As a teenager I had a friend whose entire sex education talk received from her father (since her mother preferred to give the impression that she never engaged in such nonsense) encompassed one sentence: Sex is God's greatest gift to man (sic), and the most abused. It dawned on me shortly thereafter that all gifts... Continue Reading →
Savage talk and TED
Yay! Today is Savage Chickens day! In tribute to this excellent cartoonist who manages to fit drawings and words onto a yellow Post-it®, I slavishly follow Doug Savage's copyright rules which state that as one of the other 7 billion-odd people in the world, I am permitted to copy one of his images every thirty days. How wonderful it... Continue Reading →
Living in the now
Yay! Today is Savage Chickens day - in my world, anyway. In tribute to this excellent cartoonist who manages to fit drawings and words onto a yellow Post-it®, I slavishly follow Doug Savage's copyright rules which state that as one of the other 7 billion-odd people in the world, I am permitted to copy one... Continue Reading →
Buckets of colour
I have never categorically admitted to having a bucket list. One item on that bucket list is quite complicated really. It involves mural art. I am not an artist in the professional sense of the word, although some would say a rather rigorous critic! Apart from the fact that right now I need to use... Continue Reading →
Rude comments collection
The most delightful public scultpure I have encountered is on a roundabout as one approaches Faro airport. It consists of an assemblage of slightly larger than life figures in various postures all looking up towards the sky. Made of limestone, on top of which much of the Algarve stands, they have the feel of being... Continue Reading →
Books, Art, Cakes and Kindles
I am a book-lover. What other reason would there be for ogling the Kindle advertisement?As a child I used to spend a good part of my Saturday mornings browsing in the second-hand book exchange above the butchery my mother visited every week. It was, I believe, run by a woman by the name of Marion Arnold,... Continue Reading →
Click
The click I am referring to is not the sound this rather poor attempt English makes at onomatopoeia. It is the sound made when the isiXhosa word qongqothwane is correctly pronounced. Listen carefully as to how that oh-so-grand lady Miriam Makeba does it in a number made famous as The Click Song.It is also the sound... Continue Reading →
That elusive pair of jeans 