In January 1984, a 12-year-old was shipped off to Catholic boarding school by his parents to begin his secondary education in Vryheid, northern KwaZulu-Natal. That young man was yours truly. Innocent and idealistic, I joined 200-odd other young people aged between 10 and about 20 years old at Inkamana High School. One of my mentors […]
2007
Posted inGeneral
I am Writer, hear me roar
One of the best things that happened when I found out my novel (Strange Nervous Laughter) was going to be published was that people started giving me respect. Or, rather, respek. Respect denotes having done something worthy, being an upstanding citizen and leading a measured, well-thought-out life. Respek is more of a grudging admiration for […]
Posted inMedia
Give us a break, Snuki!
The SABC celebrated itself, and only itself, at the 11th SABC Highway Africa new-media awards last Tuesday night in Grahamstown. It used the one-hour-long awards ceremony to promote shamelessly its new News International service and brag about its apparent excellence and professionalism in journalism. The mere fact that the SABC found it necessary to abuse […]
Posted inLifestyle, Tech
Martha Stewart is my friend!
So next time you need to rearrange your flowers or need to make a quick buck on the stock market, call me. I’ll put you in touch with the right person. Yes, this really is Martha Stewart. And no, she is not really a friend. But both facts raise interesting issues: First, how do you […]
Posted inNews/Politics
The trouble with Hillary Clinton
Before I begin this item, I’ve made a mental note to get myself a pair of flip-flops for our December holiday. Where were we? Oh, yes, Hillary “I voted for invading Iraq” Clinton. The trouble with Hillary is that she causes confusion in respect of two well-established political terms. She doesn’t “flip-flop” as much as […]
Posted inSport
Cricket dumbed down
I’ve found it quite difficult to get too excited over cricket’s Twenty20 World Championship. This may be in no small measure to the Rugby World Cup taking place at the same time. My eggs are firmly in the rugby basket at this stage, but I am keeping an eye on developments on the cricket field.
Posted inLifestyle
Living with the lard
I hate it when “normal” people come up to me and say or do things that suggest that I am, in fact, not fat, that my condition is normal, that I have some mental block that prevents me from completing, or even attempting, the Comrades Marathon. The mere thought of long-distance running brings on heart […]
Posted inTech
Eighteen rugby fields filled with servers
Not a day goes by that I am not amazed by the power of Google, the functionality of its products and the amazingly easy to use tools that are at my disposal. But when I speak to friends, family and colleagues about these cool tools, I discover that they do not know about them. So […]
Posted inLifestyle
Van Zyl Slabbert guzzles Redi Direko’s bathwater on a podium
Among my many personality disorders (incredible arrogance, extreme sarcasm, narcissistic tendencies, shameless self-aggrandisement, compulsive argumentativeness, condescending nature and so forth), the one that worries me the most is what I call my brain-in-mouth disease (BIMD). It’s a pretty serious condition that is caused by the malfunctioning filters between my brain and mouth. That is a […]
Posted inTech
Social sites fuel identity theft
The old adage goes that people love to talk about themselves, and nowhere is this more evident than on the popular Web 2.0 sites such as Facebook, Flickr, Twitter and MySpace. All of a sudden you have the ability to follow strangers’ everyday moves, see in great detail where they have been, and read all […]
Posted inTech
Hail Vodacom — the new kings of spam!
Like everyone else with an email account, spam has become one of those mind-numbing annoyances I’ve had to learn to live with. This study reckons that 83% of all emails being sent are spam. That translates to somewhere between 60-billion and 150-billion emails a day. It sounds like it is overstating it a bit, but […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Dear Helen Zille …
An open letter to the Mayor of Cape Town Dear Mayor Zille It is completely unacceptable that you were treated in such an unbecoming way by police on Sunday when you participated in the anti-drug march in Cape Town, the city where you are mayor. While I don’t necessarily agree with the ANC’s Smuts Ngonyama […]