So much has happened since last we spoke, I have been most distracted, these past years, unpicking knots in my mind. My childhood was spent being told that you were inferior, by people who let you raise me. You fed me, carried me on your back and played with me. Imagine that. Abandoned by my […]
John Vlismas
You can follow John on Twitter if you like @fortyshort.
John Vlismas is an increasingly reclusive former hell-raising coke fiend and fall-down drunk. Now a scuba teacher and far better father; he is an award-winning anti-socialite, has played The Royal Albert Hall and has been described as "blunt" but also as "sharp". He has little regard for team sports and his name is very often mispronounced. He is also the co-owner of a company called "Whacked", which does good things for local comedy.
Posted inNews/Politics
Dear Whitey
I hope you are well. Even though I’m sure you are not really interested, I am fine. I know that you are not too concerned about others, until you hear about them on Twitter, or Facebook — or someone at the office sends you an angry email, summarising something they’ve heard about that could ruin […]
Posted inGeneral
Dear god-complex
Dear god-complex That’s right, I’m talking to you — not big G — that’s different. I wouldn’t talk to God in words, because I don’t believe that God needs words, or worship, for that matter. I also don’t believe a real God would ask any man to take his son up on a mountain and […]
Posted inGeneral
Happy Black Tuesday
Dear State Happy Black Tuesday. I am writing this letter to you while I am still free to do so. I am also doing so against the advice of my agent, who is afraid that if I make you angry, you will punish me out of the blue and limit my potential, even though I […]
Posted inLifestyle
You eat lamb, duck and chicken. So why not horse?
It was a great piece of television. These don’t occur often. Generally, we adopt a lazy posture and zombify in groups while ill-qualified thieves called executive producers steal our IQs, point by point. This was different. The item pressed my button, and asked me down a rabbit hole. There was a woman with a long […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Dear ‘K-word’ and ‘K-the-boer song’
I know not everybody likes a letter, and when I think about it, you two surely don’t spend a lot of time reading either — but I love a letter, so here goes: Nobody can say that you two haven’t had your fun. You’ve shown your faces at some of the greatest and lowest moments […]
Posted inNews/Politics
To Messrs Scott, Malema, Cliff and AfriForum
Well lads, you seem to be in a fine mess, and we’re all right behind you. As South Africans, we love to polarise. As you know, we come from a place of black and white and, as much as we say we want to, we’re just not ready for the mental exercise required to build […]
Posted inLifestyle
Waiting for Gusto
Since first we dragged our wet, half-baked selves from the primordial soup — limp croutons tired of swimming — and pulled air into our hard-won lungs, humans have worshipped food. Whether as a simple set of sugars, proteins and amino acids that allow our metabolic engine to go about the business of combustion, or the […]
Posted inGeneral
Dear SuperSport executive
My thoughts are with you at this difficult time. I do hope you manage some sleep. Try to eat something and don’t allow yourself to be negatively affected by this recent tragedy that threatens your very integrity. I am horrified that an attractive young woman in your employ took it upon herself to appear naked […]
Posted inGeneral
Shame on US
It’s been weeks since Americans poured onto the streets, crowing and cheering. At last, their nemesis’s blood spilled, they exhale. A man in a blanket, huddled over flickering images of himself, is gone. The stuff of American nightmares sleeps with the fishes. The world is better off now that we have another porn-riddled hard drive […]
Posted inGeneral
Us
Somebody who was not us asked me what it means to be South African: We are a motley crew – not the girly glam sham metal band, but a family of incongruity. We were knotted from many threads in all kinds of tension. Our forefathers were variously: heroes and villains — settlers, locals, warriors, runaways, […]
Posted inLifestyle
Hofmeyr, Bloody Hofmeyr
Dear Steve You’ve been at it again. You’re saying that it’s hard not to be a racist because “the blacks” keep jumping over walls and killing whites and their children. You say that whites would never do such a thing. Then you used Bono to get yourself back into the press, even though you didn’t […]