Housing in Southern Africa February 2015

H O U S I N G in Southern Africa

ED’S NOTES

Car spotting… Personalised number plates often speak volumes about who is in the driving seat, their demeanour, social pecking order, sense of humour, spiritual calling, passion, driving style or other idiosyncrasies.

THE TEAM

EDITOR Carol Dalglish housing@crown.co.za ADVERTISING Brenda Grossmann brendag@crown.co.za BOARD MEMBER Jenny Warwick

T hose who want to remain dis- creet or non-descript go with the generic ones allocated by the licensing departments. But some that recently caught my attention included a top of the range Land Rover adorned, Shweet; a red Toyota twin cab named, 4Fortuna, a German performance car that carved its way through the traffic aptly named Snap- py; and who could resist the Toyota Combi with a heavenly number plate extolling, 025DEC. Spotted on the Soweto Highway was a small red 4X4 with the reg- istration plate emblazoned Bantu, one wonders if the surname was Holomisa? In Durban a smart black top of the range car carried the name of a great Indian saint, Babaji; the spiritual sound of Aum, resonated on a sleek German model. A flashy silver Mercedes sported, Slumdog; and road users moved out of the way for a Mercedes Benz 180 inscribed 001 FUZ, one can only as- sume it is a top cop’s private vehicle. A dark blue BMW displayed Ultra 4; and watching Joybug zooming around Joburg made me smile. Sue NW probably encapsulated how people feel about the North West province and it has nothing to dowith the driver. Some licence plates make the owner easily identifiable such as a white Mercedes Benz 250 embla- zoned Mpho L or Audrey. With a plate extolling Blitz1, other drivers gave the car’s driver room to manoeuvre; one motorist clearly has a hankering for Los Angeles and sported LAJBUG. This plate i 8 A VW on a red Audi tickled my funny bone. But, my personal favourite was a Rolls Royce entitled, 03 Oddy. The whimsical number plate seemed farmore suited to a backyard special than a plush state-of-the-art luxury brand. Would President Jacob Zuma opt for Number One.ZA; African minerals billionaire Patrice Motsepe display The Boss; or his wife Precious chose GP, an abbreviation for her profes- sional status. Human Settlements Minister,

Lindiwe Sisulu could proclaim, 1,5m houses; the Oppenheimers’, de beers1. Would theMinister of Justice bold- ly extoll, Justice4all; or professionals such as a plastic surgeon, New U; or a dietician, Fat Buster; or an equity funder select Triple AAA. Affordable housing developer, Cosmopolitan Projects brand all their vehicles with splashes of animal print, and like the big five, they are easily recognisable and distinguish- able from a distance. What about government’s money man, would Samson Moraba, from the National Housing Finance Corpo- ration, opt for DFi1 It is really tempting to come up with a sweet number plate but with my taxi driving style, I guess that being anonymous is far better. Enjoy the read!

PUBLISHER Karen Grant DESIGN

Colin Mazibuko CIRCULATION Karen Smith READER ENQUIRIES Radha Naidoo SUBSCRIPTIONS Wendy Charles

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Carol Dalglish • Editor

AVERAGE CIRCULATION (THIRD QUARTER 2014) 3760

Govan Mbeki Awards 2014 - Best Media - Housing in Southern Africa

February 2015