Advance Australia Unfair
After flying halfway around the world I arrived in Joburg hung over, hysterical with sleep deprivation and barely able to walk upright on my mangled economy class legs. It was freezing cold and I was ...
My big fat Bali holiday – Part II
“Arak attack!”
The cry came late at night in a dog-eared bar in a feral village called Amed. I went limp and dropped to the ground, which was easier done than said, and pretended to be dead. This was,...
My big fat Bali holiday – Part I
When temperatures drop to 13 degrees in Durban, you know it's time to make like a swallow and duck.
My tiny endothermic brain is not designed to function in low temperatures. I have bear blood. Hibern...
An open letter to Walter “Fuck Cecil” Palmer
Dear Walter,
On behalf of specieists everywhere, I would like to congratulate you for taking down Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe the other day. What kind of name is Cecil, anyway? For that alone he deserv...
Going loco
I don't believe the government has spent R600-million on thirteen new locomotives that are too high. If anything, the journalist who wrote this story was too high. Before placing the order, somebody m...
My big fat drunk Greek holiday
Greece is the big story at the moment. Here at home we don't really have big stories any more. Our last one was in 1994.
Instead, we have ill-tempered swarms of loathsome little stories that scurry a...
Barry Gibb was a visionary – Opa!
I solve my problems and I see the light
We gotta loving thing, we gotta feed it right
There ain't no danger, we can go too far
We start believing now that we can be who we are
Greece is the word
They ...
Stayin’ Alive – South Africa’s new disco anthem
The Americans sent men to the moon in 1969 but we can't work out how to put our traffic lights on a separate circuit.
And now, on top of the electricity shedding, there's water shedding.
Stop compla...
Trust me, I’m a financial advisor
I have always paid scant attention to that section of any newspaper devoted to matters concerning money. Then, last week, instead of rolling a broadsheet-sized joint from the front page of Personal Fi...
Privates on parade
Ted called me on Saturday and said there was a parade in town. He suggested we get on it right away. As former military men, Ted and I always have enormous fun at parades.
During the war, Ted was a s...
An open letter to ANC Secretary General Comrade Gwede Mantashe
Dear Comrade Gwede,
Well done on giving our courts a swift kick in the nuts. That'll teach them to have what you call a negative attitude towards the government. It's almost as if they believe the my...
Racketeering is not an Olympic sport
Paradiso. That's where Fifa's top dogs thought they were living. Paradiso is, of course, an anagram of diaspora. Coincidence? I think not. And if you still need evidence of a conspiracy, just consider...