Hi 22C° Low 4C° | 
Pendock Uncorked
6 hours, 1 minute ago
The Social
1 day, 3 hours ago
Minor Matters
1 day, 14 hours ago
The Frock Report
2 days, 2 hours agoView all Times LIVE Blogs
A NEW parenting book. A new theory. More to worry about. As a working mother, it’s hard to shake the guilt. And just as you’ve talked yourself into a fairly calm state, another theory is published. Another attack on mothers.
Try this one: entrusting your son to a nanny could turn him into a womaniser. Nobody likes a Tiger Woods, so this comes as a horrible shock to my sensibilities. But what must a woman do? In my life, we have a bond to pay off and my state-of-mind to keep happy. I can’t be a stay-at-home mother.
But my son a Tiger Woods? Eish, not a good thought.
According to this new parenting book An Unsolicited Gift, by the British psychiatrist Dr Dennis Friedman, by employing a nanny or au pair to look after your baby, you unconsciously introduce him to the concept of the “other woman” while he is still gurgling in his nappies. Read More…
On my recent trip to Kenya I heard from a family member who lives along the coast about the fishing there. His son-in-law is in the fishing industry also along that coast. I heard then about the increase in fishstocks since the activity of Somalian pirates in the area. With big trawlers staying away from the coast, local fishermen are enjoying a return of fish to their seas. It is no doubt hell being captured by pirates and people have died at their hands, but I did like this upside to the pirate story.
A couple of years ago fishermen along this part of the east coast of Africa couldn’t find any fish.
Now, reports the Financial Times, with many foreigners too scared to enter these waters, Kenyan fishermen say fish stocks are recovering.
“It’s not well documented, but the capture of fish has about doubled,” says Hassan (who heads London-based Somali Fisheries Society). Farah Obaidullah, a campaigner at Greenpeace International, likens the presence of pirates in the region to marine reserves or “no-take” areas. The pirates should think about rebranding themselves as hands-on environmentalists.
International supermodel Alek Wek was in South Africa to shoot a 2010 winter campaign for Woolies. Remember that Wek was the first black women to appear on a magazine cover in the US – US Elle. It was this November 1997 issue below. Strange to think that it was so recent.
Anyway, Elle SA magazine had an opportunity to do an interview and a shoot with Wek for their April issue – their 14th birthday issue. World renowned and controversial Italian photographer Oliviero Toscani took the photographs. In this shoot Wek is wearing a Woolies t-shirt! Aren’t the pictures magnificent?
Wondering what to do this weekend? In Joburg?
Don’t hesitate to spend some time at the Joburg Art Fair. It’s a feast of beauty. Twenty three galleries are presenting their artists, mostly South African. There is a lot of new and exciting stuff. It’s great to have all the galleries in one space. So if you feel the need to catch up on your art browsing, this is the place to do it. Besides the fine art on display there is some of the finest contemporary furniture designs from Southern Guild, a collective of South Africa’s top design talents.
See Joburg Art Fair website for more details.
This evening I went to see the first South African screening of a documentary about dolphin slaughtering in a small fishing town, Taiji, in Japan. Here in a secret cove, kept tightly secured, 23 000 dolphins per year are slaughtered. A few are spared death and are sold to seaquariums around the world to be trained for our entertainment. The rest are stabbed to death and sold for the meat. Most of this is sold under the guise of whale meat because dolphin meat is known to contain unacceptably high quantities of mercury. Read More…
In May, SPace a contemporary African art exhibition at Museum Africa will be opened. Curators Thembinkosi Goniwe and Melissa Mboweni presented their curatorial concept to a group of interested parties yesterday – including journalists like me.
It should be an exiting exhibition. Paul Mashatile, deputy minister of arts and culture has said that “we are encouraged that this will be done by Africans themselves telling their stories, reflecting on their own personal experiences, proudly reaffirming the saying that: nothing about us, without us.” Read More…
How tedious – an amicable split. Where is the drama? What about us the bloggers? Where is our story? Amicable split: it’s plainly untrue of course. The relationship must have been stressful and unhappy.Otherwise why the split. Ok, maybe the split is amicable, but the relationship wasn’t. Whatever…
Last year, according to the Daily Mail she said: ‘The children absolutely adore each other. They’re great siblings, and as a family we’re a solid little unit and extremely close.’
Didn’t take long for it to all come tumbling down.
Lately I’ve been preoccupied by two very different films currently on the Cinema Nouveau circuit and by what I believe they should have had in common.
Both Skin, the story about Sandra Laing, based on her real life story, by Anthony Fabian and the purely fictional The Private Lives of Pippa Lee by Rebecca Miller speak about women and are made by first time feature film directors.
Despite a few striking differences between Sandra Laing, a black South African disadvantaged by apartheid and Pippa Lee, a white wealthy American, they still have much in common as women dealing with pain, betrayal, regrets, powerlessness, love and happiness – universal human experiences that transcend class and race. Where Rebecca Miller adopted an exploring and subjective approach for The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Anthony Fabian chose to make Skin an explanatory and educational film. As for their ability to captivate the audience it follows naturally that the film about Pippa Lee is intriguing and emotionally compelling while Sandra Laing’s incredible story as told in Skin is one-dimensional and uninspiring. I’m intrigued by the difference in approach between the films, and troubled too. Read More…
