Monthly Archives: January 2012

Revealed: How the cops tamed Hillbrow

Posted on January 30, 2012 by

Hillbrow on New Year’s eve is the stuff of journalist war stories. Media contingents squeeze into armoured Nyala vehicles then under heavy police escort head into the flatlands of Hillbrow. Fridges would fall from the high rises, bullets ping off … Continue reading →

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fishing or something like that

Posted on January 27, 2012 by

  Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.  ~Henry David Thoreau  

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Dinosaurs were doting parents

Posted on January 24, 2012 by

These tracks tell a story. They crisscross slabs of sedimentary rock, the spoor so old, they are set in stone. What it is is baby dinosaur spoor, 190 million years old, some so small they had just fought their way … Continue reading →

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Artefacts in the city

Posted on January 21, 2012 by

  Unburied by highveld thunderstorms and the work of the Johannesburg Roads Agency, they emerge half a century later to annoy Joburg’s city drivers.   They are tram tracks that break the asphalt on Pritchard street, curve into Simmonds, then … Continue reading →

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South America’s earliest killer revealed.

Posted on January 16, 2012 by

Meet the Pampas Killer, a 265 million-year-old mammal-like reptile that stalked what is now Brazil. The embargo has broken and I can now reveal that the Pampas Killer or Pampaphoneus biccai is the earliest land living predator to be discovered … Continue reading →

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It came from outer space to pickle our brains

Posted on January 12, 2012 by

Hell, I am never going to shine a torch into the night sky again. That minuscule shaft of light, might just be noticed and invite something to visit. Read this study, that appeared in a journal, and you might come … Continue reading →

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Once were runners

Posted on January 10, 2012 by

Johannes Tlou remembered them, the little people who would slip across the sandy Shashi river, close to where it joins the Limpopo. They were the Vhasarwa, the Bushmen/San who came to collect the fibres of the ilala palm, to weave … Continue reading →

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Getting the crime in the quietest city in the world

Posted on January 5, 2012 by

  There is a ritual on the night shift at the paper. The night reporter has to do crime calls. What it means is phoning police spokespeople across the city of Johannesburg and asking them if anything is happening in … Continue reading →

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3:30am

Posted on January 1, 2012 by

The end of the New Year’s eve shift. Rain is falling, which is probably what kept the fatalities and injuries to a minimum this year. We will only know in a day or so, if this is correct. In the … Continue reading →

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