General Interest

OK, so this post is not about one of my normal subjects. But it is so important, I have to write it. A family member has suffered from Grade III hemorrhoids for longer than she can remember. She’s had all the usual treatments including the rubber band treatment (twice) and a hemorrhoidectomy. Extremely painful procedures and never any significant relief. Then, last month she visited my trusted surgeon, Nico Stevenson. He had recently heard of a treatment, newly brought to South Africa by a UK company called eXroid Technology Ltd. In 2023, the company became one of the first to…

I’ve always wanted to see the real India and the opportunity came when my son-in-law said he was going on a 22 day trip in October. I immediately agreed to meet up with him in Delhi. Here’s what we did for a total cost of R70 000 including food, accomodation, airport transfers and travel from George in the Western Cape to Johannesburg, Dubai, Delhi and back: There were 17 of us in the group and we had a full time guide from Intrepid Travel. We had to buy our own food and used mostly public transport. Here’s a short…

I have been having trouble trying to open Shutterstock.com. My IT lady spent a lot of time trying to sort it out and eventually gave up, so I Googled the problem, specifically referring to Shutterstock. It turned out that mine was not the only instance. In fact I got to a Shutterstock message stating that if I had a 406 error when connecting to them, I should phone their help line. They’re in the USA, but I phoned them anyway. A recorded voice directed me to enter “2” and one of our friendly consultants will gladly help you. Then Hey!…

My understanding of the POPI Act is that it is illegal to send unsolicited communications to anyone except your customers, who must always be given the option to opt out. So, why are we still receiving offers of loans, notices of webinars and courses, offers of services and all that email junk that we were getting before POPI? Well, the answer is quite simple. This is South Africa. In this country, if there’s a problem a law will be passed to make it illegal. Problem solved. On to the next one. And that is literally the end of the story!…

Did anybody notice? Woolies are selling some very well known and respected wines in 2L boxes as an alternative to bottles. I’ve listed the price per 2L, the (resulting cost of 750mL) vs the cost of a 750mL bottle Diemersdal Sauvignon Blanc R169 (R64 vs R85) Pierre Jordan Tranquille Blush R140 (R53 vs R70) Beyerskloof Pinotage R200 (R75 vs R100) La Motte Merlot R189 (R71 vs R90) De Wetshof Limestone Hill Chardonnay R219 (R82 vs R109) Spier Cabernet Sauvignon R190 (R71 vs R95) Alto 1693 R240 (R90 vs R120) Every one of them represents a discount of 25% on the cost…

We moved from Johannesburg to Knysna just over a year ago. Apart from the change of climate, scenery and available hiking trails, the big difference that we found was the air quality. There’s an App called AirVisual that shows the Air Quality Index of any place in the world based on a scale of 0 (zero polution) to 500 (you’re all dead). Here’s what we often see in Knysna And here’s why we are happy to have left Johannesburg – Knysna usually sits around 10 or less, whilst Jo’burg runs from 30 odd to 180! It’s a…

What is it about attorneys? Are they taught to write shockingly bad English or do they just pick it up as they go along? I have a standard lease agreement that’s been floating around for years. We found a lovely house to rent here in Knysna and I offered to draft the lease. I set out to eliminate all the legal waffle that the document contained. I think this one sentence with 241 words is a classic – The Lessor shall not be responsible for any damage to or the loss of any stock, furniture, equipment…

Helen hit a bad pothole and it damaged the wing of her Z4 as well as the aluminium rim. The insurers arranged the repairs and we took it in to the panel beaters. I asked them to quote on all other imperfections that they could find so that the exterior of the car would be perfect. There was a bit of this and a bit of that and the quote came to something over R15 000. I got to thinking. “I wonder if this would be covered by the insurance”. I phoned our insurers, MUA, and yes, they would cover…

Way back in 1972, Terry Harbour sat in the office of David Emanuel, CEO of Adendorff Auctioneers (Pty) Ltd and made a life changing decision. He would form his own auditing practice called Terry Harbour & Co and David undertook to be his first client. Shortly after that, he was joined by recently qualified Pete Grenville, and they changed the name to Harbour Grenville & Co. At that time, I was the Managing Director of Contronics SA (Pty) Ltd and we became their second client. A year later, when I quit Contronics to start MI Thermocouples (Pty) Ltd, it was…

Three years ago, I wrote an article titled In search of the quickest way to solve Sudoku puzzles. Oh my! How embarrassing. At that stage, I was doing “Expert” Sudokus and thought that was the end of the road. All I could do from there on out was to get quicker and quicker. Then my App ( Sudoku – Classic by Beetles Studio) dropped a bombshell. It gave me an option to level up to “Extreme”. I suspect that it only does this if you have paid for the App. I clicked on it and tried my first Extreme…

I’ve recently followed my wife into the world of art, and have become fascinated with the challenge of portraiture. To create a face on a piece of paper that makes you feel as if that particular person is there looking at you is remarkably difficult, especially if it is someone that you know really well. But it’s not really art, more of a craft, because you work from a photograph and, because the addition or subtraction of even a millimetre makes a huge difference, it becomes kind of technical. Then I moved on to colour and that’s when I went…

We discovered Honest Chocolate. It is truly the best and has caused an uptick in our consumption of Cointreau, which, as I’m sure you will agree, is the ultimate companion to a quality craft chocolate. We were amused to find that on the segments of each slab are the letters D O N T B E A F R A I D O F T H E D A R K.   This is a constant reminder of something that we struggle with when we are sketching. Beginners, like us, painstakingly draw their subject, shade it in, feel…

We had already made the decision to relocate to Knysna. We based it on the beautiful coastal scenery and the forests. Then, before we moved, we started taking an interest in air quality. There’s an American standard that measures AQI, the Air Quality Index, on a scale from 0 to 500. Things start getting bad above 100. We compared Knysna with Berea in Durban, where my daughter lives, and with Johannesburg. Here’s what we found – Wow! That’s was amazing. Since we moved, we check the AQI every day and, whilst it goes up and down, it stays within…

I remember being taught in school that older people are likely to suffer from high frequency deafness. Lord knows why they taught us that or why it stuck in my sieve-like brain. But stick it did, so when it happened to me, I knew what it was. Off to the audiologist and yup! you’ve got it mate. So now I wear hearing aids, which thankfully, are almost invisible. But they do block one’s ears and that means I can’t hear my smart phone so well. Now, if I had an iPhone, I could download an app that would link my…

I did it! I am terrified of heights. We stopped by at the bridge and I knew I had to do it. This was a battle of the brains. Front brain battling left brain, right brain and old brain. I am fascinated by my brain, and I have gone a long way to making it my best friend, but this was an incredible challenge. Could I bring myself to dive off a bridge over a 216 metre drop? For three nights, I hardly slept. I rehearsed that moment 5,4,3,2,1 Go! I was going to dive, not jump. I was ready.

Sure, Covid has been a terrible pandemic. Devastating families and businesses. Smashing up an already smashed up economy. Changing the smiling faces and hugs that we South Africans are so used to into “Stay away from me”. Changing the property rental business probably forever. All very sad. But hey, there was at least some benefit. In February 2020, before we’d really cottoned on to Covid, I resolved that by the end of the year, Helen and I would be “free to choose”. That meant free to choose everything, from how we lived to where we lived. Having already opted for…