General

Over the past few months I have found myself being pursued by one or two gay guys who, for some obscure reason, can’t figure out that this is not my preference. Like in any other office, I’ve also had to put up with enormous mickey taking, as you do, whenever “romance” is in the air. […]

This is an open letter to Riaan Wolmarans, editor of the M&G Online. Dear Riaan, A street war has been raging in the public domain for a while now. The main protagonists have been the cream of intelligentsia in our land. On one side you have All the President’s Men, led by none other the […]

Here are some interview questions asked at Google and Microsoft. Some of these are supposed to generate a specific answer, some are asked to gauge how you estimate, analyse and approach the seemingly impossible problems. Post some of your answers in the comments, but no cheating. I’ve figured out number 10, but would be interested […]

I wonder if George Santayana really examined the concept of “history” before arriving at this conclusion. Did he factor in the tendency to award the job of writing it to the victors, the revision that would take place as the needs of expedience overtook actual recounts or even the way in which modern man perceives […]

While the many derisory and manifestly xenophobic descriptions that saddle Zimbabweans include “cowardly”, “itinerant”, “corrupt” and “criminal”, they will be galled to know that almost half of the population is insane. The other descriptions were not based on empirical data, but the latest designation comes from no less an authority than the World Health Organisation […]

Okay, so I know I only planned on writing twice a week, but Monday’s didn’t really count, being an introduction and all. And besides, there’s a little something that’s been niggling at the back of my mind, and I’d like to get some perspective on it. So I went away for the weekend, on a […]

A collection of 19 feature-length press articles was released in book-form last week in Argentina. One of the articles, El caso Poblete (The Poblete Case), tells the story of José Poblete, his wife Trudy Hlaczik and their daughter Claudia and specifically caught my eye because of the questions it sparks about a country’s need to […]

Look, I’m just going to be honest here. I don’t know anything about politics, I don’t care for sport, I have the merest fleeting interest in entertainment (and then only if the stars are wearing pretty dresses) and I’m completely out of the loop when it comes to the news. In short, I’m a newspaper’s […]

Angry groupings of Africans chanting struggle songs and shouting “Amandla!” have always invoked fear in the hearts and minds of the elite or cabals that defend unfair systems of government celebrating inequality as normalcy. Armed with heavy military artillery, young recruits in the South African Defence Force and the police trembled with fear as thousands […]

It’s almost been a year since The-Dwarf-Planet-Formerly-Known- As-Planet-Pluto was exposed as a fraud. On August 24 2006, 2 500 scientists congregated on a convention centre in Prague, the Czech Republic, and voted on Pluto’s planetary status. Yes, you read correct: THEY VOTED. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/5282440.stm And now it’s a done deal. Pluto is not a planet. And that’s […]

We’ve all heard, ad nauseum, the analysis of how terrible crime is, and how it’s wrecking South Africa, chasing away tourists and creating a general lawlessness in our society. But what benefit does crime bring to the South African economy? For a few years now, I’ve been tossing out this question as soon as I […]