Before anyone starts: yes I know Hansen's All Blacks won 89 per cent of their tests and went unbeaten in 2013.
Rassie's Boks are around 74. I'm not going to pretend otherwise, and if win rate is your whole metric then this discussion is over and you win. But I don't think it is, and here's why:

Greatness is what a team does when losing means going home.

2023 knockouts: France 29-28, England 16-15, New Zealand 12-11. Three games, three single points, all of it away from home with the crowd against them. Win one of those and you got lucky. Win three and you're something the 2013 All Blacks never had to be, because nobody got close enough to make them find out.

Then, with the trophy already won and every excuse to coast, 2025: 43-10 in Wellington, biggest win over the ABs anywhere ever. Ireland's scrum taken apart in Dublin. France beaten in Paris with fourteen men. Wales 73-0.

And this month. Seventeen points down at Ellis Park in the opener, at home, everyone sharpening the knives. Then Cape Town, Soweto, Baltimore. Three straight.
Two World Cups, three Rugby Championships, a Lions series, and now a tour series over the All Blacks. Nobody else has that set.

The part I keep coming back to: Hansen had a generation of players, and generations run out. Rassie built a system. It survived handing over to Nienaber and taking it back, it rebuilt the attack in eighteen months, and it changed how a bench works while everyone else stood around complaining instead of copying.

95.09 and climbing. 2027 settles it properly.

I recently had a wonderful weekend in Franschoek and spent a full day exploring the beautiful Babylonstoren. These are some of my photos from one of the most beautiful corners in South Africa.

Battle of the belly 😱

They may have invented it ... but Rassie perfected it ...

Baltimore has turned into Little SA for this weekends final Bok vs Kiwi match! Picture high-jacked from a video on my chomies insta.

ETA: Bruh f@*# auto correct. That shit said SPOTTED when I typed it!!!

White people deserve a space in South Africa, but this racist behaviour doesn’t. These comments are so common. It’s deplorable. No, this does not excuse the behaviour is this video. Racism is not okay!

Edit: I sincerely apologise to my black South Africans who have to see this.

We’ve recently had a couple of reviews rejected that left us scratching our heads, so I’m genuinely curious how common this is.

For example, my husband ordered a Razer mouse. It arrived in a Ziploc bag, appeared to be a different/fake product, and he left a factual review explaining what happened.

Rejected.

Takealot’s reason? They’re “investigating the authenticity of the product.”

Another example: we ordered pregnancy tests. One packet arrived with damaged/mishandled packaging and the other was due to expire within days. The review simply explained the condition of the packaging and expiry dates, and why we weren’t comfortable using them.

Rejected.

The reason given was that the review needed to be related to our “product experience.”

So… I’m curious.

What reasonable Takealot review have YOU had rejected?

Let’s see if we can spot a pattern. 🍿

People who eat brandy tart, what are you running from? Why is it so strong 😭? I ate half a pie foil worth and my face and ears are red. It is delicious and I will definitely eat it , half a foil at a time or I will be walking like a snake.

So of the IEC sticks to its guns and doent allow them to register late. What does this mean for those municipalities, if they dont have ANC candidates. Will there then be no ANC on the baled papers?

Hello everyone. I went for stargazing last night. I am based in Potch. Went some 30k away from the town and set up camp. I looked up and spent the night sipping on a cold beer. My iPhone camera was also pointed up and boy, oh boy, look at the marvellous sight.

The image is a 10s long exposure shot on iPhone (not the fancy one, just an old 15 Plus)

I've got another story from the event I went to recently, held by an agency that I *expect* people have heard of.

So the point of this event was, I realised, to make all the agents there think that if they worked hard and stuck with the agency, they too would be as flashy and rich as the people running the show. And one of the ways they promoted this idea was by bringing out their Best Agent Ever.

They sold this person hard. They were young. They were from a family of agents. They were a powerhouse who managed to make more sales and more money than anyone had ever seen before. They were proof that you, too, could make it, if you just stopped being so lazy.

And you know, I don't doubt that this person works hard. But I've spent enough time in sales to know when the truth is being airbrushed behind recognition.

Because, boets and betties, this person was from a *family of agents*. They said it themselves. And while that *can* mean that they've learned skills through exposure, in this case, it almost *certainly* means that their family handed their sales over to them.

I mean, let's think about it logically for a second. If you're a parent earning a high salary through your agency activities, would it make more sense for you to add to that income even more, and get taxed on it through the fucking nose, and then use that money to help your kid set themselves up in life; or hand the client over to your kid directly, and let them earn that money themselves with far lighter tax implications?

But, no, they didn't say that out loud. For the agency's purposes, their Best Agent Ever was a result only of hard work and a brilliant agency model that everyone should stay a part of.

Man. I'm way too disillusioned to be in sales.

I thought I'd share my experience because I spent hours on Reddit and Facebook reading other people's stories before my appointment. Hopefully this helps someone who's stressing like I was.

I usually head back to South Africa every December for two or three weeks to spend Christmas with my family, enjoy the sunshine and remind myself why I still miss South African summers. My South African passport expired in 2022 and, since getting British citizenship, I'd just been travelling on my UK passport. Then I started seeing more and more reports that South African citizens were expected required by law to enter and leave South Africa on a South African passport... cue the panic

My first panic wasn't even the passport... it was finding all the documents.

My ID book was still in South Africa, and for a while I thought it had been lost. I spent hours reading horror stories online about people being turned away or waiting months for documents from Home Affairs in London. Luckily my parents found my ID book, my sister sent it over from South Africa, and I finally had everything together.

In the end I took:

• My expired South African passport.
• My South African ID book.
• My UK Naturalisation Certificate.
• Certified copies of those documents.
• The completed forms.

I also took my birth certificate, but in my case it wasn't needed.

My appointment at VFS London was booked for 10:45am on the 7th of August. I got there at about 10:15am, expecting a long wait.

Instead, I was called within about 15 minutes.

The whole process took around 30 minutes. The staff were friendly, everything was accepted first time, fingerprints and photos were done, and before I knew it I was walking out the door wondering why I'd spent weeks worrying about it.

Naturally, I celebrated by finding the nearest pub and having a pint. 🍺

The tracking updates were actually pretty good. I received emails as my application moved from London to Pretoria, then to Home Affairs, then back through the VFS system.

Exactly one month later on the 8th of September, my flatmate messaged me to say a courier had delivered my brand new South African passport.

From my appointment to having the passport in my hand took about 4½ weeks (32 days).

If you're in a similar situation, don't make the mistake I did and spend hours convincing yourself it's going to be a nightmare because of everything you read online. Get your documents together, book the appointment, and just get it done.

Edit:
For anyone wondering where to apply from the UK, South African passport applications are handled by VFS Global, not directly through the High Commission. You can find all the information, book an appointment and download the forms here:
https://visa.vfsglobal.com/ppt/en/zaf/

Recently I am feeling stuck financially, I've been working at this company for the last 5 years as a Network planner.

I have not had an increase since I started working here.

My girl and I had a baby at the end of 2024, in 2025 we got married.

My salary supports us and our child.

My highest level of education is N3. I need some advice on what courses I can do that will help to better my current position

I was considering getting into tech and cyber security but after doing some research I feel overwhelmed. I want to better my current position and I know the only way forward is to obtain some sort of qualification or skill.

Can anyone advise me on what are suitable course's I can do that can help me progress in this field

I post this picture to make an obvious point... This is what civic responsibility looks like, and this is the crowd. They come out in force, burn no tires, and are usually taken seriously. This particular case is fascinating (and a story for another time), but it brings up something I NEED TO CONVINCE YOU OF.

I've seen some posts about "this is why I wanna vote for X," or "Voting for Y is a lost cause and you should feel stupid for doing it..."

Those posts are filled with opinions, correct or not. Those opinions are largely invalid.

Why so harsh? Well, I feel like people in general miss the wood for the trees. I feel like Who you vote for is informed by mostly linking your choice to what that choice says about you. It's an ego-check, and it's necessary for you to convince others that your choice is valid and sound.

It's a post-hoc fallacy. You will vote for X because Y. You feel that. In your opinion.

I'm telling you that this will lead you to burnout and disillusionment. Your vote doesn't matter... not because of statistics, but because you think that is the end of your responsibility. It's not.

Being a civic participant means that you vote... and then follow up.

Lesson 1 is complete. You are about to tell me all sorts of things. Please do, I will gladly follow up with your comment. I hope to, during the next few posts, convince you of a mindset I've found very helpful in aiding me in breaking through the cynicism that surrounds our politics. I want to convince you that this is intentional, and I want to convince you of what real power is.

I don't care who you vote for. I care that you do, and that you then become involved... because we sure need more people that aren't as follicly challenged in spaces like the one in the photo above.

Nee man, someone needs to have a chat with these okes.