Right now, I’m too busy to blog, but…

WATCH THIS SPACE!!!

Not enough hours in a day…

Early September, I start a new career alongside my present career as novelist, columnist and musician. I will try to break into the overseas writing market.

For starters, I am writing a weekly column for a London-based magazine with a South African readership. I also want to pick up a hobby I have long neglected; producing humorous and science fiction short stories and manuscripts for magazines and agents in the international market.

I’m starting to realise more and more that, with all this work-load, it might not be possible to continue my various blogs, including this one. Though I really enjoy the social media, perhaps I should make a choice and focus on just two outlets: Twitter and Facebook.

I will decide about this within the next week. If I decide to quit, I will not remove this blog straightaway, to give readers a chance to take note of my “resignation”, and read previous entries if they wish to do so.

Koos

Jupiter: What a Gas!!

I just can’t get over this thing that happened to Jupiter last week. I mean Jupiter the planet. I’m astonished that the very fact of a planet-sized asteroid crashing into this gaseous sphere has evoked so little enthusiasm and surprise in the social media. It’s hardly even mentioned on Twtter!

Not that I care all that much about Jupiter as such – I don’t have any friends there – but I find it alarming in the extreme that such large asteroids even exist. From what I gather, this brute of a thing must have been at least as massive as our own moon. Bearing in mind that it took a piece of rock smaller than Table Mountain to wipe out the dinosaurs, this one is a real monster. Having such a piece of debris flying around, and crashing into a neighbouring planet, is about as scary as hearing that the people around the corner has had their house flattened by a Boeing. This event took place IN OUR NEIGHBOURHOOD, RIGHT UNDER OUR NOSES.

It could happen to us…

Is the letter “R” really that important?

It was with some degree and shock that I heard about the renewed violence flaring up in Ireland. To an outsider like me, this is a complete mystery! Those people are all Christians, and the differences between their denominations surely aren’t worth killing one another for. I mean, their hymn books probably look slightly different, and the one lot has stained glass windows in their churches whereas the other lot don’t. So what’s the big deal? Why can’t they just get along?

Yet, on a smaller scale, the same madness exists among Afrikaans people. Some time ago, I decided that the only way of solving the emotional and cultural problems caused by my tribal Nationalist-Calvinist upbringing was to leave all that baggage behind, retaining only my language – Afrikaans. This was a simple, self-evident and perfectly logical solution to my identity crisis – or so I thought.

Funny thing is, the moment I mentioned it in the press, certain people were up in arms. To them, me calling myself an “Afrikaanse” rather than an “Afrikaner” was somehow offensive. Yet it was merely a matter of personal choice!  To this day, however, these people keep on playing complicated word games, and some of them are accusing me of the most horrendous treachery.

Of course, as in Ireland, it’s more than just hymn books, stained glass windows, or even the letter “R”. Hidden somewhere behind these seeming trivialities are two diametrically opposed world views. What the world view of this small yet fanatical sector of the “R” people is, I cannot say, since I have never been able to fathom their minds. All I know is that, as I am starting to realise only now, we have almost nothing in common (except, perhaps, a love of rugby). What seems self-evident to me is, for some reason I honestly can’t comprehend, totally unacceptable to them.

AND SO, THE MADNESS CONTINUES…

Plastic Man is Dead…

So, the King of Pop is dead.

To be honest, I’ve never been a Michael Jackson fan. In fact, I’ve always considered him a bad influence on mankind (pun intended). His gigs, as a youngster, with the Jackson family, directly led to the surge of horrible popmuzak and boy bands in the 70s. And I suspect his Thriller video led to a spate of ghastly zombie movies (of which the only one I really liked was Shawn of the Dead).

Yet, when I was asked to jam toegther on a Michael Jackson song last year while warming up backstage at the Spier amphitheatre for a show with Zanne Stapelberg, Nomfusi and others, I must admit I throroughly enjoyed it. I have had a slightly more positive view of his music since then.

Though I still feel GreenPeace should’ve protested at his funeral. He was after all, not bio-degradable. You can’t put that amount of plastic into the earth. And melting him would have caused bad fumes. O well.

Goodbye to the King…

It’s a mind set

I am deeply concerned about the possible new health care legislation proposed by the ANC.

State hospitals are falling apart while private hospitals are still functioning. Now the state, in effect, wants to “take over” private hospitals – in the name of the collective.

It’s not first time private health care is threatened. Mbeki’s minister of health, the infamous Dr Manto, was forever harrassing not only private hospitals, but pharmacists too. All that energy could have been better spent restoring the public health sector.

I am sure many upper- and middleclass tax payers would gladly contribute to general health care and social upliftment if they were sure the money is spent sensibly. But to prescribe to such people what doctors and which facilities they themselves must use, is something else entirely.

I suspect this clumsy piece of legislation is just one more proof that the ANC is still hampered by old-fashioned communist thinking. I wish they would get rid of that mind-set. The poor cannot by uplifted by punishing the rich. No economy works that way. Such thinking is the trademark of the lazy, the incompetent, and the impractical idealists. It simply cannot be translated into reality.

I have always said that the only thing which will really make me consider emigrating to another country, would be if basic health care facilities for me and my family were no longer available.

So… don’t push me.

What’s with Namibia?

What the hell is wrong with Namibia? End of last year, they threw two innocent South Africans in jail - myself and a prominent Carte Blanche journalist – because of imaginary mistakes in our passports. From what I hear, the Chinese Mafia has taken virtual control of all business in Walvisbaai. And now this: ex-president Sam Nujoma delivers an inflammatory address riddled with anti-Semitism and inapropriate aggressive remarks.

Namibia is my favourite African country. Often, during the disastrous reign of Thabo Mbeki, have I toyed with the idea of emigrating there. My in-laws all come from Namibia and I have numerous friends there.

Now  at last it seems as if the South African government is showing the political will to deal with the problems caused by Mbeki and his cronies. And there are signs that Zimbabwe may be stirring back to some kind of semblance of economic and political life. Of course, it’s early days, and many things can still go wrong.

But why, if the other countries in the region are looking up, must Namibia begin to slide towards anarchy? Have they learned nothing at all from what happened here and in Zimbabwe?

Or am I just being paranoid because I have recently seen the inside of a Walvisbaai holding cell? Is this nightmare experience clouding my judgment?

Maybe so. But, believe me, that was a very dark place to be. A very dark place indeed…

They Say There’s a Recession…

They say there’s a recession

But the sky’s still just as blue

They say there’s a recession

And it’s really up to you

They say there’s a recession

Times are hard and friends are few

They say there’s a recession

And I guess it might be true… (after all)

Because everywhere houses are for sale at halfprice and the vagrants going through my rubbish are twice as many and even my rich pals owe me money and there’s a baaaad feeling in the air… o fok.

Missing Link Discovered!!!

Oh, yes, and how the Anti-Creationist Lobby is gloating!! One can practically hear their saliva-glands working overtime, and one can hear them shouting: “We knew it all along! We told you so!!”

I must admit that, although I’m not a Creationist, I’m not fully convinced that Evolution is the only cause of life as we know it. Of course, I accept that there is such a thing as species development, but I don’t think that disproves the existence of a Higher Intelligence or Synchronicity. I am not an atheist either, but, to be honest, I kind of like atheists. The only atheists I feel uncomfortable with are the militant ones, the “zealous” (dare one use that word?) crowd. They seem to take themselves just as seriously as religious zealots, and there’s just too much ego involved there…

Has anyone ever read “The Book of Atheist Spirituality” by Andre Comte-Sponville? When this book appeared in 2006/7, I thought it would make a major splash. It didn’t! It should have!! Though I don’t agree with it 100% – I am, after all, not an atheist – I loved reading it. Comte-Sponville’s atheism is, in fact, much closer to my semi-humanistic kind of faith than most religious writing today. Which just goes to show how the boundaries are blurring (see my previous entry).

Be that as it may: the Missing Link is here to stay. Hallo, Missing Link! What on earth took you so long?

The Universe made me do it!

It’s with some degree of astonishment that I read about the vicious battle between religious believers and atheists which dominated headlines – and decorated London buses! – recently.

Whereas I hate religious zealots as much as any sane person, I’m taken aback by the militant stance taken by some atheists. Sometimes I wonder whether militant atheism and militant Christianity aren’t flipsides of the same coin.

The one group may say “The Lord led me to do this” whilst the other group claims “The Universe prompted me to act in a certain way”. Frankly, I can’t see the difference. It’s just a matter of giving God different names.

Put all these guys in an aeroplane. throw in some heavy turbulence, and you won’t find any REAL atheists among them (with the possible exception of Chuck Norris). Whether they pray to God, Allah, or the Universe, they will pray. I’m bloody sure of that.