The Fourth Estate has fallen in luv with the Mutha City. From massive undeclared advertorial coverage of the Winelands starting in the city in the Daily Mail to artsy features in the New York Times on I Love My Laundry, Haas, House of Machines and other trendy establishments, the oldest city in SA is getting wall-to-wall coverage. Next year they’ll surely include David Cope’s Publik Wine Bar between Bree and Buitengracht and what a pity Laundry’s hottest waitron, now visual manager at Cotton On, Xanthus Viljoen, had already collected his smalls when the Times took their photo.

Xanthus is celebrating his birthday today at Shimmy’s Beach Club at 4pm. 37 guests are invited and the theme is Life in Colour: “turn on your brights, it’s time for a flash.” Laborie bubbly, both Brut and Rose, will feature at the celebrations.

But its not only hipsters that have fallen for Mother. In today’s Weekend Financial Times, our very own Hedley Twidle pens an egghead diary to CPT. “And so we begin our walk through the city centre, listening to passages from his novel, Open City, as well as the work of local writers. Unexpected affinities emerge between the early Cape colony and the history of Manhattan Island that Teju Cole’s book so carefully excavates. Both were 17th-century Dutch garrisons; both became brutal slave ports. And in each, the built environment turns its back on the water that gave rise to it in the first place. In New Amsterdam, the navigable Hudson river; in Cape Town, the millions of litres of fresh water flowing off Table Mountain, still running unseen below the city centre. Sailors would fill their barrels at shoreline that has now been pushed back and paved over: ‘Beneath the pavement, a beach!’ ”

After the latest invite from World Design Capital 2014 (above), standby for an invasion of ageing UK disc jockeys, faded pantomime stars and other potential paedophiles. Cape Town as sex tourism destination is surely one design project too many.