(Column: SL magazine, June 2003) I need new Nikes. I mean, the last time I bought sneakers was three years ago. Cute little soccer-style Converse takkies. But a few climbing walls, several seasons and a puppy later… I need new Nikes. But unfortunately this month I needed to fix my car and buy a heater more. Okay, so maybe I don’t need new Nikes. I want new Nikes. Nikes would be nice. But how am I going to get them? Have you heard about...

(Column: Men’s Health, June 2001) ‘Wha’ choo do-in?’ my housemate’s three-year-old sister sing-songed. ‘I’m taking this paint off the drawers and then I’m going to paint them again.’ ‘You can’t do that,’ she said with the dumb bluntness reserved for toddlers and Mark Gilman. ‘Why?’ ‘Because you’re a girl.’ Strange child. My gender had never come into the question as to whether I could do DIY. My mother...

Foody art article: Mail & Guardian, 23 March 2001 People mill about the juicy cornucopia that spills from the small gallery into the street. Some stand, briefly, brows slightly furrowed, before moving to the wine table. Others lean forward, pointing out details to companions. Someone reaches out, plucks a grape from the display, and pops it into their mouth. “I didn’t expect people to eat it,” says Paco Rodrigues of his...

Fine art article: Mail & Guardian, 24 October 2000 It is tempting to use the cliché “cutting edge”, but surgery as art is at least a decade old. French artist Orlan is its most famous proponent, having undergone 10 cosmetic operations in her expression of carnal art. In her latest she has created “the largest nose technically possible and ethically acceptable”, thumbing her now prodigious proboscis at the millions of women who have...

Music interview: ZA@Play, 28 April 2000 Yes, I’m nervous about interviewing Skunk Anansie. I mean, these are the guys who opened their second album, Stoosh, with a song especially for all the questioning journos out there: Skin spitting “Yes! It’s fucking political” over an “up yours” sonic head-butt of a guitar riff. I decide to play up my apprehensiveness (perhaps they’ll think it’s cute) and so the first thing...

(Theatre review: ZA@Play, 9 February 2000) “Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung – all you need is love,” warbled The Beatles in one of their odes to amoré. I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change takes the phrase to heart as the cast cheerfully belts out tunes dealing with love’s minutia; from shaving your “pits” before a big date to trying to squeeze in a shag between picking up the Lego and taking out the...