fred hatman

So you’re slumped over your desk, waving a tear-stained segment of ultra-soft double-ply at the imaginary Uruguayan who has conducted a ghost-like coup of Thandi’s workstation opposite you? And his sneer is doing a damn good job of imitating that of Diego bloody Forlan standing over yet another free-kick? Understandable. But wait, bru. All is [...]

I only have two comments to make about the tawdry tale of 36 Dutch stunners in orange shown the redcard by Fifa and arrested for choosing the wrong colour dresses out of their travel luggage. 1. For me, one of the off-field highlights of this World Cup was always going to be the, er, peach [...]

After falling out of bed at Hatman Mansions at 5.45am in our sleepy village of Stanford this morning I stood – as is my habit – on The Blogorandah (my verandah), sipping last night’s cold tea, took a lungful of Marlboro and called for that bloody cat which does little else than stare at me. [...]

All those “SA-positives” who visit here know that I love a good vuvuzela, the cultural weapon of choice for hardcore Bafana Bafana supporters. In fact, I was horrified to learn that some do-gooder has banned the use of our vuvus on aeroplane flights around South Africa during our most phenomenal of all World Cups, now [...]

Everybody who knows me knows that I am so excited about this African World Cup that I could remove my clothes, sprint up the main street of Stanford on to the R43 and do a handstand on the dotted line while shouting “Laduuuuma” and blowing my vuvuzela all at the same time. Well, I would [...]

There are a lot of South Africans hopping up and down ahead of our World Cup, just 56 days away. There are those who are hopping and down – it’s called toyi-toying – in our streets while they kick over refuse bins and make a right mess of the cities in their demand for a [...]

OK. So we’re all getting a tad excited about tonight’s draw to see which country’s teams will be playing where. Even Capetonians are shedding their usual hoity-toityness and warming slightly to the idea that The Big Draw is happening right there in their own city, at their International Convention Centre, at 7pm (SA time). Before [...]

Viva Vuvu! I got my first taste of a crowd vibe at Durban’s uber-glorious Moses Mabhida Stadium at yesterday’s opening match and I was totally blown away. Blown away by the sheer beauty of being in the shiny-new stadium along with about 22,000 fans… and blown away by about half of them blowing their vuvuzelas [...]

In the sixth of my weekly interviews with interesting people living in and around the idyllic seaside town of Umdloti on South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal coast, I asked the Big Five questions of Adapt IT internet boffin (and developer of Durban’s official World Cup 2010 website), Richard McLennan… FH: You are known as the man behind [...]

News has reached Hatman Mansions that Japan’s football hierarchy is pleading with the South African Football Association to ban the use of vuvuzelas for World Cup 2010. “We have requested that the South African FA cut that noise out,” Japan Football Association (JFA) president Motoaki Inukai was quoted as saying in Tuesday’s edition (today) of [...]