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It’s all gone pear-shaped…


It’s been nearly a year since I came back from England and the thing that’s probably the most terrible thing about that fact is that I haven’t really walked anywhere. For a year. Walking around in a mall just doesn’t count, and anyway, what’s the point of walking around a mall when you have a wallet that would resemble Kate Moss’ cranium if you opened it up and peeked inside?

I can’t afford the luxury of a gym – not even the dodgy ones you see in the movies where they have cockfights in the basement. Going for a quick run in the neighbourhood would be a cheaper alternative, but the problem comes in when the police have to identify my remaining body parts to notify the next of kin. Yeah, this is Jo’burg baby! Love it or hate it, you can’t run in it.

The point is, I haven’t exactly been very active of late, and when your primary function in life is sitting in front of a computer all day and the highlight of your week is driving down the road to Checkers for groceries, you are going to end up with a flabby, square butt. Things tend to atrophy, and then gravity takes over.

Okay, I’m probably lying – my trip to Checkers every week isn’t really the highlight, but it does come a close second. I also go to my mother’s at some point during the weekend, and when that happens, I invariably end up stuffing my face with Mother’s Food. So it gets worse.

During the week my lovely husband is fond of having chocolates, ice-cream and popcorn (not necessarily in that order) after supper in front of the television before going to bed. Naturally I participate in this tradition because I wouldn’t want him to feel lonely, eating all those terrible, terrible things by himself.

It’s pretty darn obvious from reading the above that I needed to make a bit of a change in the way I live. When I realised that I could no longer walk in front of the full-length mirror in the hall without my eyes closed, I decided something had to be done.

I’m not terribly large. I wear a size 10 (34). But the thing is, I’m really short. Like really, really, really tall to the negative power of 5 billion. Dwarves would be allowed on the roller-coaster before me. I’m 147cm tall (about 4ft 8in, I think). Twelve-year-olds tower above me. Ominously. That’s why, even though I now weigh 56kg, I still have to lose about 10kg to look proportionately normal.

To make matters worse, I’m naturally pear-shaped. I have hips that make Oprah look like a catwalk model. Well, in my mind, anyway. It probably looks worse when you’re looking down at them all the time. When I was around thirteen I woke up one day and boom! Hips for Africa. I’m still waiting for the boobs, fifteen years later.

But lately, when small objects started to gravitate to and orbit around me, I knew that the time for action had come. So, I started The Diet yesterday. So far, apart from a bit of muscle ache from jumping around in my lounge like an simpleton with a skipping rope, it is going pretty well, but it’s still early days yet.

When I start fantasising about biting Francois Pienaar dressed up as a giant Lays potato crisp, you might just see me standing at the traffic lights with a cardboard sign which reads: “will write Mills & Boon novels for lipo”. Please spare some change...

Ten things I should have told my husband before we got married


I have taken up the challenge from the indomitable Hamish and compiled a list of what I should have put in the fine print for my poor husband.

1. I expect you to eat my delicious curries and cakes and get fat during the course of our marriage, thereby rendering you unattractive to all other females, while I munch on lettuce leaves and develop a body that everyone, male and female alike, would lust over incessantly (that was the plan, anyway. If I grew taller by an extra thirty centimetres and looked more like a supermodel, less like a midget it might have helped, too).

2. Rule number one: I am always right. Rule number two: I am never wrong. Rule number three: if in any doubt, please refer back to rules one and two.

3. Any chocolate of yours left in the fridge will be eaten while you are at work.

4. There is absolutely nothing, and I mean nothing, that can persuade me to listen to Bala and Peru on Lotus FM. Same goes for watching Scandal!, WWE Wrestling and the Steve Wilkos show. If you insist on listening to/watching any of them I will cut you.

5. I am an obsessive neat freak and minimalist. I will take all the things you have left lying around and squeeze them into your cupboard, even if it means your life is in danger every time you open the wardrobe door.

6. Don’t expect me to do anything manly around the house, like oiling locks or changing light bulbs. Do I pay you to stand around and look pretty?

7. I expect you to listen to my incessant prattle about various things, such as how my mother’s neighbour’s daughter ‘s boyfriend’s uncle’s gynaecologist is being sued for malpractice and repeat it back to me at a later stage as and when deemed necessary by me.

8. If I want chocolate, even if it is midnight, I expect you to get in your car and go buy me some. Otherwise a sulk of epic proportions (due to low blood sugar) will follow. I shall be forced to demonstrate peaceably. In which case there is bound to be violence.

9. If you fail to remember my birthday or our wedding anniversary and make a big fuss of your lovely wife thereupon, the police will never find your body.

10. Don’t make me come back there and beat you.

Ten types of South African Muslims


Lately I’ve been having a good giggle over Hamish’s blog and something he said today reminded me that we South African Muslims are stranger than fiction. So, even at the peril of mortally offending everyone’s sensibilities, I have made a tongue-in-cheek list of the different types of Muslims you get in this country. This is by no means an exhaustive list, so feel free to contribute to it in the comments box.

The Dariwallah

This guy wears pyjamas in public and has a long, usually unkempt beard. I’ve seen beards that could hide small mammals in them. Biologists could spend years studying what’s in them. I digress. He usually starts sentences with “Bismillah” and more often than not finds a way to justify his chauvinistic and warped opinions by quoting from an obscure Hadith or from allegorical verses of the Qur’an. Dariwallahs usually find it hard to sit down when speaking. Flecks of foam usually emerge at the sides of the Dariwallah’s mouth and large veins begin to bulge in his forehead and neck when he is riled up, and he usually gets riled up about everything. It’s often a good idea to keep the paramedics on speed dial and sharp objects hidden when trying to defend your non-jamiat approved view of a certain aspect of Islam. Won’t look directly at, speak to or save a woman from drowning because it might awake carnal desires and send him directly to jahannum. The Dariwallah often gets a hard-on from watching the Oprah Winfrey Show.

The Lesser-Spotted Niqabi

The Lesser-Spotted Niqabi is rarely seen in urban areas, and when she does make an appearance, she often seems to labour under the misapprehension that every woman she recognises, even someone she met briefly at a book fair ten years ago, will recognise her simply by noticing her veiled face and muffled voice. In the company of other Muslim females, the niqab comes off and the devil comes out. Possibly the wickedest group of Muslim women I have ever come across. The best place to observe her outside her natural habitat is usually at Adult World, where she can be observed furtively purchasing studded underwear.

The Taliban-Wannabe

Usually young and inexperienced, this boy is typically the son of a Dariwallah. He can be found in sheep’s Western clothing, having developed a severe distaste for his father’s kurta-pyjama from an early age. He normally has a short, neat beard and looks like the kind of boy you’d want your daughter to marry. Until he opens his mouth, that is. Taliban-Wannabe is obsessed with guns, killing people and defending Islam (not necessarily in that order) and often expresses a desire to go to Afghanistan to fight for his Taliban brothers, but will never really end up going. What’s in his pants is normally a disappointment and is the most likely to end up murdering his own wife and kids. Quotes incessantly from the Qur’an but is a notorious skirt-chaser.

The Beauty Queen

Strikingly beautiful, slim and intelligent, this woman is a sight to behold. Sadly, she knows it and will remind you of it every chance she gets. She likes to put millions of beautiful profile pictures up on Facebook so that her army of unattractive male “friends” can gush creepily about how much they would like to get her into bed pretty and amazing she is. She is also fond of updating her status with deep, intelligent statements in the hope that one day, people will like her for her brains and not her beauty. Usually has daddy issues and is cold in bed.

The Player

Not normally the brightest kid on the block, the Player relies on his good looks, pimped ride and the money from Daddy’s hardware store to get him by in life. The Player usually gets married before he develops pubic hair, more often than not to his first cousin in order to keep the money in the family, but doesn’t see that as an obstacle to pursuing his ambition: being the biggest slut on the face of the earth. He has been known in the past to get involved in wife-swapping activities with his Player friends and has a predilection for paying for sex with transvestites. The Player often has nasty personal habits and is most likely to get arrested in a public toilet with George Michael.

The Harassed Mother

The poor soul is worn out from having four to six children and spends her whole life cooking, cleaning up puke, lactating and changing nappies containing sloppy green stools. She lost her figure after the second child, doesn’t have time for makeup and can often be found snoring during sex. She hates her husband for being able to leave the kids behind and go to work. She has forgotten what the second-last kid’s name is and he grows up thinking his real name is Bhaiyya.

The Repressed Nerd

Usually the guy all the girls want to be friends with. Often writes in programming language better than he can write in English. Is obsessed with gadgets and technology and spends hours searching for javascript arrays, SQL injections and porn. Repressed Nerd finds it difficult to communicate human emotions to others. His mother phones him once a week to ask him when he’s going to get married and give her grandchildren. Whenever he works up the courage to make a move on a girl, the typical response includes contorted facial expressions and pepper spray. Will remain a virgin until he realises it’s better to just pay for it.

Manhattan Wife

The Manhattan Wife is usually married to the Player. She knows her husband is a man-whore and sees more vaginas in a week than the average gynaecologist sees in a year, so the only thing she has left is his money. She would be hideous if it wasn’t for her regular visits to the cosmetic surgeon. Fond of Dolce & Gabbana, Louboutins and the South of France. The Manhattan Wife drives a gas-guzzling SUV that is far, far too big for her and wouldn’t know a prayer mat if someone flagellated her with one. Sandton City has given her VIP parking. Often has sex with random people and of course is no stranger to the wife-swapping phenomenon mentioned earlier. Manhattan Wife spends more time in rehab than out and has invariably had butt-fat injected into her lips.

The Sap

The Sap will always work for a fellow Muslim because he has been made to believe it is his moral obligation to be enslaved for a fifth of his market-related salary. Can be typically found working seven days a week in hardware stores, supermarkets and for charitable organisations. Has no ambition and his only thrill in life is from sexually harassing dolly birds at the shop. The Sap thinks it’s his right to steal from his boss because he is paid so little. Is usually married to the Harassed Mother and also can’t remember the second-last born’s name without having to consult the birth certificate folder.

The Hardcore Thinker

The Hardcore Thinker is a woman that will nag and annoy any man or child unlucky enough to be near her to the brink of suicide. She is fond of overly sentimental and hardcore religious status updates and thinks her poo smells like roses. She can often be found lamenting that she is misunderstood. The Hardcore Thinker is very fond of drama and can be found to be stirring pots of shit in a variety of different locations simultaneously. She is not afraid to embarrass others. She tries very hard to give off the impression that she is a serious person who contemplates very serious things all the time. Quick to judge and lose her temper. If any man ever has the balls to dump her she will most likely take out a billboard ad to tell the world how he did her wrong and how small his penis is.

If you have been offended by this blog post it’s a sign that you probably take yourself too seriously. Go and be a Nazi on someone else’s blog.

Checklist - How Jacob Zuma knows when he's doing it right


Jacob Zuma knows he’s doing it right when:

1. An entire day goes by and Julius Malema is not made fun of in the press
2. The national police commissioner's daughter tells him she is not pregnant after all with his 47th child
3. A new law is passed requiring all men to have a minimum of ten wives
4. The African Christian Democratic Party stops trying to book him into the same rehab clinic as Tiger Woods for sex addiction
5. Helen Zille decides to form an alliance with the ANC to disband the Democratic Alliance in return for a position as Deputy Minister of Environmental Affairs under Marthinus van Schalkwyk
6. Schabir Shaik really does die of a terminal illness so he can say “I told you so!” about letting him out of prison early
7. COSATU and the ANC Youth League agree to go on regular playdates at Zoo Lake so they can bond better.

Checklist - how you know if you're doing it right



You know you’re doing it right when:

1. People smile at you often
2. You get invited to events and parties
3. People add you as a friend on Facebook
4. Your mother makes your favourite dishes for you
5. Your significant other spends quality time with you
6. Dogs wag their tails when they see you
7. Your biggest problem is wondering what to make for supper

You know you’re doing it wrong when:

1. People move their heads back and try not to breathe when you speak
2. You get voted the designated house-sitter every time your flatmates go out
3. People block you on Facebook
4. Your mother tells you not to come over because she has gone out, but you’re already there and you can see her car in the driveway
5. Your significant other spends quality time with you and the judge while explaining why he/she needs a restraining order against you
6. Dogs wag their tails when they see you – just before they jump up to go for your jugular
7. Your biggest problem is trying to figure out who your baby’s daddy is