John Lennon and RD Laing – two individuals who worked in entirely different cultural fields; the one a singer, songwriter and pop star, the other a psychiatrist (perhaps experimental psychiatrist), writer and radical thinker of the left. What they had in common, was arguably the fact that they were both utopian visionaries, and both were […]
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Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Superman se gat! Here comes SuperVaclav!
The comic book superheroes we grew up with could do no wrong. They leapt over tall buildings with aplomb, sliced through steel girders with laser-beam eyes, and stopped runaway locomotives by holding up the palm of one hand. Policemen applauded them, ordinary folk adored them, and when they slipped back into anonymity by replacing their […]
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Self-pity: Hating it but owning up
Ding dong. I cringed as the doorbell rang. Usually such a welcoming sound … guests arriving! But we feared being thrown out of the apartment here in China. On the streets. At least one good Western friend said he would take us in. Foreigners, stuck in Suzhou, suddenly without jobs along with the other teachers […]
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So what’s in a name?
Would you consider allowing somebody called “Audio Science” or “Heavenly Hiraani Tiger Lily” to service your expensive new car? How thrilled would you be to find out that the fellow in the white coat and rubber gloves standing expectantly by the dentist’s chair was actually a magician’s son called “Moxie Crimefighter Jillette”? Would you feel […]
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Sharks have it all to do
The Sharks will be enduring another long flight, this time to New Zealand, in their quest to rewrite the book for the South African team that suffers the least from jet lag, while still winning. Their victory against the Stormers was fully deserved and while it deprives South Africa of a home final, arguably the […]
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3 tech trends taking businesses to the next level
There can be no doubt that businesses have to employ technology if they hope to compete. When it comes to investing in cloud computing and virtualisation, the return on investment may very well be the ability to remain in business. VoIP and mobile telephony According to a 2008 BMI-TechKnowledge study comparing SA’s telecoms and broadband […]
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The Olympics, a break from reality
South Africa from about 1999 onwards — when the afterglow of the Mandela years began to fade from our collective subconscious — has slowly turned into a place where hope is abundant, as long as you know where to find it. Otherwise our media culture does a sterling job of ensuring we’re bogged down by […]
Posted inGeneral, News/Politics
Who sucks? Our municipalities!
If I were doing Auditor-General Terence Nombembe’s job I would be very angry and demoralised about dishing out the same warnings to local governments over the dismal performance of their municipalities every year. This week was another of those when Nombembe told us how financial management had degenerated over the past three years and irregular […]
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An anatomy of the recent small town riots
When I posted “Is it time for a South African Spring?” on May 3, I never thought that three weeks later the people of my own little town of Botrivier would explode into a furious, day-long demonstration against the Theewaterskloof (TWK) local government. By 5am on May 28 picketers had closed-off the town and tyres […]
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Amla Matter
World champion showdowns involving a South African cricket team don’t pass this way often. In the limited edition of the game, the South Africans have always managed to extricate themselves well in advance of the grand finale. With the number one spot beckoning, hosts English waited with a confident anticipation. A miserly three test series […]
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Hashim the Great
Hashim Amla, the bearded rock of Durban, became the first South African to score 300 in a Test match as the Proteas won the first Test again England at the Oval on Monday. In an outstanding knock, Amla showed the skills and patience which are becoming rarer and rarer in the cricket world. With the […]
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Super Rugby 2012 retrospective
I suppose it’s best to start this with the current burning issue. The Lions. Let’s leave aside for one second the issue of who is slated to replace them. I personally couldn’t care less if the SWD Arende u/19s were the ones being touted as the Lions replacement. The fact is, the Lions have hardly […]