I’m worried about my health. I think I am suffering from Business Class Syndrome. Physically I’m fine. It doesn’t attack you in the legs like the economy one. It gets you psychologically. I am travelling to Johannesburg in the new style British Airways 747 upper deck, fitted with the science seats that at the press of a button stretch you out horizontally like in the modern dentist’s chair. It’s good for sleeping, but the problem is, it has turned travel into a very lonely business. You now have your own personal space, and a screen separates you from your neighbour, who now you would find (if you could see him) facing in the opposite direction. No-one talks to you, and in turn, you don’t talk to anyone. In any case, if you tried to make contact, they wouldn’t hear you anymore. They would have on their stereo headsets and be watching any of 30 channels of entertainment or playing up to 20 video games. Much of the pleasure in travelling is in the interesting people you meet, but this is like being in solitary confinement at 30,000 feet. I think longingly of the recent budget flight I took with ‘GO’ airlines at approximately one tenth of the cost. I was travelling to Italy and there were about fifty 14 year old footballers and their dads from Doncaster travelling for a ‘friendly’ with their opposite numbers in Milan. Now that aircraft was alive, full of laughter, excitement, and anticipation of the adventures to come. I longed for some of that atmosphere now.

It just so happens that Tony Blair is visiting Africa at the same time. Today he is visiting a cocoa plantation where workers are paid less than a dollar a day. The chocolate bars made from this particular cocoa have to be manufactured in Germany to escape EU tariffs which otherwise would add 10 pence to the price of the bar. Such restrictions don’t help the developing world, and Tony Blair says they should be scrapped. He comments: “When we get to the next round of world trade talks, we have to make sure the developing countries get access to their markets.” I think about all our customers in the confectionery business. I wonder if anything will come of this in the foreseeable future, and how it will affect their business in ten or twenty years’ time.

I arrive in Johannesburg where the news is announced, to a waiting continent, that Will has won Pop-Idol. I thought I was getting away from it by travelling a few thousand miles on the night of the final, but it wasn’t to be. Maybe this was why everyone was looking so tense and serious on the upper deck of the jumbo. Anyway, now they can all relax and enjoy their visit to Jo’berg.

I have half a day free, so I visit Soweto. I hadn’t thought of it before – once you know it it’s obvious – but Soweto is actually a collection of townships, and the name stands for SOuth WEstern TOwnships. Soweto has the only street in the world where two Nobel Peace Prize winners lived only a short distance from each other. One of them, Bishop Desmond Tutu, still has a house there. The house where Nelson and Winnie Mandela lived had been open to the public until the week I arrived. But there had been (another!) court case the previous week between Nelson and Winnie. Winnie had been running the tours of the bungalow, but Nelson wanted it to be run by the Soweto Heritage Trust. Nelson won. So now the bungalow is closed, waiting to be handed over. Winnie lives just round the corner, and the court decision does not seem to be popular with the locals!

It’s Sunday, and the Soweto churches are full, and bursting with powerful and enthusiastic songs of praise. I am told the people will be in the churches all day, not for just for an hour or so like in the UK. Of course, visiting Soweto, you have to see and understand some of the history and the feelings of the community, and I leave feeling quite emotional – strangely sad but uplifted at the same time.

I move on to Cape Town and meet a nice lady from Malawi on the flight. She tells me that malaria is now a big problem again. At one time it was thought to have been beaten, but a new breed of mosquito is developing, resistant to the science used to attack their ancestors. In Malawi (and probably elsewhere) it is killing more people than Aids. But Aids remains South Africa’s biggest problem. In Kwa Zulu Natal province alone, 80,000 people died from Aids-related illnesses last year. But then I hear the most heart-rending statistic of all, that in the same year 40,000 babies were born with Aids.

The Nice Lady from Malawi and I talk about food allergies. She tells me food allergies are unheard of among the native Africans. We speculate about the fantastic range of foods we in the west now consume. Maybe our genes don’t like it. When I was a lad, most of my food was Yorkshire food, and this presumably was what generations of Pickles’ had been used to. Now we have amazing concoctions from around the world and even concoctions of concoctions. I tell the Nice Lady from Malawi that you can now go into Tesco and buy a chicken tikka pizza. She thinks this is hilarious and laughs out loud for about five minutes. It’s fortunate this time we are travelling economy and not back upstairs in the jumbo – we would probably have been made to sit with our hands on our heads for the rest of the journey!

North of Cape Town, in the Winelands, I stay for a night in an Afrikaans Guest House. The Guest House sign on the main street advertises a ‘Ladies Bar’. This sounds interesting, and my heart beats a little faster, but somehow it doesn’t quite fit the surroundings. It’s a very traditional, beautiful house, beautifully furnished, but there is no sign of a bar, let alone one full of beautiful ladies. The explanation, I later discover, is that South African bars are really bars for men (until the recent arrival of the inevitable Irish Bar), where respectable ladies would not normally be found. So the stamp of ‘Ladies Bar’ on a sign simply means that ladies can feel comfortable drinking a glass of wine here.

There is no real distinct regional cuisine in South Africa. The Cape Town area has evolved a style known as ‘Cape Cuisine’, and with thousands of miles of coastline, South Africa is blessed with a vast array of species of fish. It’s available in an increasing range of international styles and local adaptations, and, unlike Europe, it’s inexpensive. In fact, there is something going on between the EU and South Africa on fishing rights. Having over-fished European waters, the EU is reported to be negotiating with South Africa to be allowed to fish in their waters. No-one is saying anything at the moment, but there is definitely something in the air…..

Anyway, I decide to eat meat. I order steak and chips. The plate is three times larger than an English plate, and the steak is three times bigger than an English steak. It’s also a third less expensive, which I calculate gives a value rating of a factor of nine!

This is definitely a good time for Europeans to visit South Africa.

There is so much to say about South Africa. Taubie Tebogo Motlhabane of the South African Reserve Bank, summarises it like this: “I believe South Africa is the heart of the world. It has such loveliness, warmth and diversity, everything from the rural to the sophisticated, all with amazing cultural values. Like a woman in love, our country is emotional, unpredictable, and you never know what tomorrow will bring, but you always know one thing – this is the most beautiful land imaginable”.

Akhuna Mattata!