It's nearly midnight on a Tuesday night, and instead of crowing about the pop quiz we just won (kinda sorta - more tomorrow) I have to tell you about the awfully disturbing phone call I just had.

When I left South Africa back in 1995, I left behind someone very important - Pano, my boyfriend of six years. A while after I left, Pano picked himself up and became a partner in a restaurant outside Johannesburg. The restaurant eventually became wildly successful, but there was a slight problem: although Pano knew he was a partner in the place, he had nothing in writing - typical Pano.

Two months ago, the restaurant was raided by a gang of armed robbers. Pano was taken into the kitchen and was forced to open the tills and give the gangstas everything.

This happened again last month. And again. Yesterday he was forced onto the floor, a masked man shouting obscenities at him, an AK47 pressed against his head, a boot on his face.

Clearly, he should get out there. Now. But because of his confused financial status, he may have to leave there with nothing. Surely that's better than the horrible, almost inevitable alternative.