chrisroper.co.za

Check it out on www.chrisroper.co.za

 

from next week, i'll start doing daily updates, so do subscribe to the RSS feed, if you're in the mood. Hope to see you over there.

 

 

that's on www.chrisroper.co.za

Okay, wrote a column on mg.co.za about the Ras Tonedef debacle. I particularly like this line: "I'm not Rasist. Some of my best friends are white people who think Bob Marley abolished slavery and made it okay to dance like a slinky trapped in a potato sack."

 

But the opening paragraph is this: " Please, kill me now. Some stoner Rastafarian who can barely string one thought together stumbles through the SA national anthem, and suddenly we have a media blitz and a national outcry? What are we, Saudi Arabians"

 

So you get the general drift! Take a look. (Oh, and new blog design has just been finished, so you should see a new chrisroper.co.za in about a week.

 

I'm not one to kick a man when he's down, unless he's significantly bigger than me, but I can't resist this time. And no, I'm not talking about Joost, I'm talking about Jackie Selebi. Although I have called my Tuesday column "Jackie Selebi and Joost: The untold story". Which is an entirely misleading headline, I'm happy to say.

 

Although the column does start with "It can't be too long until Jackie Selebi and Glenn Agliotti are referred to as the Joost and Amor of the criminal world, in the same way that the latter couple are yearningly known as the Becks and Posh of South Africa by the poor unfortunate mutts condemned to write about SA celebs"

I can't resist a good phallic pun, so today's column (ha, that's one!) is 'Driving Miss Dickmobile". A happy take on the world's most expensive SUV. Unbelievably, this piece of appallinglyl ugly crap costs a Million pounds.

 

 

Hi all. I've decided it's time to get back in the saddle, with blogging and columning. So here's my first column of a weekly series. It's about forgiving the Reitz idiots for their stupid racist antics. On the whole, I'm against it.

 

I've called it, rather catchily, Forget Forgiveness.

Phew, I really need to start blogging again. It's just so time consuming setting up new home, and new work. And trying to find a decent sushi restaurant.

I think I've had the worst expensive food ever in Joburg. Don't ever go to the Orient in Melrose Arch. And I ordered from a place called Ruchi's last night, which turned out to be the most disgusting Indian food I've ever eaten. They added sugar to everything - the Dhal tasted like cheap golden syrup, the Breyani like clumps of dough dipped in sugar water, and the lamb curry as if they'd tortured the goat to death by staking it out over an anthill covered in chutney.

disgusting doesn't cover it. avoid like plague. Hell, CATCH the plague rather than eat there.

Well, Saturday morning I get into my car and drive to Joburg to start my new job as editor of the Mail & Guardian Online. It's going to be cool to play in a different space for a while, and I mean work as well as city.

I'll be doing a regular column on Thought Leader, eventually, but I'll miss my News24 audience. You people are crazy. In a good way.

There's something to be said for addressing the largest SA audience in the land. If nothing else, you get a variety of insanity, which is what keeps us fresh.

Anyhow, until I get settled in, I'll probably be tweeting more than blogging, so follow me @ChrisRoperZA if you want to keep in touch.

Bye for now.

chris

Love this extract from a column I wrote for News24 in 2006, mainly because it reminds me of how utterly disgusting our canteen food at MWEB used to be. People who've worked there will need no reminding.


Chris Roper
Culture clash
2006-03-29 10:53

Words in South Africa are as flies to the gods, as Shakespeare once said. Or playthings to the gods, something like that. I'm not going to go and look the quotation up, because I am a South African, so Shakespeare will just jolly well have said whatever I decide he said.

This blithe disregard for other cultures is one of our strengths, of course. I see the same thing at work in the canteen in my office block. Currently, they're throwing a Festival of Food, and each day we get a meal themed around some famous festival.

Monday was Chinese Festival Day, so in honour of China, they served us chicken coconut curry (Thai) with Basmati Rice (Indian). Tuesday was Independence Day, so in honour of the USA, we were treated to a Boerewors and Mash Casserole (South Africa, although no part of South Africa I've ever been). Wednesday's meal is themed around the Running of the Bulls, the Festival de Pamploma (sic). So we're being treated to Tortilla Pizza's (sic). Which, as far as I know, would be some sort of strange Mexican Italian hybrid. Very sick.

Not one of the meals actually has anything to do with the country it's supposed to honour. Now this is a big catering company doing this, and they've printed big flashy posters and special menus to sell the concept.

Where did it all go wrong? What genius of geography and cuisine was put in charge of the menu, and why did he decide, "Stuff this, if I decide that Tortilla Pizzas are Spanish, then they will be Spanish." At least you do actually get tortillas in Spain, but I'm not sure I'd make them iconic.

It's the idea of the Rainbow Nation, I'm afraid. We've been told that all cultures are good, which means that as long as you get enough cultural bits into the mix, you'll be okay. So what if they happen to be the wrong cultural bits. At least we noticed you.

Here's a story by me that's in the current Obrigado, available at all vida e caffe stores. I kind of like it, it's not as nastily satirical as my usual stuff. But get hold of a copy of the new 'School's Out" themed Obrigado, there's some good stuff in there. Including a column by me which I really hope will make you blow cappucino out of your nose by accident.
Thanks to Arian for the great illustrations. Very, uh, lifelike.

I've stopped writing columns about Julius Malema, because, well, it's like shooting fish with their feet in their mouths in a barrel. But the odd blog posting is irresistible.

Julius M., the beloved and revered Supreme Leader of the ANCYL-biters, refuses to apologise for his comment about the woman who laid a rape charge against President Jacob Zuma, saying the hate-speech case against him was driven by a white agenda, according to News24.

"We will never apologise to some Mickey Mouses who want to put pressure on us," he said outside the Equality Court on Friday after the matter was postponed to August 31.

"He said the charge was driven by people who did not want to see black faces in leadership.

"The Sonke Gender Justice Network laid the complaint, charging that Malema's comment perpetuated myths about rape.

"Malema said the organisation represented "the whites who are opposed to African leadership"."

It's ludicrous. If a white person disagrees with Malema, he or she is a racist. If a black person disagrees, he or she is a Mickey Mouse glove puppet with a white hand up its bum.

The poor sod - can't he just admit that he's a stupid misogynist with a pathological fear of rodents, and move on to gulping champagne at fund-raising events like the real politicians?