General

Cinema being one of my passions, I think it is about time to remind myself and receptive readers of the manner in which the Polish-French director, Krzysztof Kieslowski — who died some years ago — has enriched the lives of cinema lovers everywhere through his work. Some people may wonder how film, which is mostly […]

This past decade has been one of the most exciting in soccer but it also had some sad moments. Controversy also wasn’t far off, I will try to cover as much for what happened this past decade. The decade was kicked off and closed by Real Madrid and their Galactico era when they smashed the […]

The half term report looks at my prediction at the beginning of the season and then compares to their current position and where I think they could end up come end of season. The half term report card contains the unwanted tag, “could do better” for some teams and who is top of the class. […]

2009 will be remembered as the year that South Africa staked its claim to hosting a successful 2010 World Cup. Certainly, the past 12 months have marked an extraordinary turnaround in the preparations for this mega sporting event. Just a year ago, the hosts of the tournament were reeling after a series of near catastrophic […]

“Manto is dead. Good. A selfish and wicked bungler of the lowest order. Rotten attitude and rancid livers — all 3 of them … ” These were the words written by Gareth Cliff on Twitter yesterday upon finding out that the former and much vilified South African minister of health, Manto Tshabalala-Msimang had passed away. […]

Christmas traps us. It holds us tightly between layers of expensive non-recyclable wrapping paper smothering our creativity, freedom and genuine feelings. The Christmas season seems to bring our lack of freedom sharply into focus. We are tied by cute ribbons and tassels to the consumerist lifestyle, buying up the shops and making sure that we […]

In China the expression “That’s yellow!” means the movie, or what you said, was “naughty” or had an off-colour connotation. The thirteen-year-olds I teach know the expression well and I have had some hilarious incidents. One day in class we did some sentence patterns to teach superlatives and the book required sentence patterns based on […]

Anyone who fails to see the humour in the ANCYL versus SACP “war” either hasn’t lived in South Africa long enough or just doesn’t see the funny side of the things that go on around us every day. It really is hysterical in every sense of the word. In fact I have to admit that […]

By Siyanda Mhlongo The ANC was elected on April 22 2009 on the promise that it would be pro-poor and anti-corruption. The triumvirate of Jacob Zuma, Blade Nzimande and Zwelinzima Vavi accused Cope of being elitist. It is the ANC of Nxamalala that has proved beyond reasonable doubt that is elitist, parasitic and wasteful. It […]

“Well, this is what is at the heart of European and African conflict in our society today,” says the guide, Thuli K, who is in charge of a historical tour. We are at the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria. Richard P and I have undertaken this strange journey together to get closer to the soul of […]

A lot has been written on TL about race and about racism — some of it insightful, some less so, to say the least. I usually steer clear of writing about this because it is such a sensitive issue and because certain idiots will always try to capitalise on anything one says that may appear […]

I don’t want to get into a debate about the evils of the empire so let’s put all of that aside for a moment (well, for the length of this blog post at least). As modern phraseology goes, “let’s park that idea” or “let’s deal with that offline”. However, I would like to deal with […]