The jasmine is late this year. It’s nearly August and the flowers are still little more than tiny carmine spears poking out of a tangle of leaves. I love jasmine: it’s the scent of spring, of new beginnings, of possibility and the inevitably of c...
Once upon a time, Old Spice was the smell of your dad. It was Carmina Burana and crashing waves. It was the gift you bought for a man when you'd long since run out of time and imagination and the bottle gathering dust in the bathroom cabinet. It was ...
So I'm sitting in a doctor's waiting room waiting, as you do, for the doctor who is now over 20 minutes late, and I'm at a bit of a loose end. None of the magazines on the coffee table offer stories that will fill the gaping void in my sense of self,...
Chauvinism. In a previous article I reflected on the hostility towards Uruguay after their defeat of Ghana, and given that this still appears to be a hot topic, I thought I'd explore this in a little more detail.
You probably know the word "chauv...
Walking past one of the cubicles in our office building the other afternoon, I noticed a photo of a cat pinned to a board. On it were the words: "You cannot imagine the immensity of the fuck I do not give." It struck me that this statement -- which h...
Back in April, Iceland paralysed half the world when one of its volcanoes produced an ash cloud that prevented commercial aircraft from flying. Thousands of people (including me) were horribly inconvenienced, but this wasn't all bad news for Iceland....
I think I may have just had Johannesburg's most expensive haircut. I'm still completely traumatised, but I'm starting to emerge from the dazed and confused state that inevitably results when one has had a dreadful shock. I'd put off getting my hair s...
There are a lot of birds I love. There is the spectacularly coloured Bateleur Eagle -- quite possibly my favourite favourite -- with its red face and feet, chestnut back and underwing markings that conveniently distinguish male from female; the eccen...
Once upon a time, dating across the so-called colour line was illegal in this country, and it was generally considered taboo everywhere else. Now, interracial dating is a growing global trend -- there are plenty of interracial dating websites -- and ...
The average person doesn't really think about photographers. We might see evidence of their work all around us, we might take shots of our own, but people who do this for a living? They're not, shall we say, top of mind. Though I've studied the work ...
Sarah Britten has written three books on South African insults. During the day she is a communication strategist in the ad industry; by night she writes books and blog entries. It helps to have insomnia.
