General

Time magazine’s Person of the Year award profiles a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that “for better or for worse … has done the most to influence the events of the year”. Well, that’s the official line, at least. So why then in a year where Julian Assange made us all sit up […]

Japan is … well, different. Which does not say much, if one considers that the minutiae of experience make every day (even in familiar places) different from one day to the next. But the differences in Japan are palpable, albeit reminiscent of China, which I visited last year, in some ways. But only up to […]

I recently attended two international conferences — one in Brisbane, Australia, on Stem (Science, technology, engineering and mathematics) in education, and the other in Osaka, Japan, called ACE, or the Asian Conference on Education in the Age of Globalisation. What interested me about these conferences was their focus on (mainly, but not only, tertiary) education, […]

The “roaring” 1920s saw the US economy explode in a manner befitting an octopus encircling an unsuspecting prey. Driven by Europe’s bankruptcy after World War I, the Marshall Plan ensured that apart from propping up capitalist states in the Old World, it allowed American industrialists to conduct business wherever they wanted to without their now […]

Sex, volleyball, metal detecting — the beach lends itself to so much yet some human endeavours here defy logic. We’re already stripped down to our bare necessities — a deranged minority even prancing around in Speedos — is it really necessary to go the whole nine yards and disgrace humanity with outlandish behaviour? Ab crunches, […]

The mercurial world of the internet remains a catalyst for change. In recent history, iTunes, the seminal digital music download platform, has turned music distribution upside down. Now, with e-books poised to hit the mainstream, we’re on the eve of a revolution to rival that. People don’t appreciate how deep the impact will be on […]

Orlando Pirates coach and Dutch football legend Ruud Krol must think he is in some kind of bizarre dream. Reports, radio phone-ins and internet forums have seen him painted as some kind of dead man walking. Which to be fair is not an unusual position for football coaches, except Krol is actually having a good […]

Steve Waugh was noted back in the day to have called India the “the final frontier”. A country vast in size and unique in character, has always proven to be a difficult place to tour. For the Australians, it was a place that had resisted their efforts for 32 years before that epic series of […]

“We really need you to fart,” the cute nurse said sternly as I lay on my hospital bed, feeling the hookah of the morphine drip silently bubbling through me after I pushed a button which punched into me the next tot of that wonderful elixir. I stared at her mournfully, unable to perform the gassy […]

Mamelodi Sundowns are sitting pretty on top of the Absa Premiership log, they are saying catch us if you can to the likes of Kaizer Chiefs, Golden Arrows and Ajax Cape town who are following closely. Sundowns are on 21 points, while Chiefs, Arrows and Ajax are all on 17 points respectively. This weekend is […]

The passing of a milestone is an important moment to acknowledge for a batsman. It shows that you respect the applause given to you by the crowd, your teammates and somewhat begrudgingly, the opposition. And now, more than ever, do we regularly see batsmen celebrating a landmark. The recent Test between Australia and England saw […]

The crowd seethes in one congruous mass, willing the home side to victory. Against them is an enemy akin to the Vikings, raiders of the north. Recognised as barbarians by their victims and heroes by those who support them, they are the furthest thing from an unorganised rabble. A man of tremendous size, playing for […]