(One of several prize rants, first posted on Letterdash) It’s late, late, late on Saturday night. Spent the day doing last-minute maniac home repairs and garden maintenance in time for my first visitor of the season – this time it’s my Dad. But that’s not what I want to write about tonight – before I […]

(First posted April 13, 2011 on Letterdash) Um, truth be told, sure – as a white South African, I am certainly clear about my agenda: • freedom of speech, • freedom of association, • the right to work, • the right to create work, • safety for the most vulnerable of SA’s citizens (children, their […]

As the wine fills her, she becomes fluid and starts to slip off herself – like trying to grab a satin sheet in a strong wind, she gets hold of one corner and another flies away – and pretty soon she’s naked under cold, harsh lights.

When a nation is coerced into worshipping the State as the Bringer of Life, the Protector and only Harbinger of Truth, get ready for the darkest of ages. The vital thing to remember about the Dark Ages, and the times on either side of them, is that no-one was safe – no-one. The most energetic […]

Freedom movements morph, loosely, into one of three things: functional political parties, brutal tyrannies or tightly-controlled religions. The first incarnation is rare – South Africa was lauded for appearing to make that transition. The second incarnation usually takes more than the twice the lifetime of its Stalin to ever find its way back to real […]

Thought you’d never ask. Well, I’m back. Been in hibernation and on Twitter for the longest time, but I’m ready to blog again – only I’m going slowly. I have missed you all. And I’ve gotten even more impertinent. It’s so bad that I even think in 140-character bytes. 🙂

Militant vegan atheist (comment posted in 2011) A militant vegan atheist is by definition a fundamentalist on at least two fronts – he does not so much resemble someone without faith as someone who, in a fit of exquisite pissed-offedness at his parents, would try to remake both god and his own DNA in another […]

The whole map of human history exists so that we don’t have to make every single mistake made before us. Our behaviour is the best argument against evolution – we are beset by the same envious & aggressive characteristics we ever had. We just invent new ways to vent them. How are we settling for […]

I live in a little town beside the seas – a grand old lady of a suburb who, having not heard of Botox or bodyguards, was running deeply to seed. Today a group of 3rd generation residents are revitalising her, but not in the way of gentrification. In any street you’ll fing students, surfers, start-up […]

It’s all moon phases, inner tides & secrets of life with women: there’s just no way we can manage all that power without melt-downs, chocolate & sunflowers