Thembi Sibisi encourages the young women she tutors to think of men as asses. ”In a pumpkin field, donkeys take a single bite from each pumpkin and if they are not happy with the taste, move on to the next. They don’t care if hundreds are left to rot. Men do the same. They ‘taste’ women until they find one they want to marry,” Sibisi tells them.

Crime statistics have proven to be as malleable as the hands of the spin doctor who holds them. Minister of Safety and Security Charles Nqakula this week said the statistics, showing an average decrease of 5%, indicated that the battle against crime was being won and that ”the future was rosy”, while political parties have either shot down the figures as nothing to crow about.

It has taken about a month for Dali Mpofu, the new South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) chief executive, to figure out how hot his 28th-floor seat is, and stamp his authority on the corporation. The times seem to be, as the Chinese might say, interesting ones at the SABC’s Auckland Park headquarters. Someone’s head seems always to be on a chopping block or already rolling.

From Cape Town, to Jozi, to Banjul and now Geneva, there is no stopping Rastafari lawyer Gareth Prince in his cross-continental fight to be admitted as a practising attorney and for Rastafarians to be allowed to use cannabis. His determination follows in the face of a ruling against him and in favour of the South African government.