• 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

Aunt Prudence strikes again

Posted on August 31, 2009 by James Clarke

Few readers know it but The Stoep Talk Organisation – the holding company for the Stoep Talk Column – has a rich history of helping people and at one time ran an agony column by “Aunty Pru”. Readers were invited to send her their problems.
Mindful of how some agony columnists are said to make up [...]

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Marking secretaries’ day

Posted on August 17, 2009 by James Clarke

What with the strike in the public service and Secretaries’ Day coinciding last week, business fizzled and telephones went unanswered throughout Gauteng.
It was no different at the headquarters of the Stoep Talk Organisation. Threnody Higginbottom, my private secretary whose name we pronounce as “Smith” and who files everything under “M” for Miscellaneous, had conspicuously circled [...]

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