Since October last year, a wonderful magazine has magically appeared in my postbox at home towards the end of each month. It’s like getting a surprise present every time! The Pinelands Muse is a colourful, A4-size magazine, full of interesting articles and information about the community and neighbourhood of Pinelands (and beyond). As the end…
Yesterday’s match between Bafana Bafana and France, held at the Free State Stadium in Bloemfontein was the most nailbiting of the entire World Cup so far – for me, anyway, but I think also for the entire nation. During the course of Monday and Tuesday, I became aware of a buzz in the air, a…
I am reeling from shock. What an awful ending to a match that started with such anticipation and patriotic fervour. With mounting excitement, we had been looking forward to tonight’s [last night’s] 20h30 match between Bafana Bafana and Uruguay at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium all day. When we witnessed Switzerland’s surprise 1-0 defeat of Spain,…
Yesterday morning, I received a most surprising email from the WordPress Team, advising me that my post about the full moon picnic at the Taal Monument outside Paarl had been promoted to the homepage of WordPress.com. Initially, I thought this had to be a mistake. But then my stats curve began to shoot up. And…
Yay! This afternoon, at 17h40, I hopped on over to http://www.tv-tsenki.com/livechoose.php to watch the live video feed of the imminent launch of SumbandilaSat, South Africa’s second satellite. I quickly figured out that I could do screen captures by pressing ctrl-printscreen and then pasting it into my picture editing software. At first, it looked like nothing…
As I wrote in my previous post, South Africa’s second micro-satellite, SumbandilaSat, was supposed to have been launched on Tuesday at 17h55 local SA time. The launch, on the back of a Russian Soyuz 2 rocket, was delayed by 24 hours until Wednesday (today) because of technical problems and bad weather. I’d been keeping an…
A South African micro-satellite by the name of SumbandilaSat was supposed to have been launched yesterday (Tuesday): “At exactly 17:55 today [Tuesday], South Africa’s SumbandilaSat will launch into space atop a Russian Soyuz rocket in Baikonur in Kazakhstan. The 81 kg microsatellite will orbit about 500 km to 600 km above the earth, gathering data…
Did this chap really think he’d get away with it? Quite some time ago, in November 2007, a security guard by the name of Tsheko Maloma, employed by the Greater Sekhukhune District Municipality in Groblersdal, stole a Vodacom 3G datacard from his employers. Verily, a trustworthy chap, no? Definitely someone you’d like to have guarding…
… what human beings are capable of doing to animals. I’ve just read a heart-breaking story on the BBC’s Northern Ireland website about a pair of mute swans on the Lagan Canal near Lisburn that were shot with crossbows. Apparently, the female has a crossbow bolt stuck through her neck, while her mate has one…
Last week Tuesday, I posted about the brutal murder of an ex-colleague of mine, Noorjehan. I’ve been keeping an eye on the newspapers, and regularly searching the internet in the vain hope that more information had surfaced in the meantime. After the two initial articles I mentioned (Mom’s body found in bushes and Ma van…
My cousin has just told me a most disturbing story of promises broken and trust betrayed that I want to share with you because it ruffled my tailfeathers too. Sometime at the beginning of this year, a gentleman by the name of Ari Seirlis was asked by the Independent Democrats to stand as a candidate…
It is a sad indictment of the priorities of our ANC led government that they have, once again, allowed money to overrule morality. The history of our country – one of the richest and most beautiful on the African continent – has not been a happy one. Since the bad old days of colonialism, it’s…
Every year in February, the Remember And Give (RAG) team at the University of Cape Town publishes an irreverent, funny, satirical – and sometimes offensive – magazine known as Sax Appeal in order to raise funds for the Students’ Health and Welfare Centres Organisation (SHAWCO), which does truly amazing and inspirational work in very difficult…
On Saturday, 28 March 2009, at 20h30, lights will be turned off throughout the world for an hour. The big switch-off is part of the annual Earth Hour campaign of the Worldwide Fund for Nature/World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The campaign was initiated in Australia a mere two years ago, when 2.2 million people in Sydney…
For some frightening images of the bushfires near Melbourne, have a look at this link. According to another article, “millions of animals have died, including koalas, kangaroos and wombats” in the Australian bush fires. Those courageous firefighters have my greatest respect and admiration. The devastation and often quite gruesome things they’ve seen would make my…
Grains of Sand 
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