Lifestyle

By Suntosh Pillay A short little booklet caught my attention recently. On its red cover, the bold title “Blacks can’t be racist” appeared. Curious by such an absurd claim, I parted with R20. Indeed, it was a 23-page explication on why black people cannot be racist. CANNOT. This argument, written in July 2009, was put […]

If it were up to me, every single book ever written about “parenting” would be burnt and its author shot. I brought my kids up by following three basic maxims: never make a threat you can’t keep, always treat children like ordinary little people, and lie to them as much as you can — that’s […]

Enough! Enough of all the pussyfooting, slippery tongue-sliding circumlocution. Enough of the fall backs to culture, ancestry, age, wisdom, the struggle, the party and the legacy of apartheid. Enough of the misuse of taxpayers’ money. Enough of the failure to speak when appropriate and necessary and enough of the propensity and frequency with which inappropriate, […]

“Right,” said the exasperated customs official at Auckland international airport to the poker-faced Chinese gentleman. “In your country, if yew make a false declaration on re-entering yer country, what happens?” Marion (The Chook) and I had arrived in Auckland from Shanghai on Saturday March 13. We had travelled Air New Zealand, a flight which is […]

We’ve all had those days. You know the ones. Where after a full day’s work, after actually having tried to achieve something, we end up with nothing. Those days where we hold the rudder tight, pull the sails taut and struggle against the wind, only to realise our final port is in the opposite direction. […]

Government, it seems, wants to control our access to porn on DSTV. Thank goodness we have them to look out for us. We are clearly not capable of making these complex moral decisions all by ourselves. We are the rabble, the electorate and all we understand are those empty campaign promises. We love those flashy […]

Thabonk! Skrreek! The bottom part of our bed collapsed at about two in the morning the other day here in Shanghai . “Oh for – – sake!” Marion, The Chook, moaned as we lay there in a half-resurrected position, sleepily trying to figure out what had happened. “Let’s sort it out in the morning,” I […]

Here is a transcript of an actual conversation I recently had with my Higher Self. Me: Hey, did you know we have a sex therapy clinic in South Africa? Higher Self: A sex therapy clinic? What on earth for? Me: Didn’t you know? A sex therapy clinic is a hospital where people go to be […]

By Andrew Tayton and Dulcie Krige Africa, as we all know only too well, is a continent with severe agricultural problems such as widespread poor soils and water deficits. In addition the problems of poverty make transport and marketing of food crops far more difficult than they are in the West. This has led seed […]

By Danielle Nierenberg and Brian Halweil This year marks the 25th anniversary of the devastating famine that hit Ethiopia in the 1980s. At that time, Bob Geldof brought together a group of well-meaning musicians to raise money to feed millions of people. Band Aid raised millions of dollars and immeasurable awareness with the compelling chorus […]