By Karlin Lillington
01/11/2002, The Irish Times

I am about to make a confession, and don't laugh. OK, go ahead, do. I only just learned how to make a PowerPoint slide.

This sad fact is true, despite the inevitable invitations to speak here or there on a subject whose mysteries might have been better revealed with a few bullet-pointed onscreen thoughts.

Instead, I got by with my non-existent PowerPoint IQ and a few jocular opening remarks about how a writer on technology

knows to avoid using it at all costs in a talk on technology.

I admit that I still think the unPowerPointed talk is often best, because it keeps the audience from reading your magnum opus onscreen while you are trying to be witty - or at least informative - from the podium.

However, this time round I had no choice but finally to double click on the little PowerPoint icon that rests idly on my PC desktop. This time, the lawyers made me do it.

I hesitated, but only for a nanosecond, since in exchange I would be brought to South Africa to talk to lots of business lawyers about the technical and security challenges in doing things like holding virtual shareholder meetings online and conducting internet-based public offerings.

Finally, I had met the PowerPoint offer I could not refuse. I even discovered that Microsoft has created a nice little slide template theme called "technology" with a border that looks like a computer chip. Sure, it was all a bit of a challenge but I eventually figured it out.

Well, I figured out enough of it to make the slides I needed. And then I had fun opening up the presentation to full screen and clicking through it, just like the real presenters do at their conferences. And that's the story of how I come to be this week in the city of Durban on the coast of the Indian Ocean in South Africa, with the sun beating down and the prices as cheap as can be.

Dinner at a swish seafood restaurant with a fine bottle of South African wine set a friend and me back all of €40. You'd almost take a taxi everywhere just because they're so cheap - a euro for a five-minute journey. Unfortunately, you actually do have to take taxis everywhere, even just to go a few blocks, because this city is considered quite dangerous.

The contrasts between rich and poor are extreme and the poorest, the utterly destitute who live by day and by night on the city streets, find the temptation of a walking or even a driving target hard to resist.

At first one tends to dismiss the warnings as a bit of paranoia directed at the many white and often gormless tourists. You figure if you are street-smart and have lived in other inner city areas you'll be fine; just don't walk around with a camera hanging round your neck and a handbag and pricey watch on show.

But residents here of all skin colours say not to take the risk. A charming black South African woman from Cape Town tells me she thinks Durban is riskier than Johannesburg, famed for carjackings and street violence. A shame, she says. Durban is in such a beautiful location. Everyone drives everywhere and you feel you never touch the streets, she adds.

I know the feeling. It is awfully claustrophobic suddenly to have to move in an enclosed cell all the time, from one sealed environment to another - especially with the sun beaming down, and a tropical sea full of dolphins right on the front doorstep. But Durbanites seem to negotiate their day-to-day lives around these problems.

All that aside, the city is fascinating and the conference, held by the business law division of the International Bar Association, contains more colours and cultures than I have ever seen in one place at one time. The African lawyers are truly magnificent. While the westerners all slouch around in drab business suits and business casuals, many of the Africans - who have perfected the art of the slow and dignified, yet relaxed, walk - glide by in their traditional national dress.

This is truly stunning. Silk robes of exquisite colour and embroidery; brilliant white-laced robes and trousers, turbans and skullcaps and headgear of all types, bold African printed shirts and dresses. I feel like a bland sparrow among the tropical birds of the forest and jungle. They also look far more comfortable in their soft, loose, draping clothes than we do in our tailored, fitted gear. My one attempt to keep up is to buy some bright Zulu bracelets made of finely strung beads and ingeniously coloured telephone wire woven into geometric patterns. Maybe Esat and Eircom should commission a corporate-motif set as this year's holiday presents.

The conference winds down tonight with a performance by Ladysmith Black Mambazo and no doubt, a chance to try some more of the superb South African wines. And with my talk over, I'm ready to see a little more of the region than just Durban. This is a nation that overwhelms all the senses.

Maybe I'll do a little PowerPoint talk on that subject when I get back to Dublin.

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