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What do you think is going on here? It can’t be influencing the young and impressionable because they are not supposed to smoke or play with fire. She can’t be advocating drug abuse, surely? Maybe she is promoting self medication. This is a ‘Clipper’ brand cigarette lighter from China, a cheap copy of the Spanish-designed…

Charlie got a hole in one on the ninth. In his last will and testament he asked that his ashes be sprinkled on the ninth green and fairway. And so it was done on a quiet day after the funeral. Cremation is a cultural taboo among the majority in these parts. It is not done,…

Bored with the British election coverage? Who is going to swing where? According to The Guardian, the average Briton worries about the personalities and the policies for about two weeks a year; they cough and splutter, get short of breath, the blood pressure goes up over promises that won’t be kept… It will probably be…

Beautiful Mount Nyangani turns  hostile in moments. It “swallows people” in the local legend – many have disappeared without trace over the years but there’s no way of knowing exactly how many. The latest publicised disappearance was of  31-year-old businessman Zayd Dada who became separated from his family and friends  as the weather quickly deteriorated…

  The censors have just cut Fifty Shades of Grey, just as they cut Another Nine and a Half Weeks, hence the new local titles,”Thirty Shades of Grey” and “Another Seven and Half Weeks.” “There are scenes in the film that are just too indecent to be shown to the public,” Isaac Chiranganyika, the board’s…

Well, well, Mr Kissinger. The outlook might have looked different in 1974. Dire economic  hardships persist in the developing world. Poor, inadequate harvests are again forecast in Zimbabwe this year. Many families will go to bed hungry. Most will trudge on through hard times with heavy footsteps. (New Zimbabwean flip-flops graphic courtesy ehudnamboyo)

Shock, horror. The euro has now fallen well below the U.S. dollar. A chocolate euro now costs more than the real coin is worth. As Zimbabwe abandoned the local dollar and went over to the multi-currency system in 2009, the euro became legal tender. But shops don’t want it, they don’t see it often, the…

Unless a demented co-pilot plunges his Airbus into the French alps with the loss of all on board, or Jihadists decapitate or burn alive their captives, we seldom reflect on news reports of horrific death. For most people, if they see a body at all, it is of a dog run over by a car…

 Harare – The washing machine cycle takes about 45 minutes _ and George Washington comes out much cleaner than before in Zimbabwe-style laundering of dirty money.   One US$ bill has been circulating hereabouts since 1999 when Lawrence H. Summers’ signature was put on it during his three-year tenure as Secretary of the U.S. Treasury.…