I met Yossi Schwartz once; on 17 March 2017.
I was an accidental guest. Yossi and my wife had worked together in advertising many years before. We were in Cape Town on holiday in the vicinity of Kirstenbosch and took the opportunity to swing by his home to say hi.
When he discovered my fondness for single malt whisky, Yossi whisked me into an adjoining room where I was greeted with this spread on the table.
The Space Age became a reality 70 years ago today with the founding of the Baikonur Cosmodrome. Here are ten things you need to know:
Cyril Ramaphosa meets with Donald Trump this week. As far as I can gather, the key message my country's president wants to put across is that the US leader is 'misinformed' about South Africa.
It's what the mainstream media do with narrative building. Even the New York Times has climbed onto the bandwagon of Ramaphosa's praise singers:
Rita was one of a handful of people in my life whom I loved deeply, completely, effortlessly. Perhaps what she meant to me is best expressed in her own words which she wrote in 2003, which I now share here:
23 January 2003
To: The Nieman Selection Committee
This letter is in reference to Kanthan Pillay, Executive Producer at etv, South Africa’s first independent free-to-air television channel where he also serves as deputy editor-in-chief of news, and runs the channel’s journalism learnership program. Kanthan has applied for a Nieman Fellowship.
"The Chinese dislike being touched by strangers. Do not touch, hug, lock arms, back slap or make any body contact.”
Let's move on. We have a country to fix.
...on the evening of 21 January 1998 at around 6 pm, three armed men walked into the packed waiting room of Dr Aadil Moerat’s surgery in the township of Gugulethu, Cape Town. Minutes later, Dr Moerat was dead.
Established military wisdom has it that an invading army needs to outnumber defenders by a 3:1 ratio.
I have said it before and I will say it again – Thabo Mbeki was the best president in the world at the time of his sacking.
One of the questions we should always ask ourselves is "what if we get what we want?"
Let me give you some examples.
Many people wanted Donald Trump impeached as US president.
