Rumours of an affair have raised Hollande’s dander. AP Photo/Francois Mori

Memo to Francois Hollande: no sex please, we’re French

Liberté, égalité, infidélité. The three stout pillars of the French constitution. Mitterrand, Chirac, Sarkozy, and now François Hollande: it’s a grand tradition – and if you tot their conquests up they…
Peace, reconciliation … and boards. NJR ZA

Did Mandela surf an awesome ride to freedom, dude?

It’s there in black and white. Tinged, appropriately enough, with blue. On the inventory – handwritten in Afrikaans – of Mnr N Mandela’s personal Eiendom (property) on leaving Victor Verster prison outside…
One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other. kieri d l h

Welcome to the global boudoir, where sex is so bad it’s gaga

Do you remember how people used to walk about with ghetto blasters, so you could hardly escape the high-volume throb of some visceral drumbeat? Being alive now is like having your head permanently wedged…
Sartre, Hoover and Camus. Wikimedia Commons

The US vs Sartre: what the hell is Existentialism anyway?

On 7 February 1946 we find J Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, writing a letter to “Special Agent in Charge” at the New York field office, to draw his attention to one ALBERT CANUS, who is “reportedly…
Man and superman. Wikimedia Commons

Becksistentialism: because man is a goal‑seeking animal

A student came up to me after class the other day and said, “So what is this ‘Becksistentialism’ all about then?” I want to begin to answer that question by defining the negative: Sir Alex Ferguson is…

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