At least these guys are consistent in their inconsistency. Last week Arsenal did the hard bit and beat Bolton away, looking the business as their slick passing game beat the Bolton bruisers. Liverpool had drifted and drawn at home to Stoke. And Manchester City had thrilled all and sundry against a hapless Portsmouth. Fast forward […]
2008
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media
50th birthday for the credit card: priceless
On this, the fiftieth birthday of the credit card, it’s appropriate to reflect on our relationship with that most fantastic of plastic. The credit card is a global phenomenon, but also a deeply personal issue. Until recently, I was wading unsteadily through glutinous swamps of debt, but I am happy to report that hallelujah, I […]
Posted inNews/Politics
ANC name changes for motor vehicles
Seeing as though we are renaming everything from hospitals to streets after greats from the past, the time has come for car manufacturers to be brought into line as well. Henceforth models will have to be named after current political giants and include features which are a tribute to the characters after whom they are […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
Wall Street worries
The only thing one can predict about the financial crisis presently engulfing Wall Street and spreading outwards is that it will make us all rich in retrospective wisdom. Indeed, I forecast that the wisdom of hindsight will be in inverse proportion to the decline in the Dow Jones index. For the moment, few have dared […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media, News/Politics
The threat of Indian globalisation
The last 30 years have seen a particular type of culture permeate the world. Driven by the microchip, fast food chains and David Hasselhof, this process has conceived an entity named globalisation. The economic and cultural mast of globalisation, (the naughty Americanised democracy-for-McDonalds version we all love to hate) has sown popular uprisings, iconic protests […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Organised crime may flourish under the Zuma administration
Sicily, an autonomous region of Italy, is most infamous for organised crime and corruption. Lawlessness is the order of ordinary life. The criminal justice system is dysfunctional and as a result serious misdemeanors go unpunished. As the saying goes, “where there is no law, there is no sin”. In Sicily, bands of organised criminals have […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Liberal capitalists and the Wall Street bail-out: they’re quite clever, these people.
There are several questions about the proposed bail-out of the once most powerful capitalist institutions on Wall Street that have been quite bothersome. These questions are quite basic; they are shaped less by scholarly work or influence, than by a most basic perception of inconsistency, contradiction, double-standards and ideological bias on the part of the […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Motlanthe and the challenge of democratic governance
As South African President Kgalema Motlanthe commences work in his new office this week, the air will still be thick with the smell of briar pipes and the backroom political intrigue so favoured by his predecessor. While Thabo Mbeki may have left the Union Buildings, his 15-year tenure in the presidency has profoundly shaped South […]
Posted inNews/Politics
ANCYL political language explained
In light of the forthcoming election I have decided to do another in the series of our ‘lost in translation’ exercises. Today’s tutorial covers language used by the African National Congress Youth League, which may be confusing the electorate. “Die for Zuma” means “Could I have a cabinet post with an office that is sea […]
Posted inNews/Politics
How will the global financial crisis impact emigration?
The news this year has been full of reports about emigration. Whether it’s a survey revealing widespread pessimism, a desire to emigrate or indications that 18% of properties on the market are related to South African residents leaving the country permanently. But now, with world markets in turmoil and emigration destinations either already in a […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Of the irrelevance of the Tripartite Alliance in the current political landscape
In the 1994 ANC conference document titled From Resistance to Reconstruction: Tasks of the ANC in the New Epoch of the Democratic Transformation Unmandated Reflections, fascinating predictions about the ANC are made. Thabo Mbeki then spoke of the forces that would seek: “… to destroy the ANC from within … to create contradictions and conflict […]
Posted inLifestyle
Hey china, mind your manners. You becoming Chinese?
At the time, vegetarian Chinese food was new to me. The closest I thought a Chinese got to vegetarianism were those bowls of blackened fish heads some like to suck and crunch on while the fish’s eyes dolefully disappear into the slurping mouths. However, anything is possible in Shanghai, so all the meat meals on […]