Writing for our supper
Journalism is a particularly difficult industry to break into. Fresh out of university, brandishing first class degrees and sporting the sort of confidence only the young, and stupid, dare exhibit we soon learn that without a contact, or two, and some measure of good luck even the most talented among us struggle for a byline. The Pulitzer prize featuring so promintently in our ten-year plans is cruelly deemed highly improbable for at least the next fifty years. Complacency soon makes way for reality. There are few media professionals who find immediate success in the higher echelons of the...
Read MoreEnglish Language To Be Refudiated
Johannesburg-Linguists, lexicographers and self-appointed purveyors of linguistic purity gathered late, Sunday 18 July, at an undisclosed location, south of the south-western semantic web, to admit to the tongue-that-terrorised-the-world-for-centuries, a lexeme even the staunchest colonialists, war-mongers and cultural chauvinists have historically neglected. English language users, including those of the British isles, have been strongly urged to place an aesthetically-compromising, perspective-narrowing cover across their dictionaries to mitigate any effects of the exclusion of the word,...
Read MoreBefore I forget #1
Our fathers were friends. We became friends and together we whiled our childhood away. They were days of wishing our fathers owned CNA, just so we could have every Sweet Valley book we wanted. Only Aaliya was smart enough to swear by Nancy Drew instead. Of Friday afternoon street cricket with Vijay. Vijay, the Hong Konger who spoke with a London twang and walked with an irreverent swagger but never minded a bunch of kids haranguing him to stay for cricket. Of Friday nights, the four of us, Sulaiman, Ragiema, Aadila and Nabila packed into the back seat of my dad’s car, giggling and...
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