If you had your life over again, except you could choose to have one virtue, one grace, one of the things you consider good character traits taken from you, what would it be? Think carefully now, little ones. We’re not talking about having your whole life, however long, however adventurous, however troubled, however dull, however […]
Llewellyn Kriel
Posted inLifestyle
Me — unplugged
I’ve been off the blog a few days now. Not because of Eskom (though Telkom is trying hard to regain its status as public enemy number one), not because of threatening emails, not because I haven’t had much to say (got plenty of both). Regular readers of my blog know I have major depressive disorder […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Could this be the start of something big?
“Sorry” is in the air. “Sorry” is everywhere. And it’s come for you and me! Suddenly, in an unprecedented move, the normally offensive members of the ANC are apologising for their multitudinous mistakes left, right and centre. Bearing in mind this is contrary to every basic principle of its übermensch philosophy; of the African National […]
Posted inGeneral
Hits of our time
Ever alive with improbabilities, South Africa is exploding with anthems. Not content with lyrical pleas to the ghost of De la Rey to return from Benoni and free the boere from the yoke of demockracy, anthems are cropping up everywhere. And, ironically, most seem inspired by the shambolic state of the nation. As cricket commentator […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Choices, choices, choices …
To pick up your son, or not to pick up your son — That is the question, Whether tis nobler in the mind to let him walk home by himself And get kidnapped or killed just by chance Or to take arms with you in your car And when you’re threatened, shoot them. Maybe you […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
The silence of the frogs
Frogs. It’s all about the frogs. Or at least not just about frogs as such, but about what our little amphibian neighbours teach us. Ecologists call frogs an indicator species because, with their highly permeable skins and living both in water and on land, frogs are among the first species to show if something is […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, News/Politics
Maybe the bar is just too high for the ANC …
I forget what the column in the Pretoria News was called, but it was one that writers would take up for a season and then move on to something else. The column retained its name and identity, but different styles, perceptions, questions and answers came and went. During my tenure there, Rob Fysh — now […]
Posted inBusiness
Time to get your own back
While competition, we have been told ad nauseam, is good because it forces prices down and service up, I am not so sure any more. If we take an example at one extreme, the ANC government — which has no competition, is free to do pretty much as it wants and does just that and […]
Posted inGeneral
Memories of a moving church
As the son of an Anglican preacher man in the Northern Cape (when it was still only a part of the Cape province — not that that makes any difference), I used to travel vast empty dusty grinding distances with my dad from one remote congregation to another. In some places church was somebody’s house. […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Sweetch orf de geezas!
Can you believe the asinine, parochial, juvenile response of the government to one of the worst crises this country has ever faced? Sweetch orf yo lights en de geezas. That’s the official spokestwit’s response on Talk Radio 702! Mines are stopping operations — stopping, not reducing, not downscaling, but stopping — just as the prices […]
Posted inGeneral
What did you ignore today, daddy?
“Govt was warned about power” — the lead headline on News24 trumpeted this morning. Apparently some municipal boffin warned last century that darkness was on the way and would hit by 2007. The news in that is when the warning was made. The content is nothing new. Perhaps the warning should have been expanded to […]
Posted inBusiness, News/Politics
The first time I met Mandela
The first time I met Nelson Mandela I learnt some important things. The second time I met him those things were confirmed. Like all journalists I’ve met presidents, prime ministers, legends and numerous real celebrities, but I didn’t meet Madiba as a journalist. I’ve met Thabo Mbeki and Jacob Zuma, John Vorster and PW Botha […]