DEON GOUWS: Inside Cyril’s London banquet
Once you’ve been to one state banquet, you’ve been to them all. Which should be some consolation for Cyril, and for this columnist
Last month, my view from the Thames was bedecked with South African flags, all the way up to Buckingham Palace and back via The Mall. The occasion? The first state visit of the new monarch’s reign, and the fourth one in a quarter of a century by a leader from the rainbow nation. Apparently this rate of frequency is some kind of record.
On the second and last night of President Cyril Ramaphosa’s jaunt, there was a reception and banquet in his honour, hosted by the Lord Mayor of the City of London at the Guildhall, a building with more than 800 years of history and the only secular stone structure dating from before the Great Fire of London in 1666 still standing in the City. And, as you would expect of your intrepid UK columnist, I was there, representing the readers of the FM. ..
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