Stories & creative
To the Lighthouse at Dungeness during Covid-19
‘Just to let you know that your portrait is almost finished. Would you be free for a viewing on Saturday morning?’ My stomach lurched. It was a message from the narrative figurative painter Kate Wilson, who is also my dear friend Katy, on a bright sunny morning in...
The Real Inheritance
The long rectangular boxes were the obvious place to start unpacking. They had been around forever, since the Floral Duet days. During school holidays, I would sometimes help in The Shop, as it was known. It was exciting when the wholesaler truck arrived with boxes...
Finding Beauty
‘Write about something beautiful as if you have never seen it before.’ This time two weeks ago I was pondering the homework set in my writing class as I headed out for a run. As always, I was thinking about how to get more words down on ‘the Rietfontein project’ and...
Seasons and Spice
There are two things that South Koreans love to talk about - the country’s four distinct seasons and the food. These were two things that I came to talk about too. The seasons: the hot thick humidity of summer and its threat of acid rain; mountain walks in autumn...
Manchester: ‘We do things differently’
‘I was born in Manchester and when I was growing up I said to my father "why did you bring us here to this place where it rains all the time?". Did you know that’s why they call it Rainchester. Don’t you worry about Storm Dennis, there is a storm here everyday.’ Never...
An Unnecessary Obituary
This is difficult. Exactly a month after I last saw my beloved Margaret Ncgobo, she is dead. I had visited her, as I always do when I am in South Africa, before we headed off to Kwa-Zulu Natal's North Coast for the last week of our holiday. We were, in the words...
A rant about the great ‘free’ British press
How did you end up in the cul-de-sac that is business journalism? It was a question put to me at a London lunch party with a bunch of film buffs back in 2001, by a successful somebody who should have known better. I remember feeling like I’d been slapped in the face....
Dear Mr Ramaphosa, cowries are not enough for microbusiness
Our guide, who introduced himself as Bee, was waiting in the lobby of our hotel at Coffee Bay on the wild Wild Coast of South Africa’s Eastern Cape. It was going to be a scorcher of a day, but we’d decided, anyway, to do the walk to Hole in the Wall. After Table...
Sticking with Las Vegas, a billionaire, Microsoft and a Volksie shop
The week started with a bang. On Monday, the EyeforTravel WhatsApp group started pinging madly. Mostly I annoy people by ignoring WhatsApp, but this activity seemed unusual. It was, I soon realised. The news of the crazy, incomprehensible, senseless shooting in Las...
Google and the place of the flying ducks
‘Matatiele’: When I entered this Basotho word, which roughly translated means ‘the ducks have flown’, into Google last week, I was curious. How would, or even could, Google portray this place of beloved and vividly remembered childhood holidays? Top of search was...