A collection of my writings
For over 25 years, millions of people all over the world have been inspired and transformed by TED Talks, made available for free online via TED.com. This has inspired communities and individuals all around the world to do the same, organising independent events called TEDx ‒ Technology, Entertainment and Design ‒ with the x signifying that the event is independently organised.
Continue reading “Africa inspired- TEDxRhodesU breaks new ground “
First published in Sunday Times, in The Accidental Tourist column
During our stay in Buenos Aires we were determined not be just your typical tourists. We wanted to really get to know the place. We ended up staying almost six months, walking the length and breadth of the city, tentatively learning Spanish and eating and living among the locals. In this way, we ended up staying almost six months ‒ walking the length and breadth of the city, tentatively learning Spanish and eating and living among the locals. Of course, as any seasoned traveller knows, quirks don’t go away while you’re in a foreign country ‒ they only get worse! And so it was that our keen appreciation (or rather unbridled obsession) for church fêtes and junk shops got completely out of hand.
Continue reading “Some souvenirs are harder to take home than others”
During this year’s Graduation weekend, the wider Rhodes University community are in for a rare treat ‒ a mixed-media, multicultural, and many-faceted response to the work of renowned playwright, Reza de Wet.
Drifting features an eclectic mix of senior postgraduate students and professional performers, with choreography by Juanita Finestone-Praeg and Athina Vahla, design by the new head of Design at the Drama Department, Illka Louw and performances by Andrew Buckland and Levern Botha.
Professor Andrew Buckland has often been described as a doyen of South African theatre. This may be a hackneyed phrase- but when you look back on his varied and rich career of over 30 years, the magnitude of his contribution to the performing arts is immutable.
Continue reading “‘Old but still kiff’ ‒Buckland lauded for lifetime contribution to theatre”
For Eusebius McKaiser the personal is the political.
Family, race, sexuality, culture ‒ he doesn’t hesitate to highlight the connection between our lives and thorny issues that plague the public sphere. Considered as one of South Africa’s more progressive thinkers, he asked some tough questions of the audience that gathered to hear about his latest book, A Bantu in My Bathroom, on Friday afternoon.
Taking umbrage against the term ‘bantu’ had actually prompted some students to tear down a few of the posters advertising the event. Known as an iconoclast and a provocateur, McKaiser relished this reaction, promptly starting off his talk by questioning the assumption that Rhodes is perceived as being the most liberal campus in South Africa.
The following is the very first piece of published journalism I ever wrote (including all its annoying imperfections) while working as a sub-editor for Grocott’s Mail, 2010. Poetry at Reddits has changed venues but is still going strong.
Mere mention of the word ‘Orania’ conjures up images of militant Afrikaners of pro-Nazi proportions, intent on separating themselves from the so-called new South Africa.
But this is not what journalists Michael Hammond and Hanlie Retief discovered at all. Instead they found a devoted community of mostly working class Afrikaners, peopled by a host of colourful characters eager to share why they love living there.
The beautifully desolate, frozen landscape of the polar regions has fascinated many people for centuries.
Prize-winning writer and activist Jean McNeil gave us a rare glimpse into what she calls “the oracle at the end of the world”‒ the Antarctic, by presenting a talk the English department last week.
A senior lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of East Anglia, McNeil is a visiting scholar of the Mellon Foundation and the University of the Western Cape, where she teaches creative writing for part of the year. “Wild Places – Imaginative Writing and the Environment” discussed the experience of writing fiction, narrative non-fiction and poetry with wild places as the primary inspiration and idea driving creative work.
