I remember playing rugby with Hagen. It was the Under-15D team or something equally ignominious or, indeed, fitting. For some reason I remember him having longer shorts than anyone else. If, indeed, shorts can be longer without stopping being shorts and becoming longers. He may have played in the backline somewhere (scrumhalf?) while I sweated up front. We tended to lose, mostly, but that didn’t stop us trying. What stopped us trying was the fact that none of us gave a shit.

Anyway…as I was saying. I came across his website and this gem of a column – written in 1998 called “10 Reasons why Cape Town can fuck off”. At the time he wrote it (when he was a surfing mag editor and I was a radio presenter) I interviewed him about the piece. Given its title it was something of a struggle to get through a 10-minute conversation on live radio without any profanity, but we managed it somehow. I didn’t mention the rugby team or the longers, which probably helped.

Reading it today, 9 years later, as someone who has lived in Cape Town for six years and is about to move to Grahamstown (which is as close to PE as you can get without fear of being glassed on a Friday night for checking out someone’s stukkie skeef) it resonates more than ever.

I particularly like the line: “Eleven degrees? That’s a geometry angle, not a fuckin’ ocean temperature” and it’s probably the only recorded piece of English writing to contain the word “ghoef” (I didn’t even know that’s how you spell it).

If you don’t like the F-word, don’t read it. If you want to have a laugh, click here now.

One blog I’ve discovered recently (thanks ) is British comedy writer Jon Brown’s called “1000 Tiny Things I Hate” (thanks Bridget McNulty) – an ongoing rant about those little things that get up Brown’s nose. And they really are little things. Take a look at some recent additions to the list:

#0153. THE CONSTANT AND OVERWHELMING URGE TO LET MY ONE ASIAN FRIEND KNOW THAT I’VE FINALLY SEEN ‘SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE.’
#0149. OLD MEN WHO RECKON THEY’RE REALLY GOOD WITH COMPUTERS.
#0141. USING A PIECE OF GYM EQUIPMENT IMMEDIATELY AFTER A WOMAN OR A CHILD.

The list goes on. Self-deprecating, hilarious, observational comedy at its best. It’s also wonderfully irreverent and, well, just spot on the way he captures those little things he encounters that make him see red. Well worth a visit if you have some time to kill and you want to remind yourself why the internet can be great.

My personal favourite from his list is this video – covertly recorded by Brown on a train journey. The blog entry is titled

#0111. THE WAY THE MAN ON THE TRAIN LAST NIGHT HAD TO GET EVERY LAST MORSEL FROM HIS GAY LITTLE TRIFLE.

The video speaks for itself – hilarious.