Capetonians complain about two things in December: the south-eastern wind that arrives for four days at a time and can gust to 100km an hour, and the influx of Chelsea-tractor-driving designer-label-clad holidaymakers from the prosperous northern province of Gauteng, home to Johannesburg and Pretoria.

The first sign of the south-easterner is an innocent cloud surreptitiously creeping over the top of Table Mountain. Within hours the South Atlantic high-pressure system has whipped up the Cape Doctor - so named for blowing away air pollution - which also brings down trees and power lines and wreaks havoc in the squatter camps of the coastal plains.