fred hatman

One of the first posts I put on this blog was about Ivy Bean, 103 years old (at the time) and the sweetest tweeter on Twitter. I am so sad to tell you that I have learned that Mrs Bean – or @IvyBean104 as she was addressed on Twitter – died in England on Tuesday. [...]

I’ve been asked to pay the hosting fees to renew the fredhatman.co.za blog with Hetzner, who have looked after me extremely well for the first year of my blogging life. Wowness. A whole year! Now, usually at this point, people like to look back and review the past year, pinpointing their highs and lows and [...]

I woke up this morning to the biting cold of a Stanford winter’s day. Alone. And suffering a deep depression. I needed help. Group therapy sounded good. And I got it. From the vastly swollen ranks of the “SA-positive” people out there who are as hungover as me. On this day after the drunken month [...]

We South Africans are in no hurry to forgive the London tabloids for the trash they have spewed out about our beautiful country and equally sublime World Cup. In fact, I have a good mind to approach those copies of the Daily Mirror (they have had the audacity to publish their tripe in South Africa [...]

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. [...]

There has been such a noise made by those who won’t hear of the vuvuzela that the debate over whether the host country should be allowed to blow its own trumpet threatens to drown out news of what’s happening on the pitch during this World Cup. As a proudly diagnosed “SA-positive” South African blogger – [...]

Cats confuse me. And the way they look at me confuses me. I mean, when a dog looks at me, I know exactly what it’s on about. “I want to go outside.” “I want to go inside.” “I want to go to the beach.” “I want you to throw the ball for me.” I want [...]

“Geoff, I wish you the best of luck. I know how painful riding a unicycle can be! I hear you are regarded as ‘slightly mad’. Well, join the club! And ride safely.” Richard This is the message I received in an e-mail from Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin group of companies and one of [...]

Friends are clambering over each other (well, kind of) to help us achieve our Heart & Sole dream of getting Geoff “Heartman” Brink from Durbs to Cape Town on his unicycle. Rich McLennan, the Durban 2010 website supremo, can’t do enough to support us. He hurtles around on his mountain bike of a weekend and [...]

Look. I thought that kicking off with a picture of 90s supermodel Helena Christensen wearing only a few watches in my first post on this blog yesterday worked a right treat. So I’m doing it again… OK. Let me introduce you to our angel. Annette Oberholster. Netty to her friends. That’s her sitting smiling angelically [...]