Stories & creative
A sort-of tribute to my late father
The day my father died, three months ago yesterday, I was at my mother’s house helping her to move out of our family home. It was nearing the end of the two weeks I’d spent with her laughing and crying through the packing up of 40 years of tat, trinkets and family...
Counting blessings
“Darling, why not phone them now and say we will ring them when we get to Nairobi. Tell them Mummy wants to take them to Carnivore tomorrow night.” Carnivore, this slightly overweight, posh Brit tells her public school looking teenagers, is a restaurant. As I’m...
Secrets, lies and thinking on your feet
Keep Calm Pamela. This is the message on the key ring given to me last Saturday morning by my friend, the mother of my daughter’s friend of nearly 15 years. The best friend is organising a surprise birthday party and I’m dropping my son off at hers so that we can...
Guilt, shame and regret
My interview yesterday morning, which revolved around the state of education in South Africa, started with a greeting in a language I did not understand. At least I think it was a greeting. Maybe he thought that as a South African born journalist living in London, who...
Putlocker, piracy and parents: when sharing isn’t always caring
“Art is art. That’s how it is in our household. No way would any of us ever download free music or films. Absolutely no way!” It was an emphatic response to the question I’d put to the crowd at coffee last Friday: “How would you feel if your children were downloading...
The day Madiba died
At 10pm on December 5th 2013, at Johannesburg's strangely quiet OR Tambo Airport, I found the only open outlet where I could buy a much-needed coffee – The Mug & Bean. Here I began transcribing the recordings from a two-day conference on why public-private...
The Cloud Lifts
At 4am the day after my Gmail account was hacked over a month ago now, I penned a blog, Google’s Very Dark Cloud (see below if you didn’t get a chance to read it before I binned it). Sleep was elusive and there was little else to do while I waited for two hours to run...
Do we need more education?
Yesterday afternoon as I am loitering in the playground a friend tells me she has read my blog ‘Our Monsters on Moshi’ - . “Wow really good,” she says. “It even prompted me to ask [daughter’s name] if she ever talks to people she doesn’t know online. Of course she...
Our Monsters on Moshi
Last night my six-year-old son signs in to MoshiMonsters, the popular online children’s game, which now has over 50 million users worldwide. He is very excited because he got a monthly membership for Christmas so he can now do more with his pet Monster. So while I get...
To Share or Not to Share
When we were growing up our parents told us that sharing was something good children did. Children who didn’t share were spoilt and would end up with no friends. Today, the more you share the more friends you are likely to have --- on Facebook that is. Facebook wants...