That statue. It’s an awful thing. With its tiny little head. Frozen with that smile. Frozen in that dance.
Twenty-four-hour news channels are like soap operas, every time you tune in, the characters are in a holding pattern, awaiting something dramatic.
There’s a Somali on your stoep. Of course, it’s insane to set up refugee camps across the road from nice, middle-class suburbs.
There’s a difference between an action plan and … action. There’s a difference between spending your days making PowerPoint presentations and spending it breaking rocks with the sharp end of a pick. Microsoft products might be hell, but one job isn’t just different to the other. It’s easier.
Casualty smells like pee and disinfectant. Red lino floors, neon lights, some of them flickering. Daniel is taken behind a powder-blue curtain, brown in some places. He tries to swallow his whimpers as he goes. In the far corner, somebody throws up. In the corridor, a doctor snaps at a nurse. Behind the front desk, a nurse snaps at a doctor.
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/ 22 January 2008
This is how I came to fall in love with a homeless person. My friend Sabelo has a mighty mane of dreadlocks and an ego so large he can barely get his Rasta shirt on, but he’s a friend and he knows things. We’re at the Apartheid Museum where Sabelo comes to flirt with hot foreign girls, writes Lev David.
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/ 9 December 2007
Does anybody know if Hindu fanatics have ever started a protest over Yogi Bear?
It might surprise you that I’m on the side of the Sudanese nutters who thought it was a big deal to name a teddy bear Mohammed. It’s not the greatest name for a teddy. If teddies weren’t so busy being adorable, they’d be up in fluffy arms too, writes Lev David.
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/ 27 November 2007
Joburg. It’s the hottest day of the year so far. The air’s as suffocating as a fat man’s hand pressed full against the face. Joubert Park, that inner-city cesspool, is littered with sun-beaten unfortunates, as if they were dumped there from a height, perhaps from the belly of a great big army transport helicopter through swung-open doors, writes Lev David.
”So, President Thabo Mbeki, exquisitely dressed as always, had a little huffy the other day about gated communities, accusing them of perpetuating apartheid-style separation. I can’t say that I’m a big fan of them either. As much as I love those grandiose fountains and dinky conifers, all in a row,” writes Lev David.
Women in South Africa would be better off performing their traditional roles – in the kitchen and having babies. Or would they? Even within the confines of the home they are still confronted by their most dangerous enemy: men. A rape occurs every 26 seconds in South Africa. Reports of abused women and girls (sometimes […]