Some two years into Toverview: a raggedy start-up conceived in the semi-rural Karoo, funded by a pensioner, packaged by a toppie barely a few years his junior, then thrust into the internet – a hangout for trolls, deep fakes, and teenagers of questionable tendencies, dubious culture and little religion. And then someone asks us, the …
Only forty years old, an otherwise healthy *Simphiwe Sandi declares, deadpan, that he wishes he had a disability. ‘It’s the only way,’ his unambiguous face confesses on a balmy Karoo noonday that ‘I can earn an income.’ In many a setting such a disclosure might be fobbed off as the ramblings of a man who’s …
Online, this writer has a couple thousand followers and friends, in real life, barely a handful. What does that essentially mean? Well, theoretically it boils down to this logical conclusion: If he is ever stupid enough to post links to his scribblings on his various social media, potentially they would reach a few hundred pairs …
Brother Nde: the kids must be clued-up on the socials Read More »
Amongst disillusioned black folk Prince Mashele was once a literary Doctor Khumalo whom many were always eager to get behind, this whilst he was a thorn in the proverbial behind for the ruling elite. His column on The Sowetan newspaper was a surgical, scathing read churning out tongue in cheek insights rich with insults every …
Is Prince Mashele still the guy who speaks independently? Read More »
In early June, *Thulisa Makinana went on a night out with friends in Kuyasa, Colesberg. In the wee hours of the following morning, her lifeless body was found in a nearby veldt allegedly stabbed multiple times by an intimate partner. For the quiet Karoo town, the incident sent shockwaves, saw the provincial government personally paying …
As Washington sought to throw another spanner in the works by not just boycotting, but openly mocking the G20 summit, the famously ‘wimpish’ President Cyril Ramaphosa had quite clearly had enough. At a press conference a few days before the meeting, he cast aside the measured monologues for something that suggested he wouldn’t be taking …
Social media abuzz as Ramaphosa stands his ground Read More »
Wednesday, 5 November. On a crunching gravel road somewhere in the Karoo the Toyota hybrid we are in cruises unhurriedly along. Well on time, we resist showing up too early preoccupied as we are as to the sort of cat David Muller might turn out to be. In the papers he is dubbed the ‘Merry …
US President Donald Trump’s decision to snub the G20 summit later this month has resulted in something that oscilates between panic and a lackadaisical ‘it’s their loss’ from President Cyril Ramaphosa. Although it came as little surprise, it still would’ve been grating for the ‘leader of the free world’ to start taking broadsides and practically …
That the turnout was paltry did little to dent Unathi Asiya’s goal of someday introducing a solid arts programme to the youth of Colesberg’s Kuyasa Township this past Saturday afternoon. Ideally, not the most promising day because this is when the community bury their dead or honour the ancestors. The Seventh Day Adventists strictly reserve …
Of budding township artists and an unlikely poet Read More »
More than inviting UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese to deliver the 23rd annual Nelson Mandela Lecture, it seems organisers at the former stateman’s Foundation let slip a veiled message for the world: we will do what few countries are not stupid enough to do. The term ‘Palestinian’ …
Francesca Albanese: the woman who will not shut up Read More »
