I have been living in Sydney for nearly two months now and, truth be told, I don’t really feel homesick at all. But there are times when the loneliness is almost unbearable. I knew that leaving my husband (who will only be able to join me later this year), pets and family would be hard, […]
Lifestyle
Posted inLifestyle, Tech
‘Bush speaks the truth. Hell freezes’
Ha! My favourite six words of fiction. “For sale: Baby shoes, never worn” come a close second. I am a sucker for brevity, and appreciate writers who can cut a long story short without losing the essence of the plot. (Unlike Woody Allen who said he “speed-read War and Peace. It was about Russia.”) So, […]
Posted inLifestyle
The sounds of a city
We experience a city through sight, mostly. But what about other senses? The fishy smells of Cape Town, warm bagels in New York. In Jo’burg, jasmine in spring and the acrid fug of urine in the CBD. Chlorine in pools, wet dog, mown grass, fragrant steaming pavements after a summer storm. Sydney lacks a distinctive […]
Posted inLifestyle
Of parking metres and foreign languages…
I parked in the inner city of Durban the other day where there are parking meters installed everywhere — every 30 metres, I’ve been told by a local police officer. That makes it extremely expensive to park your car. Most of the time, I try to avoid them. But last Friday I couldn’t steer clear […]
Posted inLifestyle, Tech
Farewell to Facebook: Confessions of a cyber-addict
My last status update simply said: “Alex says bye”. And then I did it. I deactivated my Facebook account. The decision to leave the ubiquitous social networking site even took me a little by surprise. How on earth was I going to survive without the website I compulsively visited several times a day? The more […]
Posted inLifestyle
Can Mom and Dad ever be equal?
Last night I hemmed a pair of my son’s pants. The only thing that qualifies me for that is my gender. Why should I know how to hem a pair of trousers? Why is it that I sat, bent over a pair of bright red corduroys, while my husband watched rugby on Supersport? The answer […]
Posted inLifestyle
No worries! What Australians are really like
Anyone arriving in Australia, even if they’re just visiting, should learn two phrases: “No worries!” and “Thanks, mate.” Which should tell you something about Australians. One of my readers was curious about what Australians are really like, so I thought I’d broach the subject. If I sound like I am hedging my bets a little, […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Happy World Refugee Day
I imagine the Tuesday night debate at Wits on xenophobia was the sort of event that attracted the kind of people who read and contribute to Thought Leader. I was there and I’m pleased to have made the effort. The discussion was interesting, and probably could have gone on for hours had there not been […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
Ecovation – lessons from nature for ecologically innovative capitalism
Scientists the world over are in agreement: The earth’s resources are depleting at unprecedented rates and ecosystems all over the planet are in decline. Is this the end of the world as we know it or is it a massive opportunity for the endless inventiveness of humanity? There is evidence that human beings are rising […]
Posted inLifestyle
Liver transplant surgeon: A career with a future
If I were chatting to a medical student who was thinking about specialising, I would strongly recommend that he or she consider going into liver transplant surgery. Now there’s an area that is only going to grow in the future. I will now resist the temptation to make a Manto joke, noting instead how binge […]
Posted inLifestyle
Rooney nuptials: Wedding of the century or mindless self-indulgence?
As a big fan of the British royal family with all its pomp and ceremony, I was naturally drawn to the “wedding of the century”, that of Wayne and Coleen Rooney. It’s the Italian Riviera, yachts and castle time as football upstages Hollywood with all the glitz and glamour of the fare. Sportsmen and women […]
Posted inLifestyle
Are we starting to get it?
I have been on a bit of a hiatus from writing in recent times. I even went on a ‘driving nowhere slowly’ jaunt in the northern KwaZulu-Natal last week. I had meant to return with a piece about my experiences on the road. But that has to wait. In the past I have gone on […]