Gone Gaga

Lady Gaga arrives at Lanseria Airport outside Johannesburg, South Africa.

Awaiting fans see Lady Gaga through the glass doors as she arrived in South Africa.

The South African Police wonder why they have such a bad reputation. Well I'll tell you that with the way they sometimes conduct themselves, they should not be surprised. A relatively small group of Lady Gaga fans consisting mostly of teenage girls and feminine guys were waiting at Lanseria to get a glimpse and maybe an autograph from the pop star. Now I can call it a small crowd as I have been at the bigger OR Tambo airport when it has been full of thousands of people waiting for various people including the World Cup winning Springboks, our Olympic team and Manchester United Football club. To tell the truth I thought those situations were handled badly... I had no idea! The Lanseria cops seemed clueless and even though Lady Gagas security entourage had conducted themselves very well, even cracking jokes with the crowd and seeming very much in control. As soon as she came through the doors, the cops decided that they needed to show that they were in charge and haphazardly ushered her round the back (my suspicion is that they wanted pictures with her for themselves, it would not surprise me.) this almost caused a riot. There was many really upset fans, many close to tears.

Although I am no Lady Gaga fan, I must admit that I was impressed by the fact that after the chaos, she must have instructed the driver to come back and got out and signed some autographs for the crowd and under the eyes of her bodyguards the situation was easily kept under control, I'm glad that the police stayed back as it would have been chaos had they tried to control the situation.