“Therefore the tragic figure of our times is perhaps the one who takes the guilt on himself to validate our fear or hate,” said Dr Johns. — Etienne Leroux, Een vir Azazel Six years ago I was Eugene Terre’Blanche. On stages throughout the country, I echoed those mad speeches that drove confused young men towards […]
Tertius Kapp
Tertius Kapp is a visiting senior lecturer in the department of Dutch and South African studies at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan.
Posted inGeneral
God is at the craps table again
On Wednesay, physicists at CERN fired up the big ol’ Hadron Collider and are now waiting for the magical appearance of the haloed Higgs Boson. This theoretical elementary particle has been dubbed by some “The God particle”, a name physicists despise because it overstates the importance of the Higgs Boson. Good to know that Big […]
Posted inBusiness, Sport
Has the World Cup been stolen?
JOHANNESBURG — South Africans’ worst fears have been realised. The World Cup, transported to South Africa over the weekend, has been stolen. This according to a Polish syndicate calling itself Federacja Czerwonych Rysi (Federation of the Red Lynx), who claim to have broken into IFA offices on Monday and stolen the 36cm gold trophy. Photographs […]
Posted inGeneral
I’ve seen the knipmes and the damage done
You know what I’m talking about. Just thinking about it is making your palms sweaty. Your mouth starts watering like the Pavlovian dog that you are. You need some of the good stuff, and you need it now. Just one, man, just one, and you’ll be OK, but somewhere inside you you know that you […]
Posted inLifestyle
The Pralka Party
“Well, I’m from Mars,” the professor says, “It’s not too far from Venus, you know”. His Gandalf-like appearance certainly endeared him to me before, but as he speaks he starts to look more Lord of Ward C than Lord of the Ring. And Mars is light years from Venus! Is he insane AND astronomically misguided? […]
Posted inSport
All white rugby
“I don’t know why it is, but it is a fact that the Afrikaner cultural group just seems to produce some freakishly built people with a freakish genetic make-up,” Nick Mallet famously said in 2007. Pierre Spies, Bakkies Botha, Schalk Burger and Os du Randt have …
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Ich bin kein Berliner
Ich bin ein Berliner. — John F Kennedy, 1963 Zwei Berliner, bitte. — Tertius Kapp, 2009 21/10/09, 15:34 JFK famously called himself a doughnut (a specific German variety known as a “Berliner”) during a 1963 speech underlining the USA’s support for West Germany. Recently, party poopers have been pointing out that he was technically correct […]
Posted inGeneral
Strangers — just enemies you haven’t met
They say God created alcohol to prevent the Irish from taking over the world, which is true in the sense that they never bothered to colonise anything. Yet, if you look at this country of over 6 million souls, it is one of the most successful exporters of culture in the world. Most cities in the […]
Posted inGeneral
Teaching Afrikaans as a foreign language
The Dutch word for “soon” is “straks”. In Afrikaans, “straks” became “maybe”. Obviously, one can have quite a bit of fun speculating on the reasons for this linguistic divergence. “T.I.A.”, some of my friends would say (usually while relaxing with sundowners on a beach): “T.I.A. — you can’t be sure of anything.” Don’t worry, I […]