The rate at which world top football stars are migrating to China, I am starting to believe Sepp Blatter that maybe, just maybe football began in the communist state. The latest this week was former Chelsea and Ivory Coast striker Didier Drogba who decided to part ways with the Yorkshire pudding for the Shenghai sushi. […]
Lifestyle
Posted inLifestyle
We need an app for the socially awkward
You know the feeling only too well. You arrive at a cocktail to be greeted by a terrifying knot of bodies and a hubbub reminiscent of a shed at Rainbow Chickens. You scan the scene frantically in search of a familiar face, imagining that everyone is laughing at you from behind their glasses of sauvignon […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle, News/Politics
Murray’s painting mirrors Zuma’s life
I had already started writing my angry views about my president unzipped and exposed. When I started, I wrote it as a man, a black man, Saartjie Baartman’s brother, as someone raised by my grandmother with a moral stick. And I had joined in solidarity with those who are angry about the way President Jacob […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle
Kind regards or best wishes?
It remains a sad fact of life as a social animal that every encounter with another human being presents an opportunity for being misunderstood. This is why social events are awkward, as are greetings of any kind, hugs in general, mouth kissing, questions over coffee vs drinks – and email sign-offs. Have you ever reached […]
Posted inBusiness, Lifestyle, Media
Beware the oracle
Chris Moerdyk states in his News24 opinion column of May 7 2012 that the editor of the magazine Health Intelligence (Mr Colin Levin) agrees with him (in an editorial on page 1 of Edition 15 – May/June 2012) about the latest food labelling regulations going “too far in their noble intention to (protect) consumers from misleading […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle, News/Politics
Let’s think about our children
The story of Rego Modise of Rustenburg has me worried about the future of our kids, black and white, in South Africa. Rego is a 17-year-old black school girl who loves playing hockey as a sport. She sees herself as a professional hockey player one day, perhaps even representing South Africa in future Olympic games. […]
Posted inLifestyle
Cervical cancer: We can, must and should do more
The Reuters article on cancer in Africa that appeared in the Mail & Guardian on May 1 was an important reminder to all of us that while head-butting HIV and tackling TB, rushing food parcels to the malnourished thousands around the continent and battling our way through the diarrhoeas and pneumonias that plague our sickly […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
The rise of the slacktivist
We’re all guilty of it. Some more than others, but nonetheless, we’re all culpable. Log on to Facebook or Twitter, hit the “like” or “favourite” button and, for a fleeting moment, we feel like we’re somehow making a tangible difference in the world. But surely it’s slightly more complicated than that? In 1970, poet Gil […]
Posted inGeneral, Lifestyle
Gang rape, jackrolling, lepanta: a societal problem
I grew up in a village outside Polokwane in Limpopo. At school and in the community we would always hear older boys talking about lepanta. As a young boy, I knew lepanta to be a Sotho word for “belt”. I soon learnt that it was coined by boys in the street corners to mean “when […]
Posted inLifestyle, Media
What’s your booze culture?
It’s Friday, the day on which – Phuza Thursday notwithstanding – many South Africans start drinking in earnest and, if some statistics are to be believed, don’t sober up until Monday morning rolls around. I was reminded the other night of how uncomfortable I feel around drunk people. Now I’m not talking pleasantly tanked and […]
Posted inLifestyle
Dear men, please explain?
I’m a born and bred Jo’burger, so I take security seriously. This also applies to matters of the heart. When it comes to feeling anything for anyone, I have taken comprehensive measures to prevent anyone from getting to me. There’s the boom and the ADT guard, the four-metre wall, the electric fencing, razor wire, beams, […]
Posted inLifestyle
Why this pain is worth it
Sneezing. Laughing. Also running, yoga and sitting. This is a list of activities made more challenging when one has a bruised coccyx. How, you ask, does one get a bruised coccyx in the first place? Mainly by bouncing hard in the saddle while learning to canter — as I did the other morning. I’ve been […]