by Richard | Jun 21, 2010 | Journalism, Photography
Played by Bevan Cullinan, Gary the Tooth Fairy is a comedy play on at Festival in which Gary discusses life as a tooth fairy in modern South Africa. What was meant to be a simple photo shoot for an interview turned into an hour of running up and down the garden...
by Richard | Jun 20, 2010 | Journalism, Photography
7am. In the Grahamstown rubbish dump, stilt-walker Richard Antrobus picks his way through old tyres, broken plastic and mud the colour of offal. Of all the places I thought I would find myself on a Saturday morning – in my entire life – this is quite...
by Richard | Jun 15, 2010 | Published
In lieu of more interesting content, of which there will indeed be some to come shortly (including details of the next substantial adventure and cavorting behind a camera for the National Arts Festival in less than a week), here is an interview. Some of the...
by Richard | Jun 7, 2010 | Thinking, Travel
The night draws close and the world sleeps. Quietly, in my own silent space here, the walls remind me of journeys past. Places, so many places. Framed, worn as a purple Ethiopian scarf, a magic ring from Senegal around my neck and another on my thumb – haggled...
by Richard | Jun 2, 2010 | Journalism, Photography, Sudan
There is much that I have come to remember that I missed about university. Like learning – that feeling as though you are actually becoming smarter with each article read. Or that feeling of checking books out of the library as though you were becoming wiser...
by Richard | May 28, 2010 | Creative Writing, Travel
Fingers press the stories insistently into the keyboard. Sometimes gently, or sarcastically, or desperately weaving something that happened into a wordpicture that my smile – or yours – will find in some time hence. Sometimes finding a story is hard....
by Richard | May 23, 2010 | Creative Writing
Away from telling stories for a second, and on to asking questions of travel writing. Stylistically and storytellingly (yes, that is a word now) At Matador, the question occasionally pops up as to what makes for honest, compelling travel writing – the stuff that...
by Richard | May 11, 2010 | Journalism
The night is a cold place. Empty streets freeze imperceptibly under sodium lights. The warmth of human life dances and slurs elsewhere, its echoes stumbling out into the cold midnight darkness before slowing, stopping. Retreating in nervous uncertainty. Never crossing...
by Richard | May 2, 2010 | Africa, Cape to Cairo, Sudan, Travel
I don’t so much wake up as have the sleep evaporated from me. Morning in the Sudan drifts warm into the room. My bed sags forlornly, too worn to squeal in protest as I climb out of my sleeping bag; packing it and my toiletries into my backpack in minutes. I’m getting...
by Richard | Apr 28, 2010 | Africa, Journalism, South Africa, Travel
Living in the Eastern Cape is living in a graveyard. The bleached bones of stories pierce the landscape in silence, clung to by the sinewy dust roads poking off the tar where life still moves. They relinquish their stories only to those who go looking. Quietly asking...
by Richard | Apr 14, 2010 | Journalism
The streets are a mess. Vuvuzelas and singing crawl along up ahead. Someone was allegedly beaten up yesterday for getting too close. The local paper showed a pretty serious head injury on a fairly unhappy-looking man. He told the reporter that he had been assaulted...
