Britney Spears exploded on to the pop stardom scene in 1998 with a song that offered a frightening blend of childish eroticism and seemingly innocuous S&M demands.

She put the "hit" into "single", and insisted that multiple beatings were the best way to combat the "loneliness" that was "killing her". With an outfit that heralded the sanctioned sexualisation of schoolgirls, she ricocheted to No 1.

In a follow-up photo shoot in Rolling Stone magazine, she stared with a provocative innocence over her shoulder while pushing a pink bike clad in pink underwear, with the word "Baby" on her butt cheeks. Pass the sick bag, Alice, and dial the Child Abuse Hotline.

Perhaps we should have all listened to the lyrics she sang with such gusto, conviction and pizzazz and paid a little less attention to the slick dance moves, exposed, taut tummy, and big blue-eyed professions of remaining a virgin till the day she died or wedded (apparently, there are not many choices for women from the South).

Using Britney's chart success to navigate one's way through that minefield called teenage pop culture and, in turn, using that culture as a map for determining where adolescents are at today, is occasionally frustrating, often annoying, but mostly just scary.

Her next vocal triumph assured us, amid pelvic thrusts and skin-tight red leather, that at the age of 17, she was "not that innocent". Fair enough, she was probably being entirely honest, but when there are contingents of kids from four to 13 lip-synching your lyrics, embracing your art as life and modelling their world on your heavily constructed public identity, perhaps a little moral discretion would be advisable.

Next up was the heavy breathing, semi-panting I'm a Slave For You - mmm, healthy, positive self-image there. We should all have paid better attention to the lyrics, because clearly, Britney had a troubled coming of age in a merciless spotlight, and today, at the ripe old age of 22, is offering the world the kind of performance peep show that Madonna only presumed to give in her 30s.

Ah, yes, the Britney/Madonna alliance. A great deal has been made of the Sapphic Embrace, and a number of theories abound about its genesis. Was it a welcome boost to two flagging careers? Or the passing of a celebrity torch from one blonde bombshell to another? Was it a playful display of affection between two mutually admiring artists? Or was it more touchingly (as it has been claimed by both) a demonstration of normal godmother/goddaughter dynamics?

It may be all of the above and more, but what is certain is that in her current concert, Britney emulates Madonna's taboo-breaking Blonde Ambition tour in what leaps beyond homage into the realm of cloning. She cavorts about in costume underwear, gets it on with a female dancer in a French maid's outfit, writhes about on a bed with a male dancer and sings about masturbation.

Apparently it's all very titillating, and no doubt Britney will rake in the cash and crowds, but the attempt to herald her as the new Madonna is utterly misguided. Madonna's career success began only at 25. She had a chance to develop her own personality, identity and code, long before she lived in the public eye.

She had always been entirely in control of the ways her image is constructed, and as an adult with life experiences from which to draw, she pounded on the doors of conservatism, demanded to be heard, and claimed a space for her own ideas.

Britney's cavorting and contortions on stage and screen appear calculated, packaged and entirely deliberate. She uses sex to sell, well, sex. Madonna used sex to push the gender envelope, expose hypocrisy and campaign for gay rights.

Britney is a pale imitation of Madonna. She has hijacked her aesthesis with no understanding of her subtext. When Britney emulates Madonna, it doesn't seem groundbreaking or much of a declaration of adulthood. It just seems a little gratuitous, a little childish and a little too much like dress-up.


Cape Town arrives
There are certain cities in the world that exist in a haze of mythologised self-awareness. These are the cities that have shaped literature, art and cinema, and in turn been immortalised by them.

The world watches Paris, London and New York in an endless stream of images that ensures that we are familiar with the sights, smells and sounds of these places. And now, it seems that the same thing is happening with Cape Town. It's all just a matter of who decides and when it is decided that a new place is "hot" and is going to be the new Paris.

A BBC documentary showcasing Cape Town's Fashion Week referred to the Cape as "Africa's Riviera", and interviewed all the brilliant young stars of the fashion world, with an eye for redefining African aesthetics. As the camera panned over the soulful designs of Stoned Cherrie and the exciting creations of Machere, lingered on the after-parties and the crazed hub of backstage, the documentary made serious inroads into making Cape Town an international city.


The party is over
The elections are over and the results are in. Some are licking their wounds and some are revelling in their victories.

And now, hopefully, Cape Town can go back to being a backdrop for its citizens' lives rather than an exhibition space for party posters. Let the first action on the part of the politicians and the city be to clear our poles of parliamentary faces. It would be nice to move about the city without continuously being leered at, or promised to silently from highway to byway.