Posted inNews/Politics

Dear Whitey

I hope you are well. Even though I’m sure you are not really interested, I am fine. I know that you are not too concerned about others, until you hear about them on Twitter, or Facebook — or someone at the office sends you an angry email, summarising something they’ve heard about that could ruin […]

Posted inGeneral

Dear god-complex

Dear god-complex That’s right, I’m talking to you — not big G — that’s different. I wouldn’t talk to God in words, because I don’t believe that God needs words, or worship, for that matter. I also don’t believe a real God would ask any man to take his son up on a mountain and […]

Posted inGeneral

Happy Black Tuesday

Dear State Happy Black Tuesday. I am writing this letter to you while I am still free to do so. I am also doing so against the advice of my agent, who is afraid that if I make you angry, you will punish me out of the blue and limit my potential, even though I […]

Posted inLifestyle

Waiting for Gusto

Since first we dragged our wet, half-baked selves from the primordial soup — limp croutons tired of swimming — and pulled air into our hard-won lungs, humans have worshipped food. Whether as a simple set of sugars, proteins and amino acids that allow our metabolic engine to go about the business of combustion, or the […]

Posted inGeneral

Dear SuperSport executive

My thoughts are with you at this difficult time. I do hope you manage some sleep. Try to eat something and don’t allow yourself to be negatively affected by this recent tragedy that threatens your very integrity. I am horrified that an attractive young woman in your employ took it upon herself to appear naked […]

Posted inGeneral

Shame on US

It’s been weeks since Americans poured onto the streets, crowing and cheering. At last, their nemesis’s blood spilled, they exhale. A man in a blanket, huddled over flickering images of himself, is gone. The stuff of American nightmares sleeps with the fishes. The world is better off now that we have another porn-riddled hard drive […]

Posted inGeneral

Us

Somebody who was not us asked me what it means to be South African: We are a motley crew – not the girly glam sham metal band, but a family of incongruity. We were knotted from many threads in all kinds of tension. Our forefathers were variously: heroes and villains — settlers, locals, warriors, runaways, […]

Posted inLifestyle

Hofmeyr, Bloody Hofmeyr

Dear Steve You’ve been at it again. You’re saying that it’s hard not to be a racist because “the blacks” keep jumping over walls and killing whites and their children. You say that whites would never do such a thing. Then you used Bono to get yourself back into the press, even though you didn’t […]