Regularly I keep the company of Lino, a dreadlocked Mozambican migrant who’s a tenacious laybuilder and many years my junior. He’s black, doesn’t speak a word of English and his Xhosa is a crude creole of isiZulu mixed with Shangaan, meaning we often have no idea what the heck we’re going on about. But inasfar …
‘Ons fade nie, ons vokof.’ These blunt words speak the spirit of what was Vrye Weekblad – an unpretentious but outstanding rag that flipped the bird at injustice regardless of who was wielding the sjambok. In the 80s doing so ‘in good Afrikaans,’ no less, as editor-in-chief Max du Preez expresses in a farewell column …
As the world was running a fever thanks to President Donald Trump’s unexpected sneeze on Ukraine, South Africa’s Finance Minister, Enoch Gondongwana, was effectively social distancing from his annual fifteen minutes of shine. Chickening out, as it were, from the Budget speech – not so much a ‘sorry comrades’ or an hour-to-midnight family meeting for …
It is only those harrowed to the SAffer psyche who will chortle and enjoy the music in such tense times. Who will mow the lawn, feed the cats, fetch the mail. On the porch, they will daydream of the mom who went too soon, the nameless cats goosing down beneath the marijuana and the nephew …
Before the controversy had degenerated into seed, Wanatu must’ve known that they faced an uphill. In the labour courts they would’ve been seriously up against it. In the immediate court of public opinion, their PR would’ve been viewed as a page straight from the dark ages. By the time the promotional pictures of a lily-white …
On 13 September 2024 president Cyril Ramaphosa unilaterally signed the Basic Education Laws Amendment Act (BELA) despite on-going consultations and seemingly paying scant consideration to members of the GNU. This quickly saw a displeased Democratic Alliance (DA) staging a protest march in November. In no time it also had Afriforum, Solidarity and the Solidarity School …
Whilst the twitterati were bogged down on Wanatu, the controversial ‘Afrikaans uber’, I had a dinner to prepare for a friend from another mother and culture, who was – thankfully and with no offence intended – not vegan. His request was, on first thought, pretty base: ‘Just something from your culture, preferably with a dead …
African fine dining and the hunt for a kasi chef Read More »
As the class of 2024 embark on a post-Matric future, a new generation of Grade Rs sets off into the maw of South Africa’s education system. On the 15th of January, some tens of thousand of them – some kicking, screaming or just nervous – will leave the guardian’s bossom and enter the classroom for …
It seems only yesterday I was scouring the internet hoping for something – anything – remotely political to tide the readership over whilst the honchos were away on holiday. It would hopefully serve as a token of gratitude for their invaluable support of our modest cause. But I just couldn’t find squat. At one point …
My doofus move was to squander pennies I didn’t have on a Blink 182 album that would be doing no favours for my street cred. Not exactly the sort of music you blasted out on the stoep in the townships of South Africa if you hoped to be in with how things worked around here. …
