I’ve recently become aware of two publications about malaria. The first is about preventing malaria in travelling children. The second, about malaria treatment. I’ve also become aware of a product on the market called “Nordman Artemisia Anti-Malaria“. The article in the South African Family Practice Journal by Dr Sophie Mathijs has the title: “Malaria prevention […]
Lifestyle
Posted inLifestyle
Angry people, verbal diarrhoea and other things that make me tired
Earlier this week I wrote about the energy crisis, the one that a lot of us are experiencing around about now. Reading this note from Tom Eaton, it’s clear that this is what killed off Hayibo: the writers were just too tired. Tiredness is interesting, because there’s more to it than the obvious contributing factors […]
Posted inLifestyle
Of cheque cards and stag hunts
This weekend my cheque card credentials were stolen and then used to purchase cinema tickets. This was entirely my own fault. I was not a “victim”, I was not hurt, and can think of no excuse other than I was simply not being observant. As such this is not a whinge against crime in South […]
Posted inLifestyle
Do you have an energy crisis?
I don’t know about you, but 2012 has been a long year. I feel like it’s swallowed me whole and then hoiked me up, and I’m lying here like a giant wet hairball with bits of chewed up grass. The fact that you’re even reading this piece is a miracle, since it’s evidence that for […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
Are we a chronically distracted society?
How often do you have a completely uninterrupted space where you can just sit and think, pondering life’s mysteries in silence? Personally, I lack enough creative pauses. My cellphone, like a battery-powered limb, relentlessly entices me with its flashing red light. A chance for quiet serenity exists only in my dreams. Scott Belksy, author of […]
Posted inLifestyle
Thank you for the freedom
This is what the view from a top of a mountain looks like. It’s the Lenong Viewing Point in Marakele National Park. I drove there on Sunday because something in me really, really needed to stand on top of a mountain. It wasn’t easy driving up that mountain, because the road is incredibly narrow and […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Lady Gaga, the avatar
Madonna modelled herself on a sexually unrestrained, powerful and de-sanitised version of Marilyn Monroe and rebelled against patriarchal Catholic constraints of the feminine, using the notion of wanton sexuality as her arsenal. Michael Jackson refused to be categorised according to race and gender and mixed these up in both theatrics and surgery, to much public […]
Posted inLifestyle, News/Politics
Uganda and the science on homosexuality
The Speaker of Uganda’s parliament insists the Anti-Homosexuality Bill from 2009 be passed before 2013 arrives. With the apparent goal of protecting society from sexual deviance, the ill-informed targeting of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex (LGBTI) people illustrates the old saying that politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing the […]
Posted inLifestyle
Dear Sandton, you’re not immune to HIV
Dear Sandton, I get it. You’re rich. You drive nice cars and own nice things. You work in shiny corporate offices with designated parking spaces and live in gated estates. You meet people from work or on dating websites. You work the network or get picked up in the local Baron, or at least that’s […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Woman beater Chris Brown not welcome in SA
Many South African music lovers will flock to see R&B star Chris Brown perform in December. A man who assaulted pop superstar Rihanna in 2009, she was his girlfriend at the time. Unless you’ve been living under a rock these last few years, you know a few vivid details about the assault. You may have […]
Posted inLifestyle
Put Nigella down
Cookbooks are a perennial favourite at Christmas time. They are as much fun to give as to receive because the giver stands a good chance of being invited over for dinner to try out a new recipe. We all like to be thought of as the kind of person who has an inner gourmet just […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Everyone should have a cat
I might be the only one ever to have had a cat thrown at him to stop him from snoring. My wife did it. In her defence, she was taking heavy medication at the time and was befuddled with sleep. However, that was of not much comfort to Sheretz, our large black tabby, as he […]