WELL, IF THIS TIME OF THE YEAR IS ABOUT FAMILY

Besides being able to eat excessively with minimal judgement headed your way, one of the supposedly awesome things about this time of the year is being able to be excessively sentimental about one's family and the time spent with them, and to express those sentiments on social media outlets like fb and twitter whilst not feeling judged. I love my family too but of course I've done nothing of the sort so far and i stick a finger down my throat everytime i read a tweet or fb status update along those lines, or those redundant descriptions of everything on the xmas lunch table. I've also been binge eating like crazy, so we might be dealing with a totally different issue. Anyway, after all the terrible judgement i've been doing behind people's backs, I finally succumbed. After Xmas lunch with the fam I found myself going thru our old family pics and i found these vintage type gems that i just had to share. I don't have a scanner skat, i just took pics of the pics so don't bitch about the quality. Enjoy.

MY GRANDFATHER

MY GRANDMOTHER

MY MOTHER

MY FATHER

ME AND MY PARENTS

ME AND MY MOM

MY MOM IN THE 80s SANS THE 70s HEADGEAR

MY AUNT IN THE 80s

I REALLY DON'T KNOW WHO THIS IS BUT THAT BERET KILLS ME

HAPPY HOLIDAYS /// BLACK MODEL FAMOUS by THE HOUSE OF LADOSHA

So ja i think i've kind of put myself on holiday already. I keep thinking i'm going to post pics from the last couple of weeks but all i want to do is lay back in the sun with a drink in my hand and enjoy the holidays. So i am officially putting myself on holiday from all things blog related. Tomorrow i leave for the EC to visit family, where i plan to lay back and do even more fuckall. Cheers until next year. I'll leave you with this fantastic video from The House of Ladosha, it's called Black Model Famous. Hope y'all have a 'black model famous' holiday.

CHRISTOPHER STRONG STORE OPENING

....AND LATER FOR DINNER AFTER THE LAUNCH

It's 3.30am in the morning, i'm as sleepy as fuck and i need to wake up in about 3 1/2 hours for work. and yet here i am posting away, drinking wine and listening to the the 'Dead Can Dance'. Not my choice really, i'm more of a top 40 kinda guy, but Athi has a thing for shit that's headed towards obscurity, so i listen. Anyway, i haven't posted much in the last few days. I've been out a lot and i've taken shitloads of pics from amazing get-togethers but i honestly have not had the energy. Blame it on Dezemba. I'll post some stuff from the weekend a little later in the week. But tonight i went to check out the Christopher Strong store opening at the top of long street and i just couldn't resist sharing the pics. If I was a slightly cleverer or more together person i would have gone straight to sleep and dealt with these pics tomorrow. At first I wanted to call this post Christopher Strong: Why I hate Michael and Elaine, Why I love Michael and Elaine. I'll tell explain why. Elaine and Michael are the masterminds behind the Christopher Strong brand. Reason no. 1 for hating them: They are fabulously talented and they create exquisite and tasteful garments that have gained a rather dedicated following in Jozi and in CT, and tonight they put together a lovely event that attracted some of my favourite beautiful people. Reason No 2; After the launch they introduced me to what is possibly the most amazing and coolest restaurant/gourmet burger joint in CT (check the pics above). Seriously skat, the place has only 3 tables and it opens only between 5pm and 10pm. the owner in the only guy behind the counter/stove and the place is called 'The Dog's Bollocks'. I mean really, is being talented and successful not enough? Must you also know the coolest spots in town? Reason 3. The last and most important reason I hate them is that these two are the nicest and most down to earth people  i have met recently. Nice, talented, successful, modernist, cool as ice, and super grounded. What's not to hate skattie?...oh and rumour has it that they'll be  launching a menswear line in Feb next year. I'll buy a piece of course (the cheapest one naturally), but i'll hate them for it, just like i hate them for giving me such a solid reason to stay up so late.

IN THE COMPANY OF HIS SERENE HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT II AND PRINCESS CHARLENE OF MONACO

ja ja ja skattie i know it's not the usual skattie type post. There's no artists, there's no hipster kids and there are no black label quarts. It's probably a little Top Billing with Joanne Strauss thrown in for good measure.  In fact now that i think about it there's a few friends from my past life when i used to live in Obz back in the early noughties who would disown me for posting about Euro-royalty. They were an anarchist cum socialist group that i used to share a house with. From time to time they'd organize meetings with other anarchists cum socialists where they would smoke copious amounts of skunk and plot the future pro-poor revolution in South Africa, they were gonna change our world, all 10 of them. I haven't heard from them in a while, the two leaders of the group hooked up with German women and then they moved to Berlin. I hope they're changing the first world for the better. But anyway fuck that, it was a long time ago and capitalism won in the end. As they say "the rich get richer and the poor get the message'. Back to tonight, the dress code on the invite was 'business', so i had no unrealistic expectations, i certainly did not expect any fashion revelations. However, even if the royals had arrived in PEP rags i would still have shot like a thousand pics of them. Seriously sweetskat, they're fucking royalty for fuck's sake, and royalty is a good colour whatever you're wearing. Maybe i was fooled by the title but that Princess Charlene is really stunning, so poised and graceful. These pics really do not do her justice. Anyway, the reason they were at the event was to support the launch of the Polaris Climate Change Observatory which was made possible by the International Polar Foundation. I really do wish i could tell you more about this but unfortunately being a right-brain type i struggle to grasp concepts that are based heavily on science, but i really trust that the scientists are on to something. And if they say we need to pay attention to climate change, then we probably should. So please visit the International Polar foundation site to educate yourself a little better about the issues this whole event was built around. Don't be ignorant now skat, go visit the site. No really, GO.