General

“Baseball has the great advantage over cricket of being sooner ended.” These were the words of the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, perhaps complimented by the actor Robin Williams, who said of the gentleman’s game, “Cricket is basically baseball on Valium.” Both men and many other people have always tended to think Test cricket specifically, […]

The MTN 8 semi-final clash between Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs on Saturday night is going to be a humdinger. The fact that it will be played over two legs makes it even more exciting for both teams, the supporters and the neutrals. Both sides are on song at the moment, playing some flowing attacking […]

This blog post is about the difference between two kinds of human achievement. It is about the difference between the pursuit of excellence and the drive to conformity. It is about the difference between Woodstock 1969 and SA Idols 2010. I am not a fan of singing talent competitions of any kind. With the possible […]

A fictional (?) account of the first post-summer meeting between the British prime minister and his deputy at 10 Downing Street ACT ONE  (Tuesday 5 September 2010) Nick’s heart is pounding. First proper day back after covering while Number One and Sam Cam were in Cornwall, delivering babies. Four months on, he still cannot quite […]

The question of the existence of the God has been one that consumed philosophers, scientists and priests since time immemorial and it is a question that will continue to occupy inquisitive minds and be explored for as long as man exists. Scientists such as Isaac Newton saw God as the masterful creator of the universe. […]

It is a familiar scene at any Test match in South Africa: The teams have run onto the pitch and are lined up for the national anthems. The visiting team gets proceedings under way with their anthem, once concluded they receive a polite smattering of applause from the crowd. Now, it is the turn of […]

I reflect with a deep concern the demise of our country. Demons have not left the country with the promulgation of freedom in 1994. They are still very much entrenched within our public systems and certainly, within ourselves. The difference between pre-1994 and post-1994 lies in that our demons have changed their faces and evidently […]

How quickly things change in a couple of months. Before the 2010 edition of the Tri-Nations began, South Africa were seen by many as favourites. Now that the Springboks round of fixtures has thankfully come to an end, the exact opposite is true. Judging by Bloem, and Loftus before it, we may have reached our […]

Dear Right Honourable John Key I was taking a lovely walk through your beautiful suburban countryside here in Auckland, contemplating the massive earthquake that struck Christchurch yesterday, which registered at least 7 on the Richter scale. Whenever I have the balls to think I am in a bad situation, not belonging to a country (more than […]

“Development,” I’ve discovered, operates as a flagrantly racist discourse in some guises.  Scrambling to explain the reasons for Africa’s perpetual poverty and apparently incurable misery, laypersons in the West point to Africans’ “savagery” and alleged incapacity for civilisation.  This is not just a fringe opinion; even among putatively educated individuals such nonsense recurs with disturbing […]

Recently I was asked to contribute to a debate on pornography in a local newspaper, the Weekend Post, by responding to a number of questions on the matter. Probably because of limited space, my contribution was fairly drastically cut, which made me decide to post it here in its entirety as originally written. The questions, […]

I must admit, I’m very encouraged by what I have seen, read and heard in our beloved South Africa in the last three weeks. Ours is a blessed country with massive riches but to think of the plight of the poor who go to bed without food, proper housing, healthcare, the opportunity to get a good […]