General

Stranded in an empty stadium at Edgbaston on June 17 1999 and agonising over the tied cricket match that ended SA’s championship hopes, someone had a vision of the future: it’s World Cup 2011 and Alan Donald’s punching the air and high-fiving with ecstatic colleagues. There’s light at the end of the tunnel! But wait. […]

So on Saturday the same old same old, hey? And How! I started getting worried on Wednesday when a friend said to me, of all the opposition, he would have picked New Zealand. Then I read on Facebook about the certainty with which SA supporters were treating this fixture, thinking to myself that this is […]

When the new Super Rugby franchise was awarded to Melbourne, there was a healthy bout of scepticism doing the rounds in South Africa as to whether Australia’s second most populous city — with four million inhabitants — would take to rugby union. Melbourne was passed over in 2005, when a new franchise for the then […]

I am almost certain (well I hope so) that if you are roughly 18 years old or older I do not have to remind you of the 1999 Cricket World Cup — the seventh edition of the premium platform for world cricket — with the SA Dream Team, defined by Dr Ali Bacher as the […]

As the tidal wave of popular uprisings swept across the Arab world, the February 17 movement in Libya appeared to be on the same trajectory as other movements that led to the downfall of dictators in neighbouring Egypt and Tunisia. What was crystal clear from the onset was the open wish of the international community, […]

Lonwabo Tsotsobe’s devastating form against the Bangladeshis should, hopefully, have made the selectors sit up and take note. Having been consigned to the role of drinks boy for most of the group stages, Tsotsobe reminded all and sundry why he was even on the trip to India to begin with. Which now leaves the selectors […]

In one of my current teaching jobs here in Suzhou I teach primary school children. The text books have improved over the years during my stay in China but still have some quirky English. One is teaching learners how to describe other people. But the cultural appropriateness is shatteringly absent in the text books and […]

Somebody who was not us asked me what it means to be South African: We are a motley crew – not the girly glam sham metal band, but a family of incongruity. We were knotted from many threads in all kinds of tension. Our forefathers were variously: heroes and villains — settlers, locals, warriors, runaways, […]

Mobile payments for mobile subscription services are receiving much news of late due to negative consumer sentiment over unsolicited billings. An imminent change in the way that Vodacom customers sign up for third-party mobile subscription services is good news for consumers and paves the way towards building increased confidence in mobile payments. Another important development […]

Trying to get your website to perform well? It’s not easy to grab the traffic you need in order to turn a profit but it’s not impossible either, provided you are using a sound strategy to help you out. What it’s going to take is making sure you have solid link building, which is not […]

One of the things I enjoyed most about the Milan San Remo on Saturday was the build up. Anticipation in the morning of the race was high. Riders were tweeting what they were having for breakfast while journalists were predicted the day’s winner. Cycling fans have a horrible time from October to January when there […]

The most disgusting example of the failure of local government in South Africa also happens to be the place my mother’s family calls home. The gateway to Mpumalanga’s Cultural Heartland, the Kruger National Park and the Lowveld juts out like a scar on the otherwise awe-inspiring rolling grasslands a mere 100km from Tshwane. The near […]