I’ve reached that age in my development (or deterioration, as the case may be) when I’m starting to look back at my past with a fair degree of nostalgia. Because hindsight is like looking through one’s past through a pair of rose-tinted glasses, there is a certain age we all reach when everything from twenty […]
2008
Playing the Springboks should be a privilege, not a right
Watching the Springboks take on Italy this past weekend was about as enjoyable as having my car stolen, or breaking a leg. The atrocious weather conditions certainly played a part — with Francois Steyn almost swimming his way over for the first try of the match — but the Italians should really shoulder most of […]
SA Rugby’s dirty laundry just gets dirtier………now with audio
http://www.pmg.org.za/node/12721SA Rugby Super 14 franchise participation agreement: six franchises Last week Tuesday, SA Rugby’s president was caught on tape, flanked by his SA Rugby chairman, Mpumelelo Tshume, telling pork pies. Not one eeny-teeny porkie for which you might be inclined to say, “Oops, sorry,” but three whoppers and a most hurtful and disparaging remark on […]
South Africa seen through an allegorical lens
Listening to a student telling me about being confronted in his home by a man wielding a butcher’s knife, then locking himself in his room and, with the man stomping about outside his bedroom door, kicking out the burglar proofing to escape (from his own home!), a thought that had occurred to me several times […]
Farewell to Facebook: Confessions of a cyber-addict
My last status update simply said: “Alex says bye”. And then I did it. I deactivated my Facebook account. The decision to leave the ubiquitous social networking site even took me a little by surprise. How on earth was I going to survive without the website I compulsively visited several times a day? The more […]
Time running out for Springboks?
With their 26-0 win over Six Nations bottom-enders Italy at Newlands on Saturday, the Springboks have now achieved their third consecutive victory under new coach Peter de Villiers — but we still are none the wiser about the much vaunted “revolutionary” or “new philosophy of play” he apparently has in mind for the world champions. […]
Viva the revolution — when is it, Mr Malema?
How would you feel if someone threw a revolution and nobody came? Yeah, me too — awful, isn’t it? According to ANCYL president Julius Malema: “The forces we defeated in 1994, the ultra-rightwing, the imperialists and the colonisers. They have come together to undermine the ushering in of a democratic dispensation. They do this by […]
Mess um Dorma: SA (14) 26, Italy (0) 0
This was ugly rugby, played in atrocious conditions. Stop, start, stop. Horrible stuff. Not that I’m criticising the endeavour or willingness of the two sides to give it a go; far from it. Italy, as any side fielded by Nick Mallett, gave it their all and were willing to die for the cause (perhaps the […]
Was the Holocaust inevitable?
Patrick J Buchanan believes Britain lost its empire and acted as a catalyst for the Holocaust by engaging with Germany in two unnecessary world wars. He lays much of the blame at the doorstep of Winston Churchill, but for whom it could all have been so different. In an article for Human Events he alleges: […]
Star Trek VIII: Wrath of the All Blacks
Spaced at finals a perpetual barrier, these are the voyages of the Southern Hemisphere rugby team the All Blacks – their 4 year mission ; to boldly choke like no team has choked before.. Captains Log Stardate 10/6/2007 We are currently on the surface of the planet Wales inhabited by those fecking Boyos, the setting […]
Our Father who aren’t in Zimbabwe, Hello remove thy Bob
Mad Bob has taken the insanity in Zimbabwe to new levels, claiming that only God can remove him from office and he won’t be leaving until he is sure that Zimbabwe is safely in the hands of the black majority. The United Nations Commissioner for Refugees meanwhile is estimating that neighbouring countries are about to […]
SubThoughts
Yesterday we launched through a turgid Umzimvubu River at Port St Johns in search of bait balls. The sardine run this year has been good to our team, graciously offering up moments of drama that will undoubtedly make it into the final cut, but in the world of natural history documentaries, one can never have […]