Earlier this month, on a Saturday afternoon, I found myself walking around the Stadtpark in Vienna, looking for someone called Jane, to play an Olympic sport that was apparently banned 2 000 years ago. If this all sounds a little weird, it’s because it was. The event was part of an alternate reality game (ARG) called […]
2008
Posted inMedia, News/Politics
Pigs
To listen to Jacaranda 94.2 is to step back and across into an alternate dimension — one where the soundtrack is pure eighties pop. Bizarre. George Michael, Sheena Easton, Marc Alex, Billy Idol … And then there’s Just Plain Darren, erstwhile Supersport, 5FM and East Coast jock, along with his trusty sidekick John Walland. Damn, […]
Posted inNews/Politics
SA human rights delegations needed here, Olmert on his way out
With South Africa and Zimbabwe overrun with infringements of human rights and abuse, a local human rights delegation elected to travel to Israel to assess the situation there. Local communities are at present subjected to a flagrant disregard for their basic human rights through failure to deliver speedily on promises of essential services, housing and […]
Posted inGeneral
What makes Batman cool? A psychoanalysis of the man in black tights
He jumps around in black tights, sounds like he’s being choked by his mask and has ‘Bruce’ as a first name? How is it that Batman still manages to be cool? Well, as the world’s most eminent, non-super superhero he certainly does come off looking pretty good in his latest movie The Dark Knight. Fighting […]
Posted inGeneral
One step backwards, two steps forward.
Not for the first time government, the 2010 Local Organising Committee and other key 2010 role players have undertaken a damage-control exercise following FIFA President Sepp Blatter’s recent admission that there is a “Plan B” if South Africa is unable to host the 2010 World Cup. But it has taken the comments of two prominent […]
Posted inGeneral
Spectator & TV booster: Tri-Nations to Five-Nations by ‘09?
The pressure is on SANZAR to finesse its rugby tournaments in the southern hemisphere and to provide the three Rugby Unions, their sponsors and broadcasters, with rugby tournaments that are relative and contemporary to modern sports fans. Change and a makeover of rugby is inevitable and it has to happen sooner than later. And now […]
Posted inLifestyle
On discovering Mongolian pop music
It is seldom that Mongolia makes the news headlines but it did at the beginning of July. A rare republic in their part of the woods with Russia and China as neighbours, Mongolia’s people protested against alleged vote rigging forcing the President to declare a state of emergency. I knew so little about Mongolia, I […]
Posted inMedia, Sport
New Zealand exacts revenge on Australia
In a week in which New Zealanders are still smarting from the defeat of the All Blacks in the Bledisloe Cup (during which a South African referee officiated), they do get to at least enjoy something approaching revenge. The Gruen Transfer is a popular TV show about advertising, featured, somewhat ironically, on the entirely ad-free […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Jacob Zuma must not escape prosecution
In 2005 the President of the Republic Thabo Mbeki kicked his deputy Jacobus Zuma to curb. We are all knowledgeable of the circumstances that led to an unceremonious departure of then Deputy President of the Republic; and the shenanigans that followed such a momentous occurrence. Following the much lauded dismissal of the deputy president, the […]
Posted inNews/Politics, Sport
Patriotism a swear word for South Africans?
24 June 1995 is a date that is deeply engraved in the memory of sports loving South Africans; a date in which the world officially recognised the arrival of our country as a force in the world arena; a date on which millions, glued to their screens, bore witness to the former President Nelson Mandela, […]
Posted inGeneral
The online habits of Chinese youth
According to the Young Digital Mavens survey conducted on around 1 000 American and 1 000 Chinese youths, aged: Millions of young Chinese are embracing the internet as a discreet space for their thoughts and emotions — almost five times as many Chinese as Americans surveyed said they have a parallel life online (61% vs […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Preaching hatred: ‘Islam is a puppet religion’
South Africans against a backdrop of xenophobia, racist remarks being made freely and without sanction by the chairman of the parliamentary sports portfolio committee and homophobic nonsense from Jon Qwelane, need to intervene immediately and with venom against the preacher who made Islamophobic remarks at a Cape Town school yesterday. The Christian preacher allegedly made […]