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Running, man

2012-02-12T23:15:00.000-08:00

I was quite the pathetic sight on Friday, doubled over, barfing outside my kid's teacher's house. Then, morosely shuffling along and considering cutting the run short because I felt like an under-animated zombie. The pain was becoming worse and worse, my ribcage and diaphragm were collectively trying to kill me.

And that's when the 'suck it up' attitude backfired. "Pathetic, failure, quitter, slow". That's pretty much what the inner monologue was saying. I wasn't prepared to stop because stopping would be weak, stopping is something quitters and failures do. The last two km were the worst, and they're usually my favourite, it felt like knives ripping through my side, and was worse than the pain from back surgery (and that's saying a lot). I didn't feel like every running again, if that's what the pain was going to be like, but the masochist in me knew that I'd be out again by Monday.

Morning spectators

I got back and could feel the muscles on my ribcage painful angry ridges. This wasn't right... turns out, it's something a lot of runners are familiar with (but us noobs fall prey to) - side stitch, which I had ignored, instead of walking off.

So, I took two days off. I went out softly and gently, in different shoes, after a good warm up and could smile again. Today was great. Next time it happens (hopefully it won't) I'll listen to my body and allow myself to walk for a bit! My stomach muscles and side are still a bit eina but I'll get there, without bullying myself into submission.

Skinny

2012-01-19T23:28:00.000-08:00

Sometimes is never quite enough
If you're flawless, then you'll win my love
Don't forget to win first place
Don't forget to keep that smile on your face

Be a good boy
Try a little harder
You've got to measure up
And make me prouder

How long before you screw it up
How many times do I have to tell you to hurry up
With everything I do for you
The least you can do is keep quiet

Be a good girl
You've gotta try a little harder
That simply wasn't good enough
To make us proud

I'll live through you
I'll make you what I never was
If you're the best, then maybe so am I
Compared to him compared to her
I'm doing this for your own damn good
You'll make up for what I blew
What's the problem, why are you crying

Be a good boy
Push a little farther now
That wasn't fast enough
To make us happy
We'll love you just the way you are
If you're perfect

After repeatedly breaking my home, I was desperate for my mother's attention. I lost weight, worked hard, tried to be a reasonable facsimile of perfection. This is hard when you're a stolid little peasant-shaped girl with a wide face and allergies. The result, not what I expected. It was simply expected, the effort unacknowledged. Perfect shouldn't hurt.

Holidays Schmolidays.

2012-01-05T02:04:00.000-08:00

The good news is I no longer smell of horse piss. The bad news is I am still seething. Our groom, in his pickled state, staggered out into the road on New Year's day. He got hit by a car, no doubt driven by someone with a small amount of blood left in his alcohol system.

As a result, he got shipped off to hospital, stitched up and booked off sick for a week. We have been getting up at six and feeding, grooming, sweeping and sluicing and generally teaming up to take care of the horses.

At any rate, that's how we started. We were a cheerful little band of workers, splitting the workload and getting everything done in record time. Then, my husband bowed out. Quietly, sneakily, he made himself unavailable.

Today, my daughter buggered off to the beach with her mates, knowing full well she wouldn't be helping with the horses, so it was a solo mission. I gave her loads of opportunities to say "no, darling step-mama, light of my life, I couldn't possibly leave you to do all the work on your own". Instead she gleefully seized the opportunity to slope off and left me to huff and puff after the horses, in an wheezy allergic state. This afternoon, she'll don her designer riding duds and enjoy the animal without dealing with the consequences of its inefficient arse-end.

I groomed and fed and picked up poop, wheeling it out. Then, as I waited for the farrier to arrive to replace my husband's horse's shoes (which are purchased more often than shoes for any of us), her horse made eye contact with me, grunted and left yet another present to clean up.

The angry part of me would like to throw a massive tantrum, sell the horse, explain to her that I am not a servant, that horses are privileges that must be earned, that I go without so that she can live her pampered life. Because she is a step-child though, I don't have that luxury. I must contort my face when she comes home and ask sweetly if she had a good time. I mustn't mention the four hours it took to sort the stable yard out.

At least one good thing has come of all of this. It made me realise I am stronger, I can get up earlier, work harder, and still smile when taken for granted. I can still love, even if it's met with conditional reciprocation. I can be the bigger person, because being anything else would mean a loss and not a lesson learned.

A Christmas tale

2011-12-27T01:43:00.000-08:00

They set out to ask for Christmas presents. They went from door to door.

A little band of beggars, the poorest of the poor.

And as the sun set slowly, the littlest did tire

Abandoned by the others; left alone outside

She followed the sun warmed tracks, cried herself to sleep

In a crib of girders, the tears her own to keep

They noticed she was gone at daybreak the next day

They searched for her in alleys, cried for her in vain.

By then the little girl, alone had been betrayed

There, sleeping on the tracks, she met the Christmas train.

High On Comedy: And just like that...

2011-12-20T00:50:00.000-08:00

High On Comedy: And just like that...: The year is over. Well, for me at least. Going to be taking a break till the 17th of jan next year with some exciting changes. But I do leav...

Friday Foto 10.12.2011 Timeless

2011-12-08T06:17:00.000-08:00

@Lea208

@dagggers' beautiful portrait with her mum

@supersaffa_k's Timeless

Top 10 Most ineligible bachelors in the world

2011-12-08T03:34:00.000-08:00

10. Our very own Juliarse Malema sneaks into the top ten, after all ladies what good is a man who doesn't know what to do with his wood?

9. Bryce Lawrence, who wants to be married to a man hated by millions?

8. Shridhar Chillal, the man with the world's longest fingernails, I have an itch, that doesn't need scratching, thanks.

7. This guy, because, um, he has a kak personality.

6. Jabba the Hut

5. Manuel Uribe, the world's fattest man.

4. This guy, ... shem

3. Bieber (or is it bachelorette? He almost looks ginger in this one and what is he holding?)

2. Any arsehole who does this

And finally............

1. The Prez, because who wants to marry someone who is already fucking an entire country, without protection?

Crazy monkey sex too

2011-12-08T01:13:00.000-08:00

Crazy monkey sex

2011-12-08T00:56:00.000-08:00

No words...

High horses and low fliers

2011-12-04T22:01:00.000-08:00

I just went for a run for the first time in years. So knackered afterwards, I watched five minutes of poltergeist before realising the movie was in German. Things like running don't come naturally to me. I had to run almost every day of the week to compete in school cross country competitions, while the other girls idly sauntered up to the start line with a couple of jogs under their belts and cruised right past me.

It's the same with academics. Statistical problems appear as impregnable masses to me. There is no moment of instant clarity, I do not simply stare at the formula until the answer appears as if by magical insight. Instead I struggle for hours, poring over books, consulting online forums until the answer has been chiseled from the depths of my obstinately slow brain.

It's always been a slog to succeed and as a result I abhor those who view others with disdain for not being naturally gifted. I especially abhor those who discourage those who aren't naturally gifted from even trying. There's an article here on success, talent and hard work.

If I am slower than you, but work harder, spend more time learning, paying attention, am more tenacious, more persistent, more able to ignore fatigue and despair, I will overcome you, even if you're more intelligent.

My point is this, one IQ test doesn't make you better than anyone else- it's like a high performance race car without a competent driver. Resilience, drive and determination set the successful apart from those who rest on their imagined laurels.

I suppose tomorrow I'll grudgingly run around the village with a tomato-red face, not because I'm ever going to run a marathon, but because it teaches me to keep trying.

Friday Foto 2/12/2012

2011-12-04T21:40:00.000-08:00

Pokemon Soup

Dark Barman

Tig3r0

Very few entries this week

Yep, you're a sucker.

2011-11-28T09:18:00.001-08:00

Signs you might be unfollowed on Twitter.

2011-11-26T04:58:00.000-08:00

If:

You update your foursquare location and it's the bank, podiatrist, local takeout or your workplace.

You might be unfollowed soon.

If you update your location and it's Lady Gaga's pubic area, Julius's gold-plated shitter or Khubuluse Zuma's large intestine, then keep up the good work.

If:

You tell us what you're eating and it isn't burritos hand rolled between the thighs of the Springbok rugby team.

You might be unfollowed soon.

If it involves a slice of petrified chicken and some furry guacamole you found in the back of your fridge, keep up the good work and good luck with that.

If:

You tell us that Taurus/Gemini/Pisces are in for a lucky day, as you retweet your horoscope for the umpteenth time, bad news, it's wrong.

Because you might be unfollowed soon.

If you tweet your horoscope where it clearly states that your goldfish is about to die, and then tell us that the vet called and said it has ascending finrot, keep up the good work, and sorry.

If:

You mention caramel vodka, motorboating, how much you hate Monday, love Friday or how much the weather has changed.

You might be unfollowed soon.

If you tweet that you've identified a direct correlation between motorboating and unusual weather phenomena using chaos theory, keep up the good work and, we totally expected that would be the case.

Sigh and I suppose...

If:

You blog about all the annoying habits of others.

You might be unfollowed soon.

(a brief history of condoms)

2011-11-26T02:38:00.001-08:00

1000BC Egyptians used linen sheaths to protect their bits from disease. I wonder if mummification of the genitals was handled differently from the rest of the body (yes)?

100-200 AD The Romans and the French provide us with some evidence of condom usage. French cave paintings in Combarelle allegedly illustrate this.

1500's The syph was so prevalent that people started paying particular attention to the protection of the pecker. They still used linen sheaths (some laced with spermicide). I wonder what they thought about the chafing?

1700's The word condom emerges. It may have been the name of the King's physician, the Earl of Condom, who was trying to prevent King Charles II from continuing to produce bastard children across the countryside, and prevent disease. Unfortunately these well meaning gents didn't wash their little raincoats, so they still ended up blighted by the clap.

Even Casanova was in on it, using them to prevent pregnancy and STD's (if only it prevented bad movies being made about his life). Condoms began to be made of animal skin and were marketed and advertised. They were soaked in milk to soften them, or sometimes oil. What fun and what an erotic way to start an evening!

This is the oldest condom in existence (circa 1640) made from pig intestine.

The 1800's saw the mass manufacturing of condoms and the revolutionary discovery of ......Vulcanised RUBBER (thanks Goodyear). Vulcanisation makes rubber stretchy, some comfort to the big boys. In 1844 Goodyear and Hancock (!) began to mass-produce them.

This is a reusable, vulcanised rubber condom. Very durable, but so thick the wearer would be asking "is it in yet?"

1900's Latex condoms which were thinner, more durable and more pleasant, began to be manufactured and by the 1930's were being produced by the millions daily. They were invented in the 1800's.

Durex produced the first lubricated condoms in the 1950's.

1992 The female condom is made available in Europe.

1999 The South African government staples information leaflets to condoms (thereby rendering them useless) as part of an anti-AIDS campaign.

From there, humans have done their utmost to improve the quality of the experience:

Tiger Condoms...........

Star Wars condoms............

Who doesn't want a little giraffe type novelty near their bits?

So boys, there's more reason than ever to bag it up and take it away with you. After all, it could be worse:

Kitten of Discord: The Day The Condom Broke

2011-11-25T01:50:00.000-08:00

Lame jokes and bad taste show why sometimes corporates shouldn't have Twitter accounts. Controversy. Feminism aside, this is an interesting example of brandfail.

Kitten of Discord: The Day The Condom Broke: I'm sure as hell not a feminazi. In fact, I find them almost as annoying as PETA. So when I saw that the feminists were raging against @Dure...

#friday foto 25.11.2011

2011-11-24T22:17:00.000-08:00

This week's theme? CENSORED.

Judge: @pokemon_soup

@brigeebri's No outside racism

@dagggers Scope

@Forteeseven's The Time Is Naai

@spillly's Greenside Notice Board

@DarkBarman's "Shh me where it hurts most"

@cameronpluck's It's Classified

@nixdodd's Censored reading

Short story, getting longer

2011-11-23T02:27:00.001-08:00

Chapter 1

I crunched a dessicated songololo, bleached in the dusty sun; then traced swirls and lines in the dusty side of the hearse, and tried to wipe them away when I realised I had spelt out her name. The adults wended their way towards the vehicles, heads inclined towards each other in conference. I watched, waited for the cortege to re-assemble itself, the red ants climbing above my socks and biting without rancour. Waiting for the hushed voices to stop and the slow procession to return to cups of tea and news on the wireless, watching the disintegration of the village.

The police captain, out of uniform, eyeing the congregation, and walking a step aside, as if drilling an errant line of cadets that wouldn’t step in time. He’d started asking questions the day it happened, and hadn’t stopped, even when offers of tea and coffee had stopped and everyone had begun to realise they didn’t really want the surface to be scratched.

The cracked earth had taken three days to split. We drove past watching the red pile of red soil grow as the pick axes worked. Every sentence felt punctuated by the sound of the pick axes as the village shamefacedly carried on its arbitrary daily drudgery. The pile of koffie klippe and empty bottles that held drink o pop became a monument to the sweaty forms that fought the barren earth.

They dug a full sized hole for so small a form, and after, the grave diggers would return to their homes where sunlight green soap in plastic basins couldn’t quite wash away the loss we all were dealt that week.

And there I stood, with sweat meandering down the small of my back, as the buzzing drone of muted mourning continued to wash in waves around the hearse, and men sheepishly lit cigarettes and smoked them with cupped hands. They hid the embers, smoked furtively, as if the coal-glow would cause a sniper to see them and shoot them, except they weren’t on the border anymore, and the war was over for them, for everyone.

A young mother rubbed her stomach absentmindedly throughout the service, as if to comfort the almost-life, to shield the swimming whale-shaped mass from the sorrow of the day. She kept on looking about her, searching for a reassuring glance, some affirmation, but no one caught her eye.

The winch stopped working as the coffin whined its way down into the recent recess. The funeral director let his mask slip as he swore and kicked at the groaning machine, then manually began to negotiate the little coffin’s decent into the ground. It jerked and juddered and wobbled precariously, as her mother wailed and an oblivious wagtail bobbed about the feet of the mourners.

In turn, the sorry line of locals threw clods of earth into the hole, I threw mine extra hard, as if I could inflict some pain in spiteful retaliation for the lives that now lay shattered. We knew that the director would be down the hole, retrieving the gilt handles for use when the next funeral. We knew he did it. We knew he drank the profits and sang to show tunes as he worked his magic with rouge and powder. This was a small town after all.

The cortege set off past pristine goats, bone-white against the barren hills and barb-wire fences with wool snagged in the strands. The trucks and tannies with their solemn faces beneath hats that bounced in sync with the bumps and corrugations of the dirt roads as their stone-faced husbands drove.

Chapter 2

Lace doilies to keep the flies out. Little beads in dainty dots around the edges of milk-jug covers crocheted and sold at fetes. The yellow sunlight streaming into rooms musty from carefully forbidden use. The shoes, polished, now with a patina of red dust over the patent. Creased gray suit pants and stockings, knee high, beginning to stretch and pucker around the knees. An onslaught of varicose veins here and there and the smell of pipe smoke from somewhere outside. The tick of a clock that wasn’t told that, at least for now, it should stop.

In the kitchen and distant confines of the other side, a maid hums a hymn before being crudely remonstrated by the harried lady of the house, who flits about with hot water and extra cake. A family portrait above the piano- a stilted wedding day picture of a posy placed between the observer and the bride’s bloom.

His moustache droops, with yellowing residue around the lips, he licks his bottom lip, a flick of the tongue, as if to dislodge an errant speck of tobacco. He is being cross-examined by the dominee, who is earnestly asking about Church on Sunday, and prayers on Tuesday. He is offering up his personal saviour to this man, who shifts his weight from leg to leg, and whose eyes are rheumy, his skin too sizes too big and nut brown. The brawny neck and other useless bovine remnants of a rugby career are now abstracted by the filigree sea of oddments his wife has placed in her inner sanctum. He looks out the window from time to time, towards the static windmill and the sightless sky.

The portraits down the passage, a lithe brown child, an aryan archetype, hair scraped back and restrained in a bun. Pink leotard, intent expression as the subject performs an arabesque. The other children in the background insignificant in comparison with the perfection of opportunity.

In the next, a gap toothed smile and certificate held. The subject placed before a flamboyant bougainvillea, the photographer, no doubt as proud of the floral achievements as those of the small figure in the foreground. More trophies and awards adorn the polished surfaces, bronzed booties and oddments made in pottery classes. A vibrantly painted and varnished rock, with googly eyes and a crooked smile.

The horror of the shrouded room, the sightless kewpie dolls and barbies. The four postered bed and the rosettes and accolades. The discarded school shoes, still end on end as if impatient feet had just pressed a toe against a heel and slipped them off. The hand drawn ponies and butterflies on the cupboard door, stickers from chocolate milk and easter eggs stuck along the pine desk. I lingered longer than I should have, leaning against the doorway, until the dark-ringed eyes of her mourning mother were upon me and she was slowly closing the door. She gripped my elbow and steered me towards the toilet, with its cheerful biblical phrase in applique and the scent of pot-pourri. Her fingers dug into me, claw like.

How could I piss? It felt as if ice had gripped my elbow, and I finally crumpled to the floor and, leaning against the door, wept, biting my fist until my teeth left whitened indentations on my knuckles and I couldn’t recognise the sounds my throat made anymore.

Chapter 3

I went back there. The muddy bank was churned and police forensic tape still lay in tatters in the acacia trees. She was found, still floating in the amber pool, below the tyre swing we used to use to swing across the murky water and leap off into the water.

I still remember feeling her skin against mine as she swam and thrashed during Marco Polo and tag, the dew-drops of water against gooseflesh as we lay on the broad warm rocks and sun dried before walking home with squelching shoes and mud between our toes. You’d find algae in your hair at bath time and sometimes leeches. I pulled one off once and left it on the basin in the bathroom. By the time I remembered it was there it had shrivelled to a slender line of fibre and I almost felt sorry for killing it.

That time, she hadn’t thrashed and squirmed to get out of my reach, she hadn’t laughed and somersaulted and pushed off in her plimsolls. She was wearing a white shift, later identified as her night gown, the mud had made it rust-red along the hem and it had been infused with tannin from the pool.

She lay face down and at first I though she was trying to see how long she could hold her breath, she did that. She’d curl herself up into a little ball and crouch, eyes clenched shut and cheeks chipmunk-puffed in rebellion against the urge to breath. She’d stay down for ages, hiding in the water and surfacing to take a gasping breath before descending into the cold water once more. We’d wear tekkies to protect against the sharp rocks and all you’d see was a flash of tekkie as her feet would break the surface with a rowdy splash.

We’d stay down there, in the water until our fingers’ flesh would wrinkle and go pale. Then, saunter home as fellow conspirators, our secret pact hidden in the pool. She’d never tell me her secrets, but sometimes I thought she wanted to. Everything looked ethereal under the rusty water, I’d watch my hands and the pale gold of her skin as she slipped through the water, a nymph.

When the water subsided, and the farmers began to slaughter their livestock, to conserve their grazing, we found it. It had solemn, organic shaped headlights, and a rounded form, supine and embedded in the mud. We sat in silent reverie when we eventually climbed out. We stared at each other, smiling. An ancient car in the depths of our pool, all algaed and rusted, but still an elegant old lady, with sweeping curves and crumbling leather.

Again and again, we hauled huge gasps of air, until our throats stung, and we explored, finding strange mementos of the vehicle’s erstwhile occupants. A lipstick, still dry inside its case, a violent red, that clashed with the bleached rock we used it to write our names on. An owner’s log, the leather case still intact, but the pages a sodden mush.

She made up stories about the beautiful woman who sat in the passenger’s seat, and travelled beside her handsome beau between large cities and exciting trysts. He held a respectable job, in a bank perhaps, and wore a hat, which he would remove when in the presence of ladies. She imagined a universe around that car, that didn’t resemble our small orbit of home, school and the amber pool at all.

It was her idea to try and get into the boot, to see what might be contained therein. She felt that there would be a discarded picnic basket, a suitcase, a cache of love letters or a bank robber’s cache. We tried to pry it open, to beat the lock with rocks, imagining the treasure. And still, we mentioned nothing to the adults, who were so intent on counting days by staring at the cloudless skies.

It was her idea to go in via the back seat. Before we could, everything changed.

That day, I dove as she didn’t move, and felt the horror of her water roughed skin, the clammy coldness. I screamed and trod water, going under and gurgling as I simultaneously tried to cry for help and tow her body to the shore. She wasn’t there. There was no trace of her left in that body. The colour was gone- the sun departed.

The route I took to school was never the shortest nor the most direct. I would pass my favourite haunts as if to masochistically remind myself of all the pleasures life had to offer outside the confines of the crowded, one room fits all, classroom. One of the paths led along the top of the quarry where our pool lay and that morning, as I desultorily threw rocks and kicked at tree stumps, I looked down and saw her floating, supine, highlighted by the sun against the dark, ruddy backdrop of the deep water.

The rest has already been recounted and I eventually left her side to run in sodden school clothes for help, or at least an adult to take over a situation I didn’t even want to feel existed. They’d even tried to resuscitate her, at someones hysterical insistence. The weary would-be rescuer eventually just looked up with red-rimmed eyes and shook his head.

Eventually, the mortuary bakkie turned up. No one thought to send me away. I became invisible, still holding her hand as all the pounding and pummeling and false hoping had carried on. Someone threw a jacket over her face, but left me holding her hand. I felt myself stroking it as if to comfort her.

Chapter 4

The first examination of the body revealed no mark. The body a recently abandoned bed. Her fingers with short, pale nails revealed no sign of struggling, no sign of scratching or scraping at an assailant. The fingers bent slightly, palms up on the gurney. The life lines lying, long. No blood left to colour the palms and no pulse to gently course along the wrist.

Elfin, waif-like, with knotted locks and forbidden curls and ringlets contaminated by pond weed and scum, lips purpled and half open. Upturned, ski-jump nose with freckles across the bridge. She lay, as if a ready host whose guest has departed suddenly.

Her night dress had brushed the ruddy mud and taken on its qualities, ochre and stained from sweeping across irregular ground. She walked. Her soles were hard and calloused as all the children’s were in the village from running and jumping and shunning shoes as accomplices of the constricting school system.

She had walked. She had risen and walked from her home to the amber pool. She was not carried, then cast into it. This abomination had, in part had a willing, if unwitting accomplice in its victim. Her arms had bleached blonde hair from hours in the afternoon sun and bore no trace of bruises or restraint. She had scrapes and grazes on her knees, half-healed from some altercation with a tree, or playground surface when playing hopscotch. In short, she was a child, with wounds associated with fresh air, exercise and boisterous companionship.

The little legs, the pink panties with some cartoon princess emblazoned on them. One size too small, frayed elastic and a name written in childish script in indelible ink. Sobbing coroner with shaking hands feeling the travesty of invading the fragile space beyond the sternum, weighing a heart that unwillingly halted its stolid progress through life too soon. The retching assistant, as the incision grows, asking why?

Each organ carefully weighed and examined for any sign of trauma or intrusion, the sodden lungs, with angry blood assaulted by unwelcome water. Finally a cause of death and a cursory examination of the remaining organs, a mere formality after the lungs reveal their complicity in the heart’s demise.

The foetus in the stainless steel kidney dish. The shock of a secret excised from an unwilling witness to some unmentionable tragedy.

The coroner’s fingers slipped as he dialled the police station, he stood, stuttering into the outmoded mouthpiece “Byleveld, kom”, all he could utter before disposing of his lunch in the drain.

Byleveld and the coroner stared in silence at the dish. It wasn’t hard to see its contents. They had both counted back, remembering the radiant child at the ballet recital, the athletics days and the crisp cotton school uniforms and dutifully polished shoes.

And now, the routine, to comfort the troubled officials, photocopied charts. Vital signs reduced to metrics on blank sheets. The recording of outrage and disbelief in Latin. As if the use of alien, old words could somehow distance the author from the tragedies being dutifully recorded.

They sat side by side in silence on the back stoop of the medico-legal mortuary. As each man made to speak, the other flinched. The phone rang, but neither acknowledged the intrusion on their reverie.

Chapter five

And in this saddened reverie, she reverted to the reassuring, numbness of routine. Hand washing linen, sweeping until her back and arms ached. Making bread and performing the intricate niceties that governed small town life.

But, this didn’t work, she’d find herself staring at the clock as the radio reminded her that other people’s lives hadn’t stopped. She would find herself standing, catatonic in a sea of soap suds as the sink overflowed and dainty crockery began to float and clink together.

She remembered every lapse in parenting, every harsh word and blow that now could not be undone through mother-love. No chance now for recompence for every error. She had her meagre accoutrement of maternal memories as solace for a short lifetime of silence and blind eyes.

Now as the cups of tea grew cold and cutlery clinked as punctuation for stilted silence, she grew weary of the extra care that people took around her.

He didn’t scold or touch. There was no violence now. The house was silent save Saturday radio rugby broadcasts and the phone that was left to ring. She almost provoked him, to see if there would be a reaction, some sign of life.

Instead they performed the rote-learned manuevres of the loveless marriage. A quadrille, without a solo. Their epicentre was gone. She attacked the garden with renewed fervour, took pleasure in the sun scorching the back of her neck and the smell of moist soil.

Her grief was sealed in a plastic dome, her misery a free display for the village.

He took her, would begin with a cursory exploration of her breasts through her cotton nightdress, then his calloused hands would roughly slide themselves between her thighs and try to coax out any moistness. The light remained off, which made it easier as she didn’t have to arrange her face into a pleasant configuration.

He would take his time, a vast, sweaty hairy mass upon her chest, above the void where her child had grown. He would take his time while she lay and thought about the sinking grave and the never fading false plastic flowers that lay above her loss.

He didn’t shed a tear, but retreated to his workshop and dismantled his tractor. He laid out its innards, carefully numbering and labelling every part and then lovingly cleaning and re-boring them.

Chapter Six

The summer was spent swimming, swinging from the frayed rope hanging over the water and leaping, frog like into the tepid, tannin stained water. The freedom was constrained only by the dogged ascent and descent of the sun, baking hot, even early in the morning. The mud at the water’s edge cracked and bleached pale, with pond weed drying out under the harsh sun and the water level dropping by the day.

At water troughs across the veld and kraals, the cattle and sheep would quench their thirst, each herd moving in voiceless order, their social structure governed by the unspoken rules of their kind. The buck were different, they would steal to the edge of the pool in the cool of the dawn, leaving their dainty spoor in the clay.

I froze when she touched me, began to kiss me, without any guile or hesitation. It defiled the hours of daydreaming, where I pictured her as my bride, a mother, my lady in the passenger seat. It scared me how deftly her tongue found my mouth and stirred my emerging sexuality. I stood up and ran home, ran home and methodically arranged my lego bricks and characters until I realised that I was still shivering in my swimming trunks.

Even the reassuring smell of bedclothes, the coarse sensation of flannel on skin and the familiar shadows in my room didn’t ease the disquiet. While I was still savouring the feel of her skin on mine as we roughhoused in the water, and trying to summon up the courage to hold her hand, she had gone, in that mysterious way women do, to knowing all the secrets of the universe.

And if I hadn’t run? We would have kissed, in a world where I wasn’t the innocent. It would have been like the bioscopes, I would have casually pressed her against me and she would have gazed at me in rapture. The two who shared the submerged car would have done it, they would have kissed and cuddled. He wouldn’t have run away, as if assaulted, he would have earned the adulation of his lady friend. I didn’t know what lay beneath the layers of her clothes, I had seen her breasts swell and grown, but new nothing of the lines and curves that lay beneath the mysterious garments these women wore.

Sneaking into my mother’s lingerie had yielded no useful information. Women appeared to favour lace and frivolity, confections in lace and silk lay whispering secrets to each other, smelling of lavender.

Picturing kissing her, in the twilight, I fell asleep, resolving to rectify the matter immediately, manfully. I didn’t have a hat, or smoke cigarettes, or drive a car, or shoot a gun, but I assumed that I could fake a swagger, a bravado to win her over and avert the perceptions of cowardice she must now hold.

But by then, she was gone.

Black Tuesday

2011-11-21T23:38:00.000-08:00

A rogues' gallery of avatars in response to the Protection of State Information Bill, set to be passed by Parliament today.

#fridayfoto 18.11.2011

2011-11-17T21:53:00.000-08:00

The theme for this week is Voyeuristic Intention.

Fabulous prize this week *promise*

email me your pic to nixdodd@gmail.com or post it to Twitter, mentioning @nixdodd

@thisjen Untitled

@capt_pickles

@pokemon_soup

@nixdodd

@willis_w

@darkbarman

@dagggers

@slabss

most annoying gif ever

2011-11-15T22:38:00.000-08:00

Diaries of a white mother raising a black baby: String. Poo. Bath. Tail. F****. Microphone. Batter...

2011-11-15T01:16:00.000-08:00

Diaries of a white mother raising a black baby: String. Poo. Bath. Tail. F****. Microphone. Batter...: String. Poo. Bath. Tail. F****. Microphone. Batteries. All random words. Until they're put into sentences, either by a toddler or by you, an...

Friday Foto 11/11/11

2011-11-10T04:20:00.000-08:00

@brigeebri's dreamcatcher

@nivek_images self-portrait in #smh

@t1g3r0

@dagggers

@Spillly's Macro of .....?

@nixdodd's Hanging

@darkbarman's Macrome

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Foto Friday

2011-11-03T22:25:00.000-07:00

Foto Friday Challenge:

Take a photo, the theme?

GREAT SOUTH AFRICAN FEAT

Post the pic to Twitter.

Winner gets a prize. The prize is a surprise. I will also post the pics here.

First entrant

@pokemon_soup

@darkbarman

@Chris_Ie_Beu

@tig3r0's stopping to smell the flowers

My entry

TAP

2011-10-07T07:30:00.001-07:00

Chapter 1
I crunched a dessicated songololo, bleached in the dusty sun; then traced swirls and lines in the dusty side of the hearse, and tried to wipe them away when I realised I had spelt out her name. The adults wended their way towards the vehicles, heads inclined towards each other in conference. I watched, waited for the cortege to re-assemble itself, the red ants climbing above my socks and biting without rancour. Waiting for the hushed voices to stop and the slow procession to return to cups of tea and news on the wireless, watching the disintegration of the village.

The police captain, out of uniform, eyeing the congregation, and walking a step aside, as if drilling an errant line of cadets that wouldn’t step in time. He’d started asking questions the day it happened, and hadn’t stopped, even when offers of tea and coffee had stopped and everyone had begun to realise they didn’t really want the surface to be scratched.

The cracked earth had taken three days to split. We drove past watching the red pile of red soil grow as the pick axes worked. Every sentence felt punctuated by the sound of the pick axes as the village shamefacedly carried on its arbitrary daily drudgery. The pile of koffie klippe and empty bottles that held drink o pop became a monument to the sweaty forms that fought the barren earth.

They dug a full sized hole for so small a form, and after, the grave diggers would return to their homes where sunlight green soap in plastic basins couldn’t quite wash away the loss we all were dealt that week.

And there I stood, with sweat meandering down the small of my back, as the buzzing drone of muted mourning continued to wash in waves around the hearse, and men sheepishly lit cigarettes and smoked them with cupped hands. They hid the embers, smoked furtively, as if the coal-glow would cause a sniper to see them and shoot them, except they weren’t on the border anymore, and the war was over for them, for everyone.

A young mother rubbed her stomach absentmindedly throughout the service, as if to comfort the almost-life, to shield the swimming whale-shaped mass from the sorrow of the day. She kept on looking about her, searching for a reassuring glance, some affirmation, but no one caught her eye.

The winch stopped working as the coffin whined its way down into the recent recess. The funeral director let his mask slip as he swore and kicked at the groaning machine, then manually began to negotiate the little coffin’s decent into the ground. It jerked and juddered and wobbled precariously, as her mother wailed and an oblivious wagtail bobbed about the feet of the mourners.

In turn, the sorry line of locals threw clods of earth into the hole, I threw mine extra hard, as if I could inflict some pain in spiteful retaliation for the lives that now lay shattered. We knew that the director would be down the hole, retrieving the gilt handles for use when the next funeral. We knew he did it. We knew he drank the profits and sang to show tunes as he worked his magic with rouge and powder. This was a small town after all.

The cortege set off past pristine goats, bone-white against the barren hills and barb-wire fences with wool snagged in the strands. The trucks and tannies with their solemn faces beneath hats that bounced in sync with the bumps and corrugations of the dirt roads as their stone-faced husbands drove.

Chapter 2
Lace doilies to keep the flies out. Little beads in dainty dots around the edges of milk-jug covers crocheted and sold at fetes. The yellow sunlight streaming into rooms musty from carefully forbidden use. The shoes, polished, now with a patina of red dust over the patent. Creased gray suit pants and stockings, knee high, beginning to flap around the knees. A cacophony of varicose veins here and there and the smell of pipe smoke from somewhere outside. The tick of a clock that wasn’t told that, at least for now, it should stop.

In the kitchen and distant confines of the other side, a maid hums a hymn before being crudely remonstrated by the harried lady of the house, who flits about with hot water and extra cake. A family portrait above the piano- a stilted wedding day picture of a posy placed between the observer and the bride’s bloom.

His moustache droops, with yellowing residue around the lips, he licks his bottom lip, a flick of the tongue, as if to dislodge an errant speck of tobacco. He is being cross-examined by the dominee, who is earnestly asking about Church on Sunday, and prayers on Tuesday. He is offering up his personal saviour to this man, who shifts his weight from leg to leg, and whose eyes are rheumy, his skin too sizes too big and nut brown. The brawny neck and other useless bovine remnants of a rugby career are now abstract in the filigree sea of oddments his wife has placed in her inner sanctum. He looks out the window from time to time, towards the static windmill and the sightless sky.

The portraits down the passage, a lithe brown child, an aryan archetype, hair scraped back and restrained in a bun. Pink leotard, intent expression as the subject performs an arabesque. The other children in the background insignificant in comparison with the perfection of opportunity.

In the next, a gap toothed smile and certificate held. The subject placed before a flamboyant bougainvillea, the photographer, no doubt as proud of the floral achievements as those of the small figure in the foreground.

The horror of the shrouded room, the sightless kewpie dolls and barbies. The four postered bed and the rosettes and accolades. The discarded school shoes, still end on end as if impatient feet had just pressed a toe against a heel and slipped them off. The hand drawn ponies and butterflies on the cupboard door, stickers from chocolate milk and easter eggs stuck along the pine desk. I lingered longer than I should have, leaning against the doorway, until the dark-ringed eyes of the mourning mother were upon me and she was slowly closing the door. She gripped my elbow and steered me towards the toilet, with its cheerful biblical phrase in applique and the scent of pot-pourri.

How could I piss? It felt as if ice had gripped my elbow, and I finally crumpled to the floor and, leaning against the door, wept, biting my fist until my teeth left whitened indentations on my knuckles and I couldn’t recognise the sounds my throat made anymore.

Chapter 3
I went back there. The muddy bank was churned and police forensic tape still lay in tatters in the acacia trees. She’d been there for a day when she was found, still floating in the amber pool, below the tyre swing we used to use to swing across the murky water and leap off into the water.

I still remember feeling her skin against mine as she swam and thrashed during Marco Polo and tag, the dew-drops of water against gooseflesh as we lay on the broad warm rocks and sun dried before walking home with squelching shoes and mud between our toes. You’d find algae in your hair at bath time and sometimes leeches. I pulled one off once and left it on the basin in the bathroom. By the time I remembered it was there it had shrivelled to a slender line of fibre and I almost felt sorry for killing it.

That time, she hadn’t thrashed and squirmed to get out of my reach, she hadn’t laughed and somersaulted and pushed off in her plimsolls. She was wearing a white shift, later identified as her night gown, the mud had made it rust-red along the hem and it had been infused with tannin from the pool.

She lay face down and at first I though she was trying to see how long she could hold her breath, she did that. She’d curl herself up into a little ball and crouch, eyes clenched shut and cheeks chipmunk-puffed in rebellion against the urge to breath. She’d stay down for ages, hiding in the water and surfacing to take a gasping breath before descending into the cold water once more. We’d wear tekkies to protect against the sharp rocks and all you’d see was a flash of tekkie as her feet would break the surface with a rowdy splash.

We’d stay down there, in the water until our fingers’ flesh would wrinkle and go pale. Then, saunter home as fellow conspirators, our secret pact hidden in the pool. She’d never tell me her secrets, but sometimes I thought she wanted to.

That day, I dove as she didn’t move, and felt the horror of her water roughed skin, the clammy coldness. I screamed and trod water, going under and gurgling as I simultaneously tried to cry for help and tow her body to the shore. She wasn’t there. There was no trace of her left in that body. The colour was gone- the sun departed.

Chapter 4

The first examination of the body revealed no mark. The body a recently abandoned bed. Her fingers with short, pale nails revealed no sign of struggling, no sign of scratching or scraping at an assailant. The fingers bent slightly, palms up on the gurney. The life lines lying, long. No blood left to colour the palms and no pulse to gently course along the wrist.

Elfin, waif-like, with knotted locks and forbidden curls and ringlets contaminated by pond weed and scum, lips purpled and half open. Upturned, ski-jump nose with freckles across the bridge. She lay, as if a ready host whose guest has departed suddenly.

Her night dress had brushed the ruddy mud and taken on its qualities, ochre and stained from sweeping across irregular ground. She walked. Her soles were hard and calloused as all the children’s were in the village from running and jumping and shunning shoes as accomplices of the constricting school system.

She had walked. She had risen and walked from her home to the amber pool. She was not carried, then cast into it. This abomination had, in part had a willing, if unwitting accomplice in its victim. Her arms had bleached blonde hair from hours in the afternoon sun and bore no trace of bruises or restraint. She had scrapes and grazes on her knees, half-healed from some altercation with a tree, or playground surface when playing hopscotch. In short, she was a child, with wounds associated with fresh air, exercise and boisterous companionship.

The little legs, the pink panties with some cartoon princess emblazoned on them. One size too small, frayed elastic and a name written in childish script in indelible ink. Sobbing coroner with shaking hands feeling the travesty of invading the fragile space beyond the sternum, weighing a heart that unwillingly halted its stolid progress through life too soon. The retching assistant, as the incision grows, asking why?

Each organ carefully weighed and examined for any sign of trauma or intrusion, the sodden lungs, with angry blood assaulted by unwelcome water. Finally a cause of death and a cursory examination of the remaining organs, a mere formality after the lungs reveal their complicity in the heart’s demise.

The foetus in the stainless steel kidney dish. The shock of a secret excised from an unwilling witness to some unmentionable tragedy.

The coroner’s fingers slipped as he dialled the police station, he stood, stuttering into the outmoded mouthpiece “Byleveld, kom”, all he could utter before disposing of his lunch in the drain.

Byleveld and the coroner stared in silence at the dish. It wasn’t hard to see its contents. They had both counted back, remembering the radiant child at the ballet recital, the athletics days and the crisp cotton school uniforms and dutifully polished shoes.

And now, the routine, to comfort the troubled officials, photocopied charts. Vital signs reduced to metrics on blank sheets. The recording of outrage and disbelief in Latin. As if the use of alien, old words could somehow distance the author from the tragedies being dutifully recorded.

They sat side by side in silence on the back stoop of the medico-legal mortuary. As each man made to speak, the other flinched. The phone rang, but neither acknowledged the intrusion on their reverie.

The route I took to school was never the shortest nor the most direct. I would pass my favourite haunts as if to masochistically remind myself of all the pleasures life had to offer outside the confines of the crowded, one room fits all, classroom. One of the paths led along the top of the quarry where we swam and that morning, as I desultorily threw rocks and kicked at tree stumps, I looked down and saw her floating, highlighted by the sun against the dark, ruddy backdrop of the deep water.

The rest has already been recounted and I eventually left her side to run in sodden school clothes for help, or at least an adult to take over a situation I didn’t even want to feel existed. They’d even tried to resuscitate her, at someones hysterical insistence. The weary would-be rescuer eventually just looked up with red-rimmed eyes and shook his head.

Eventually, the mortuary bakkie turned up. No one thought to send me away. I became invisible, still holding her hand as all the pounding and pummeling and false hoping had carried on. Someone threw a jacket over her face, but left me holding her hand. I felt myself stroking it as if to comfort her.

The Amber Pool

2011-10-02T02:45:00.001-07:00

Tracing swirls and lines in the dusty side of the hearse, I waited for the cortege to assemble itself, the red ants climbing above my socks and biting without rancour. Waiting for the hushed voices to stop and the slow procession to return to cups of tea and news on the wireless, watching the disintegration of a village.

The cracked earth had taken three days to split. Every day the hole had been hewn out the obstinate earth. The koffie klip and empty bottles that held drink o pop became a monument to the sweaty forms that fought the barren earth.

They dug a full sized hole for so small a form, and after, would return to their homes where sunlight green soap in plastic basins couldn’t quite wash away the loss we all were dealt that week.

And there I stood, with sweat meandering down the small of my back, as the buzzing drone of muted mourning continued to wash in waves around the hearse. The winch stopped working as the coffin whined its way down into the recent recess. The funeral director let his mask slip as he swore and kicked at the groaning machine, then manually began to negotiate the little coffin’s decent into the ground. It jerked and juddered and wobbled precariously, as her mother wailed and an oblivious wagtail bobbed about the feet of the mourners.

Lace doilies to keep the flies out. Little beads in dainty dots around the edges of milk-jug covers crocheted and sold at fetes. The yellow sunlight streaming into rooms musty from carefully forbidden use. The shoes, polished, now with a patina of red dust over the patent. Creased gray suit pants and stockings, knee high, beginning to flap around the knees. A cacophony of varicose veins here and there and the smell of pipe smoke from somewhere outside. The tick of a clock that wasn’t told that, at least for now, it should stop.

In the kitchen and distant confines of the other side, a maid hums a hymn before being crudely remonstrated by the harried lady of the house, who flits about with hot water and extra cake. A family portrait above the piano- a stilted wedding day picture of a posy placed between the observer and the bride’s bloom.

His moustache droops, with yellowing residue around the lips, he licks his bottom lip, a flick of the tongue, as if to dislodge an errant speck of tobacco. He is being cross-examined by the dominee, who is earnestly asking about Church on Sunday, and prayers on Tuesday. He is offering up his personal saviour to this man, who shifts his weight from leg to leg, and whose eyes are rheumy, his skin too sizes too big and nut brown. The brawny neck and other useless bovine remnants of a rugby career are now abstract in the filigree sea of oddments his wife has placed in her inner sanctum. He looks out the window from time to time, towards the static windmill and the sightless sky.

The portraits down the passage, a lithe brown child, an aryan archetype, hair scraped back and restrained in a bun. Pink leotard, intent expression as the subject performs an arabesque. The other children in the background insignificant in comparison with the perfection of opportunity.

In the next, a gap toothed smile and certificate held. The subject placed before a flamboyant bougainvillea, the photographer, no doubt as proud of the floral achievements as those of the small figure in the foreground.

2011-09-12T01:39:00.000-07:00

When you get to the point where you realise you're an utterly useless, waste of space, an oxygen thief, irrelevant, then it's an existential rock bottom. You can live, confronted every day by the fact that the miracle of life has been wasted on your mitochondria, or you can choose to serve, to aspire to atone for occupying space that could be left unfilled, unsullied by humanity.

This vast tract of meaningless social fronting. This wearying quadrille of marriages, births and meaningless celebrations of meaningless people. No immortality in the flat screened voids, the empty methods of fornication and flattery with one eye cast on the mirror.

Death is so selfish, but so is this self-gratifying farce. The choice- to leave a messy corpse; an angry apology; a body that soils itself to incrementally increase the shame of suicide through excreta and lolling heads or to live in silent servitude. Slowly and systematically ameliorating man's wretched path through virgin lands where butterflies know nothing of the beauty on their backs.

To live is selfish but to toil is true. We blight this landscape, us special things, us interlopers to Eden. We must till and serve. We must rebuild what has been looted by the I's. Every day we strive, in compensation for the shocking miracle of life.

Biko Interview... stance on non-violent resistance.

2011-09-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

Biko TV Interview

2011-09-11T23:52:00.000-07:00

What would Biko have thought about Affirmative Action? Malema? Zuma?

Biko- Peter Gabriel

2011-09-11T23:23:00.001-07:00

Biko's Last Interview

2011-09-11T22:52:00.000-07:00

Black Consciousness

2011-09-11T13:51:00.000-07:00

Biko’s persecution and subsequent death was a direct result of his vocal and wholehearted commitment to Black Consciousness. In South Africa, this philosophy emerged in the early seventies and aimed to unite all blacks in the fight against white supremacy (Bernstein, 1978, p11).

The Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) evolved from the organisations that were banned in 1960 after the Sharpeville massacre. The BCM can trace its origins to both the African National Congress (ANC) and the Pan African Congress (PAC). This was a period where public condemnation of apartheid was met with overt and covert action by the government and security police (Bernstein, 1978, p11).

As the old movements (the ANC and PAC) were forced underground, the country’s dispossessed and oppressed sought a new movement to voice their fears and concerns (Bernstein, 1978, p11). This is where Biko came to the fore as the advocate of the will of the people.

Bernstein (1978, p12) argues that Black Consciousness was a reaction to the oppression of the time. Its primary aim was to reduce the prevalence of feelings of black inferiority and replace them with feelings of pride.

The BCM was an overt movement as much as possible and tried to operate within the South African laws. Its major focus was on community upliftment projects with a heavy emphasis on self-help schemes (Bernstein, 1978, p14). This approach of upliftment eventually shifted to one which was more militant.

Biko wanted to undo the psychological subjugation of Black South Africans as he asserted that: “Man you are okay as you are” (Biko, 1978, p104). When an individual chose to be described as black, it was, according to Biko (1978, p48) the first step towards emancipation. Any struggle against racism had to start with the positive affirmation of ones own identity.

Black consciousness, as conceptualised by Biko (1978, p51), aimed to produce Blacks who did not merely view themselves as appendages of white society but as sovereign, valid members of society. Biko felt that part of Black Consciousness was the elimination of self-oppression through feelings of inferiority (Bernstein, 1978, p13).

The implications of Black consciousness to Black society were that the false images of Blacks could be corrected in terms of culture, education, religion and economics (Biko, 1978, p51). These were the areas, where white colonisation had led to distorted self-image in the black community. Biko argued that educating people in their second language and also forcing people to view themselves as heathen, their cultures as substandard and marginalising people economically would be detrimental. Biko felt that this would lead to them begin to believe the myths and lies of racism- that they were unworthy of the rights denied them.

Biko was adamant that “the greatest weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed” (Biko, 1978, p68). Biko wanted Black Consciousness to make the Black man see himself as a being “entire in himself and not as an extension of a broom”. It is an issue of manhood and pride, making Blacks feel complete in themselves (Biko, 1978, p92). Biko realised that South Africa needed a new psychological climate for liberation to occur (Kotton, 2002, p16).

Black people-real black people are those who can manage to hold their heads high in defiance rather that willingly surrender their souls to the white man

Biko, 1978, p49

Biko on racism

2011-09-11T13:47:00.000-07:00

Racism, from Biko’s perspective is “discrimination by a group against another for the purposes of subjugation or maintaining subjugation” going on to say that “in other words, one cannot be a racist unless he has the power to subjugate” (Biko, 1978, p24). This was used as a justification of the exclusive nature of Black consciousness.

Biko asserts that racism is about exercising power over another group with the aim of controlling the group. He sees racism as a means of controlling others and argues that racism can only be committed by those who can control others. This is a questionable perspective in comparison with the psychological definition of racism which describes it as “a system of ideas and practices which categorises people on the basis of bodily features or skin colour” (Louw & Edwards, 1997, p767).

Biko asserted that the black culture was stripped of all credible heroes, and that the very term ‘black’ was associated with the sinister, the other, he pointed out that black was associated with ‘black markets’, ‘black magic’ and the ‘black sheep’ of the family (Biko, 1978, p104). The connotations associated with the word black thus contributed to the prevailing negative perceptions of blacks.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph, Biko felt that black culture had been stripped of all its heroes. One way colonialism effected the destruction of Black society was through the destruction of history, according to Biko (1978, p29).

Biko argued that “a people without a positive history is like a vehicle without an engine” and that without that positive history they would always live in the shadow of the more successful society (1978, p29).

Biko's Death

2011-09-11T13:44:00.000-07:00

The Black Consciousness Movement filled the void formed by the banning of the ANC and PAC. Security police were, at this time, prepared to quash apartheid by any means necessary including clandestine means. They were trained by American and Portuguese experts in the techniques necessary to suppress underground anti-apartheid activity (Bernstein, 1978, p11). Although the BCM was a movement based on introspection, not confrontation it was still focused upon by the security police. The BCM was simply described as a manifestation of pride in being black but, within the apartheid landscape pride in being black was not to be allowed (Bernstein, 1978, p14).

As mentioned in the previous section Biko was repeatedly arrested between 1975 and 1977, subsequent to his banning in 1973 (Kotton, 2002). Biko was barred from all political activities, but this did not stop him from continuing his political activities underground. He was also supposed to stay in the King William’s Town district, but he did not and ventured away from King William’s Town (Bernstein, 1978).

It was on one such evening of disregard for his banning orders that Biko was arrested whilst travelling home with Peter Jones. This was on the 18^th of August 1977 (Kotton, 2002).

Less than a month later (26 days later) Biko was dead (Bernstein, 1978, p98). In the period leading up to his death he was degraded and dehumanised. From 19^th August to the Sixth of September, Biko was kept in solitary confinement. Furthermore his clothes were removed and he was denied recourse to exercise. He did not have access to adequate food or even opportunities to wash himself.

Jones and Biko were arrested on their way home at a roadblock at 10:20pm just outside King William’s Town. They were arrested by Lieut Oosthuizen of the security police (SA History Online, 2007). They were then taken to Grahamstown initially and subsequently to Port Elizabeth into the custody of Col Goosen (Bernstein, 1978, p31).

The reason for Biko’s arrest was provided by Lieutenant Oosthuizen of the Grahamstown police in his affidavit presented at the inquest into Biko’s death. Lieutenant Oosthuizen claimed that he had received a tip-off about inflammatory pamphlets being distributed calling Blacks to arms (Bernstein, 1978). Oosthuizen claimed that he had discovered that Biko was en route to King William’s Town from Cape Town and came to suspect that Biko was involved in distributing the pamphlets. As a result of this tip-off and his suspicions about Biko’s involvement, Oosthuizen set up a roadblock at 8pm and later stopped a white station wagon.

Oosthuizen explained that the driver and passenger of the white station wagon were instructed to get out of the vehicle. The Lieutenant recounted that the driver and passenger were difficult to get to cooperate. The passenger in particular was difficult, questioning why he should have to get out of the vehicle. The passenger queried whether it was normal procedure or not to ask people to get out of vehicles at roadblocks (Bernstein, 1978). The driver was none other than Peter Jones and the passenger Biko. Oosthuizen took the two of them to the charge office in Grahamstown (SA History Online, 2007).

The Lieutenant then proceeded to question Biko at the charge office in Grahamstown. Questions were asked to ascertain why he was outside of the King William’s Town district considering that he was banned and confined to that district. Biko retorted that he could do what he liked. He laughed so hard, according to Oosthuizen, that he fell on a bench and broke it. No brochures were found in the car although this was the reason that Oosthuizen had used as a pretext for looking for Biko in the first instance (Bernstein, 1978).

Jones and Biko, according to Oosthuizen, refused to be searched. Biko purportedly grabbed at Oosthuizen’s hands. Biko was finally restrained and they managed to search him, conceded Oosthuizen. The commanding officer instructed Oosthuizen to take Biko and Jones to Port Elizabeth. On the 19^th August 1977 they were transported to Walmer, Port Elizabeth. Biko and Jones were held by the security police under section six of the terrorism act (SA History Online, 2007).

Biko was questioned by Col Pieter Goosen of the security police. Pieter Goosen was a man with a reputation for cruelty against prisoners. Goosen was described by a journalist of the time as a “wily and soft-spoken man” (Matyu, 2008).

Jones was beaten and interrogated, but was finally released from detention on the 18^th February 1979 (Kotton, p29, 2002). Biko, on the other hand, was never released. He was locked up, and kept naked and manacled for 20 days in the Walmer Police Station. Form the 18^th of August to the 6th of September 1977 he was not allowed out of his cell (Bernstein, 1978). As already mentioned he had no opportunities to exercise. Although food was offered, Biko ate little (SA History Online, 2007).

One of the warders, Sgt. Van Vuuren later testified that Biko never complained. Van Vuuren claimed that he got the impression that Biko did not want to speak. Van Vuuren fed Biko soup, magewu, bread, margarine, jam and coffee. Biko refused most of the food and did not ask for more food (Bernstein, 1978).

Biko’s arrest conditions made provision for him to retain his clothes, and to be afforded the right to exercise, but both of these rights were denied him (Bernstein, 1978).

During the inquest into Biko’s death one of the warders at Walmer Police Station, Sgt. Paul Janse van Vuuren was questioned as to why Biko was kept naked. Janse van Vuuren stated that it was at the behest of the head of Security Police, Port Elizabeth, Colonel Goosen. Major Snyman, another witness corroborated this assertion that he was kept naked at the request of Colonel Goosen (Bernstein, 1978). Snyman claimed that Biko was kept naked to prevent suicide, ostensibly to prevent him from hanging himself with strips of clothing. When questioned further Goosen himself claimed that the clothes had been taken away to prevent suicide attempts. Goosen claimed that anything with which prisoners could harm themselves was supposed to be taken away from them. Goosen claimed that, for male prisoners this also included clothing. Janse van Vuuren also alleged that it was Goosen who denied Biko the right to exercise. Another witness, Lieutenant Kuhn observed that Biko never complained. When examining Biko’s personality, it is the author’s observation that just because Biko did not complain, does not mean there was not something to complain about. Biko simply possessed a stubborn stoicism and it was borne out in his own form of resistance.

On the second of September a magistrate came to visit Biko in his cell (Bernstein, 1979). During this visit, Biko pointed out that he had not even been offered an opportunity to wash himself. He asked for the usual accoutrement for washing namely water, soap, a washcloth and a comb. Biko further questioned why he was not allowed to have his clothes. The magistrate did not respond (SA History Online, 2007). Somewhat contradictory to the reports by the police that Biko was refusing food was Biko’s request to be allowed to buy food and his complaint to the magistrate that he had to live on bread (Bernstein, 1978).

Biko was moved from the Walmer Prison to room 619 of the Sanlam Building on the sixth of September (Bernstein, 1978, p31). The reason given for the move was that it was for the purpose of interrogation. The police stayed with him for most of the day however, from six in the evening, he was left with the ‘night squad’, under the leadership of Lieut Wilken. Biko was handcuffed, naked and had one leg chained to a grille (SA History Online, 2007). Major Snyman of the security police claimed that Biko was kept in the Sanlam building instead of being returned to Walmer because of problems with information being leaked at the police cells. Snyman reported that he was concerned that his cleaning and catering staff would leak information to the outside world.

At six pm, after the interrogation on the first day, Major Snyman was relieved by Lieut Wilken and his night squad comprising three individuals. These men were known as the ‘night interrogators’. However, these men were, according to Snyman, just there to guard Biko while he rested, not interrogate Biko further. He firmly held that these three men were simply there to watch over Biko. During questioning Snyman contradicted himself, at first agreeing that the men were ‘night interrogators’, and then later denying it and trying to assert that they were simply watchmen (SA History Online, 2007).

Colonel Goosen reported that during the time Biko was interrogated Biko did not eat or drink. Biko also did not use the toilet. Despite this, Snyman explained that he did not think there was anything physically wrong with Biko. Snyman argued that Biko was very big and strong, and that he would not eat because he was stubborn and uncooperative (SA History Online, 2007). There were thus two separate threads of potential truth emerging. One premise was that Biko was being obstinate and showing resistance to his incarceration by being uncooperative and going on hunger strike. The other is that he already had suffered physical harm at the hands of his captors and was beginning to show signs of ill-health.

Major Harold Snyman testified that Biko was not interrogated between the 19^th of August and the sixth of September because the security police were collecting evidence through the interrogation of other key detainees. By the sixth the police felt that they were ready to commence (Bernstein, 1978). Biko was permitted to wear trousers and a short sleeved shirt for the interrogation.

Snyman testified that the interrogation began at ten thirty and ended at six pm. Biko was, according to Snyman, very aggressive and, to make him feel at ease they removed his handcuffs and was offered a chair to sit on. Snyman claimed that Biko was offered food, but that Biko refused to eat. He also noted that Biko did not use the bathroom during that interrogation period (Bernstein, 1978).

Biko was originally arrested, according to the security police, because of inflammatory pamphlets that were being distributed. These pamphlets were allegedly aimed at inciting riots in the townships surrounding Port Elizabeth. Snyman stated that Biko admitted that it was he who was responsible for the dissemination of these pamphlets (Bernstein, 1978). Biko’s admission to being responsible for the pamphlets allegedly occurred during interrogation.

Snyman recounted that he went off duty at six in the evening, Biko was allowed to rest until seven in the morning although he was kept in leg irons and handcuffs. These leg irons and handcuffs were kept on for two days (Bernstein, 1978, p53). Snyman decided that he would not send Biko back to Walmer because of his importance as a political prisoner. A further reason Snyman gave for keeping Biko there was because of his aggressive attitude.

At seven the next morning Major Harold Snyman arrived, heading a team of five interrogators (Bernstein, 1978). Snyman removed the leg irons and handcuffs and Biko was beaten, reportedly for refusing to stand when instructed to do so. These blows caused brain damage and Biko’s resultant death. During his inquest a medical specialist claimed that treatment following the beating could have prevented his death. The medical specialist also said that the point of no return was approximately six to eight hours after the blow was inflicted (Bernstein, 1978, p 76). There was thus enough time between the injury occurring and the point of no return for medical care to have been sought for Biko. His death was a result of the beating and the neglect that followed.

Later medical testimony suggested that this beating would have been followed by a period of unconsciousness lasting between ten and twenty minutes (Bernstein, 1978, p70). The extent of Biko’s injuries meant that the interrogators could not continue to interrogate him, so they handcuffed him again and left him without seeking medical care for him (SA History Online, 2007).

Workers at the funeral parlour where Biko was prepared for burial noted that Biko had an injury on his forehead (Bernstein, 1978, p26). The wound reportedly comprised a bruise, swelling and a scab. The police officers involved attempted to convince the public that Biko’s injuries were inflicted by him falling over and hitting his head. And yet, despite this, the state maintained that Biko died of hunger (Kotton, 2002, p11). There were thus contradictory statements from the state as to how and why Biko died.

Col Goosen was told that there had been an ‘incident’ involving Biko. He checked on Biko at 7:30 in the morning and tried to speak to Biko. Goosen explained that Biko was incoherent and that his speech was slurred. He also noted that Biko’s upper lip was swollen (SA History Online, 2007). According to medical evidence from a number of specialists, the injuries which killed Biko were inflicted either during the night of the sixth of September or the early morning of the seventh of September (Bernstein, 1978, p41).

At 09:30am, Dr Lang, the district surgeon, was called in. Upon examining Biko he certified that there was no abnormality or pathology on Biko (SA History Online, 2007). This is in conflict with what the funeral parlour workers said and also what police officers said about Biko’s injuries. It is also questionable considering that Goosen also stated that Biko was incoherent, slurring his words and had a swollen lip. It is probable that Dr Lang provided false information regarding Biko’s condition at the time.

When the security police tried to interrogate Biko on the night of the seventh of September, they found him to be totally unresponsive, again, this is in contradiction to Dr Lang’s assertion that nothing was wrong with him. Biko lay on a mat on the floor in leg-irons (SA History Online, 2007). Dr Lang returned on the eighth of September. Biko had not urinated for 24 hours and refused all offers of food. Lang looked Biko over again and then called in the chief district surgeon (Dr BJ Tucker). There was no change in Biko’s condition (except that he had wet himself by that point). It was decided that Biko be transferred to the prison hospital.

On the evening of the eighth of September Biko was examined by Dr Hersch who ordered a lumbar puncture. Biko was transferred to the prison hospital (SA History Online, 2007). On the morning of the ninth of September, the lumbar puncture was done. Dr Hersch told Dr Lang that there was blood in Biko’s cerebrospinal fluid. A neurosurgeon, Mr Keeley was consulted by telephone. Mr Keeley opined (after only doing a telephonic consultation) that there was no evidence of brain damage, but instructed that Biko be kept under supervision. Mr Keeley further saw no problem with Biko being transferred back from the hospital to the custody of the security police as long as he was to be kept under observation (SA History Online, 2007).

Biko was returned to his cell at Walmer Police Station on the morning of the eleventh of September as he was cleared to do so by Mr Keeley. He lay on a mat on the cement floor, naked beneath blankets. Later that same day a warder discovered Biko lying on the floor, foaming at the mouth, with glassy, unresponsive eyes. Dr Tucker then gave the go-ahead for Biko to be transported to Pretoria. He was placed naked, manacled on the floor of a Land-Rover and transported 1184km to Pretoria (SA History Online, 2007). Eleven hours after leaving Port Elizabeth, Biko was left on the floor of a prison hospital cell. No medical records were provided (SA History Online, 2007).

On the twelfth of September a newly qualified doctor, Dr Van Zyl, who was provided with no medical records for Biko, ordered an intravenous drip because Biko was refusing to eat. Later that same night Biko died, unattended (SA History Online, 2007).

The minister of justice, Mr Kruger, issued a statement, in which it was alleged that Biko had died as a result of a six day hunger strike (Kotton, 2002, p30). Kruger claimed that Biko had refused his meals from the fifth of September.

Then Minister of Justice, Kruger claimed that Biko had been regularly supplied with water and meals, but that Biko had refused them. The statement continued with details of medical care that Biko had received and contained contradictory information (Bernstein, 1978, p19).

There was a concerted effort by the Nationalist Party to cover up the truth about Biko’s death. Bernstein (1978) questions why the doctors refuted that Biko had a head injury, when there are clear signs of a wound on post-mortem photographs.

It is noteworthy that the Minister even made mention of the death of a detainee or of how he died as this was not customary at the time (Bernstein, 1978, p20). One possible solution is that the Minister was trying to pre-emptively forestall or quell the outcry over Biko’s death. This statement did not have the desired effect. Questions were raised about the very notion of how a healthy, slightly overweight man could die in a hunger strike lasting only six days. This was not the first suspicious death in detention amongst the excuses provided included were that prisoners had slipped on a bar of soap, fallen in the shower, or committed suicide.

In November 1977 an announcement was made that no-one would be prosecuted for the death of Biko. Thereafter, on the 14^th November 1977, the inquest commenced. The inquest was held in Pretoria- most of the evidence was presented in Afrikaans in a sweltering and cramped building wholly unsuitable for public hearings (Bernstein, 1978).

The building had terrible acoustics, rendering much of the testimony inaudible save to those sitting in very close proximity. The sweltering heat and cramped conditions turned the venue into a sauna in the November heat. Bernstein (1978) asserts that the inquest into Steve Biko’s death was not an attempt to establish the truth about how Biko died, but instead an attempt to cover up the truth. The aim of the inquest, according to Bernstein, was to hide the identities of those responsible for Biko’s death.

Bernstein (1978) describes the testimonies of those witnesses called as contradictory, vague and only partial. The inquest aimed, through legal subterfuge and perversion of normal procedure, to exonerate those complicit in the death of Biko. Even the independent observer, Sir David Napley, intervened to support the police and doctors.

Biko’s funeral

The police tried to prevent mourners from reaching the funeral held on the 25^th September. Bus convoys were prevented from leaving from major city centres on the basis that they had no permits. Roadblocks were also set up closer to King William’s Town to prevent mourners from entering the town. If mourners from the Transvaal wanted to attend the funeral, they had to pass through seven roadblocks. For all those who attended (about 10 000), there were countless thousands who were denied access. There were reports of mourners being assaulted by police officers wielding truncheons. One physician reported treating thirty mourners for injuries inflicted by the police (Bernstein, 1978, p25).

Biko, 12/09 our 11/09

2011-09-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

Stephen Bantu Biko- a political activist and advocate of black consciousness who lost his life in the struggle for democracy and the recognition of the rights of blacks in South Africa.

Biko was born in 1946, just before the Nationalists came into power in South Africa [SA] in 1948 (Biko, 1978, p27). Owing to his political convictions Stephen Biko was undressed and manacled, and subsequently beaten until he died from extensive brain damage He died because he chose to espouse a sense of self-worth for black South Africans at a time when the ruling government sought to de-humanise and degrade them (Biko, 1978, p1).

Donald Woods described Steve Biko as “a special and extraordinary man who at the age of thirty had already acquired a towering status in the hearts and minds of countless thousands of young blacks throughout the length and breadth of South Africa” (Bernstein, 1978, p23). This description highlights Biko’s ability to inspire his fellow blacks and also communicate a vision of an equitable SA.

Woods went on to say that Biko was, in his opinion, the “most important political leader in the entire country, and quite simply the greatest man that I have had the privilege to know” (Bernstein, 1978, p23). Woods used words like wisdom, humour, compassion, and understanding, brilliancy of intellect, unselfishness, modesty and courage to describe Stephen Biko. He also used words like tough and resilient to describe the way Biko coped with the challenges presented by his oppression. He was, according to Woods, a man of peace, militant in the defence of his views (orally), but his ultimate goal was the peaceful reconciliation of all South Africans (Bernstein, 1978, p24).

Marriage and family

In 1970, Steve Biko married Nontsitkelele Mashalaba (Nsiki). At the time, Nsiki was a student nurse. The couple went on to have two sons: Nkosinathi and Samora (Kotton, 2002, p18). Biko never had much time with his family because of his political commitments but Nsiki was strong in her role in the family and was highly supportive of her husband. Despite the time constraints caused by his commitment to the struggle Biko was still loved and respected as a father and husband by his family.

At the time of Biko’s death, his wife was a nursing sister at a mission hospital. One peculiarity of the circumstances surrounding Biko’s death is that no one from the state informed Nsiki that her husband had died. Her sister told Nsiki that Biko had died as soon as she found out but no official informed her of her husband’s death (Bernstein, 1978, p 26).

Nsiki described Biko as a good man and father, but above all a good leader. She further communicated that she was unsurprised by his death in detention. She claimed “I knew that because he was a man of such convictions and beliefs only death could stop him from what he believed in” (Bernstein, 1978, p 26). Her only comfort during the time following his death was that he had died for a cause that he had believed in and lived for.

This section will outline the extent and nature of Biko’s political activity in South Africa beginning with his time at university and also covering his activity during the 1970’s. The next section will then deal in detail with the events surrounding his death.

Student Years

Biko became actively involved in politics when he realised that a new psychological climate was needed for liberation to occur (Kotton, 2002, p16). He strongly objected to the way that black South Africans capitulated into meek subservience. He objected to the way that black South Africans lacked pride in themselves and awareness of the own worth. He advocated a new approach, driven by an affirmation of each person’s value in their own right, not ascribed by others. This was the essence of Biko’s thesis of black consciousness.

Biko actively engaged in political activity when he attended the University of Natal. This was not the beginning of his political awareness however as he had been concerned about the state of affairs in the country for a while before that point (Kotton, 2002, p17).

While at the University of Natal Biko was voted onto the Student Representative Council (SRC) as a representative of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS). NUSAS had a long history of opposition to apartheid, but Biko found it to be an unsatisfactory vehicle for the interests of black South Africans. This was because NUSAS was largely comprised of white liberal students. In the 1960’s NUSAS was very active in anti-apartheid activities, led by Biko. During this time Biko was respected and admired by his fellow students. He was described as being a very warm person who led by example. It was also observed that Biko did not dominate discussions. In fact, it has been noted that he spoke little during discussions, although when he did he had a knack for hitting the very heart of the topic at hand (Bernstein, 1978).

As already mentioned, NUSAS was a predominantly white organisation representing students from liberal universities such as the University of Natal, University of Cape Town and Rhodes University (Kotton, 2002, p18). NUSAS was banned at Bantustan, Indian and Coloured universities. Biko argued that NUSAS could not have the best interests of blacks at heart as it was led and driven by white liberals who could not understand what it was truly like to be a black student in SA.

Another reason for Biko’s malcontent was that black students could not achieve leadership positions in NUSAS with ease. NUSAS spoke for the non-white universities even though it could not formally represent them as already mentioned (Kotton, 2002, p20). In response to this, in December 1968 SASO was formed at a conference held in Marianhill in the Natal Province (now KwaZulu Natal). The following July (1969) SASO was inaugurated officially at the University of the North’s Turfloop campus. Steve Biko was elected president with Barney Pityana elected as secretary (SAHistory online, 2007, para 1 & 2).

1970’s Political Activity

Steve Biko was expelled from university at the age of 26 on the grounds of poor academic performance. Part of the reason for both his poor academic performance and expulsion was the fact that he was getting more and more deeply involved in politics (Kotton, 2002, p22).

Biko left university in June 1972 to work full time in Durban on Black Community Programmes [BCP]. These projects were aimed at self-help in black communities and included skills development and medical care. The BCP taught black people how to read and write and also skills such as weaving and dress-making. Another important component of BCM was health education. Biko left academia because his political activity had affected his academic performance and this probably gave the institution a reason to finally dispense with him, but he put his time to good use at the BCM.

At the same time as he was active in the BCM, Biko extended his politicisation beyond the student community, forming the Black People’s Convention (Kotton, 2002, p23) which aimed to unite and strengthen black people so that they could overcome their feelings of inferiority. It was at this point where he attempted to unite all ‘non-whites’ under the word black (Kotton, 2002, p24).

In 1973, Biko was forced to leave Durban because of the work he was doing on the Black Review- a journal banned by government. Biko was banned because of these contributions to the journal and was sent to live in King William’s Town for the next five years (Kotton, 2002, p26).

Being banned constituted a heavy restriction on the activities and lives of banned persons. Banned people could not attend any meetings. In this context meetings comprised gatherings of two or more people in the same place at the same time. If Biko were in a room with his wife and another person walked in that would constitute a violation of his bans. Banned people were not allowed to speak to other banned people and their homes were frequently searched by the ubiquitous security police (Bernstein, 1978, p9).

Whilst banned in King William’s Town, Biko formed the Zimele trust fund (1976) and the Ginsberg Educational Trust. These were funded by churches and overseas organisations sympathetic to the anti-apartheid movement. The Ginsberg educational trust was instituted to help black students. On the other hand, the Zimele trust fund was instituted to help political prisoners and their families (Bernstein, 1978, p9; Kotton, 2002, p26).

During this period Biko was repeatedly arrested and released by security police owing to suspected involvement in liberation activities. In 1975 Biko was imprisoned for 137 days without charge or trial, then in August 1976 he was again imprisoned for 101 days, in March and July 1977 he was again arrested (Bernstein, 1978, p9; Kotton, 2002, p27). He was thus being paid increased amounts of attention by the security police during this time.

Raai wie nou vi jou omgee.

2011-09-07T23:10:00.000-07:00

Choice. Stay and fight or flee to places where the only similarity is skin. Complacency and denial are no longer strong enough to hide the crumbling empire, the hours without electricity becoming commonplace, the water that isn't safe for our children to drink, the rape of the land for acronyms like SLK and AMG, the atrocious actions wreaked to atone for wrongs outside of living memory.

The outrageous injustice of being born free and then enslaved to feed greed disguised as restitution. Thousands, millions wronged because activists with full bellies and blue light security forget what it's like to be hungry. The freedom fighters who fend off the pleas of the hungry and the dispossessed as they scan the spoils for fat to feed to the growing cretinocracy.

ANC leaders:- While you spill out of your Western suits and cars all our people face hungry nights and wasted lives. Who will fight for those who have nothing now that you and your own have enriched yourselves? Who will rebuild the looted republic and assuage the tears of your martyrs and ashamed heroes?

There will be no more thoughts of flight, no more downcast eyes and shame for the sins of the father. This is my Africa. My heart claims it. When you hurt your people, you hurt me too. I don't know what I am going to do yet, but I will fight for Africa, if you're no longer prepared to.

One in Two Rape Statistic...

2011-08-22T22:23:00.000-07:00

Statistics must always be treated with caution. Especially when there are social taboos surrounding the reporting of the measured behaviour. Rape is one of those events which people are reluctant to talk about to even close family and friends. We all know many rapes go unreported. There are thus a few major problems with saying that one in two women are raped in South Africa.

Firstly, rapes are not always reported to the police. Police statistics are also unreliable because there is pressure on police stations to reduce crime. This sometimes happens through cases not being accurately recorded (fudging the numbers). For a long time SAPS has not been releasing crime statistics. http://www.saps.gov.za/statistics/reports/crimestats/2010/categories/total_sexual_offences.pdf has the most recent 'official' stats on sexual offences. Needless to say, these stats mean nothing in terms of the actual incidence of rape in communities.

People interpret the one in two stat and assume that it means that if there are two women in a room, one has been raped. This is utter rot. What the stat means is that the percentage of rapes (count) that have occurred in relation to the female population is 50%. In some areas, the rape rate is probably over 100% and in others it may be as little as 1%. Some women will be repeatedly raped or gang raped whereas others may be fortunate enough to avoid any sexual assault. Women in informal settlements and on the margins of society are particularly vulnerable. About half of SA's population lives in poverty, with the majority of that group being female. It is these women who need to be advocated for. They need safe transport home after working late. They need to be freed from economic dependence on abusive partners.

The one in two statistic has been floating around for nearly ten years (I remember researching the topic in 2003 already). It mustn't be spouted as gospel. The reality is, our rape statistics may be even worse.

Spring-Summer 2011 CHANEL - The collection Spring-Summer 2011 CHANEL

2011-08-17T04:15:00.000-07:00

Spring-Summer 2011 CHANEL - The collection Spring-Summer 2011 CHANEL

Understated, chic, Chanel. Want.

Cuntiprocity

2011-08-16T04:06:00.000-07:00

The South African Municipal Workers Union is on strike. They cite dealing with rats, and the risk of infections as some of the reasons. They have a point. Finding dead babies in rubbish is unacceptable. However, a pay increase won't help with the babies. Being paid a couple of hundred bucks a week extra will not make your nightmares stop.

The fact is, a large number of South Africans are utter cunts. They poo and wee where they shouldn't and even supposedly genteel households don't have the decency to wrap up broken glass in their refuse. They puke in parks and let their precious pooches defecate in the ornamental beds of parks.

You get the idea. It's horrid having to deal with disgusting working conditions. It's inhumane to expect people to deliver services in municipal mortuaries where there are burial backlogs that are beginning to be measured in years, not months. However, striking and being paid more won't help. These are issues of serious inefficiency and mismanagement caused by SURPRISE:- THE MUNICIPAL WORKERS THEMSELVES!

Yes, South Africa has some terrible citizens who don't deserve the services they receive. However, who should be rebuking them? The municipality. Who should be imposing punitive measures when people don't pick up their dog doodie? The municipality. Who should have marshals ensuring that Joe Public doesn't leave his condoms and barf in the parks? The municipality.

I get the impression that this pay increase is to atone for working conditions that were created by the people who will benefit from the increase. They created these conditions through their lax administration and apathetic approaches to issues which affect all of our health and well being.

State of Mind

2011-08-14T09:39:00.000-07:00

If I were president...

All ministers, especially the minister of health, would be compelled to use state healthcare. Their children would have to go to government schools. They would be allowed no VIP protection. They would have to use public transport wherever possible.

In other words, they would have to put up with the service they provided. They would have to share our uncertainty and anxiety. Perhaps they would lose family members to crime and inadequate public healthcare. Perhaps their children's schoolteachers would skip teaching to go to political rallies and their daughters would get slapped when they took too long to deliver their babies. I have a feeling that service would improve significantly if their lives were at stake, instead of merely risking the loss of voter confidence.

There is no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption | Professor David Nutt | Science | guardian.co.uk

2011-08-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

There is no such thing as a safe level of alcohol consumption | Professor David Nutt | Science | guardian.co.uk

Green Grass

2011-08-09T00:32:00.000-07:00

A decade ago, I was a youngster tramping around the streets of London, Muswell Hill to be precise. I would walk the streets till three a.m. smoking Camels and musing about how awfully difficult it is to be a middle-class, well-educated girl.

My mum didn't mind, because it was London- it was safe. She wouldn't let me leave our compound when we lived in Johannesburg, but here, in London, I was free to roam and roam I did. One night, returning from playing pool, I refused the offer of someone to walk me home, because I was certain I would be safe.

It was freezing and I walked along in a tequila induced bubble of warmth and happiness. The man was slight, not too tall and called me to stop. I turned around and stopped. This because it was London- nothing bad ever happened there.

He came up to me and said, "You should kiss me, I'm Italian" and he pushed me against the orange plastic bins used to hold salt for the roads. I became paralysed for a brief moment by fear. Everything shut down and all I could hear was my heart beating its way through my chest, the strange numbness of fear in every nerve ending. He kept repeating "kiss me, kiss me" and something switched inside me.

Someone else's voice came from my throat. It said "I am going to count to ten and then I am going to scream very loudly". With that I punched the bastard. I had tried to put my keys between my fingers like I had been taught to but they were in my left hand and my right hand was the angry one. It punched and punched and then I pushed him off and ran the cold air into my lungs until it burned.

I sat for hours in a tepid bath in the dark. I didn't tell my mum what had happened. But she saw my blood around the lock of the front door and then I had to tell her. She said "I can't understand, this is London"

Typical Women

2011-08-08T02:22:00.001-07:00

Strange penises

2011-08-07T01:28:00.000-07:00

Ouch?

Ribbed for extra pleasure?

Penile Fracture

Penis voluntarily bisected (WTF)

Dreaming

2011-08-01T02:22:00.001-07:00

I called time of death , then stowed them into their closets. Past the chambers with their chains and that too-clean smell. The world, three groups, the complicit, the innocently unaware and those who realised they were about to die. Their faces so pale as the scientists commenced their work, testing their tools, clinically clinking their beers together in marvelous travesty.

I escaped through the fence, and lay inbetween the rat's nests and spoiled hay until the search was done, then stole a horse and flogged it until it ran its heart out, as the soldiers scoured the villages and cleared out those who bore the mark of the other. No one would hide me, the fair-haired, fair-weather friends closed their doors and resumed their inebriated follies, with the too gay music and pop-idolatry. I wrote for them once. Their only gift was silence as I trudged towards the rutted road. Towards veiled ancestors and unforgivable shrouds.

Depression

2011-07-29T23:25:00.000-07:00

Major depression is a bit like having diabetes. You can control for it by living healthily and looking after yourself but that doesn't make it go away completely. It affects more people than you might think, but is something people choose not to admit to (five to eight percent of the US adult population suffers from major depression).

If there are stressors in life, then major depression recurs, as the brain struggles to keep itself fully supplied with serotonin. Any stressors deplete serotonin levels to a point where one simply no longer cares about anything. If you could imagine waking up and having nothing to look forward to ever again, that's what it feels like to have major depressive disorder.

If someone with major depression decides to off themselves, it's usually triggered by a selfish, yet alarmingly clear moment of rationality. If you truly believe you have no worth left, that you're merely a drain on the earth's resources, that family and friends do not need you, then what point is there to remain in stasis?

The truly depressed don't broadcast their intentions. They don't offer themselves opportunities to reverse their decision. They'll jump off buildings, or drown themselves, or overdose in a manner which assures finality. The problem is, thet first attempt is usually an attempt to be validated by others. It's the second one you should be afraid of. Statistically, the second attempt is usually successful.

Once a person has been diagnosed with major depression and begins medical treatment, there is a period of increased risk, as the anti-depressants make depression sufferers more proactive, whilst still being depressed. If you have major depression, the best management strategy involves combining chemical intervention with serious appraisal of environmental factors contributing to the depression. It may take as long as nine months for anti-depressants to work, and their side-effects aren't great.

Cognitive behavioural therapy can be used to identify the root causes of the depression, once these are found, they have to be dealt with through behaviour change. Simply taking anti-depressants is not the answer.

Instead, a lifestyle audit is necessary that includes:

healthy eating
exercise
a proper sleep routine
avoidance of alcohol, cigarettes, drugs
relaxation techniques such as transcendental meditation

Summary of symptoms of depression:

sleep disturbances- either more or less sleep than before
appetite disturbances- again, weight gain or weight loss
listlessness, loss of interest
expression of negativity
increased usage of substances such as alcohol

Major stressors such as changing jobs, divorce, moving house, geographical re-location, child birth and even promotion and marriage can trigger depression. Be on the lookout, urge those you know to seek help. Most importantly, talk about it. Mental health is not a taboo subject, nor is it a sign of weakness.

I have suffered from major depression for the last fourteen years, on and off.

-Nicole Dodd, HOD, Industrial Psychology, The University of Zululand

The drive into work

2011-07-29T05:14:00.000-07:00

Sound starts about 30 seconds into the first video- this is just to put the working environment into perspective.

Suicide Girls

2011-07-28T00:56:00.000-07:00

You're beautiful, you don't have to cut your nipples off and stuff plastic bags into your tits. You don't need to spray yourself with brown dye. You don't have to smile and look like everyone's favourite fuck-princess. You can wear sneakers and pierce whatever you want to. You can read comics, ride a skateboard and still be pretty. You can fuck and fight and still be a girl.

Google Plus, Facebook and Twitter, reconciled by roles

2011-07-27T08:49:00.000-07:00

Looking at my Twitter stream, I see a lot of information/forms of interaction:

News

eg Drink-spiller found guilty of assaulting Zuma http://ow.ly/1dZcru

Ideal for Twitter, you can get information on breaking news, before it even hits mainstream news channels.

Facebook does this terribly slowly, if at all.

Social Commentary

eg Breivik is giving lunatics a bad name :/

Another great thing about Twitter is that you can get a feeling for the prevailing sentiment in society about a given topic. Using trending topics and hashtags to define your searches means that you can spool information from many people easily.

Facebook does this, but at a slower, more insular rate. You might be getting the wrong opinions, or none at all.

Social interaction

eg @randomperson Wow how's your head

@otherrandom So sore

@randomperson Not surprised

@otherrrandom caramel vodka ftw

@randomperson Like, totally

Twitter fails dismally, in terms of interaction with people on a more personal level, it is better to use an instant messaging service such as skype, gtalk or even FACEBOOK.

Facebook is for friends, it allows you to have one on one or small group interaction without clogging up the stream of information

G+ should be very good at enabling this sort of interaction also. As with Facebook, you can nest comments, instead of each of them appearing separately as they do on Twitter.

Entertaining autobiographical information

eg Oh snap... I knew this day would come. My mom is putting up photographs on facebook of my childhood. #feelsscared

I'm not a nerd.... The correct term is "Pokemon Master"!!

Twitter wins, hands down, when it comes to sharing quirky, funny or entertaining statements because information can be reshared so quickly.

Facebook fails because it has no scope for sharing with others, it is so private and personal that you can't let others know how great your friends are.

G+ allows you to share also, and has the added benefit of allowing you to edit what you have shared. Irritating typos can be removed before causing ones face to make contact with ones palm.

Random autobiographical information

eg Phew! What a day!

so tired

Twitter is not the correct forum for this information, Facebook wins hands down in this regard. Facebook should be reserved for the small enclave of friends who actually care that you're tired.

Twitter is an ideal way to share URLs and to interact with, and meet new people. It's not the right place to launch into a long winded conversation about a topic which is not relevant for sharing with a wider audience. Instead, Google plus serves as a great platform for this sort of communication. With chat enabled, as well as video calls, there are real opportunities for meaningful communication with professional contacts and with friends.

Google Plus's information 'stream' is too graphics intense to provide the real time information that Twitter provides so efficiently, this can be seen in the way that the network reacted to the recent incidents in Norway (slowly).

Personal insight suggests that Twitter provides an anonymous/impersonal means of interaction with like-minded individuals. Some of these people become so interesting, you add them in G+. Some remain in the ether, or even get blocked.

In terms of roles, the private, family role is best suited to Facebook. This is rather ironic, seeing as it was started as a means of electronically delivering a typical 'university' experience. Twitter seems best suited to semi-anonymous information sharing and is ideal for bloggers, because good posts get re-tweeted and reach the right audience. This is in contrast with Facebook, where your children, your relatives and your high school friends may show little interest in your growing collection of Marvel Comics, your fan-fiction, or your attempts to write a screenplay.

I am increasingly jaded about linkedin. I have yet to use it for any useful purpose. However, G+'s integration of Google documents, sites, chat and email makes it ideal for use in organisations. As a professional, G+ allows for real-time information sharing and collaboration and I marvel at the fact that it is free. If you become savvy about circles, you can even begin to filter out more personal information from your wider professional connections and begin to sustain some of Facebook's intimacy at the same time as maintaining a professional G+ profile.

Example:

You go to a conference:

If you're homesick, tell Facebook

If you think the bartender is hot, or you just saw someone spill a drink on the president, tell Twitter

If you just learned about something totally useful, tell G+ and Twitter

If you are constipated, and it's funny, tell Twitter, if it's not funny, don't tell anyone, except maybe a doctor.

ps, the image is not mine, but can be bought from http://judiliosatos.deviantart.com/art/Big-Mouth-48519687

Coffee

2011-07-26T23:16:00.000-07:00

And in the news at seven.

2011-07-26T05:59:00.000-07:00

Two children were involved in a mountain climbing accident today, whilst looking for water. John, 8 fractured his skull, and Jill his sister also sustained serious injuries. The two were fetching water for their families. Water shortages in the area are highlighting global climate change issues.

During the recent heavy showers, a man was bludgeoned to death. He suffered from sleep apnoea. His wife is the prime suspect.

Dieticians are alarmed at the case of Jack Sprat, who has been feeding his wife only animal fats for the last three months. Sprat suffers from a serious disorder where he idealises obesity. Fortunately his daughter was not also treated in the same way.

Willie Winkie has been arrested for indecent exposure. He was caught after multiple reports of him running up and down a residential area in only a shirt. He has been remanded to custody for psychological evaluation.

Fastest DM Wins

2011-07-20T09:52:00.000-07:00

1. What breed of dog pooed on SA_Trivia's azalea's in 1985?

2. Who drank all of SA_Trivia's gin at the 2008 Christmas party in Paternoster?

3. If SA_Trivia could eat pudding off a celeb, which pudding would SA_Trivia choose?

4. In Sub A, who killed SA_Trivia's entire collection of silkworms?

5. In which town has SA_Trivia been banned from inappropriately fondling statues?

GOOD LUCK :D

Unfortunately, the children are our future

2011-07-20T02:42:00.000-07:00

Children are disgusting creatures. They're riddled with diseases and are little snot-mongers, producing quantities of excrement in their early years that would rival the output of an elephant's arse. As they get older, their usefulness increases at a dismally slow pace, and is completely negated by the amount of resentment and sullenness that accompanies any productive activity.

If left to their own devices, this nasty little sub-species would stab each other (in particular siblings) and then embark on a path of destruction and anarchy, dependent on sugar supplies. You know this, you were once a child too and you know what the vicious little slatterns are capable of.

It's quite an attractive prospect to simply write off all those younger than eighteen and simply wait for them to arrive back from boarding school in time to spend their gap years masturbating on your couch whilst watching re-runs of Come Dine With Me. This isn't an option, and I'll tell you why.

These abominations need to be taken in hand and lovingly mentored and developed, not for their sakes, but for ours. They're our future tax-base. When we're spending our golden years bonking behind the bowling club, they're supposed to be out completing their e-filing and injecting money into the economy. These same little pus-pockets will be providing healthcare for us and wiping our bottoms should we be unfortunate enough to live long enough to need these services.

They'll be the ones deciding how we're treated when we become demented, they'll also be the ones who are employed by us when we reach the zeniths of our careers and have minions of our own. They need skills and to be taught how to be responsible adults, other wise we're all doomed to put up with them relying on our taxable income to keep them and their hordes of even more disgusting children alive.

It's not enough to simply abstain from bearing any unsightly spawn yourself, it's imperative that you protect yourself from other people's mistakes by investing your time and energy into setting these vile reprobates up on the straight and narrow.

Existential Exfoliation

2011-07-17T11:41:00.000-07:00

The problem with showering, is you can't read. You can't tweet, you're left with steam and soap and skin. It's a pretty scary place when you're being assaulted by your thoughts. I started thinking about Stephen Hawking, I started thinking about how everyone buys it when he says that there is no God. What a shock, the angry crippled guy thinks that God doesn't exist.

He may not believe in God, but how can you experience the miracle of science and not feel the 'hand' of a greater entity or force? I am not talking about a deity that is conceptualised in a human form, but if not God, then what then?

How did this universe come to be, this universe that science seeks to explain and understand? Aren't scientists just chasing a definition of deity from a different perspective? Why couldn't "God" have conceptualised the splendid miracles that are carbon based lifeforms, set the catalysts of creation into spectacular existence?

We are limited as humans in terms of the scope of comprehension of even our own existence. How can any human revoke the likelihood of our world having been created through a greater power? How can our brains comprehend something that magnificent? Wouldn't science be needed to ensure that life could exist? Wouldn't a creator have to be a master of science?

I do not for a second believe that there was a God who rested on the seventh day. However, how did we get here? How did here get here? No matter what someone's IQ, simply negating the existence of a grey bearded Judeo-Christian deity does not account for the wonderment, awe and insignificance of human life. There is no explanation yet, so leave it at that.

I hate showering, because I am paralysed by existentialism. I am drowned by my wonderment at the miracle of water and steam. I am grief stricken for the crippled man who has used the one gift he has been given to deny that life began with any benevolence.

I heart Chrome

2011-07-12T02:39:00.000-07:00

Chrome wins again, and again and again. You can now install picnik from the Chrome web store, then take a screenshot, or download any individual picture you want. These can then be directly edited in Picnik. The app is great for easy edits and has a lot of fun features.

Chrome gets better and better, with Proxlet being available for Twitter so that you can mute hashtags, apps (like 4sq) and also send verbose posters to the sinbin for a day or two.

Finally, there's a game called Robot Unicorn Attack. It's dumb but it's dumb in a sparkly kind of way, with rainbows and unicorns, so it gets two very enthusiastic thumbs up :D

The invisible heir

2011-07-11T03:02:00.000-07:00

minstrels in the distant groves

your secret in my belly grows

the innocent will lose no rest

no jewels in their armoured nests

the scarlet of the blood unspilled

the quickened heart that now is stilled

untested in this fruitless quest

the end of lent and no one blessed

Google Plus, G+ e-learning and the digital divide

2011-07-10T04:51:00.000-07:00

Before commencing with this post, let me admit that I am a technophile and have a soft spot for Google. Their organisational culture is worthy of scholarly attention, their product offerings are inspired and personally, they have opened a world of opportunities for social and intellectual interaction.

Google plus will be adopted as the official means with which I will be communicating with my students in the second semester. It's that simple, I can create a circle and add them to it, they can interact with me, and we can share documents and conversations online in one place. In short, it creates an online workspace that eases the communication and consultation that is so essential in e-learning, even when it is as a supplement to ordinary classroom learning.

I already used Facebook to communicate with the students. Many of them have facebook on their telephones and found it cheaper to post a message on there as opposed to sending an sms. Last year we even used Mxit. However, google chat is far easier, and is directly integrated with gmail, so you're now accessing communication, social networking and information searching from one portal.

For enterprises and higher education, this may prove to be a shared online workspace that works. The circles also ease control of information, my work circle for example may include reminders about setting exams, whereas the student circle will include me nagging the students to study and the private circle of friends may include frustrated comments about the former.

Finally, if adopted, this may be the way to integrate the many sides of ourselves personally and professionally, but first, they need to get people interested enough to join and that's not going to happen just because a varsity lecturer tells you to.

Here's an example of the sort of site you can set up (this took less than an hour, and you can kind of tell, but it's easy to use) CHRM302

Hypocrisy- UR Doing it right

2011-07-08T09:33:00.000-07:00

Vegetarians claim to be eco-friendly by avoiding the utilisation of leather and fur in their lifestyles. This is a somewhat near-sighted approach to a systemic problem. I get it, they like Bambi and think they're doing the right thing, but they're missing the point.

Beef is dreadful for the environment, in terms of its carbon footprint. Milk, eggs and cheese are far better, although milk and cheese are let down by the capacity daisy the moo cow has for farting a hole in the ozone layer.

There would be enough arable land on the planet to feed everyone quite comfortably if there were no meat-eaters. However, death and killing are natural. They cannot be avoided and, sometimes, there may be a legitimate, green reason for choosing to slaughter an animal after it's reached its sell-by date. One such reason is the fact that fake leather wears out super-quickly, which means that your conscience comes at a cost to the environment and, as a result to animals and us.

These veggies who shun the purchase of leather goods are contributing massive amounts of environmental degradation through the manufacturing processes they are supporting. The pollutants produced in the manufacturing of their so-called humane products contain carcinogens and wreak havoc on water systems and ecosystems. This suggests that their approach is not one of holistic care for wildlife, animals and the environment, instead it is some sort of misguided notion left over from watching Babe as a child.

I have lived on farms, watched animals get slaughtered and spent much time knee deep in cow shit. I have milked cows and have had to break the neck of a goose that had been mauled by a dog, to name one occasion where death was kind. Cows are incredibly sweet animals, stubborn as hell, but ladies nevertheless. They care for their young and they are creatures of habit. They deserve to live their lives in dignity, providing milk. Just bear in mind, for cows to produce that milk for us vegetarians, a large number of bull calves become someone else's veal schnitzel. Milk cows past their productive years could be left to die of old age, but if you've ever watched an animal die of old age, you'll know that it's not the kindest thing to do always. They can become leather too you know, having lived their lives happily munching on lucerne.

Like I said, death is inevitable. We plant crops- we destroy an existing ecosystem, we eat meat- we take a life. Eggs are fine, but again, where do all the little boy chicks go? Well, they get culled as day old chicks. Laying chickens are different from broilers and they don't often get reared for meat. Instead, the recently hatched chicks are sexed and then the boys are all culled. So don't think there's no blood on your hands if you buy eggs.

If you really cared about the environment, you'd source your produce locally, wear leather and ensure that livestock is treated with respect and humanity up until the point where it is slaughtered. Better yet, you'd farm it yourself. This is incredibly rewarding and you can see exactly how your eggs are made, as well as your chickens (cocks are randy serial rapists fyi).

If you can't guarantee what price was paid for your food environmentally and in terms of cruelty, then it's ok not to eat it. Just don't think that simply foregoing meat in your diet makes you a good person, a green person, or even particularly ethical.

Twitter rant

2011-07-07T06:30:00.000-07:00

Here's something you aren't normally subjected to... me talking about you. In this case, the you is us, and the us is the Twitterverse. I am sorely tempted to change my avi to a picture of myself in librarian/academic mode to see how many people stop following me just like that.

It should really be called the slapperverse, because so many chicks have their goods on display in an effort to get attention. When you read the tweets you realise they're vacuous little cretins who have pickled their remaining three braincells using tanning booths. This is of course, just a fit of jealousy at the fact that I had to go out and get educated and get a grown-up job because I wasn't pretty enough to make it as a hausfrau. So now I have a downer on the pretty people.

The Winter Kama Sutra

2011-07-07T00:49:00.000-07:00

The Kama Sutra is all well and good in its country of origin, where it's warm and wet or warm and dry. However, in winter, the exotic, yoga-laden moves need re-designing.

Like the Winter Olympics, there might be a gap in the market for a winter edition of the Kama Sutra.

Sage advice that should be included in the Winter edition:

1. Warm your hands up before you come near me motherfucker.

2. How to find the erogenous zones under three layers of fleece

3. How to get enough skin out of thermal underwear to get nookie, without getting hypothermia

4. How to mask manhood that's been shrunk by the howling South-Easter.

5. How to avoid biting someone's penis off when your teeth are chattering.

6. Staying on top, under a duvet without wafting cold air in from the outside world.

The truth is out there

2011-07-07T00:14:00.001-07:00

Songs that changed me 1, Ricki Alleman

2011-07-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

It's red

2011-07-04T23:10:00.000-07:00

Nationalisation: Ryk Neethling as a case study

2011-07-04T01:38:00.000-07:00

My favourite politician is advocating nationalisation of the mines as an attempt to ensure economic growth and poverty alleviation in South Africa. One would think that they'd start with something that would make women happy, like Ryk Neethling. He's a national asset, has earned gold before and is a valuable commodity abroad.

So, at first glance, nationalising Ryk would be fantastic. The problem is, if you nationalised him, you'd have to arrange a roster between about 15 million women. Given his lifespan, and ours that's just not feasible.

Plan B, we arrange a schedule of touch-time with Ryk. Eventually, if we were all to touch him he'd get all grubby and his skin would begin to abrade. He would also be at risk of catching something and that'd just be nasty. No one would want him then.

I suppose we could put him behind plexi-glass like the Mona Lisa, but where would the fun be in that? The fact is that Ryk, like wealth can only be distributed if we make more. Which is why I now support cloning. Reward offered for Ryk's hair with follicle still attached.

The Bristol Stool Scale

2011-07-03T08:12:00.001-07:00

the views expressed in this blog are purely satirical and do not represent any attempt to offend or insult anyone.

Spot the problem with our poop in ZA...

Wimpy advert

2011-07-02T07:26:00.000-07:00

Dream Machines

2011-07-02T00:14:00.000-07:00

The BMW Z4 (2010) was designed by a female duo and it looks like a BMW, for BMW drivers. Kudos to them for designing something so sexy and quintessentially Beemer. Howevah....

Boys had all the fun growing up. While I was playing with dolls that would have made Kate Moss look fat, they were designing kick ass cars with flames and shit. While I was sketching wedding dresses, they were adding flame throwers and rocket launchers to their angular, aggressively engineered imaginations. Female car designers are scarce, and yet men wonder why we struggle to drive what are essentially extensions of their penises.

Errors in omission, the design specifications I admittedly need on a car:

Good ground clearance. This is so that I can park on the kerb and also stop hitting the kerb at drive-thrus, parking garages and outside my house, oh and at the Spar.

Road handling, this thing must stick like shit to shoes. If I am late for a meeting it must stay on godamn road and not roll (Mazda- I am talking to you). It must have cat-like self-righting abilities, so that I don't have to sit in a tow truck with someone called Tiaan and listen to Bok van Blerk inhaling second hand Embassy fumes mingled with sweat and brandy.

Shoe space. I need at least four pairs of shoes in my car at any time- Heels, spare pair of heels, boots for visiting mine pony and spare flat shoes for sprinting in and out of unattractive places. These should be neatly stowed near the front of the car.

Bra compartment- when it's summer and you're hot, sometimes it's nice to be able to remove your bra on the way home from work and let the puppies get some air. Make it happen.

Fuel efficiency. If I can run on a handful of provitas and an apple, why can't my car? Why are cars all binge eating biffers? Tip- get an anorexic in on the design process. Maybe then, if you don't put fuel in, the car can just absorb superfluous parts of itself until more fuel is supplied. It can start with that spare tire...

Bull bars, nudge bars and side impact bars all artfully hidden under sexy design. Most lingerie is a masterpiece of structural engineering. It defies gravity and Newton and gets the job done and still manages to look pretty- ever seen an underwire guys? We need support for our cars too- no need to display it prominently. Instead, lace and ribbons could be used to artfully disguise an arsenal of reinforcements that will avoid ones fender bending.

If Ford had been a chick, she'd have said "you can have it in any colour, as long as it matches your handbag and shoes" and then probably chosen black anyway.

Vegetarianism Day One

2011-06-30T22:51:00.000-07:00

It feels like Hiroshima's happening in my rectum. Forget looking for natural gas in the Karoo, Shell should be exploring my bum. I am producing vast amounts of gas, enough to power a small town. High fibre vegetarian diets may be good for the environment in general, but not necessarily good for your immediate environment. At least I am getting revenge on the boerboel mwa hahaha .

Vegetarianism

2011-06-30T04:55:00.000-07:00

The guy at the pharmacy wouldn't sell me any weight loss products. He simply said, eat food in as natural a state as possible, drink lots of water and avoid beef. When I went to Spar, the manager threatened to klap me for even looking at the Weigh-Less products. Why is it that I still see myself as fat?

The scale says I have picked up about a kilogram of weight, as a direct result of stuffing my face with chocolate and sitting on my butt while marking exams. So, to try and shed the post-chocolyctic kg, I am going to take the dude's advice and just expand on it by going vegetarian for a month.

The fact is, meat production hurts the environment as we use land that could produce food for us to eat, to produce food for our food to eat. This is just downright inefficient.

I love meat, especially venison and steak that's bloody, but am going to give meat up for a month, to try and detox, lose weight and make a green contribution. For more info on why vegetarianism is green go to http://www.vegsoc.org/page.aspx?pid=624.

So here goes, a month of meatless madness. Starting Weight 51kg

*update* if you're on diet and have just gone vegetarian, don't google pictures of steak

Must reads.

2011-06-30T04:50:00.000-07:00

Isaac Bashevis Singer- he hurls you arse first into a muddy field in the middle of Poland.

Ken Kesey- heavy reading, but Sometimes a Great Notion is a masterpiece

Erica Jong- Fear of Flying is a sublime feminist work

Exxaro Mtunzini

2011-06-29T23:27:00.000-07:00

The devastation's getting closer

I needs a language editor

2011-06-27T23:37:00.001-07:00

If you can find me someone to edit a thesis before the 10th July, I will offer up a body for sexual favours.

Depending on your level of hotness, it could even be mine. If you're a real minger, you'll know because I will send a carguard in a petticoat and some lippy.

Email nixdodd@gmail.com if you're a grammar loving, touch typing machine.

I will pay R10.00 per page.

Hackers

2011-06-27T05:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Arsewipe who hacked my twitter account

I hope that an emaciated prostitute makes you eat the dried off semen off the scabs on her labia . I hope that hobos use your mouth as their toilet and that some of it gets in your eyes. I hope that tiny pins get placed under your eyelids and you're forced to watch mashups of Britney Spears, Bieber and Selena Gomez until you're obliged to saw off your own ears using a saw you've made out of a ruler.

I hope that your mother decides to retroactively abort you using a vacuum cleaner and a wire coat hanger and she starts by trying to suck your eyeballs out your ass. I hope the next blue pill you take is rat poison you foul and pustulent waste of oxygen.

Warm regards,

Nicole

ps I am now @nixidodd if you do it again I will slice your nutsack open, pop out your hairballs and feed them to you without ketchup

Afterlifesatisfaction: Springbok Nude Girls

2011-06-27T00:29:00.000-07:00

I was completely broke-arsed as a teen, as a result, I am now making up for lost time by buying many of the things that I didn't get to own as a teen. This is a facet of my personality I own quite happily.

The latest yen was to get my hands on an album I had on tape which ended up sounding like the whole band was on drugs because it stretched so badly.

I bought the Springbok Nude Girls album Afterlifesatisfaction. Don't do it. The sound is shiteous. It's tinny and sloppy- a one-dimensional parody of pathos. The tunes that sounded so good on a walkman in 1998 are no good when listened to in a digital era, especially when compared with System of a Down. Even Rage still sounds fabulous. I am so sad... the tunes are the same but the music just hasn't survived and every production error is glaring. It's like seeing a one night stand in daylight and noting the beauty was just an illusion created by panstick and eyeliner.

I might just stick it onto tape (assuming I can find one) and then try listening to it again. Perhaps it's not the music that's changed though, maybe my ears have changed.

On the other hand, I also bought the Mango Groove greatest hits album. It is absolutely outstanding- takes you right back and is positive, energised and musically accomplished. Beautiful.

Man Flu

2011-06-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

Women can contract swine flu and avian flu. They can contract German measles and chicken pox. However, we cannot contract man flu. This, in a seemingly equal society. We may not flail and thrash about in our sick beds, demanding meds. Instead, we must drag our snot-riddled corpses up and tend to the needs of out male counterparts. Is this revenge for PMS?

Yummy mummies continued

2011-06-26T05:07:00.000-07:00

Should you ever wish to infiltrate the ranks of the ym's you'll need a unique arsenal at your disposal.

This includes but is not limited to:

1. A moerse fokken SUV. This is for running working mummies over with. The SUV will always be clean. You will always park without any frantic 100 point versions of three point turns.

2. A good haircut. Thou shalt never turn up for the school run with a hairband and mousey brown hair. Thou shalt turn up with perfectly coiffed blonde hair an absofuckinglootely dazzling smile. Never mind whether the offspring have been projectile vomiting all night, or if your husband just ran off with his accountant- you will be impeccable and smiley and you will be able to flick your hair in a shimmering display of awesomeness.

3. A decent rack. Boobies must be prominently displayed at all times, not in an overtly revealing manner, but no baggy sweaters or lumpy old jerseys- they will be correctly constrained and presented front and center.

If it's cold and you get a nipple stand, you will not embarrassedly acknowledge this by crossing your arms, you will continue to chat to your victim with the perked up appendages pointing at the acquired target.

4. Mastering the backhanded compliment. You will assert your dominance over the other ym's by carefully placing compliments that later explode when the listener realises what was really said. Examples include "wow, you've lost so much of the baby weight". "Your house is so quaint" and "I just love your vintage clothes".

enough now, discussing them is depressing me. I am going to go and inject my face with aerosol whipped cream and left over horse tranquilizers.

Child Abuse

2011-06-26T01:59:00.001-07:00

Comes in all sorts of different forms. Go to http://www.mysnuggiestore.com/c-99-kids.aspx for the full extent of the atrocities committed against fleece.

Want.

2011-06-26T01:01:00.001-07:00

Babygros usually come in the most dull colours- only enlivened by the contents of the kid's diaper. Here are some that take things in the right direction...

If you feel like placing and order, these are available at http://www.funnyasfcuk.com/

32b or not 32b

2011-06-25T07:10:00.000-07:00

Having been impaled on an underwire yesterday, I decided enough was enough and went off bra shopping today. Amazing how quickly husbands disappear when you start examining bosom-bolsters. One minute the chap was next to me muttering about my fixation on my BlackBerry, and the next he was gone.

I decided to take a number of bras of all shapes and sizes into the fitting room. They look like confectionary, but are more like maximum security prisons for ones poor bosom- at least for me. They've always dug in and constrained me and usually in the hot weather here, I take them off in the car on the way home. When my car rolled a few years back, I had to retrieve a bra from under the front seat before it was towed away- much to the amusement of the burly towtrucker and chagrin of my husband.

Back to bra shopping...If you have a moment when you think you're feeling too good about yourself, just go and stand in a department store fitting room. The lighting is pretty much the same as in hospitals and laboratories.

In that lighting, every scar will stand out. An added bonus in winter is that as you go blue, it adds to the feeling of self-loathing. I spent a few minutes looking at the constellation of freckles on my back and shoulders before realising that this was slightly odd and resuming trying on bras.

Turns out, after actually trying on a few torture devices, I am not an A cup, I am a rather ample B cup, and I am not quite sure how that happened, but I am not complaining.

This is why the poor strained and elasticated restraint devices were groaning and creaking and expiring so quickly. It's also why they felt like S&M gear, not support. Yayness- bigger boobs without having to drink any beer #win.

My noombies are now happily nestled in a brassiere that fits and has ribbons in all the right places. After all, one should always look after ones assets and these two appear to be appreciating with age.

Movie Reviews: Saw 6 and the Social Network

2011-06-25T03:59:00.000-07:00

Ok, I am covering two movies in one review, because I only managed to make it through four minutes of Saw 6 before I decided I wasn't going to be able to watch it without losing my pizza. I like pizza and not chundering so decided to switch movies.

The only reason I can think of for the success of the Saw franchise is that people are so desensitised to human suffering that they need more and more of it in order to get their kicks. Silence of the Lambs was a masterpiece, the horror was a constant undercurrent and the imagination was allowed some leeway to weave its own mien. Saw on the other hand, is an onslaught of vulgar barbarity. I have nothing further to say on the matter, except I suggest that anyone who is a fan should explore the work of Stephen King and Edgar Allan Poe.

So, to move on to my second choice- The Social Network. There are no special effects, no one dies and it is a fine film, plus a fine movie. The rhythm of the dialogue is excellent, it has an indie feel to it and an excellent soundtrack. The story unfolds in line after line of dialogue, written in a manner which renders additional narration obsolete.

I am re-watching it as I write this. Jessie Eisenberg provides a credible lead- he intrigues and is well supported by Justin Timberlake- who for once doesn't look like a permed Nancy. The cinematography isn't devoted to a cornucopia of bright colours or pretty pictures. The film is proof that you don't need huge production budgets, cgi or special effects. All you need is a good story and actual acting. Thanks Hollywood.

And now for the news

2011-06-24T04:50:00.001-07:00

Closure

2011-06-24T04:44:00.000-07:00

Your thoughts are greying y-fronts
mouldy bread
milk that's turned
the dog shit on my soul

Bill

2011-06-23T23:37:00.000-07:00

This limited existence measured out in silence and sundowners- that alcohol infusion used to staunch the flow of self-loathing and languid lechery. The moments that stretch to hours on chintz sofas with ice melting in gin and tonics.

The fear that the smell from the other room might be your husband and he might have died a few days ago. You might be too afraid to phone anyone because then they'll take him away and it'll be over and you can't drive, or change a lightbulb and don't know how to pay the bills.

You only know how to water the roses and those will be taken away- best just leave him there for another few days and worry about the stain on the carpet later. Yes, that's best, worry about the stains some other time.

Instead, prepare to walk to the post office and collect the bills, and something nice to cook for Bill's tea, not that he'll eat it now but best to keep up appearances.

Look through the catalogue at the white goods store and buy winter in a box big enough to hide your husband so the smell goes away. You can pretend he's reclusive and that he doesn't want to take visitors so that no one knows you took a nail file to his throat one night when he told you he was leaving you for Mrs Wilkinson with her immaculate lawn and prize=winning begonias.

Product Review: Sarah's Secret Love Balls

2011-06-23T03:25:00.000-07:00

Love balls or kegel balls are designed to tighten the vaginal muscles so that you have better orgasms and also have better health in your lady bits (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/kegel-exercises/WO00119 for the science).

Armed with this information, I logged onto the passionfruit.co.za website and bought myself a set. Shopping online for sex toys is a lot easier than putting on a trenchcoat, shades and a wide brimmed hat and heading into the thriving metropolis of Empangeni to adult world. Trust me on this one.

The packaging was discrete and the balls are completely nondescript. Next time I want ones with smiley faces on, or with a magic eight ball function- way more fun. I could ask a question and then get an answer when they come out.

Well, I inserted them and the first thing you're aware of is the weights within them, they have their own equilibrium and move of their own accord. This is a bit disconcerting at first. Picture two hamsters in tiny hamster balls trying to head in opposite directions at the same time and that's the general feel.

The next thing you notice is the feeling that, as you walk, you have your own personal sub-woofer vibrating in your crotch. It's not unpleasant, I must hasten to add. When you bend over, there's a definite clunk as the weights inside the balls hit them and this is hilarious when you're on your own, but not so funny when you're looking for icing sugar in the local supermarket.

They're most disconcerting when they come out again but worth it. If my teaching career ever goes balls up, I may be tempted to move to the orient and learn to fire ping pong balls at inebriated CEO's just for laughs.

They produce the best sensation when you're bouncing or running, so if you see any women jogging with smiles on their faces, listen intently for a clinking noise, because they may have a secret. My next online purchase might just be a trampoline...

How the Wimpy Hath Fallen

2011-06-23T01:05:00.000-07:00

From the awesomeness that is this

to this...

Dear Wimpy, word up, your new advert are kak

The Emperor

2011-06-22T23:17:00.000-07:00

Spat out teeth in the corner of the cell, the swollen side effects of hours of beating and canvas clad cadavres. Dr de Jong's years of ceaseless orthodontistry undone by brutes in khaki shirts. No soap to wash out the mouth's silent blasphemies.

They discussed their lunch order after they were done, the puthu and chicken and morogo and cold coca cola as their semen seeped slowly down between the bruises. I scraped a finger against the polished cement and tasted blood, trying to leave a mark, a sign-"I was here, take my strength when your turn comes". Each fracture explored in a limb by limb inventory of the error of opening your mouth.

White bread and apricot jam sandwiches, ponies and cricket matches then machetes and pistols hidden in the bread bin. The Rolls Royce drumming to itself as the emperor drove around decrying croquet and pimms and elevenses and streets and roads and plumbing and freedom of speech.

Then dyssentary and no dissidence, how futile, how obsolete the elocution lessons are, once the hang man's noose is round your neck, where windsor knots once nestled. Once you're startled by the vivid clarity of the soldiers sharing a cigarette as they wait for you to soil yourself and dance the quadrille, the deportment and dances, the debutantes and diaspora become a pinpoint to a sightless pupil.

Working

2011-06-21T23:30:00.000-07:00

The committee certainly didn't see me coming with the machete. Eggnog is never your biggest problem when someone comes to work with a sharpened weapon. Sally from reception returned to the source the same way she spent every day-with her mouth open. Except, for a change the MD's cock wasn't in it.

She looked surprised or maybe just disappointed at how the blood would stain the cashmere sweater she'd deliberated over so long. Yes bitch, you should have thought about taking messages more accurately instead of what to wear for the xmas party and we wouldn't have this problem now would we? Who's next? Oh yes, the fucking sales manager who takes a look at my pecker time I take a leak next to him at the urinal.

As the little Lacoste crock is drowned in its own bloodbath I let a stream of urine dilute the crimson well. The multivitamins Mom gives me make my piss so yumyum yellow and I must tell her thanks, I can feel there's extra power in my swing. I tell the cleaning lady to make a run for it she never did anything to me except disapprove of me so intensely it made my sphincter retreat to my umbilicum. No wait, don't run away! I changed my mind, you snuffling sow.

Flee you fools, I am coming for you. I am secret santa and the secret's out- i hate decaf.

Learning from the Youth - Clarence Payne

2011-06-21T03:09:00.000-07:00

Learning from the youth:
As we marked the celebration of Youth Day last week I pondered about all the things we could learn from the young ones of today:

Learn to adapt: Life changes in the blink of an eye and everything gets turned upside down instantaneously. Be quick at adapting, embracing change and mastering whatever is required of you. Have you seen the speed with which a kid figures out a piece of technology? That’s life; technology, improvements, upgrades and changes aren’t going away any time soon. The faster you learn to adapt, the better for you.

Be Creative & Explore: Kids have this inborn inclination to be creative and explore. They’re always trying out new things or off on some new adventure. As you get older you get more set in your ways as your brain becomes lazy. Live on the edge and push your own boundaries and comfort zone, it’s one of the best ways to ensure you keep on learning and developing. Never shy away from being creative and exploring new frontiers.

Stand up: Respect the rule of law, respect those in leadership positions, but in the face of injustice and condemnation you have to stand up for something. If no one stands up nothing will change.

Be quick to forgive: As we grow older the lure to hold grudges becomes just that much more appetizing. In the end it is always the person that holds the grudge that suffers. Learn to let go, it’s not easy but it’s necessary. If you don’t know how to let go then pay attention to children, they get forgiveness right every time.

Dream: I miss the kid in me who once said: One day when I’m all grown up I’m going to do this.... Today is that one day, today is your day to do what you’ve always dreamed of doing. Yes, you might have taken a few wrongs turns and find yourself caught between a rock and a hard place. If you want to live your dream, your journey from here on end might not be easy. Find people who will dream with you and who will support you come what may. Five people pulling in the same direction are able to accomplish more than one.

The Soul

2011-06-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

Is the soul a Westernised notion? We try think we own everything, why not ourselves? What basis is there for believing that we retain our individuality after death? Isn't it more likely that we all re-enter the life force that drives every quickening? Isn't it more likely that our energy rejoins all the other energy out there that is transmuted through the living and non living on this planet? Surely karma is afforded more credence then? If our energy remains and returns to the earth, then we owe the earth more respect, for heaven and hell are here, and our fates are determined by our gluttony or our preparedness to create a world that is better for us having walked upon it.

Monday

2011-06-20T00:14:00.000-07:00

Impossible escape from this abyss

In this toxic conformity

hello soul the sole solace

unblemished by the other

the blessed notion

the foetal moment of maybe

abandoned in the whole

Alien Nation

2011-06-19T23:34:00.000-07:00

Admit it, there have been mornings that you've started with angry music and headphones on, trying to drown out the vapid conversations of your co-workers.

It's Monday, I am cranky having not slept much and also because no matter how many chemicals you infuse into your cerebral cortex, the feeling still escapes and you know something's just not right. There is no medicine, no quick fix, no escape from this morass.

Idol Shmidol

2011-06-19T09:02:00.000-07:00

South African idols is one of the reasons I do not miss subscribing to satellite television in za. I am pretty certain that those who vote for the 'artists' on the program do not necessarily buy music. They're more likely to see their favourite loser performing in a shopping center on a Saturday morning while they shop for Frisco and Heat magazines.

The real music fans (I hope), may watch with the same sort of head-tilting fascination reserved for watching car crashes and mating dogs*. Hopefully, they're online at the same time buying decent music, not hashed cover tunes that make $hitney and Ke$hit appear talented.

Then we have the judges- Mara (racist), Randal (dull, dull, dull), Gareth (about the only good thing left in the programme) and then the rent-a-judge (not even sure who this is anymore). This is a poor reflection of a music industry filled with talented, gutsy and original artists, who would really benefit from the air time afforded to the lacklustre wannabees that populate the idols stage.

*admit it, you've been horrified, then mesmerised, then horrified, then mesmerised at the sight also

Broken

2011-06-19T07:22:00.000-07:00

labyrinths of recriminating faces

involuntary exhalation

the heart, stolidly, selfishly pumping along

staccato soliloquy to selfishness

select ourselves out of this race,

a harmless scratch in spite of the odds.

a respite for the groaning tree

a mute descent into unhallowed ground

Why Twilight Sucks Ass, Part Duh

2011-06-18T10:09:00.000-07:00

Let's look at Bella, the supposed heroine of the saga and why she's just a bad emo role model for young girls.

*disclaimer: I have read the books repeatedly, admittedly*

Evidence that Bella and her creator are a disgrace to womankind:

Bella is clumsy, pale and needs a bite from a vampire to be infused with any element of 'cool'
The entire process of deflowering Bella is portrayed as painful, damaging and an act of victimhood. Bella is left with bruises and the child that is conceived destroys her.
Symbolically, she is only complete and incarnated once she has been married off to the sparkly one. She is clumsy and ineffectual until she is given the 'protein injection' from Edward. When Edward leaves, it leaves a hole in her, as if she is incomplete without him.
Stephenie Meyers repeatedly writes about Bella eating cereal, ffs, how many times can you describe someone eating cereal? Can a series of books be called a saga, if you describe a chick eating cereal?
There are forums devoted to speculating as to which brand of cereal Bella would prefer. (in case you don't believe me http://archive.twilightlexicon.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=20905&start=20). Maybe it was a failed attempt at product placement. My personal bet is that she ate all bland flakes (Which would explain Ms Stewart's pained expression in the movies).
Bella is repeatedly described as taking on traditional feminine roles successfully- she cooks for Charlie, cleans, does the shopping and in general behaves like Miss Suzy Homemaker. On the other hand, she needs Jacob to fix her bike and Edward to 'float her boat'. Meyer had the perfect opportunity to create a strong character and instead succumbed to romanticizing a 1950's vision of domestic servitude.
She never gets it on with Alice Cullen. You can see the little minx is gagging for it and she just gets batted the whole time.
Bella is utter white trash- she names her child Renesmee. Many South Africans have been subjected to the practice of amalgamated names. These are usually the names of the parents, one of whom may also be a grandparent as well as a parent at the same time, in these cases.
Bella is a consummate failure in every aspect of her life, ineffectual in her attempts to motorbike, cliff dive or displaying real human emotion. She is the vampire equivalent of a Stepford wife and Stephenie Meyer should have handed over the book concept to someone with a personality, and the ability to write.

Cake Wreck

2011-06-18T03:46:00.000-07:00

I have decimated any chances of making the PTA. All this because there are no female strippers in rural Zululand. We were trying to come up with a surprise for a friend's birthday. All we could find was a male stripper called Slade. Now, let's call a Slade a Slade... a male stripper for a straight guy's birthday will not be catering to the desired demographic.

Being foolhardy, and fond of baking is a bad combination. In this case, a cake depicting a fake cake with a stripper bursting out of it was the result. From the outset the cake tasted of #fail. It came out the pans ok, but as I added layer after layer, the side began to split and sag, much like Ange's tits after Knox. The tower of titty began to totter and then teeter and then make me regret the whole teetotal thing and long for a sturdy serving of cooking sherry (for when you're cooking y'know).

I began the process of resurrecting the tower of tastelessness armed with a bread knife and a sense of stoicism. Once it began to resemble a cake again, I coated it in icing and sent a picture to my partner in crime. The response- dead silence. I knew that this was bad and began to frantically ice the damn thing, telling myself that people still like the leaning tower of pisa despite its asymmetry, and, maybe the guests would be too inebriated to notice.

I skulked into my dwarf's bedroom and stole the doll with the articulated joints. She had the most game look about her. Unfortunately I was thwarted, so I told her to give Barbie a nice bath. She obliged and then came back and asked "must I put her clothes back on?". I said no, and then had to launch into an explanation of why I was about to turn her Barbie's career choice from state president to stripper.

It was relatively fun forcing Barbie into the middle of the cake and arranging her arms in a suitable pose. From then, it was plain sailing- a little icing and two cherries in lieu of tassels and a bit of green icing as a g-string.

The next morning, her green icing had sagged and looked like a bad case of menses gone awry so I was left delicately wiping Barbie's inner thigh with an earbud. She made it to the party ok, and was a real hit. Pity my boss's boss was there, plus a few full professors and the assistant registrar, director of academic development and half of the village... sigh. Face meet palm.

The Psychology of Cyberspace - Home Page/Table of Contents

2011-06-14T02:14:00.000-07:00

Flipping interesting e-resource on the emerging field

The Psychology of Cyberspace - Home Page/Table of Contents

The Myth of Now Playing

2011-06-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

We all wish people cared about what we're playing on our various brainwashing devices. The fact is, no one else really gives a shit. They might nod and smile, but they DO.NOT.CARE. Unless someone asks you, and has a genuine interest in your tastes, it's perlite not to overshare your kak taste in music.

Taste is taste, it is what it is. It's the reason ugly people get to make babies. What floats my boat is not necessary your thing (again with the unintended sexual innuendos).

However, there are some really awesome songs out there. Let's save the now playing for those songs.

The Whole in my head

2011-06-10T01:04:00.000-07:00

your kisses make me trigger happy
i'll run at you with knives wide open
i am loving you like razorblades
my toxic waste, my dangerous high
i'm going to rip out the stitches
because you can never hurt too much
hurting by you is better than love

http://dennismcgrathphoto.blogspot.com

2011-06-08T00:04:00.000-07:00

Don't go to the blog if you're under 18, or verkrampte. It's a poignant look at the people behind the porn. In taking these photographs, Dennis McGrath has restored humanity to the objectified, much the same way as the behind the scenes photogs do in the fashion and film industries. Beneath the thin veneer of idealised fornication, lies eroticism in the ordinary and art.

Study: For Women, Skinnier Figures Can Equal Fatter Paychecks

2011-06-07T22:40:00.000-07:00

Study: For Women, Skinnier Figures Can Equal Fatter Paychecks

This is why I fucking hate science somtimes, the problem with science is that, in order to get any statistical sense, situations are over simplified. People see skinny, successful women and assume causality. In the case of weight and success, there are mediating variables that impact upon success in the workplace and also impact upon a woman's weight.

The skinny chick is the chick who never feels good enough, the one who craves mastery and perfection in a world gone mad. Often, they seek approval in whatever form it can be obtained, all you want to do is be told you're a good girl, that you're getting something right. Not even one's harshest critic is as harsh as the voice inside your head saying that you're fat, useless, lazy. Eating beyond survival is seen as a sign of weakness, of capitulation and the sinking into the malaise of the chubby girls with their forced jollity.

The skinniness is an outward manifestation of an inward battle against menses, ageing, failure and oneself. It is the thing that can be used as a mute performance measure- a way of assessing whether you can look yourself in the eye. If you can control, resist food, then you can work until the job is finished, perfect. If you see a person in control in the mirror, then it's easy to control your words and actions in the workplace. When you're thin, people treat you differently. Especially women. They ascribe all manner of deifications upon your scrawny frame. The battle of the calories preys upon other's perceptions and the tears and self-loathing reap rewards for those who suffer through them.

When I look in the mirror- I see a fat chick, and am a fat chick, because I am not underweight- solutions are binary in the Western woman's mind. You're either overweight or you're perfect. And you're never perfect.

My BMI is 20.1, with a body fat percentage well within the range of normal. I should be grateful about that- the consequences of being underweight include losing your boobs and having a saggy ass, things that no sane woman would tolerate for very long.

Nevertheless, we self-castigate in the quest for an ideal which is unhealthy and not particularly sexy, with the aim of an unattainable perfection. I find myself sitting here, starting to wonder if I shouldn't be aiming for less body fat.