Nowhere is better than where you are right now, and no time is better than the moment you’re in. I don’t mean to sound like I’m trying to be profound, and even reading that sentence again makes me a little embarrassed, it makes me feel like a cheap motivational speaker telling a crowd of middle managers how to up their KPIs with some oft-repeated pseudo-wisdom. But it’s true. You’re not someone else, it’s the end of the year 2023 and the place you find yourself in is precisely the place you’re likeliest to make a difference. For me, that place is South Africa and the time couldn’t be more pregnant with possibilities...
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I am not a Jew and I’m not a citizen of Israel. I haven’t even visited Israel. I don’t trace my religion back to a holy site in Jerusalem and I don’t have a problem with Arabs or Muslims or Christians. I’ve read about Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon; the Umayyads, the Abbasids and the Ottomans; I know about the British, the Balfour declaration, Ben Gurion and Golda Meir. I know a bit about the Six-Day War and the Intifada. I might not have any personal stake in the Holy Land, but humanity certainly does - and I’m a human being.
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They say moving from one place to another - the packing of boxes, clearing of storerooms, throwing out of things you forgot you even had - is one of the most stressful things you get to do in the course of your life. I don’t agree...
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2022 is almost over, and very few of us will be celebrating the last year - in fact, the last three years - of our very bizarre lives on planet Earth. I could take up your whole day by listing the ways some humans have made the planet much worse for others...
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Sometimes I wonder if everyone has gone mad, if there are any adults left in the room? It’s 2022 and we’ve just been through a really challenging pandemic. Many died, many more got sick and many more than that had their lives changed irrevocably. Instead of taking a deep breath and looking on optimistically as COVID starts to fade, it seems the lunacy is ratcheting up...
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Well, this is more of a blog than anything I’ve written for a while... Covid has come to CliffCentral. We like coming up with clever alliterative phrases for new ideas and divisions in the business - like CliffCentral Communications, CliffCentral Campus, CliffCentral Creative and CliffCentral Collaborations. Now we have CliffCentral Contagions...
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On Friday I became a trending topic on Twitter. Nothing unusual here – I’ve been used to this since social media became a big deal in South Africa, but it’s still never welcome news. Someone posted a tweet saying that when she and her friends were 15 (she’s 27 now), she met me at a nightclub and I bought them drinks and propositioned them. Needless to say it took off on Twitter and other fallacious titbits piled up about everything I’ve probably never done, including that I should be de-platformed for among other things, “He disputed the US election result”… as though I was Donald Trump himself and responsible for the insurrection on Capitol Hill.
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The Internet isn’t real life. Look, I’m, sure you know this already, but let’s all take a minute in what has been a very difficult year, to take stock of our lives. Thanks to Covid, for many people the Internet is the only kind of social activity they’ve had. It’s frighteningly unhealthy and you must do everything you can to break free before you lose your soul online. That may sound dramatic, but the evidence of mental and emotional breakdown is there for everyone to see. Don’t let it happen to you. Here are the twelve online commandments...
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I write to you in my private capacity as a citizen of South Africa, just in case the media read it wrong, again. I watched your NCCC briefing today. I decided at the outset to give you the respect due to you - as an elder. Without the usual judgement that we’re all prone to, I listened not to get angry or find fault, but with an open mind...
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“Get On With It!”
His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh died on Friday the 9th of April 2021, at the age of 99. I had the pleasure of meeting him when I was in my final year of high school. The headmasters, head boy and head girl of each of the schools in Pretoria were invited to a garden tea in honour of The Queen’s State Visit to South Africa and Nelson Mandela. Through family connections, I was invited along...
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