So Mamphela Ramphele, South Africa’s last great hope if we’re going to break the impasse of our current political landscape, which cynics might summarise as a choice between self-interested thieves and self-righteous prefects, has finally announced what we’ve suspected for some time: she’s launching a political party. Wait, not a political party, a political “platform”. […]
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
Why I am glad Reeva is on TV
I am not in the target market for the Tropika Island of Treasure, the reality show in which one of the celebrity guests is Reeva Steenkamp. Though I have an inexplicable weakness for pineapple flavoured dairy fruit juice blend, I am not one of the people who will have fitted into the marketing brief, which […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Oscar: A South African tragedy
I first knew about it after seeing this tweet: That’s how it usually happens, now, with news stories. I felt ill. Like I’d been kicked in the gut. Partly because of the shock of it. Oscar Pistorius, of all people! Because an innocent person died, because it was an accident, because nobody should ever have […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Bringing out the big Gundelfingers
”Why does divorce have to be messy?” someone asked on Twitter. Today’s trending topic is, of course, the Sexwale divorce. Anything is messy if it involves lawyers, anger and, of course, money. A lot of money. (A R70 million house! R150 000 a month maintenance! I hope at least that the R1 million car demand is in […]
Posted inMedia
Which South African brands deserve their own day?
It’s World Nutella Day. Yes, really. (It’s all over Twitter, so it must be true.) I don’t know who comes up with these days marking things, or why hazelnut chocolate spread is deserving of commemoration, but there you go. I first encountered Nutella at Bryanston Primary in the 1980s, when the tuck-shop sold little plastic […]
Posted inLifestyle
Should we let Justin Bieber take the ‘reigns’?
I should have averted my eyes, I know. It’s my own fault for looking, and I’d only bought a copy of heat because I’d already read this week’s You. But once you’ve read a statement like “Move aside, Lady Gaga: Justin Bieber has taken the reigns as the most powerful person on Twitter!” you just […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Why isn’t Angie the new Manto?
So there I was, having dinner with my family, talking about Lance Armstrong and yellow bracelets, when I had a random thought: is Angie the new Manto? They do have an awful lot in common. Both instantly recognisable by a single name. Both spectacularly bad at their jobs. Under Angie, we’ve embraced chronic and possibly […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Why I’m scared of the police
The Audi R8 that crashed on Oxford Road last week, breaking into three fascinatingly horrible twisted lumps of metal, was always going to be one of those stories that captured the imagination. On talk radio, in the comments on news websites and on Twitter, it dominated conversation. At a client meeting later that day, it […]
Posted inNews/Politics
What are vile white practices?
Forgive me for only waking up to this now. I’ve been away in a place where it was hard to find a 3G signal, so missed the opportunity to spend the tail end of the festive season arguing about the same thing we argue about the rest of the year, the incurable condition known as […]
Posted inNews/Politics
Why do we care about Americans and their guns?
Another day, another mass shooting by a disaffected young man with access to an awful lot of firepower. They seem to happen with depressing regularity in America these days. Naturally, South Africans on Twitter had plenty to say about events in Newtown, and I was no exception (sensing that words become meaningless after a while, […]
Posted inLifestyle
Angry people, verbal diarrhoea and other things that make me tired
Earlier this week I wrote about the energy crisis, the one that a lot of us are experiencing around about now. Reading this note from Tom Eaton, it’s clear that this is what killed off Hayibo: the writers were just too tired. Tiredness is interesting, because there’s more to it than the obvious contributing factors […]
Posted inLifestyle
Do you have an energy crisis?
I don’t know about you, but 2012 has been a long year. I feel like it’s swallowed me whole and then hoiked me up, and I’m lying here like a giant wet hairball with bits of chewed up grass. The fact that you’re even reading this piece is a miracle, since it’s evidence that for […]