DINNER PARTY INTEL...

The topics you have to be able to discuss this week

1. Write on, AE …

Author and editor AE Hotchner, who was a friend of Ernest Hemingway and Paul Newman, has just completed his latest novel, at the age of 101, according to The New York Times. The Amazing Adventures of Aaron Broom is about a 12-year-old boy growing up in St Louis, Hotchner’s home town. He wrote the novel in longhand and did not let his wife Virginia Kiser read the manuscript until he was finished.

2. Trump and the hero

Senior White

House staff members Sarah

Huckabee Sanders and John Kelly wanted to issue a statement following

John Mccain’s death on Saturday, describing the senator as a “hero” for his national and wartime service. But President Donald Trump put a stop to it, tweeting a bland statement of sympathy to the Mccain family, according to The Washington Post. Mccain will be buried in a private ceremony on Sunday in Annapolis to which Trump has explicitly not been invited.

3. The Cape of Rains

This week, for the first time in 18 months, dam levels in the Western Cape pushed past the storage capacity of 60%, and continued to rise, according to the weather service.

Storage officially increased from

60.1% to 60.7% even before the weekend’s downpour that made a local Currie

Cup match resemble a swimming gala more than a rugby game. It prompted a local fan to remark: “Theewaterskloof

48%, Newlands rugby stadium 100%.”