MIKESTOPFORTH

A couple of weeks back I received an email from Rui Esteves, a co-founder of Vida e Caffe, of which I am enormous fan. After the enormous success of Vida Rui has not rested on his laurels, instead choosing to reinvent the beer industry with the same passion and conviction he and his business partners [...]

Man, I just love these self-righteous, introspective, “I-think-I’m-important-enough-for-you-to-read-such-crud” blog memes. I’ve been tagged before mind you, and if it weren’t for the fact that it’s the incomparable Ethan Zuckerman tagging me this time around (just a mention on his blog results in a lightning bolt of traffic) I’d ignore the whole shebang. Still, I wouldn’t [...]

God bless Sheena Gates‘ little cotton socks. Not only does she regail us with unending wit and drama on Twitter but, and to quote her own words, in a week that is normally quite ‘emo’ for many of us returning to the grindstone, she has brought a little ray of sunshine to the circle-jerking, ego-flated [...]

This time inspired by Erik Hersman, but not necessarily a meme, my weapons of choice: 15″ MacBook Pro 16 Gb iPhone Gorilla-head stress ball (too cool) Steaming hot cup of coffee Car key (I spend most of my life on the road) Canon EOS 450D D-SLR (not pictured) Garmin Nuvi GPS (not pictured) What are [...]

Erik has tagged me as part of the “Why I Blog About Africa” meme. It’s proved a tough one to answer. I blog about Africa primarily because I was born here, I guess. I sometimes feel guilty calling myself African because in many ways South Africa is to Africa as America is to the rest [...]

This morning, at 07h08, Kate Ashleigh Stopforth joined our family. The moment I walked into the ward at sparrow’s fart this morning the memories began to flood back. Ethan was born in the same hospital, same surgery, almost four years ago. It’s amazing how quickly you forget the sites, smells and sounds – and the [...]

Four years doesn’t feel like a long time. But my goodness, a lot can happen in four years. 3 years and 10 months ago my son Ethan was born. It was a big day. I know that’s a cliched thing to say – but there’s just something earth-shatteringly amazing about experiencing the birth of one’s [...]

Or at least that’s what my neighbour, Jacques, will be hoping. Early this morning Wendy woke me up asking me to unplug the computers, modem and phone lines because of a serious electrical storm that had set in (we get some pretty mean lightning where we are so this is a fairly regular occurence). Stumbling [...]

I think everybody complains. Especially South Africans. Complaining is our 12th official language. Some complain and do nothing to fix what they’re complaining about. But others – the select few – seek to change whats wrong with the world with invaluable random acts of kindess (stolen from Evan Almighty). Two such people are very good [...]

Simply not thought through well enough for my liking… Seen in one of the dingier corners of the Magalies Meander, Magaliesberg.

I hate live TV interviews – they petrify me – and for good reason too. See what happened to Nhlanhla Nene while being interviewed live on SABC. It’s spreading like wildfire too – I have mates in the States asking me who ‘this Nene chairman’ is already – LOL. Much respect goes to the interviewer [...]

I have been tagged by Scott in the Worldwide Blogger Bake Off – a viral marketing initiative designed by Quirk eMarketing to raise funds for Breadline Africa, one of their charity clients. Basically the idea is that I bake a loaf of bread (which will be interesting), blog about it, and then tag other bloggers [...]

Damn, that sounds good. Sadly I cannot confirm the validity of this report at Beat Magazine – SA’s newest satirical, um, publication (on the back of the lion that just didn’t last), but I really wish I could. The idea of a remote sanctuary in Port St. Johns is marvelous super duper. Beat has already [...]

Aaaaarrr.

I’m happy as a pig in pooh. For many years now I’ve had a not so secret obsession with reptiles (I once owned a few snakes) and have always wanted a Green Iguana. They’re amazing animals – millions of years in evolution and still so fragile – and incidentally one of the few reptile species [...]

I very seldom sleep during the day, but succumbed to an attack by the sandman while reading a recent edition of Maverick on the couch at work the other day. Chris took the opportunity to snap a pic of me, lights-out, doing my best Stephen Hawking impersonation ever… classic!

After the rugby on Saturday I was chatting to one of our clients about the SA blogosphere when she mentioned, quite out of the blue, something about ‘all the influence and importance’ I had. I nearly choked on my beer, as I often do (but not always on beer) when people, with the best intentions, [...]

I give the guys from Cape Town a hard time, I know. The truth is I love Cape Town, but my heart is in Jozi. One of the things that suck about Johannesburg though, and probably more than anything else, is that when you’re not working there’s not much to do – recreationally I mean. [...]

One of my nicer, completely online friends, Thomas Otter, is doing something pretty spectacular in aid of raising funds for the Zimbabwe Benefit Foundation. He and some friends are going to do a week long Alpine ride – on their BICYCLES – all proceeds of which (donations wise) will go to the foundation. It’s a [...]

I’m a bit of a Guitar Hero nut. I even have mates over at my house on occasion for Guitar Hero parties (the height of geekiness – yes) and I’ve converted many a previously cool individual to an Xbox-buying-Gibson-wielding nerd. And I’m proud of that fact :) Today I got a mail from my good [...]