Cover credits: Hot air balloon over the Namib Desert, Namibia
May issue 2020. Cover credits: Hot air balloon over the Namib Desert, Namibia

Ed's letter | Dream a little dream

Trevor Noah is the one who got away. It’s an utterly tragic tale. And he doesn’t even know it.

We have never met, at all, but I feel certain we were meant to be. We are the same age, both grew up in Joburg, have many common acquaintances and like all the same things — Midtown Manhattan apartments costing $10-million, for example.

The man is smart, funny, and good looking. To my mind that is the trifecta. And then I heard that as a result of Covid-19 he is paying the salaries of the furloughed staff of his Daily Show. Is he not perfection?

Right now I could have been dodging paparazzi lenses, getting kitted out for the Met Gala or knocking up on a tennis court with our close friend Bill Gates, but I missed the opportunity when he was still on home turf and one of us mortals, and now, here I sit in local Level 4 limbo, Trevor-less.

Which is why, when our art director Anna Lineveldt, journalist Robyn Alexander, and I started to put together the imagery décorscapes — with the idea of bringing a shot of the outside world and far-flung, exotic spots into our homes, I could not miss the opportunity.

So you will see how we’ve given Mr Noah the ultimate Scandi pad — warm, cosy, and chic. Basically, a perfect Norwegian chalet or Copenhagen loft for him to hunker down in. All that’s missing (once again) is me. Not your ideal getaway? How about channelling your inner Princess Margaret and making like you’re on the tropical island of Mustique? Or envisioning that you’re Grace Jones living it up in a hella ’80s New York apartment?

Wanted editor in chief Sarah Buitendach.
Wanted editor in chief Sarah Buitendach.
Image: Simz Mkhwanazi

Unsurprisingly, a lot of this issue is fantasy-based. Holed up in our collective homes, our imaginations soared. Like the hot-air balloon lazing over the Namib desert on our cover. During production of the magazine we all commented on how we’d die to be at one of the Namibian escapes Richard Holmes has written about, or sipping on the glass of red in the Hemel-en-Aarde valley that Moira Mdakana mentions. Ah wine. Remember that nectar of the gods?

Actually we’d love to be doing a lot of things: popping into an art exhibition opening, grabbing breakfast, heading out to a dinner party and — the ultimate extravagance — hitting the open road and just going (see Denis Droppa’s suggestions for just this), zigzagging across as many provincial border lines as we could manage.

LOOK | Page through the digital copy of Wanted's May issue (enlarge for easy viewing):

And we’d gladly welcome random small talk with Uber drivers, asking twice for a waiter to bring the bill, running into everyone we know at Woolies, putting up with extended family whingeing about “the evil media” at a Sunday lunch and — wait for it — we’d even be ok with a mildly delayed flight, just to get up in the air and travel again.

We know we’ll get to do all this soon enough (sans the late flights, we hope) but until then you can count on Wanted to be your portal to the life you usually, or would like to, live. We are an escape hatch to little luxuries, lovely places, smart ideas, and great people, to keep you buoyant in hard times.

Look after yourselves. And Trevor, if you’re reading this, you know where to find me.

And remember, if you like what you see here, you can subscribe to the Business Day newspaper to receive your gorgeous, glossy physical copy in the mail.

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