“Cape Town is a lot like Sydney,” an ex-pat yarpie had assured me. But as I’m driven through the township which separates the airport from the city it’s the dystopian sprawl of District 9 that comes to mind. Hearing my silence as censure my driver points out the satellite dishes perched atop these densely-packed hovels; proof that most of them now have electricity (if not, er, plumbing). The fish restaurant I’m taken to that night does remind me of a favourite Bondi eatery, and apart from the ‘Armed Response’ signs on every gatepost the leafy suburb surrounding it does feel like a bit like Mosman. But still thinking about District 9 I can’t bring myself to order the prawns.

The Pistorious case dominates the media, of course: there is even a TV channel dedicated to it. The sentencing will take place in a couple of days and almost everyone I meet tells me ‘O.P.’ should go to jail. They are less keen to anticipate the verdict in another high-profile local trial; that of a British man accused of arranging his wife’s murder during their honeymoon here three years ago. Whatever the outcome neither case is a good advertisement for SA tourism, and my suggestion that the country should market itself as a good place to dispose of unwanted relatives doesn’t get many laughs.

The weakness of its currency, as much as the strength of its sunshine, has made film production one of Cape Town’s biggest exports. Stellenbosch, the area where we’re shooting, is better known for its wine, but it also has a large baboon population, and as the commercial we’re making will run in countries where baboons are comparatively rare (Sweden, for example), we have to stop filming each time one wanders into shot. Despite being responsible for a significant percentage of the region’s burglaries and assaults these large and menacing animals are strictly protected. Even if he finds one on top of his grandmother, my driver tells me, he’s not allowed to set his dog on it.

It’s not just their own fauna South Africans care about. In amongst articles about ebola and terrorism, the front page of yesterday’s Cape Times found space for a story about an Australian house sale where the buyer made it a condition that the vendors leave their cat in the property. Today’s front page has an article about the threat posed by Australia’s domestic cats to its indigenous wildlife. Nothing about Gough Whitlam yet, so I’m assuming he was more of a dog person.

Having heard that I like watching rugby the production company I’m working with takes me to the semi-final of the Currie Cup. Our seats are close enough to the pitch for us to hear the impact of every tackle, and I find myself wondering how South Africans get so big. The name of the restaurant we go to after the match, CARNE, might be a clue. Anxious to blend in I order the ‘Safari Special’; a mixed grill of kudu, ostrich, impala and black wildebeest. My hosts all opt for the lamb or the beef.

Film crews in different countries use different slang for different tasks. The best I’ve heard so far here is my first assistant’s reference to a scene we’d forgotten to cover as a ‘Mugabe’. ‘What’s a Mugabe?’ I ask. ‘The one we should have shot,’ he replies.

The great views in most cities come at a premium for residents and visitors alike, but wherever you go in Cape Town you can’t escape Table Mountain. I am confronted by its vast bulk every time I turn a corner or look out of a window. Uluru in Centennial Park.

I was told you have to travel to travel quite a long way from the city to see an elephant, but today there was one in the room where we are doing our casting. Since the commercial we are making involves food being served, we need a hand model, and one of the young men who turned up for the role had six fingers on one of his hands. Everybody noticed this immediately, but the casting director still made the poor guy go through the motions and nobody said anything until he’d left.

Having six fingers may be limiting for an actor, but having six wives does not seem to have diminished the popularity of South Africa’s chuckling, booty-shaking president. Neither, according to a recent poll, do accusations that he has spent millions of tax-payer dollars building enormous and lavishly appointed houses. Wherever the money came from I have some sympathy for Mr. Zuma. I have only been married once, but that was to someone who insisted on spending millions of dollars building enormous and lavishly appointed houses.

Popular as he is, Jacob Zuma will not fill the gap left by Nelson Mandela. The only person qualified for that role is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who appears unexpectedly in the lobby of my hotel one afternoon. South Africans will be forever indebted to this man for the courageous stand he took first against the injustice of apartheid, and then against the corruption which has stymied the system which replaced it. I, on the other hand, will always be indebted to him for appearing in a commercial for the AFL’s Centenary in 1996.

If the commercial I have been making is successful I will have to come back to make another one a year from now, and I find I am already looking forward to it. On the way to the airport I ask my driver what he thinks of the 5 year jail sentence handed down to Oscar Pistorius yesterday. He describes it as a joke, since ‘O.P.’ will probably only serve 10 months of behind bars. Which means he may get back to Cape Town before me.