DINNER PARTY INTEL: Prime parking at Clifton — for a driver with deep pockets

1. Sky-high parking 

With properties selling for tens of millions in Clifton on Cape Town’s western peninsula, R1.5m for a plot seems like a bargain. But it won’t put a roof over your head. For that price, estate agent Knight Frank is offering a piece of land only big enough to park a vehicle. It’s a car bay atop the San Michele flats above First Beach.

2. New top banana

Ecuador is not a banana republic, but a banana republican is now running it. Daniel Noboa, 35, a centre-right political outsider, won the recent presidential election. He is heir to a business empire that includes fertilisers, plastics, cardboard, the country’s largest container storage facility — and a gargantuan banana business.

3. Weight lifters

Last week Japan Airlines hurriedly added an extra plane to one of its routes after discovering that some of the passengers were too heavy. The airline works on an average weight of 70kg for each domestic passenger but a group booking for sumo wrestlers, weighing 120kg each, upset its calculations.