TRAVELLING through different emerging markets, or indeed anywhere, you get a sense of very different attitudes and priorities that make stereotyping inevitable. Having visited SA frequently in the past 10 years, it has continually struck me that in comparison with the many other countries, SA has a perplexing relationship with time. Whether it is trying to sort something out now, right now or just now; or the all too often leisurely pace of Uber drivers; official meetings running late; or the upside of feeling slightly less guilty than in London if you are running five minutes late due to Johannesburg traffic — things are very different from London, certainly. One result is the relaxed nature of queueing. Being very un-British (I blame my Mediterranean genes), I was once, many years ago, in a Clicks in Pretoria just before an important meeting, but had lost my voice. As I started to get visibly agitated at the length of the queue with one attendant on the tills, a diminutive, elderl...
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