• Message from James Clarke













    "South Africa's Best Humour Columnist"
    - SA's Comedy Awards September 2008

    “South Africa’s funniest columnist.”
    - Financial Mail

    Please forgive the little boasts at the top of this column. You see I am not famous enough to be modest. And that second unsolicited quote comes from the literary critic of a rival group so who am I to argue anyway?

    Having said that, welcome to my blogsite! Please come in and close the door.
    Let me introduce myself: I was for 30 years a science writer on South Africa’s foremost daily newspaper, The Star, Johannesburg, dealing with environmental matters, urban and rural.

    Sixteen years ago The Star persuaded me to write a daily humour column. It's called Stoep Talk ( “Stoep” being a veranda in South Africa).

    I also write for various journals and have had several books published.

    I’m still not entirely sure what a blogsite is except it’s a sort of cross between a website and, I think, a Schnauzer and my friends insist I must have one.

    For some reason it is customary in blogsites and websites to refer to oneself in the third person and so, with my permission (thank you so much) I will, from now on, refer to myself as Clarke.

    You will find on this site some of my – sorry, I mean Clarke's - columns and also an idea of some of Clarke’s books and something about the fellow.

  • HOT OFF THE PRESS !!

















    James Clarke’s latest book, Blazing Saddles (Jonathan Ball publishers), is the hilarious story – a true adventure – involving six men in various stages of decrepitude who, on a sudden whim, decide to embark on a 1 000km cycle ride down the River Danube . None had cycled since childhood – nor even owned a bicycle.

    The story, reminiscent of Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat – is told by their not terribly good leader, James Clarke.

    The ride which passed through four countries became known as the Tour de Farce.

    The Tour de Farce has since become an annual event and Blazing Saddles recounts the team’s adventures in France, Italy, Ireland and their ride from the source of the Thames, through the middle of London, down to the North Sea.

    Available from bookshops and Kalahari.net

Hey, Did You See What Obama did?

Posted on July 6, 2009 by James Clarke

President Obama swatted a fly during a televised interview a few days ago. And then he congratulated himself on his quick reflexes.
The fly, which as far as I could make out had done nothing wrong except settle on the presidential knee, lay there on the carpet twitching in its death throes for all the world [...]

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Why I was so heavy as a kid

Posted on July 6, 2009 by James Clarke

An old friend, Adrian Steed, emailed to say, “Congratulations to all who were born between the 1930s and early 1970s.
“We survived despite there being no childproof lids on medicine bottles; riding our bikes without helmets; spending babyhood in cots painted with lead-based paints…”
Stop right there.
Don’t joke about our lead-contaminated world. We might have survived [...]

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How to Kill your Husband (nicely)

Posted on July 6, 2009 by James Clarke

The lunchtime topic was “How to kill your husband”.
Ronnie Whitaker, a Durban wife, mother and author has discovered a nice way to do it.
She claims to have “a successful marriage” and I gathered the secret lay in what Ronnie and her husband call each other. They call each other long distance. Ronnie’s husband lives 10 [...]

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