives, when the man at the table beside me took off his jacket.

Please understand. I have no problem with a man taking off his jacket. In fact I wouldn't have minded had he taken off all his clothes, it could only have added a little perk and improved the ambience of the rather stuffy restaurant.

It was what he was wearing that caused me to almost choke. Strapped around his armpit was a large leather holster and a gun.

Big, fat and evil looking - the gun - it quite put me off my soup.

Guns are not user friendly. They are menacing and frightening unless attached to the nimble fingers of a celluloid cowboy.

I changed chairs so as to have another view. One more pleasing, more peaceful, more congenial. And was confronted by the sight of another Clint Eastwood, this one with a gun sticking provocatively out of his waistband.

Quite dangerous I thought. Should it go off by mistake, there's no doubt he'd be a Martha instead of an Arthur.

My eyeballs took a quick glance around the room and discovered three more. Which in total made five.

Five guns and butternut soup. Was this to be a heist? Was there a master plan to carry off the duckling in orange, the crême caramel, the baked alaska?

No, this was macho South Africa at lunch.

I was just savouring my main course of grilled lamb chops when a most horrible shrill sound pierced my ears, causing me to jump a metre heavenwards.

My shocked chop flew across the room landing in a Rasta hairdo.

The shrilling continued. Quick as a flash, the man on my right pulled a miniature receiver from his trouser pocket, crunched on a prawn and began speaking to someone called Chen in Parys.

Simultaneously, two other phones rang, their cheeps screeching through the restaurant. Their owners paused momentarily to swallow, then began animated conversations about steel trading, financial markets and the fact that Transvaal had won the rugby on Saturday.

"These blerry cellphones give me the pip," said a woman behind me. "How can a girl hear herself drink?" I knew what she meant.

"Western Province should have won," said the nearest cellular speaker. "We played the better game. Transvaal's a lousy team. They play with their boots not their balls." The man with the gun in his waistband leapt up. "Whom are you calling a lousy team?" he grunted, lifting the Province supporter up by his pink-striped button-down collar.

Things were getting out of hand. Would there be gun play? Would the Province fan find himself turned into tomato sauce?

There's nothing like a quiet lunch in the city. Where else in the world could I chew surrounded by guns and see a riot almost break out over a game in which men clutch and hug each other for such lengthy periods.

If a scrum isn't the ultimate in male bonding, then I don't know what is.

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