One of the few things that make London the great city it is is the growing hunger for arts and culture. I am no culture vulture but I am a strong believe that you should experience some things at least once. Theatre is a big thing in London and thousands of tourists flock to London to see one of the productions on stage. I am actually ashamed to say that we have been living here for the last three years and we have not been to the theatre once but we’re finally putting that behind us.

London does not just have one production house, there are a few of them, each doing their own thing. Theatre tickets can cost anything from £5 to £100, depending on the popularity of the production. We will hopefully be going to the latest and most talked about theatre production in London at the Old Vic called Speed The Plow.

A bit more about the show from The Old Vic themselves. Do yourself a favour and head down to your nearest production theatre and experience theatre.

“Hollywood producers Bobby Gould (Jeff Goldblum) and Charlie Fox (Kevin Spacey) engage in a verbal boxing match centered around the eternal debate of art versus money.

‘Of all American playwrights, Mamet remains the shrewdest observer of the evil that men do unto each other in the name of buddyhood’ Time. David Mamet’s other plays include Glengarry Glen Ross, Oleanna and American Buffalo. Kevin Spacey appeared in Glengarry Glen Ross on film and recently at The Old Vic in A Moon for the Misbegotten and Richard II.”

I have been doing online grocery shopping for the last three months; spend my Sundays browsing through the entire store online before checking out and eagerly awaiting my groceries being delivered. Saves me so much hassle, going to store, getting what I want, normally you want everything if you are hungry and then carrying it all back home.

The online grocery buying thing has been saving me a lot of body ache, time and I can get a lot more of the heavier stuff in one go, like washing powder and food tins, heavy bags of potatoes and that type of things. Anyway, I am getting off track here. I found a couple of interesting instant type of mixes in store the other day and tried one of them out last night.

 A wholemeal bread mix, just add the water and butter and bake to perfection. Bought the bread mix for the days I forget to buy bread for the next day, was way too lazy yesterday to go to the shop for bread alone so I decided to make my own and it came out quite well. The bread mix was about £0.60, not too bad actually and quite good for emergencies. You can also buy cake mixtures, batter mixtures, pie mixtures and scones.

This is not the type of headline you would love to read about but since we have a couple of South African friends and we know what it is like in South Africa we wanted to highlight the issue. This type of headline is not good for South Africans wanting to come to London at all as the United Kingdom will give everyone from there the evil eye before stamping their passports.

There are thousands of South Africans, Australians and New Zealanders and Namibians making their way to the United Kingdom for a working holiday. To see a bit of Europe, live on the other side of the world and make a bit of money before going back to where they come from. It has become one of those must experience experiences to have and now a few corrupt people are going to ruin it for everyone. What a pity indeed.

South African Passports are worthless, now we know why. As a result, British immigration experts said, the South African passport was “no longer worth the paper it’s written on”. South Africa leapt to the top of the British government’s visa “hit list” last month following a British trial that heard that at least 6 000 illegal Asian immigrants had been smuggled into Britain on South African passports.

Last week Sir Stephen Lander, chairman of Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency, told Britain’s Home Affairs Committee that the case “is likely” to lead to visa controls being placed on all South Africans, the Sunday Times said.
British immigration authorities are currently subjecting South Africa, with other countries, to a “Visa Waiver Test”, expected to end this year.

Experts said South Africa was almost certain to fail on three of the six key criteria due to crime and Home Affairs corruption. On Friday, the British Home Office insisted a decision had not been made but admitted that the issues raised by a recent police operation “will be of concern to both governments”.

Cleo Mosana, spokesperson for Home Affairs Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula, acknowledged on Friday that there were “major issues about the integrity and credibility” of South African passports, the Sunday Times said.