The bush. Before those of you who fancy yourselves as connoisseurs of the pun bring forth your double entendres, I will state that there’s nothing sexual about this blog entry, or related to narcotics for that matter. No, what I mean is the bush, that mysterious admixture of hardekool smoke and veld, days of dust […]
Sarah Britten
During the day Sarah Britten is a communication strategist; by night she writes books and blog entries. And sometimes paints. With lipstick. It helps to have insomnia.
Posted inNews/Politics, Sport
Why is Caster ‘our little girl’ anyway?
Poor Caster Semenya, magically transformed into a political football nearly a year ahead of the World Cup. Suddenly she finds herself a symbol of the injured womanhood of the nation, under attack by cynical and racist white people, both South African and Australian. What’s interesting is the repeated reference to Caster as “our little girl”. […]
Posted inLifestyle
Why oh why do I hate Fourways so?
The comedian David Kibuuka, who is originally from Uganda, used to start his set with the words: “Hi, I’m David and I’m from Fourways.” It always got a laugh, and, until recently, I never paused to ask myself why. After all, lots of black people live in Fourways. So why should the notion that a […]
Posted inBusiness
What makes accountants so special anyway?
I wish I was an accountant. Really. If I were an accountant, I’d be like my cousin, who’s younger than me and drives a top-end Mercedes. He’s just bought a R3.5 million house, and that’s without having to sell the one he already owns. All because he did a BCom and became a CA. Speaking of […]
Posted inTech
So I’ve gone cold turkey on Facebook
So I’ve deactivated my Facebook profile. The 339 people who included me in their networks of friends may or may not have noticed that I’ve simply vanished. Gone. And it’s wonderful. I thought I’d be devastated, as though a limb had suddenly been removed, but I feel liberated. A new person. Perhaps this is how […]
Posted inLifestyle
What makes somebody interesting? (Or boring?)
Do you consider yourself interesting? A good conversationalist, perhaps? Someone others enjoy talking to? The other day I was bemoaning the relentless dullness of so many of the people I meet — especially young women — and I started to wonder what makes people interesting. Dinner party-worthy, say. Or not. I work in an industry […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Would reducing the legal limit save lives?
So the AA — that’s the Automobile Association, not Alcoholics Anonymous — is calling for the legal blood-alcohol limit to be reduced to the equivalent of one beer an hour, effectively halving it. This was in response to the tragic deaths of two Outsurance pointsmen who were on their way to the 702 Walk the […]
Posted inMedia
The enduring mystery of mascara ads
All right, I’ll admit it. I’m stumped. There’s a mascara ad on TV. Revlon or L’Oreal or Max Factor, I’m not sure, they all look the same, but it features that actress from Desperate Housewives, who tells us that this product gives lashes 12 times more volume. Twelve times! Imagine that. How do they measure […]
Posted inLifestyle
Are you ashamed of your cellphone?
Until very recently, I was ashamed of my cellphone. The iPhone I brought with me from Australia wouldn’t work here, so I was forced to use a Nokia 66somethingorother from 19voetsek. It was terrible. No ability to surf the web. No GPS. Clunky design. Terrible sound, so that I wondered whether I was going deaf […]
Posted inLifestyle
Are you a workaholic?
Hi everyone. My name is Sarah, and I am a workaholic. This is nothing new; I always was a workaholic. My life and outlook always has been dominated entirely by the notion of Getting Things Done. Oh, there was the day job (which, in advertising, is frequently a night job too). I consider my books […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
Do you have moments of shopping madness?
Have you ever bought something and wondered why? Ever known you are about to pay far too much for something and not cared? Found yourself reaching up to take something off the supermarket shelf despite yourself, as if trapped in a waking dream? I devote quite a large proportion of my time to understanding why […]
Posted inMedia
Should South African newspapers be grateful to Telkom?
The other morning on 702 I heard the news that the parent company of the Independent Newspaper Group is deep in the dwang, scrambling for funding to keep going in the wake of crashing advertising revenues. The same report noted that Independent’s newspapers in South Africa are still very profitable. So South African newspapers seem […]