Reading given at the 2025 Alan Paton Literary Festival UKZN [I began this “talk” by quoting Moira Lovell, who told us, “You can break the rules when you know them.” I broke the rules by reading this out loud, as opposed to having memorised it, or presenting it. How many teachers told us not to …
How Guy Buttery and Dan Patlansky Broke My Brain I’m not one of those homies who will ever show you my phone and ask you to look at videos or photos from a gig. At a push, you’ll get a video of my pigs. My preferred method of sharing is to write a review and …
For Steve Heartland- either it’s the heart of a place, or it’s a shop that sells Live Laugh Love paraphernalia and motivational posters with dolphins… “All of the dolphins, none of the endorphins”. While the latter sounds fun to mock, in this case, I’m talking about the true origin of the term. It turns out …
Graffiti is all over Europe. It’s abundant. It’s divisive and it’s reactionary. It’s a sign that younger people in particular are reclaiming space, sharing views, saying, “I’m here!”, being political, or in some cases just being rebellious assholes. Graffiti is not one thing, and to dismiss it or belittle it is to also lose sight …
Service in Germany is a mixed bag. It’s lank efficient but they seem to take pleasure out of trolling tourists. We went to the Tourism Office in Hannover to try and buy a SIM card and the woman there tried to sell us a monthly train ticket. If you work in the Tourism Office, surely, …
Assimilating into German culture means embracing hyper-efficiency, weirdness, and feeling like you’re getting trolled as a tourist. We arrived in Hannover on Friday rush hour… Being in a busy train station (Hauptbahnhof) in peak traffic, with petulant luggage, after a very very long trip stinking like pollcats straight outta Sontra (well maybe not straight) is …
You know what gives you the edge when you travel? Being fucking smug. It’s nice to be in the airport terminal and in high volume sotto voce saying, “Thank god we went for that 6km run before we came here!” Sometimes, I really think I run just to be smug. But let’s hold up a …
My Emotional Support Animal, Mands, tells me that, ‘You either have a good time, or a good story.’ Well, strap yourselves in for a heroic tale about air travel, the weirdest guy on the aeroplane, an early morning hunt for a clinic at Nairobi Airport, a busting suitcase of pharmaceuticals, and Chlamydia. For an extra …
Today it’s all about duck pie… If you like duck I’m about to share one of the best ways to cook it. How do I know it’s good? Well, I have this on good authority from my family. Why should you trust them? Well, there are several PhDs among them so you can trust them …
Guys… You literally won’t believe who isn’t getting a good morning this morning. The truth is that clickbait is bullshit. However you clicked on it. It wouldn’t exist without you. Ignore it. Scroll past. Engage with the good shit. So every time you click on clickbait… that’s one less good morning.