Before going to see Sitting Man by James Cairns at the Wits Downstairs Theatre last night, I googled the title of the play to check it out. Because I know that the James Cairns I was looking for, is not the ‘Third child born to James Cairns and Elizabeth’, nor is he the dead guy […]
2008
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
How do you deal with too much email?
I was discussing this issue with some friends over dinner last night, and somebody mentioned that a very prominent player in SA’s social media space has this policy: any email that would take more than 30 seconds to deal with gets deleted. I was horrified. I had written to this person on various occasions, got […]
Posted inNews/Politics
On criticising judges and a mea culpa
I have, at times, been rather scathing of some judges on our High Courts — including Judge President John Hlophe and Judge Motata of the Transvaal Provincial Disvision of the High Court. Yet I have criticised Helen Zille for saying that Judge Nathan Erasmus is allowing himself to be used by the ANC to smear […]
Posted inGeneral
Is it only me, or does Tito need a new calculator?
Is it only me, or does everyone else get the idea that Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni is adding up the right numbers but getting the wrong answer? Every time the inflation rate rises, he sticks it to the consumer, blaming our spending habits for putting a strain on the economy. His reasoning, that there […]
Posted inGeneral
Russia-Georgia on the brink? It’s all Fritzl and Saunders
While tensions between Russia and Georgia, formerly part of the Soviet Union, continue to heighten, the world’s media is focused on an Austrian cellar and Mark Saunders the gunman who laid siege to Chelsea, England. Call me a prat (well a bigger prat than usual) but isn’t the reason why people want to read about […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Mr Karzai, pass the rice please
Kuwait’s Deputy Prime Minister Faisal Al–Hajji, Kuwaiti Prime Minister Nasser Al–Sabah, Kuwaiti Prince Nawaf Al–Sabah, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Jordanian King Abdullah, Kuwait’s Amir Sabah Al–Sabah, Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, Bosnian President Haris Silajdzic, and many more heads of states and government ministers attended the World Islamic Economic Forum (WIEF) in Kuwait from 29 April […]
Posted inGeneral
Is it only me, or does Tito need a new calculator?
Is it only me, or does everyone else get the idea that Reserve Bank governor Tito Mboweni is adding up the right numbers but getting the wrong answer? Every time the inflation rate rises, he sticks it to the consumer, blaming our spending habits for putting a strain on the economy. His reasoning, that there […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Building economic capacity
Last night (6 May 2008), a high-level South African government delegation arrived in Doha, Qatar for bilateral talks with that country. The agreement that would be signed by President Thabo Mbeki and Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, would conclude negotiations between the two countries that started a long time ago, but […]
Posted inLifestyle
How I loved smoking
There was a time in my life some years ago when a dark fear stalked me: that I was destined to become the last person on earth who could not kick the smoking habit. Like a fat person in a bakery, I was losing control. Reminiscences about smoking seem such a grubby subject for a […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Apologists, ideologues and their lies
I’m really tired of drug company apologists. Take Thompson Ayodele, for example, the executive director of the conservative “think tank” Initiative for Public Policy Analysis. In a recent op–ed piece published in the Mail & Guardian, he trotted out old, tired and discredited arguments in support of uniform high levels of patent protection for medicines. […]
Posted inGeneral
Confused youth
You know at times when you go through something, you tend to think that you are the only one going through it, until you talk to someone and discover that you are not. Having gone to what have come to be known as Model C schools, I have always felt as though I don’t quite […]
Posted inGeneral
Rage in SA: What has gone wrong?
You now time and again, when I read about how kids find school unsafe, I wonder what in the hell is going on in this country. I can’t believe I’m going to say this but here goes. When I was back in school, such things would never happen. The worst that would happen would be […]