2008

Slightly nervous is how I would describe myself as I make my first post on a South African website. Not as nervous as when I used to be there, mind, but that’s not hard. I hope that over the coming months, if I last that long, it will become fairly obvious that I am not […]

Submitted by Lawrence Mashimbye “No food”, “expensive food”, “unaffordable food”. Our future is jeopardised by the current food crisis. Famine seems more of a reality than ever, and if we are not prepared to change our ignorant approach toward population growth, things might even get worse. The recent food summit in Rome was full of […]

There’s a philosophical argument that’s been proposed throughout the ages that sport is a peacetime proxy for war. Certainly the parallels are too striking to ignore (the blind “us and them mentality”, ordinary men striving together for untold glory, a glorious, but ultimately in the bigger scheme of things, futile triumphs, huge amounts of emotional […]

It all started when I shot down Playboy X on the roof his upper Algonquin apartment. Dwayne asked me to do it, and right now I am a gun for hire. I’m in it for the money. And I’m looking for someone. But I feel like making that choice robbed me of something, some part […]

I’m your basic garden-variety married heterosexual woman with children, living in Africa. And living with the fear and panic that too many governments on this continent are putting me — and many women like me, and our children — at risk. My print colleague Ruth Pollard, whom I met in Sydney last year at the […]

The line-up for Saturday’s global rugby fixtures are: New Zealand vs England, Australia vs Ireland, and on home turf in Pretoria — at 5 000 feet — it’s South Africa vs Wales. Appetisers of two portions of Wales and one of Italy, before the main course in the home of the All Blacks on the 5th […]

Last month, Camden in south-western Sydney hit the headlines when its council refused an application to build an Islamic school on planning grounds. The ruling brought forth both cringeworthy Aussie nationalism and criticism of narrow-minded rednecks displaying cringeworthy Aussie nationalism. When you consider that Sydney is coming to a virtual standstill — at taxpayers’ expense […]

So now we know. The speculation is over. I was listening to the Apple WWDC event’s iPhone announcements lastnight live on ustream, following the excellent live blogging on Engadget and keeping up with the lively micro-blogging commentary. The announcement everyone was waiting for took ages to come, but it eventually arrived to rapturous applause and […]

With Clint Eastwood about to make a movie about Madiba and Francois Pienaar, and knowing the American director’s zeal for researching everything and anything on the subject matter he is covering, I figured Os du Randt must be a shoe-in for the picture. Of course, having selected Matt Damon to play aw Franshwa man, he […]

Get your already bombarded minds ready for an attack of digital screens which will hunt you down and force their products on you. Advertisers are latching on to the fact that they have to position themselves wherever they can find you, in the taxi, while you’re shopping, standing in the Bank and sooner than you […]