Before Voice over IP (VoIP), life was pretty black and white. You had your office jockeys and your road warriors. Office jockeys operated PCs, desk phones and faxes. Their jobs started and ended when they entered and left the premises. You could get them on their cell after hours, but it wasn’t really done. Road […]
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SA soccer — from hero to zero
So we entered what we all thought would be a sustainable and successful era of growth for SA football. We hosted an amazing Fifa World Cup in 2010 under coach Carlos Alberto Parreira, who was assisted by current head coach Pitso Mosimane. The next hurdle for SA soccer was and no seemingly remains the Africa […]
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The importance of teaching Foucault in a time of conformism
Every time I teach a course on that inimitable “archaeological” and simultaneously “genealogical” thinker Michel Foucault I realise how important it is for students to be exposed to, and engage with, his unique mode of transformative thinking and praxis, or perhaps, thinking AS praxis. For make no mistake, to discover Foucault as a philosopher is […]
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Jake White: Qualified, but right for the job?
The news is in that Jake White, who recently signed a four-year contract with Super Rugby franchise ACT Brumbies, intends submitting his CV to the South African Rugby Union (Saru) for the position of Springbok Rugby head coach. His potential employers are the same ones that two days after the SA victory parade in 2007 […]
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Bloody Ozzies
As Frik du Preez might have said: We take their line-out ball, we smash them in the scrums, we kill them in the rucks, but the score still says Ozzies. Keo had a lot to say about it in his column: “I haven’t met a South African rugby supporter who didn’t tell New Zealanders that […]
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Finishing the real culprit for Boks’ demise, not Lawrence
South Africa now knows how Wales felt at the beginning of this Rugby World Cup. The Springboks scarcely deserved to beat the Dragons, and after watching Sunday’s quarter-final, the Wallabies didn’t deserve a place in the semi-finals. They were “under the pump” as they like to say Down Under for the duration of the match […]
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Team of Millions
As the official team sponsor of the South African Springboks, Absa coined the phrase Team of Millions. They built a very patriotic campaign around this with an amazing song coming from the series of Shaka Zulu on TV in mid 80s as well TV, print and radio adverts that stirred the patriotic blood from within! […]
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IRB vs Sanzar
Forget the Rugby World Cup on the go, there is a much bigger showdown looming on the rugby horizon. Sanzar (South Africa, New Zealand, Australia) is the tripartheid organisation managing the Super Rugby series and the Tri-Nations. Sixteen years ago professionalism struck rugby. And now, as we are well into the professional rugby era, another […]
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Bakkies’ early exit from NZ
As you read this, Bakkies Botha is probably back in Pretoria leaving behind him New Zealand and the next three games of the Rugby World Cup, which ends October 23. Cause: “Achilles tendon injury”. Bakkies is a South African patriot and consummate rugby professional, but you have to wonder, or just be a little bit […]
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Rugby and the nation: Tweeting our devastation
“Sympathies to the Wallabies,” tweets the comedian Brendan Jack. “After the tournament, they still have to go back to Australia.” It’s a sardonic comment on a morning which for many across South Africa has been an emotional rollercoaster. I’m very aware of this because I’ve watched my fellow citizens veer crazily from hope to despair […]
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Me hitting on ‘Slutwalks’
The Oriental woman strolling casually in front of me was wearing the smallest skirt clinging to her hips that I have ever seen. Without even trying (scouts’ honour, cross my heart) I could actually see the crotch area of her fishnet stockings and the lower part of her cheeks. The horizontal clefts in her bottom […]
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Bokke out…who’s next?
By the time you read this, the Springboks would probably have landed in Johannesburg and would be holding a press conference at the OR Tambo Intercontinental Hotel. A press conference where they will face a baying media contingent on what went wrong and what might have been. These are of course the defending Rugby World […]