The one thing I hated more than smoking, when I smoked, was those infuriating reformed smokers whose holier-than-thou condescension had me red in the face. So, when finally the habit kicked me, I swore never to become a reformed ex-smoker — I just wouldn’t smoke, live and let live and all that. BUT. Yes, you […]
Tony Jackman
Tony Jackman is a journalist, budding playwright and sometime chef. He's written two plays, An Influence of Ghosts and Blue Train Coming, and back in the day wrote loads of songs. He paints a bit in watercolours when he remembers to, and apart from that he massages words and pushes grammar for a nice little magazine called myweek.
Posted inLifestyle
The abyss
I’m so sorry to disappoint you all. I’d like to think Miles is sorry too. (See my post “Today Miles pitched up to make a difference in his own life”.) Well, he did … but. I’ve just called to inquire about him on his second day in a detox programme, to be told: “I’m sorry […]
Posted inLifestyle
Today Miles pitched up to make a difference in his own life
He pitched. Miles made good on his promise to admit himself for a week-long heroin detox at 8am on Tuesday, and when I called the hospital at 8.30am, to my enormous relief, I was told he was there and “with the doctors”. This may seem like an ordinary thing, like someone promising to arrive for […]
Posted inLifestyle
Coffee and tik and a desperate shot at getting it right
Miles has learnt to hate Cape Town. Where the rest of us see the beauty, the splendour, the Cape Town of tourists marvelling at its wonders, he sees the depravity of its underbelly. He sees the lice and smells the rancid odour of nights in a sordid Somalian backpackers. Sitting in the passenger seat of […]
Posted inLifestyle
For once the superlatives truly apply
It was fascinating to watch Beauty and the Beast in Cape Town just three weeks after having watched a production of that other great Disney musical The Lion King in London. There were so many South Africans on that West End stage that I lost count thanks to that show’s former run in Johannesburg. So […]
Posted inGeneral
How I fell in love with Miriam Makeba (and Moyo)
Thulani sang and stomped about like a teenager on crack on Saturday night, except that he’s not an adolescent, and it had nothing to do with crack. And he did it all for Mamma Afrika, Saint Miriam the Great, may she rest on pillows of silk, garlanded with roses, scented with jasmine and fanned by […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Ebony and ivory, together in imperfect harmony
I don’t want to hear tomorrow that America has its first black president. It’s not about Barack Obama being black. It’s about him being right. The only thing that has bothered me since we welcomed political change and proper democracy to our sunny shores in 1994 is that government in this country having been worrying […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
The pursuance of truancy, Zuma and Don Quixote
I am not frightened of the prospect of a Jacob Zuma presidency. Well, I wasn’t. But something he said this week speaks to the frightened child in me. The child who was the biggest truant in the history of Sea Point High. And Zuma has lost my potential vote. Let me explain it this way. […]
Posted inNews/Politics
A bird in the hand is better than another Bush in the White House
The best thing Americans can do right now is to take Sarah Palin by the hand, lead her back up to Alaska and leave her there to frighten the moose population and send hairy lumberjacks running to their mommies screaming: “It’s horrible, it’s horrible! Heeeelp meeeee!” What possessed Republican candidate John McCain to choose Palin […]
Posted inLifestyle
A BMW driver comes out fighting after my alien roadhog slur
You have to read this and you’ll see why: BMW drivers are a malleable lot, it seems, and I’m almost warming to them. Barely a peep out of them after the go I had at them the other day. Except for one, whose post I enjoyed so much that I’m posting it more prominently to […]
Posted inLifestyle
Curse of the alien roadhog
I have argued with myself over this one for years, but the mountain of evidence is now way too vast to warrant any other conclusion: BMW drivers are aliens who simply do not understand our earthly behaviour. I know, I know, it is madness to think in such terms. It is hideously unfair; surely there […]
Posted inNews/Politics
White is the new black; free the new black oppressed. Viva!
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m starting to like Allan Boesak again. I went off him around about the time that Elna went on him. Thing is, people like me need somebody to stand up for us, just as some of us (yes, whites!) spoke up for the oppressed back in the darkest […]