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“I skeem my bru’s beak’s bust!” he said. Silence, as I tried to process the words. Initially, I thought I was perhaps having a stroke as...
I hadn’t realised it, but very few people in Glenhazel live in their own homes. They might physically be domiciled there, have paid for it, have...
He meant it as a compliment when in an email to the whole company, he thanked Bethanie and two others for their incredible work. Not done...
Winter in Johannesburg has made me realise that the difference between a breeze and a draft is about 30 years. Whereas I could never understand my...
I’m not sure what it says about my social life, but last week’s earthquake was the most fun we’ve had on a Saturday night in years....
“I swear, it’s like I have my wife back,” said a friend. We were talking about his recent solar installation and the way it had changed...
Soon after my morning show ended on Monday, the ChaiFM office received a call with a complaint. In of itself, this is hardly unusual, and I...
Shavuot is proof that G-d doesn’t really like Ashkenazi Jews. Either that or He has a great sense of humour. Because any festival that involves feeding...
The wonderful thing about a Shabbat morning walk from Glenhazel to Waverley, aside from the time to catch up with one’s wife, is the number of...
Mother’s Day is the one day a year when I don’t miss my late mom. Not because we weren’t close, and not because I didn’t want...
It started with “thwack!”, then another “thwack!”, followed by “thwack, thwack, thwack!” “Howard!” screamed my wife, although it wasn’t necessary as we were already sitting on...
Once again, South Africa leads the world. And this time it’s in the vexing area of gender assignment. The debate around gender can finally be solved....
Some of our biggest marital arguments involved Tupperware. Or rather, my failure to return a container that had been placed in my care. And whereas I...
Jewish mothers have used fear-based marketing for generations. They have learned the art of making us picture what will happen if in cold weather we don’t...
It turns out there hadn’t been fraud committed on the credit card. It hadn’t been stolen, and we hadn’t been hacked. In spite of my misgivings,...
“No-one,” said my wife, with the conviction of someone who indeed had asked everyone, “writes how much they loved working on their tombstone!” She paused for...
It turns out that there’s a name for them. I hadn’t heard of the concept, but it’s apparently a real thing around the world. And now,...
She looked like a perfectly lovely person. Wearing a long flowery dress with a wide-brimmed straw hat that had a matching pink band around it, she...
It’s time to start issuing passports. Not the ancestral ones like Lithuanian or German or Polish, but from the independent Republic of Glenhazel. It’s time for...
“I’m sorry to have to tell you this,” I said solemnly. “I have something difficult to tell you, and I need you to listen.” My children...
The conversation will often begin with the sentence, “You know who we have to invite back…?” And invariably, I won’t. I won’t know who she’s thinking...
This should probably contain a trigger warning. Sensitive viewers might be offended. But honestly, when did rugby players become such wimps? Such cowards? What happened to...
If you squint your eyes while looking into the sun, you might imagine that the gold reef mine dumps that are dotted around the city are...
It’s a sad situation. Years ago, when you saw a group of men gathered excitedly around a shared cell phone, the likelihood was they were up...
And now for something completely different. Monty Python couldn’t have scripted a week in the life of a South African any better. If the unrelenting heat...
For years, I heard my parents going on about people who went on holiday to the “other side”. As a child prone to wild imaginings, I...
The image of the Durban mayor taking a swim in the ocean to prove that it’s safe to do so was a particularly horrible one. Although...
We all know the story. Cynthia has asked Geoff at least seven times (no exaggeration) to call the plumber to sort out the leaking geyser in...
No one tells you that baby girls will one day turn 12. And that for the next five years, they will love and hate you in...
Much like Padel, summer camp is all the rage. What started when we were young, with parents finding an old “trommel”, throwing in a few odds...
It’s a lie, we’ve been told – the oft repeated notion that the loss of one of our senses heightens and refines the other. Remove my...
When I was 15, I was friendly with a guy by the name of James. We weren’t great friends as he was a bit wild, and...
This is how it ends. Not with a bang, but a whimper. After five children, our youngest has just started to write her matric finals. And...
It’s going to take a while to get COVID-19 out of our systems. And although I would happily forget many aspects of the pandemic, there are...
Across the Jewish world shul committees are anxious. With Rosh Hashanah a few days away, there’s minimal time to complete the shul seating lists. And little...
JoJo tank owners are like vegans. No sooner you meet them, they tell you their storage capacity. Which is why Brian was excited. He had finally...
I could see that the recruit was struggling. The work environment was new to him, and he wasn’t keeping up. “It’s all about the vocab,” I...
If this was an agony aunt letter, I would begin as follows: “Dear Aunt Ruchama, I’m worried that my friend has become a Padel slut. Unable...
I’ve long considered giving marriage lessons. Not because I consider myself an expert on it, but because I find myself perplexed by some of the current...
I try not to take it personally but sometimes, in my darkest moments, I suspect that Naledi Pandor doesn’t love me. It happens in the small...
