The ANC in brief:

Introducing my first novel - HOLIDAY. How is this for an opening...

One
Manila

I need a holiday.

Incinerating, the moth caught in the exhaust plume glimpses the black jet dancing demonically through the heat haze of the cigarette sky. Even as the burnt flakes of the moth eviscerate into the jet stream, the cold perpetrator continues to press a hard body against the smoky air. Far, far below its belly, below feathery fragments of a falling Lepidoptera, through palls of poisoned Asian air, a wide wave of foam crushes over a sugary shore.
There he is, a young man, full of fear and uncertainty, but outwardly handsome, and strong limbed.  He is a long way from home, in this roaring dark dragon. More waters –  the sky around it transforming from stained tobacco yellow to the color purple. Running along the inside of the dragon’s purple painted spine – painted by the light of the sky – is an echelon of strange and foreign people, something like cyclists seen from above in a cycling race, except they have nothing of the organic nature of the peloton. The holidaymakers have placed themselves with machine like precision in columns and rows, like numbers on a spreadsheet. Most of these numbers are asleep. Some are reading, but in Hugh’s case, writing.  Trying to write.

GoPro Alaska Expedition

The Barefoot Running Revolution [INFOGRAPHIC]

 

 

 

 

Is Brainstorm Magazine South Africa's Most Boring Publication?

If you've a) never heard of Brainstorm magazine, and b) never seen it on the shelves anywhere, you can be forgiven.  It's possibly the most boring magazine published in South Africa.  The covers look as though someone rifled through a stack of photos and found the most bland and forgettable one.

I know what they're trying to do; they're after that slick, smart, corporate look.  But I suppose in order to do slick, you have to be slick, in order to do smart, you also have to be smart.  Trouble is the content points to a serious lack of creativity and imagination, and on the rare occasion that the editors try something different, it irks.  On one occasion Die Antwoord featured on the cover, including a badly doctored shot covering the male member (literally).  Amazing.  You have this pursuit of a corporate identity and then for one particular issue why not slap Die Antwoord on the cover (just because we can).  I guess for some people that's creative.

I happen to have a copy of that magazine, with the Die Antwoord cover and feature.  I'm not sure why, but I never bothered to read the article.  What could an IT magazine possibly have to say about a rock band?  I did look at the pictures, which were great, but once again, the back street trailer trash vibe and the whole zef psychology seems to be the antithesis of the corporate blue look and feel.  As I say, in order to do smart, you have to be smart.

Another blapse was the piece on the late Steve Jobs.  You'd think that this magazine, which claims on its website to be world-class analytical reporting on topical issues focusing on the people, issues, trends and technologies shaping South-African business...you'd think they'd be a good bet for an insightful, informative read about this most iconic of tech entrepreneurs.  Except, and I cannot explain why, it was just more boring boring boring.  There's something wrong when you know more than an article that appears 2 months after the fact, and what you know has been picked up via hearsay, the news, and curious browsing. Please, that's not world-class journalism.  That's a very very late newspaper article with a bit of gloss and shine.


On the few occasions that my work has been published in Dull and DumberStorm, and I've attempted to find the magazine on the shelves, it's literally been like looking for a needle in the haystack, because the magazine never stands out.  In fact on more than one occasion I've called and said I can't find it, and you'd think one of the largest shopping malls in the Southern Hemisphere, Canal Walk, would stock it at just one of their super book stores.  Even when it's right in front of you it's hard to actually see it.  Could the designers be consciously trying to camouflage the title in order to render it invisible?  And if you're wondering why a world class read is not available at Pick 'n Pay, or Spar or anywhere else, well, presumably because it requires world class readers (which is code for an incredibly small, discerning, basically invisible audience.)  In layman's terms, the magazine is so good, nobody reads it.

Yes, Brainstorm's audience is so incredibly discerning as to be...very very thin, which is why they are going ballistic right now, trying to sell subscriptions along with [GASP] a digital photo frame. It's trumpeted on their website, and on this month's cover.  That's one thing I do remember about this months' cover, although since I have a desktop and a laptop and they're both adequate photoframes in themselves - once the screensaver kicks in - I really don't need a photoframe (nor, one would presume, would their target market and for similar reasons).

They're desperate for subscriptions, let me assure you.  So much so, in fact, that they even have their own freelancers subscribed to up their circulation numbers. But don't take my word for it, take theirs.  8 635 magazines printed per month, of which a miserable 6775 are sold.  The sales/subscription number is artificially inflated, because, as I say, the magazine is simply given away to every freelancer that writes for them (and given away for free).

Also, those circulation numbers which appear on their website right now are two years old, which presupposes that they have gone down since then, hence the failure to update.  Well, it's tough times for the magazine industry isn't it, so perhaps they should be given a break?

Not so fast. 

How does a random competitor to Brainstorm fare?  Wow, that's better. You can immediately sense a little imagination is on the loose here.  [See image above]. Panorama's Braintainment, which has been around far shorter than Brainstorm (since the end of 2011), probably figured they could do the job better, and they do.  Braintainment has a circulation of 26 500.  That's 3 times more magazines sold, and guess what, their advertising rates are about the same.  So guess who is offering better value?

In terms of the magazine itself, well it's subjective isn't it?  What I can tell you is that just yesterday my girlfriend picked Braintainment off the table and started browsing through it, and noted immediately how interesting it was.  She had glanced at the cover, assumed it was Brainstorm, and then registered surprise at how interesting it was, and then flipped back to check the cover.  Her reaction was, "Oh, that makes sense.  It's another magazine."

On the odd occasion that I have shown her a Brainstorm magazine, she will limit her reading to my articles only.  Funnily enough, so do I.  I cannot honestly say I have ever done more than glance at pictures or read the odd sentence or paragraph in the magazine. While I've worked hard to write rivetting content for them, I've certainly never been able to read content  (as in whole articles) from that magazine. Here's why. Look at this classic Brainstorm cover immediately below.  A woman in a scarf.  Might as well be my aunty.

So how does the magazine make money? I'm not sure if it is - the magazine I mean. It reminds me of those Caxton community newspapers that feel thick and juicy, but when you open them up, the gloss is all supplements and advertising (in other words, junk content). That's the meat of it. The magazine is an excuse to direct mail their clients advertising spam. Something else in my humble opinion that isn't good business, is a publication that criticises one of their own clients. In this month's issue, it has the usual mandatory stuck record article on the MXIT CEO (something one can rely on in virtually every issue), but as a departure, there appears to be an interesting, investigative piece lambasting ABSA for being a bunch of crooks (in terms of their current lousy employment practise).  This happens to be a very ironic point of view for them, but let's leave that for now. 

I presume the ABSA piece is not a bad article, but it's once again an odd move considering this bank is one of ITWEB's biggest clients (and Brainstorm belongs to ITWEB), and they - ITWEB -  do custom publishing for ABSA Capital. So which is it? A hard hitting story about a bank that's full of tricks, an expose, or a magazine that's pretending to be investigative, but is really greasing its paws both ways. I have no idea.

Of course, none of this matters since no one has heard of the publication, and even if you were curious, you wouldn't find anything to read online since all their online content is behind a pay wall (it's that good). Oddly enough, in trying to find the images for this blog post, the few good one's that come up on Googles image search are from my own blog. That's how good a magazine about the IT industry has marketed itself online.

There are finer details to describe, such as slapdash editing - the publishing of entire paragraphs in duplicate, but once again, no one would notice these things even less bring these oversights to the attention of the editor, because no one is reading the magazine to begin with. And where is the editor? This month the magazine came out about a week late, and over the Christmas period one magazine appeared in the space of two months. During the same period a few of ITWEB's staff holidayed in Mauritius. Naturally, no one missed the magazine.  And this month, since they simply forgot to publish one of their own commissions, again, neither will I.  I predict that by the end of this year, Brainstorm will literally disappear off the few shelves it still appears on (such as at select CNA stores), and good riddance.  It's rubbish.

FW de Klerk on CNN

 SHOOT: People who say de Klerck is a racist or the father of Apartheid show a shocking lack of insight and education. How many presidents in world history had the humility and the intelligence to not merely share power, but give it away?

The Koreans are an example of a nation that is today still divided and unwilling to share power politically. You never hear complaints of Apartheid there, when their's is far more shameful - a Capitalism based Apartheid, separating a nation into two based on levels of wealth, and keeping one trapped and in the dark about the real state of affairs beyond its borders. And while Mr Mandela is a respectable and in many ways incredible figure, one can follow de Klerck's reasoning, as a lawyer, that Mandela broke the law. Whether it is justified to violently overthrow an oppressive system is a stickier matter, but in the simplest terms, here is one president who literally authorised the release of a prisoner, and gave up his job as the president of a country, in favour of that prisoner.

 It's difficult to understand how any person cannot celebrate the decency in this.

God Is Incredible in·cred·i·ble ( n-kr d -b l). adj. 1. So implausible as to elicit disbelief

Hello,

We are making a documentary. Through our Indiegogo campaign we have already raised over $5000 from over 100 supporters. The film will be about religion in New Zealand from the view of an unbeliever.

If you want to be part of making this movie happen visit our website www.godisincredible.com

"A chaotic Greek departure should terrify everyone it touches" - The Economist

THE respite in the euro crisis lasted a few short months. Now, despite a €130 billion ($169 billion) second bail-out for Greece, a fiscal compact agreed on by the euro-zone leaders in December, and €1 trillion of cheap long-term loans from the European Central Bank, the night terrors are back. How dispiriting that Europe is still so ill-prepared for the ordeal to come.


Time is short. In France voters have given their new president, François Hollande, a mandate to alter the “austere” course set by his ousted predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy, and Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor, and to focus on growth. Mrs Merkel says she will not change the fiscal compact, but Mr Hollande needs something to show voters in legislative polls next month. More threatening is the second election looming in Greece, where parties are struggling to form a government. If a majority of Greeks again vote to reject the spending cuts and reforms that go with their country’s bail-out, then euro-zone governments—in particular, Germany’s—will face a drastic choice. Mrs Merkel will either accommodate Greece and swallow the moral hazard of rewarding defiance or, more likely, stand firm and cut the Greeks adrift (see article).

The idea of a chaotic Greek departure from the euro at a time of Franco-German disunion should terrify everyone it touches. ...It is worst of all in Greece. The half-truth in Athens is that bigoted northern Europeans give Greeks no credit for the hardship they have borne. Greece really has suffered: between 2007 and 2012 its economy is expected to have shrunk by almost a fifth. The economy is being strangled by a severe credit and liquidity crunch, with more budget cuts and tax rises to come. Even if all goes well, Greece’s debt will be 161% of GDP next year. Whatever the make-up of its next government, the idea that Greece can repay this is the biggest fantasy of all....

Read the rest.

SHOOT: Greece should be written off.  Germany and the healthy Euro-zone economies that remain ought to begin to manage a gradual break up of the eurozone and the single currency.  Or else it will happen as a force of nature, suddenly, catastrophically.

Does This Look Like Europe's Financial Recovery?

Robben Island Revisited [PHOTOS]

  This dude has apparently guided the likes of Mr Mandela, the late Gadaffi, Oprah, Obama, Mrs Clinton...you name it.

Scenes from a Blue Train

How the 'Supermoon' Works (Infographic)

Source SPACE.com: All about our solar system, outer space and exploration

Surprise Surprise - Adobe Study Reveals Global Creativity Gap

SHOOT: Doesn't surprise me - in many corporate workplaces the culture is to choke you so that you're not creative, that you're not a threat. Your job is to tow the line, and know your place, and don't speak until spoken to... Sad, stupid - everybody loses, including the company. It's a dullards approach to the workplace, and one of the reasons I went freelance.

The Foster Approach to making Wildlife Films [PODCAST]

Note: This interview was originally intended for a particular magazine, but due to space limitations it was completely left out, which, as I'm sure you'll agree is a shame. At one point in the interview there's a lack of clarity about a camera mounted on a lion or a cheetah. I probably saw a similar technique, though not made by the Fosters, in a Nat Geo doc, featuring a very tight POV shot with a lion, but it amounts to the same technique. I'm still looking to place this - one magazine is interested by not committing upfront, so am sort've still shopping for a more definite sign of interest. I found this fascinating, as I'm sure many photographers, and folks interested in the great outdoors - particularly Africa - would be.

At the latter end of the interview I posed a personal question: I have a passion for a story centred on the Bushmen; which I would love to write and have folks like the Foster Brothers shoot. I call it The Quintessential South African Film, a powerful, existential flick, showing the human condition in all its majesty, tragedy and stark beauty - the beauty of the Kalahari and the Makgadikgadi, the Baobabs, the incredible sky and the power of the African sun. Then of course, the unique human connection we share with each other, the creatures that flock through the dust, and those that fly, and beyond that - the ancient roads this continent knows we've walked. Remembering our connection to this continent, and to ourselves, and each other. Where "primitive man" is both way smarter, and way fitter in his knowledge of the environment, in spite of his simple tools, lack of technology and obvious poverty. By contrast, we have incredible poverty of our spirits. As Jake says in Avatar, "We've killed our mother."

In the world today we as a species have become distracted and disconnected, lost and misled, unhappy and unhealthy. We have broken our own hearts, and we need a new compass to set ourselves straight.  This is a story that sets about to fix the broken spirit of humanity, where we are once again all in it together - survivors, sharing (rather than owning) the land, in the brief but epic episodes that are individual lifetimes. What could be a deeper, more meaningful, and more inspirational story to come out of South Africa than that? I've already written it; it just needs to see the light of day, and then its name in lights. perhaps from that spark, we could see a new existential fire burn that makes more sense of the world we find ourselves in, together, right now.

Surreal Skies - Photos That Look Painted

 

 

 

Of Shipwrecks and Spectacular Scenery

 
Notoriously rugged and dramatically beautiful, South Africa’s Wild Coast certainly lives up to its name. And as Nick van der Leek recently discovered, it also makes for a very memorable holiday destination (as long as you arrive overland!).
The 280 km strip of coastline, extending north from present day East London and south from Port Edward in KwaZulu-Natal, has become a serial killer of ships. In fact, shipping disasters such as the peppercorn carrying Santo Alberto in 1593 and the Santo Espirito (transporting Ming porcelain from China) 15 years later became so common that many historians believe that these losses preceded the disintegration of the Portuguese empire.

Luckless survivors of 16th and 17th century shipwrecks found the land north of the Fish River and south of Durban already inhabited by one of South Africa’s largest tribes, the amaXhosa (a word thought to mean “fierce”). Imagine the travails, then, of the survivors of the Stavenisse, a Dutch ship that sank near Coffee Bay in 1686. During the same time, two English ships, the Bonaventura and the Good Hope, also suffered similar misfortunes.

The crews of all three ships – having encountered one another in similarly unpleasant circumstances – decided to work together to construct a makeshift boat in order to sail back to Cape Town. En route they encountered and rescued more survivors. Among these was a French teenager who had already had his fair share of adventure, which included smuggling himself to America, visiting the Far East and most recently, enjoying the protection of a local Xhosa chief. Having learnt the Xhosa language, the young lad (just 13 years old) acted as a guide and interpreter for his companions.
Even fairly recently the Wild Coast still manages to rustle up some maritime action and claim the odd ship or two...  Read the rest.

Angelina - Photographed by Annie Leibovitz