You can never get a man to change his pub or his barber...
A GOOD friend of mine mentioned this to a colleague not so long ago. Said colleague was suggesting that I try his wife's hairdressing salon.
I changed my pub a while back. There was a time when if you were a darkie and a journo, the only place you ended up to quench your thirst was at the Admiral Hotel's Benbow.
Dennis Pather, Strini Moodley, Ticks Chetty, Juggie Naran, Morris Reddy, Neil Lewis, Trevor Harris, and many more would congregate there every weekend for many a ... ahem ... spirited discussion.
Then the Group Areas fell, and the Overport-Asherville area was no longer the only place close to town for us to live. We moved out, and changed pubs.
The Admiral is today almost lifeless, to the extent that Grog Knowler and Igor May fled for the relative sanctuary of the Queens Tavern after only one drink.
This week, I changed my barber. It was temporary insanity. I lost my beard after more than three years to dress in drag for a party on Saturday.
The haircut followed on Tuesday when I ended up at a unisex hairdressing salon in Brickfield Road, Overport after giving up on the idea of finding parking in town.
There was a not unpleasant buzz of conversation with Radio Lotus in the background. I skimmed an article in Femme magazine on breast augmentation surgery while listening to pieces of the discussion.
"Do you know," one voice said, "that they want us to pay five rand a month for school fees?" I put my Henry Higgins hat on. Indian, late 30s to early 40s, working mother, resident of the area.
A chorus of sympathetic outrage followed. "Yah, I don't know what else they want us to pay for. School fees, we must pay. Books, we must pay. Excursions, we must pay," said voice number two.
"And what about the toilets!" said voice number three. "They don't clean the toilets. The children have to hold it inside until they come home, and I don't know what sort of damage that's doing to their kidneys."
I took my Henry Higgins hat off. They sounded like soul sisters. "I'm not going to pay," said voice number one. "They're not going to get one cent from me. Do you think the blacks will pay? Do you think they will make the blacks pay?"
There were murmurs of agreement all around. The conversation lulled, then switched topics.
The economics of racial stereotypes are interesting. My daughter goes to a pre-primary school where all parents pay. Many of us are African.
But it's a different world to Overport which is increasingly crime-ridden, home to the homeless, and has the lowest paid domestic workers in Durban.
While areas like Chatsworth and Phoenix have pulled themselves out of ghetto status with modest but systematic improvements to homes and land, Overport is rapidly becoming the Hillbrow of Durban.
Those who can afford to move out are doing so. For many who remain, life is going to be increasing difficult.
In a "normal" industrialised society, high density urban housing like the dozens of blocks of flats that are found in Overport follow some set patterns.
If they are occupant owned, they normally move upmarket, with owners clubbing together to concentrate on improvements and security.
If they are rental units, they become increasingly run down. Children play in the streets for lack of facilities. Crime goes up. Education goes down.
New York City shows both in the elegant brownstones of Manhattan, and in the ghettos of Harlem, Queens, and Brooklyn.
The artificial sense of community created by the Group Areas Act which led to all of us gathering at the Admiral Hotel also prevented the decline of Overport.
The rents were ridiculously high compared to white Durban, but we were forced to live there and pay those rents because there was nowhere else.
Now the free market is kicking in. The Esplanade is much more attractive for those who want flats close to the city centre but were denied the opportunity by apartheid.
There is no reason for anyone to want to move into Overport today. The population will be transient from now on. And voices one, two, and three will find that their problems are just beginning.
Maybe I should get the gang together for a last drink at the Admiral. For old time's sake.