The Last Call of the Sea

The Last Call

Crazy Crime Story

Writing for a newspaper in Johannesburg you digest many weird crime stories. After a while, you think you've seen it all - kids with Samurai swords, mining tycoons full of bullets, serial killers, etc.
But this story (post below) had me grinning with glee as I typed it up yesterday morning. I'd love to hear your comments on it. If you can't open it, click here. My favourite is the detective saying that a hit man worth his salt would have charged more than R2000...

MidSandton Murders (Almost)

Murder Plot

Hollywood or Bust

My closest brush with Hollywood was when a major US film studio called me up to explore turning a story I was covering into a movie. That was a few years ago and, so far, I have not received any invitations to to the land of palm trees, beaches and beautiful Rollerblade girls.
But today I discovered my second - if somewhat more indirect - link to Los Angeles. Their local, and much respected newspaper, LA Times, covered last week's release of the South African crime statistics. To avoid regurgitating old news, they tried to spice up their report with an interview with our new police chief. The interesting part, however, is that right at the top of their article, they quote a "South African newspaper"... the newspaper I happen to write for. And the quote they pulled out, was none other than the intro I crafted thick in the chaos of the statistics swirling around us in the newsroom. Check out the LA Times article here.

Pigeon VS Telkom

News just in: Winston the pigeon has just won a race to deliver 4GB of data - beating a painfully slow download on a Telkom line.
Winston, an 11-month-old bird, set out from Howick to Hillcrest (both in Kwazulu-Natal) with a memory stick containing 4GB of data. At the same time, the company organizing the race began downloading 4GB of information on an ADSL Telkom line.
When our feathery friend landed at his destination, the download was under 4% complete.
Winston Tweeted during his flight, chirping: "Flying weather cloudy and cool... feeling good... no major problems to report..."
Telkom has, so far, refused to comment.
It's unclear whether Winston will undergo gender testing after his lightning-fast finish of the 70km race.
Check out Winston's website here. Or see full story here.

The Chakra Challenge

Before I start, let the record show that I despise reality television. I think Big Brother was the first symptom of a terminal disease that threatens to kill global intellect. But if I were to flush my morals down the drain, and produce a reality show, I know exactly what it would be...
This morning I read a fascinating article in the LA Times about a group of Buddhists planning to live in the Arizona dessert for three years, three months and three days. The catch is: they will observe absolute silence for the entire 1190 days.
The group - most of whom gave up fancy jobs and six-figure salaries - will communicate through gestures and facial expressions. Even a pair of newly weds will have to abstain from any physical intimacy so as not to mess up their prana (inner energy).
Like in a Kibbutz, these enlightenment-seekers will grow veggies, meditate and do Yoga stretches. For three years.
Anyway, my idea is to do a reality show on this dessert retreat. Picture it: We have those well-edited inserts on their lives and what they are giving up. The parents sobbing, their poodles panting and their bosses wishing them well. Then they enter the new world - their wooden huts and wind-swept cacti.
Then... silence.
"Day 129... We are live now to the Buddhist retreat and things are exactly the way they were four months ago..."
"Day 473... the house mates are still meditating..."
"Day 864... was that a smile? No. No. That was just gas..."
"Day 990... Ooh... a new yoga position by Dreyfus..."
And so on.
Sad thing is, the world would probably lap it up.

A Maths Equation on a Zombie Outbreak

Four crazy Canadians have used complex mathematical equations (real Beautiful Mind stuff) to calculate just how screwed the world would be if an outbreak of the undead occurred.
Simpler put, how quickly would an army of zombies munch their way through the entire human population?
The equations look like that cheesy cyberspace screen from the movie Hackers, where a whole bunch of figures and "@" signs float around in a hypnotic whirlwind while the kids "hack the planet".
But the conclusion of the zombie study, done by university students, is fairly straight forward: unless we hit them, and hit them hard, we're toast. Check it out here and download their report.
No surprise then that:
"In summary, a zombie outbreak is likely to lead to the collapse of civilisation, unless it is dealt with quickly. While aggressive quarantine may contain the epidemic, or a cure may lead to coexistence of humans and zombies, the most effective way to contain the rise of the undead is to hit hard and hit often. As seen in the movies, it is imperative that zombies are dealt with quickly, or else we are all in a great deal of trouble."

Police Sell Weapons to Criminals

police scandal

Eight Winters (The Star: Aug 5, 2009)

8 Winters

From Dusk Till Dumb

Life is a never-ending lesson. Early on, we learn not to run into busy roads and are taught that heroin is not a sustainable hobby. Later we feel our way through love, sex, heartbreak and, ultimately, death. But at what point do we learn that just because a movie touches that special place in your soul - as movies do - doesn't mean you should tattoo its name (along with the names of the two lead actors) across your back. (Yes, it's real).
I write about this because, quite coincidentally, my girlfriend and I watched Twilight for the first time this weekend. We finally gave in. All our friends had read the books, seen the movie and bought the special 2-disk DVD sets. While it was beautifully filmed, and was very romantic (in the traditional forbidden-love way), it hardly pushed me to add to my tattoo collection. With the craze around it, it just feels too much like the vampire version of Hanna Montana (for teenagers as opposed to children and without the singing).
But, in my eternal quest to be an objective journalist, I am open to arguments against these sentiments and in defence of the "film name" tattoo. I am still deeply haunted by the movie Blindness - but that wouldn't make a great tattoo, now would it?
Here's a photograph I took a few weeks ago. Believe it or not, there were two fighters with the identical tattoo. Bad Boy must love them.


Moving on... check out this link. It's a brilliant story that appeared in the news today and is about how Mugabe's government got conned by a woman claiming she could magically extract diesel from a rock. Bob's ministers jumped at the opportunity, claiming the country's woes were over and paid her a hefty 500 billion Zim dollars (which, come to think of it, is probably a box of smokes in SA). But the con was priceless.

Squatter camp or proud piece of history?

Well, I finally know what a true dilemma feels like: the university professor who holds the key to a BA degree you've slaved away at for two years insults your newspaper and calls its legendary Sauer Street offices a "squatter camp".
Talk about being caught in the middle.
Somewhere in my subconscious is buried a very vivid memory of traveling past 47 Sauer Street as a child and looking up at "The Star" sign on the wall - it's letters faded and proud. Something about that building always made me think of the romantic side of journalism: the smoke-filled offices, typewriters, giant presses and journalists in hats and rimmed glasses sneaking sips of whiskey between deadlines. When I joined The Star in 2005, I loved the old marble staircases, heavy iron furnishings in the toilets and the relics of an era vanishing into the quicksand of time. It was history - and it was beautiful.
But all indications are that by today, Independent News and Media (The Star's parent company in Ireland) will file for bankruptcy - like many proud newspapers have already done in the US. The future of the local operation - with its 14 titles - is uncertain, with questions over who will buy it.
In a column this week Wits professor Anton Harber, who heads up the journalism school in which I'm enrolled, wrote about the collapse of the Independent group and called it "the best news of the week". It's owner, Tony O'Reilly, has always been accused of using his friendship with Nelson Mandela to set up the media juggernaut and milk it to fund the overseas business. Last year, our hard work gave O'Reilly 26-million Euros but he has, Harber argues, failed to put money back into his most profitable operation.
"In this time, very little has been invested in infrastructure, with the result that the printing presses are decrepit and the Sauer Street headquarters are like an office squatter camp," Harber wrote.
47 Sauer Street is not a squatter camp. Yes it needs modernising. Yes the canteen may be a heath hazard. But a part of me cries out to defend some of the building's magical history. To blend the old with the new. To find a way to fight off the death of the newspaper. To slow the advance of the very technology that makes this blog possible...

Trouble in Tokoza

I spent today running around the Tokoza township, covering a violent service delivery protest.
It was a rush to be back in the thick of things after the two weeks we spent reporting on the xenophobic mayhem last year.
It was also a poignant assignment because Tokoza was where Ken Oosterbroek (the Bang Bang club) was slain in the 1990s and Khumalo Street (where we were today) was where a lot of our history was recorded by Oosterbroek and his friends. Greg Marinovich (who was wounded in Tokoza) was there today, shooting video footage. I wondered how it felt for him to walk those streets again and see the community swell in anger, threatening to explode.
It seems like we are in for a wave of these protests and I will bring you more on this as they develop. But in the meantime, I wanted to share something a little more light-hearted. China had their "tank man": the brave (unidentified) man who stood alone in front of a row of tanks during the protests. The Gaza strip had that incredible woman who pushed back a row of soldiers demolishing houses. Throughout history there have been images capturing incredible resistance to military and police force. Here, for your viewing pleasure, is South Africa's very own:

A Year of Driving Dangerously

In the end, we went with "Top 10 Excuses". We had to, we're a family newspaper. But if I had my way, I would have called them the: "What the hell were you thinking Awards"... or something a little punchier: "The McBride Awards", "for the policeman who really, really shouldn't be behind the wheel of a car".
But let me start at the beginning...
Sunday shifts are tedious. All your friends are picnicking, watching movies, eating long lunches and, well, not working. You, on the other hand, are stuck writing about traffic accidents, following up stories published in the weeklies and attending press conferences that are so insignificant the organisers were too embarrassed to schedule them on a real day.
Add a migraine "aura" (blind spots followed by nausea and a pounding headache), plus a looming university deadline on the effects of new media on journalism, and you'll understand how I felt this Sunday morning.
There was, however, one silver lining: a great story I was working on about how many cars the Ekurhuleni Metro Police officers (Robert McBride's former minions) have wrecked in a year. A source of mine had slipped me a list of each accident - all 225 of them - and a detailed breakdown of what happened. And, I should add, this was during a year when taxpayers dished out R88-million for a new fleet of 500 cars for the EMPD. The excuses and explanations are priceless. Here are the top 10 as recorded in the EMPD books:
1. “Officer shot himself accidentally and the projectile entered the fuel tank of the vehicle”
2. “Officer not on duty, misuse council vehicle, officer under the influence, transported civilians in vehicle”
3. “Officer (from the K9 dog unit) collided with a dog and failed to stop after accident, action caused extra damage to vehicle”
4. “Umbrella came loose of pole in windstorm and landed on windscreen and bonnet – loose object (nature)”
5. “Officer ignored red robot and collided with lamp pole – had no permission to use patrol vehicle”
6. “Officer start vehicle in gear and drove into wall at house”
7. “Vehicle parts of new car was removed (and replaced) with old parts – undisclosed damage on vehicle
8. “Officer responded to assist his pregnant wife who went into labour and drove into pillar at his gate”
9. “Officer drove into tree and left vehicle on the scene”
10. “Bird flew into vehicle damaging the light of the vehicle”
You can't make this stuff up.
What I want to know is: how much this costs council in civil claims, how Joburg's metro cops compare (or are they too busy trapping motorists to do any actual driving) and why, oh why, were these guys ever allowed to get into a car?
You can read the full story here. I'd love to hear your metro police story / story suggestions.
p.s: Out of 184 officers involved in accidents, 110 were at fault. They have just made the "I Suck" list.

The Curious Incident of Two Funerals on One Day

We were having breakfast at this little bistro under the escalators at Cresta when my friend Kenneth asked us whether we knew where the Fourways Memorial Park is. His grandmother (96) died recently and the funeral is due to take place on Monday.
"That's strange, I've also got a funeral there on Monday," my girlfriend said, rather surprised.
The father of one of her best friends died recently after loosing his battle against lung cancer. His funeral is due to take place at the same place, but a little later in the day.
I took a break from my scrambled eggs (perched on a warm croissant) to ponder the unusual coincidence.
Going down on holiday to the same spot, watching the same movie, buying the same T-shirt, phoning a friend at the exact moment they phone you... the world is full of weird coincidences and serendipitous surprises. But two funerals, on the same day, at the same place?
It made me think about death and how even a funeral - such a personal and emotional affair - is placed on a conveyor belt and ushered through our busy world.
And speaking of funerals, I learned today that Walter Cronkite has died. Cronkite was the super-anchorman, the Voice of America, the legend who narrated everything from the Kennedy assassination to the Vietnam War. And each time he finished a broadcast, he gave us the beautiful benediction: "And that's the way it is".
There is a great piece on Cronkite on the NY Times website. The video is worth watching - it's like a mini (5-minute) documentary. Click here to check it out.
And finally, I was having a haircut on Friday when I caught a contagious question. Some kid had asked my hairdresser why sideburns are called sideburns. Sure they are on the side, but they don't burn, he reasoned. She didn't know and, in telling me the story, passed the question onto me. I had to research it and discovered that the answer is nothing like I expected...

Painting for Madiba, burger thieves and R Kelly

Since there was no mad rush for the 50th membership spot on this blog I am resorting to bribery. Whoever puts me out of my misery (of watching and waiting) will receive a free Mercedes-Benz ML 63 AMG (kindly sponsored by the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development) and five bottles of Johnnie Walker Blue Label.*
I had a rather unusual morning yesterday. I spent it painting the walls of a building that was once the headquarters of "Non-White Affairs", where the notorious passes were issued to black workers. The building, 80 Albert Street, downtown Joburg, is now the home of a ministry housing teenagers, mothers and their children. As a newspaper, we are doing some volunteering there for the 67 Minutes for Mandela initiative. Our work includes repainting the television room on the floor where the teenage girls live and revamping a small outside yard.
My team was in charge of finishing the first coat of paint, doing some wall repairs and messing paint on every inch of the floor and every fibre of clothing (including my Levis). But what a soul soothing experience...
When I got back to the office, I was reminded how crazy the crime and courts beat can be. There were three stories that caught my eye:
The first was about seven men arrested "for failure to pay Wimpy". As the headline suggested, the seven guys ate up a storm (R890) but came up with a feast of excuses when it was time to pay. They said one of their friends had run away, leaving them to wash dishes. The owners of the Soweto-based Wimpy were not exactly interested and called the cops, who promptly arrested the lot for theft. At least they won't go hungry in the holding cells.
The second was about a waiter from Kauai Juice (that healthy place we all look at while lining up at Steers) who was arrested for scanning credit cards. The 31-year-old failed to rock up at court, claiming "an inflamed throat and diarrhoea". An arrest warrant was issued. I wonder what gave him the diarrhoea? Too much Super Green smoothies?
And finally, during some absolutely random court case in Durban, it was announced that R Kelly will not be called in to testify. Apparently the accused, a woman arrested for defrauding pensioners, implicated R Kelly (yes, that Michael Jackson wanna-be) as an accomplice. And our brave prosecutors actually managed to get a statement from him and decided not to summon him to court.
I wonder how much play these stories will get today in the shadow of the 2010 World Cup strike agreement and other important global events.
On a serious note, a story worth reading is the one about the couple who committed suicide at a clinic in Switzerland. As a journalist, not much penetrates my skin, but this story did. It's tragic, beautiful and perfect.
* A small problem with the Merc AMG is that it was stolen and is currently missing in action. It was spotted in Swaziland, but remains illusive. If you can find it, maybe you can keep it. And, since it belonged to a politician, it probably had the Johnnie Walker in the boot. (A bit of trivia: A few weeks ago I actually got an MEC fired for splashing out R920 000 for a Merc but not bothering to insure it. It was hijacked from her husband less than 24 hours after it left the showroom).

Daily Sun Bliss

I have always been an evangelical defender of the broadsheet newspaper and all that is sacred about dignified, well-researched and informative news. But sometimes I can’t help falling in love with a story in the tabloid Daily Sun. This is why:
“A co-driver of a giant 20-wheeler (truck) found a magosha (prostitute) at a truck stop on a cold, bitter night. The two had sex on a blanket underneath the warm truck and fell asleep… the other driver slept in the cab above their heads… In the morning he started the mighty engine – and squashed the still-sleeping magosha under a massive wheel! He drove right over her head! She died at once. Her sex-partner – the co-driver – was injured… The terrible accident took place at a petrol station south of Bloemfontein, the Free State capital. The big truck was traveling between Koffiefontein and Wepener. The guy behind the wheel had no clue his friend the co-driver and the woman who sold sex were still sleeping on the ground below… He had a shower after he awoke and went looking for his partner – with no success. So he started up – and reversed… he drove right over the magosha’s head! Cop superintendent Annelie Wrensch, told Daily Sun: “The driver said it felt to him as if he was driving over a brick, but it made him feel uneasy… and he climbed out the cab to have a look. “He was shocked to find his friend moaning in pain and the woman with her skull squashed!”
This story appeared today on their front page. Add the headline: “They picked the wrong place for sex!”, an inappropriate photograph of the body being loaded into a mortuary van and sprinkle half a dozen exclamation marks, and you have Daily Sun magic. I’ve always said that if I was ever to leave South Africa I would take a Daily Sun poster and frame it for a lifetime of happy memories...

Another Take on the Hawks

"Eyes of the hawk, hawk, hawk..."

This one goes out to Marshall Bravestarr and his talking, shooting, half-robotic, 100% ass-kicking horse called Thirty/Thirty. I was thinking about you guys today, as I sat through a fancy but frustrating launch of the new crime busting unit: the Hawks.
Background: the Scorpions were launched in 1999 to crack the big cases. They went after the big guns, got caught up in too much politics and died a tragic death. Now, the Hawks (let the Bravestarr music play in your mind) have come to take over.
The whole event - held at Gallagher Estate - was more like a Hollywood glamour party than the launch of a crime unit. There was saxophone music, martini glasses filled with curious yellow liquid, cheese and strawberries skewered through pineapples, a little jazz band (made up of police officers), orange roses, a dim ballroom, top brass cops in mafia-style Fedora hats, heart-shaped waffles and an endless supply of cheesy metaphors. In fact, when we stood for the national anthem I was quite relieved because it let the feast of promises (about how the Hawks were going to clean up South Africa) sink to the bottom of my stomach.
But what really made me angry was the worshiping that went on around our Minister of Police, Nathi Mthethwa. He was like one of those cult leaders with dreamy-eyed followers flocking to shake his hand, touch him or hear a few words of wisdom. (From a man who says things like: "Some of this knowledge and experience can only be acquired through concerted and focused knowledge.") Anyway, he may as well have been handing out autographs. Once everyone was seated in the ballroom, the MC asked everyone to stand so Mthethwa (and his cling-ons) could snake their way to the main table. I waited for the room to take a long bow, but luckily that didn't happen. The whole thing smacked of the monarchy and I, in my own little protest, stayed seated and continued to tap away at the keyboard of my computer.
But enough about that. Here's a list of my favourite quotes from the function, uttered by various fearless leaders:
"The Hawks will keep their eye on the ball and we are determined to track you (the criminal) down," the new Hawks boss.
"The unit must zoom into syndicates from afar and destroy their evil networks," the minister.
"To seek, to find and to succeed," the Hawks' motto.
I just wonder if, when the new unit heads out on a raid, they'll shout things like: "Eyes of the hawk... hawk... hawk. Strength of the bear... bear... bear. Speed of a brand new Jeep we took away from those Scorpions... Scorpions... Scorpions."