One of the most complex, expensive and secretive intelligence operations of the Cold War
While reading, and enjoying, Carvell Wallace’s piece on Black Panther for The New York Times magazine, I was halted in my tracks by a sudden reference to the sacred watermelon of Lesotho.
Continue reading “Black Panther and the sacred watermelon of Lesotho”
I can’t really explain how much I loved Treasure Mountain. Which is lucky because it was the only computer game I ever had. Continue reading “The best computer game ever”
Because my mother was traumatically uprooted at 11 and taken to Benoni, where she was bullied by schoolmates and called a ‘bladdy immagrant’ by teachers (she even had to do a subject called ‘immigrant Afrikaans’), England became a weird nostalgic Utopia for her, and I was brought up to believe it was heavenly[1]. The television was better, the comedy was funnier, the chocolate was tastier. Continue reading “First world my arse”
I recently encountered Ian McEwan for the first time, in the form of an audiobook of The Children Act lent to me by my mother and very sternly read by a woman called Lindsay Duncan, CBE.
It’s relentlessly depressing so far. But some light relief came from an unexpected quarter: McEwan’s descriptions of people. Continue reading “The strange concurrence of small feet in some of my favourite novels and one I don’t like”
The fade: When a song doesn’t have the guts to end properly. Continue reading “The fade: More than just a haircut”
A few years ago, for some reason, and I honestly can’t imagine what that reason could have been, I watched a documentary called ABBA, The Best Pop Group Ever – THE STORY, which you can see here. But I’m kind of glad I did, because the story of the circumstances surrounding the making of ‘The Winner Takes It All’ was totally nuts, and I’ve never forgotten it.
You may remember, that’s the video when this
turns into this
Continue reading “Swedish humour, as demonstrated by Björn Ulvaeus in ‘The Winner Takes It All’”
Hairstyle aside, a naked Yo-Landi Vi$$er would surely be a 10, by the standards set in ‘today’s media’, mostly because of her boobs, for which a new word – one step up from ‘perky’ – should be coined.
But when she’s not naked, she’s frequently kitted out like a Ringwraith, wearing solid black contact lenses that stir our primal fears, noshing human hearts and being really, really onbeskof. Continue reading “Granny panties: a new low”
Review: BEAST, SMOKE SWIG SWEAR (2013)
BEAST is South Africa’s supergroup. They’re our The Traveling Wilburys or The Raconteurs, and they’re just as super. I’ve been wanting to do this review since about 10 minutes after I first heard their album when it was released a few month ago – it’s really, really good.
So, charisma abounds with Inge Beckmann (Lark), Louis Nel and Rian Zietsman (Taxi Violence) and Sasha Righini (The Plastics) on drums. The Taxi Violence guys both play bass, so there’s no ‘regular’ guitar, which for most of us just means we want to describe the music as ‘dark’, but we’re not sure why. Continue reading “Lark + Taxi Violence + Plastics = BEAST”
Project Jennifer 
