Like almost everyone I know, I braved the sun, the heat, the mud, a sea of emo kids, dodgy food stalls, dodgier loos and all the other delights that characterised this year’s My Cokefest just so that I could see Muse. I had heard reports from friends that their live show had to be seen […]
Lifestyle
Posted inLifestyle, Media, Tech
Would you like your own personal paparazzi?
You can have it! For a fee. I’ve written about Springwise (www.springwise.com) before, one of my favourite websites for innovative ideas. It sends out a newsletter each week with the hottest business spottings from around the world. Sometimes the ideas are smart (getting teenagers to teach adults how to use cellphones), sometimes they’re silly (getting […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media, Tech
And the winner is …
… East Coast Radio! No, not entirely. But they did sweep a good three or four categories (including best new blog, the one for which I was nominated! Sob!) and I’m guessing there’s going to be a backlash of bitter blog posts this morning. It’s not 100% fair, I suppose, when you can ask all […]
Posted inLifestyle, Sport
Scuba diving: Does my bum look fat in this?
Yesterday I learned that all three of the current scuba deep-diving world records are held by two divers from Johannesburg — which made about as much sense to me as the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team. I mean, FFS, where do these geniuses train? “Honey, come out of the rain and get your head out of […]
Posted inLifestyle
In the eye of the beheld
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Well, it used to be thus anyway, but now beauty has moved from the eye of the beholder and is now set firmly in the eye of the beheld. What kind of warped excuse for evolution of the human species is this?! In shrink mumbo-jumbo psycho-type talk, […]
Posted inLifestyle, Tech
The blogging Oscars
To be honest, when I first heard that the SA Blog Awards had a ceremony, I wanted to go mainly to see what bloggers look like. I blog, yes, but I don’t think I’m a Blogger (with a capital B). I don’t know about widgets and page views, and I don’t have ads and rankings. […]
Posted inLifestyle
In pursuit of happiness
Have you ever reached a crossroad in your life and wondered what would make you happy? All too often, what we thought would make us happy hasn’t, so we have found ourselves on a never-ending quest to grab that carrot that bobs along just beyond our reach. Do we really know? Does that promised happiness […]
Posted inLifestyle
Of fire-walking festivals
I went to the fire-walking festival at the Second River/Umbilo Temple in Cato Manor on Sunday. Wow. What an amazing ceremony. A large (very large, I’d say about 5m long) pit is filled with burning coals, with a basin of diluted milk at the end and a basin of turmeric liquid at the beginning. The […]
Posted inLifestyle
Faded pop stars at the last-dance saloon
A few years ago a friend of mine was hitch-hiking near Stellenbosch and got a lift with Heinz “Idol” Winckler. She said that he was listening to his own album in the car. Someone actually bought the album then, in other words. I ran into a copy the other day at a second-hand record shop. […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Putting sex, glamour and wit back into world politics
Nicolas Sarkozy, regardless of his politics, looks like being a raver of a premier, notching up a divorce from one glamorous wife and a marriage to a supermodel in his first few months as president of France. It’s as if he’d planned it all along — get into power, marry the lovely Carla Bruni and […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Stop treating us like mushrooms
Submitted by David Drew The misinformation being spread by the government and Eskom is getting past the point where we can believe that it is well-meaning but somewhat misguided. The more I hear, the more I believe that either we are suffering from a complete lack of common sense or we’re being treated like mushrooms […]
Posted inLifestyle
It’s a little bit tedious on the Coke side of life
The irritating new Coke slogan has been buzzing around my head for a week now, since having it rammed down my throat repeatedly at the My Cokefest press conference, and then the next day at the actual festival. There is very little that upsets me more than aggressive commercial marketing (on this sort of enormous […]