Rich! Oh yes, everyone wants to be my friend now!

Look! I’ve got platinum! Yessss. A very precious French hydrologist brought this very precious South African rock back from a real mine for me.

Mining precious metals is HUGE here. Johannesburg even has another name – Egoli – which means City of Gold. (Just one letter away from being the greatest film ever – typical poor municipal planning by the South Africans.) The mines are still why people flock here from Southern Africa – to get relatively well paid jobs underground.

But don’t bother me with gold and silver. Platinum is my preferred metal. And here it is. The real deal, in its raw state. I’m going to do something chemical to it, to turn it into proper platinum. Think I’ll start by whacking it with a hammer then chucking some bleach over it. I’ll post a photo of the resulting ear rings later tonight.