All the publicity surrounding Jacob Zuma’s trademark song, “Awuleth’ Umshini Wami” (Zulu for “Bring me my machine gun”) reminded me of the hoo-hah about an Afrikaans language song that hit the airwaves around October 2006. Titled “De la Rey” and performed by the South African musician Bok van Blerk, it caused quite a controversy in South Africa. It…
After all the negative publicity generated by the declarations of ANCYL President Julius Malema and COSATU Secretary General Zwelinzima Vavi that they were willing to take up arms and to kill and die for Jacob Zuma and to ensure that he comes to power as the next President of South Africa, I was rather appalled…
I don’t know why this passed me by. I only came across it by accident on YouTube. In case you also missed out on all the excitement surrounding this international multimedia event on 10 May 2008, here is a quick summary from Wikipedia: Pangea Day was a worldwide event that linked several cities around the world…
Nelson Mandela will be celebrating his 90th birthday on 18 July this year. Last night saw the 46664 concert in London’s Hyde Park. In addition to being a massive birthday celebration in honour of Mandela, it is also a charity event to raise awareness of the spread of HIV/AIDS in South Africa and to raise…
Jacob Zuma, currently the President of the African National Congress, has a trademark song that he and his enthusiastic supporters sing and perform with much foot-stomping and toyi-toying at all public appearances and rallies (including at JZ’s various court appearances on rape charges and corruption charges). Called “Umshini wam” (or more fully “Awuleth’ Umshini Wami” in Zulu, which…
Loud whoops of delight echoed through the house this morning! I’d just spotted the following headline in the Weekend Argus – “They prowl the empty streets at night – on the Net”. In case you don’t know what I’m talking about, this is the famous tagline of “Squad Cars”, a series of police stories on South…
SAS Queen Modjadji I, the last of the three new type 209 submarines acquired by the South African government arrived at the Simon’s Town Naval Base on Thursday 22 May. She was preceded by the SAS Manthatisi (which arrived in April 2006) and the SAS Charlotte Maxeke (April 2007). She carries the name of the…
After last night’s meeting of the Pinelands Residents and Ratepayers Association, at which Bertie Lourens of Wasteplan spoke about the progress made with regard to the recycling campaign, we finally got onto the mailing list of the DA’s Councillor for Pinelands, Brian Watkyns (I’ve tried a few times since we’ve moved here, and finally it’s…
If you’re a bit tired of all the doom-and-gloom and the crime-and-grime in our fair country at the south end of Africa, and when you feel like emigrating – or at least drowning your sorrows in a pint (or more like a six-pack) of Windhoek Lager, I recommend that you pay a quick visit to…
For the last few weeks, starting around the middle of May, terrible violence has flared up in some of our townships. There have been attacks on foreigners, primarily on migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from other African countries, for example Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Malawi, Nigeria, the Congo, Somalia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Angola. They have fled civil wars,…
The Phoenix lander module has arrived safely on Mars. The Phoenix, which was launched in August 2007, is a robotic spacecraft on a space exploration mission to Mars. The mission has two primary purposes. The first is to research the history of water on the planet and to find out why the climate there has…
His Holiness, the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, is currently visiting the USA. It is his first trip outside India, so this is really a historic event. He was in New York from 15 to 18 May, and will be in Boulder, Colorado, from 24 to 25 May, and in Seattle, Washington, from 29 May…
When we went to the local DVD store this evening, the friendly young man behind the counter told us that there was another armed robbery at the Spar somewhere around 3pm this afternoon. And unlike last time, this time they got away with R20,000. The details are a bit sketchy. Apparently there were 6 robbers…
I was astounded to see the following headline this morning: “Kill the bastards, Minister tells Police”. It appears that our Deputy Safety and Security Minister Susan Shabangu made some really bold statements to both residents and the police in Pretoria West yesterday at an ‘anti-crime imbizo’ (which I suppose is a kind of community meeting…
We whinged, complained, griped and whined, when we were told that there would be nationwide power outages for the next three months (at least). And today we whinged, complained, griped and whined, because the load shedding did not start on time! How bizarre is that? For the last couple of weeks, our much-maligned electricity supply commission Eskom has been…
Grains of Sand 
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