TO BE OR NOT TO BE.......

The youth TV show, Hectic Nine-9  should be congratulated. After yesterday's brave attempt at discussing sexuality amongst the youth on their youth show, and after reading most of the comments on their Facebook page, it became clear to me that South Africa still cannot move into the 21st Century. People still must use the bible to try and prove that humans cannot be born homosexual, and fail miserably I might add as the words contained in the bible have been handed down, translated and even re-written in so many forms that they literally get lost in translation. Personally I believe the bible and religion should be left out of this discussion as sexuality is not a choice; you do not suddenly decide that you want to be gay! The only choice you make is whether to come out of the "closet" or not. As I am no expert on  this matter, I probably do speak from experience. For years I did not reveal my sexuality to anyone, I suppose it had something to do with the "old" South Africa where being gay was a taboo. I think religion is still in the "old" South Africa too! I might as well add that I just turned 60 years old, and to date have not been struck down by lightening from heaven above for being who I am.  It sickens me to see how some youth get taught to hate those who are different to them. On the other hand it is wonderful to see how youths are embracing their sexuality amd not really caring what other people have to say. Even though gay and lesbians are supposed to be protected by our constitution, some of them still live in fear of their lives in the townships and rural areas just because they have decided to "come out" to those around them. Lesbians get raped to make them straight, and young gay men are murdered for being too feminine. What a sick society we have become. It doesn't matter who the so-called christian has murdered or raped, he has sinned in the eyes of God! But back to discussion that was held on Hectic Nine-9 , they were very brave to hold this discussion. And I was waiting for the barrage of anti-gay comments to be posted on their page by viewers who kept quoting the bible and other negative views. I was fairly amused because one of their popular presenters, Ayanda said on Twitter to someone who tried to make a negative comment about him........."I'm not going anywhere, I'm here to stay! Get used to it!" I applaud you Ayanda, to stand up to that idiot. Here's a message for those religious nutcases out there who happen to be reading this blog........ firstly please do not write negative comments here, I will delete them! LOL. And secondly did you know that there are people out there who bat for both teams? Some of them are your husbands and wives...........just saying!

NO MEANS NO!

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day and whilst everyone will be sending Valentine's to there loved ones, we should spare a thought for those who were brutally raped and are not with us today. What causes a man to to be so cruel that he and his friends force themselves on a young teenager, rape her and leave her for dead? This time they never got away with it, as their victim named them before she passed on. It turns out that the one was her ex boyfriend. I hope he rots in jail for the rest of his miserable life. I'm angry, I think the whole of South Africa is angry! Enough is enough! Real men don't rape!

STAND UP! SPEAK OUT! (Part 2)

After my last post, I felt I had not really said what I wanted to say. It appears that bullying is fast becoming a national sport; children do it, some parents do it, and now even politicians are climbing on the bandwagon. The worrying factor is that some of us who stand by and watch someone get bullied are in fact just as guilty as the bully, and we don’t even realize it. I’m sure by that now after watching 3^rd Degree’s report on TV the other evening; many South Africans are shocked at what is going on in playgrounds across the country. But it doesn’t end there. I have heard of people who get bullied at work after getting a promotion. When they report the matter to their company’s HR department, it gets swept under the carpet. In other words it gets ignored. And the bullying carries on and on. It is said nowadays that children who were bullies at school, grow up becoming members of gangs who go around causing mayhem and often end up on the wrong side of the law. Politicians try to win votes by bullying the opposition so that their supporters will end up voting for them, against all odds. In my eyes politicians like these are trying to cover something up when they realize the opposition has uncovered something corrupt that they have done.  We also have the boyfriend/husband who is the bully to his girlfriend/wife, when he says that he doesn’t like the way she dresses. Is he her fashion consultant now? Surely he liked the way she dressed when they first met? Some husbands can be such bullies, that they do not allow their wife any freedom at all. It’s as though there is no trust at all, which is a shame considering that married for love. I’m no expert on marriage but if you cannot trust your wife, who can you trust? So if you are the victim of bullying whether it is in a relationship, at work or at school; it’s time to “Stand Up & Speak Out!”

BULLYING IN SCHOOLS MUST STOP

As founder of the South African Anti Bullying Forum, it is my duty to make it known to all South Africans and the world that bullying does exist in schools, and we intend to get the authorities to sit up and take notice! And that’s not all ……. we want action! It’s been far too long that parents and fellow students just ignore what’s happening, it’s time to stand up and speak out! Don’t say “I don’t want to get involved” when you see someone being bullied. Your intervention could prevent that child/victim from committing suicide, or worse still: he/she takes a gun and shoots the bully to make the problem go away. A young man recently asked me: “Where were you when we were bullied at school?” The answer is I just wish I could have started the forum earlier. We need to start getting South Africa and the world talking about ant-bullying! If you look to the right of this post near the top of this blog, you will see a link to our Facebook page which you can “like”. You can join in by commenting and posting anti-bullying matter whether it is a quotation or a link to a news item on bullying. All will help in making people aware! Everyone has been bullied, and if you haven’t you’re either one of the lucky ones or you are the one who did the bullying. I say this because I was bullied at school. When I was 5 or 6 years old another kid tripped me up. My glasses broke giving me a bloodied nose and 2 black eyes. I’m sure children get constantly bullied by their fellow pupils, just because they’re different. A child who excels at school can also be a victim of bullying just because they’re good at sport, or whose father is a Pastor. It’s not just about being the best any more; it’s what you choose to do. A boy who wants to do ballet instead of soccer is more likely to be bullied at school as others see it as a “girl’s” interest. It seems to me that after watching the report on 3^rd Degree on eTV last night, that I need to do another post on this very worrying subject. Why do people bully other people? We shall find out more next time!

TIPS ON HOW TO AVOID GETTING SUSPENDED ON TWITTER.

Recently a few friends/followers of mine were getting suspended from Twitter. To this day they still don't have any idea as to why it happened and worse still, it happened more than once. I've tried to get a response from one or two celebs to give advice on us inexperienced tweeters, but to no avail. It's as though they are not keen to give advice to their fans/followers, which left me with no alternative but to do some other forms of research. I decided to study the tweets of one of the friends/followers of mine and discovered that you can tweet something in a reply and without realising it, your account gets suspended because of the original tweet. A prime example is this friend's friend/follower tweeted a very nasty porno/pic, and mentioned a Grammy award-winning singer's Twitter handle in the tweet. My friend had scolded his friend in a "reply" tweet in which the offensive photo appeared again. And again  this country singer's Twitter handle was mentioned. What had this talented singer done to deserve this? It's highly unlikely that she looks at all the tweets of her followers and could possibly just block them. Did you know that blocking a person on Twitter only prevents them from following or tweeting you on Twitter? You have to report them as spam to get them noticed by the Twitter police! LOL  Another example was some idiot who was mentioning local female celelebs twitter handles in a tweet, saying he was going to "rape them"! It's people like these that make Twitter an unsafe place for us. How can we avoid all this? It is always best to read the TOS of any social network as they usually tell you what you can or cannot do. This link Rules & Best Practices will give you some idea on how to stay out of trouble on Twitter. But for those who want more info should actually read the Twitter Rules before blocking or reporting people.  I bet 90% of social network users are so keen to start messaging, tweeting and posting that they do not read the site's Terms of Service before using. We just click on the "I accept" button without reading what we are accepting. I know I have been guilty of that! One last word of advice moderate your followers!

MY TOP 10 SOAPIES FOR 2012

Everybody loves a good soapie. Housewives stop what they're doing to watch the latest episode of a popular soap opera. Some people even go as far as installing extra TVs around the house just so they don't miss an episode of Isidingo, or one of the other popular soaps. I enjoy a good story and the soaps shown here locally cater for all tastes, whether you like romance, drama or mystery. This list is my 10 favourites that I watch or have watched:

1. Days Of Our Lives ......... this is one soapie that I've watched virtually from the beginning when it was first show locally. All the villians are there, as well as the heroes and heroines, not forgetting the well loved characters who some of them have sadly since passed on. And judging by the recent visit by "John Black", "Nicole Walker" and "Raeff" to our shores recently; I can see why this is one of the popular soapies on South African Television. Even though we are two or three years behind American viewers, that doesn't stop us from watching!
2. Scandal (eTV) ............ another hugely popular soap in South Africa. Well they do say "local is lekker" even though some soaps lose the plot along the way and start dishing out ridiculous boring story lines. Luckily Scandal is not one of them! It has a bit of everything, from murder to romance to humour. All they need to do now is to broadcast an omnibus of the week's episodes every weekend to keep the fans happy!
3. Isidingo: The Need ........ I think there is a soapie war going on here, because SABC3 made a decision awhile back to change the broadcast time to a later time slot (19h30) which actually clashes with eTV's Scandal which is on in the same time slot. Decisions, decisions......luckily Isidingo has an omnibus every Sunday morning.
4. 7de Laan....... a local Afrikaans (with English subtitles) soapie, all about life in Hillside. Don't bother to look for this delightful little town on the map because it doesn't exist. A story line with characters that I'm sure most of us have encountered in our own neighbourhood. If you miss an episode there's an omnibus on the weekends too! But 7de Laan is the type of storyline that if you miss a few episodes you don't miss much and can quite quickly catch up again.
5. Generations ...... This is probably one of South Africa's oldest locally made soapies. Although I find it entertaining I don't go out of the way to watch it as it's one of those stories that you could miss a whole lot of episodes and still be able to follow the storyline. Actors and actresses come and go, their characters getting "killed off" in the process. It's not the end of the road for them and are soon doing something else.......
6. Inkaba .......... written and produced by world renowned South African actor, John Khani, this soapie has a lot of potential. I would call it a local version of "The Bold and The Beautiful" as the fashion industry plays a key role in the story. Once again if you miss a few episodes, you can catch the omnibus on Mzanzi Magic every weekend.
7. Muvhango ....... I don't watch this much, but sometimes I catch the repeat on a weekday afternoon. Sometimes characters get resurrected from the "dead" which makes the plot unbelievable. Even though the language of Venda is used, there are English subtitles. In fact I think they do cater for the hearing impaired as well as the subtitles would sometimes read: Cell phone rings! Big up to the producers for that!
8. Rythym City ........ to be honest here I have never really got into watching this soapie. Maybe it's the fact that there are too many to watch or because it's a very run of the mill soapie. Definitely not as good as Scandal or Isidingo.
9. The Bold and The Beautiful ...........I have a problem with this soapie as a lot of the actors are actually ex actors from "Days". In fact even "Stefano DiMera" has had a role in this soapie. Very confusing!
10. The Wild........ a local soap that's due to be canned very soon. I can actually see why......it has the most boring storyline in a soap. I think I've sat through two episodes and actually dozed off!! I notice it doesn't even have a Facebook fan page.

And there you have it.........my views or should I say my choice of  soaps that I have watched last year! Further imformation on SA Tv programmes can be found at TvPlus  on Facebook. All the links shown here are Facebook links.

MY CHOICE OF TOP TEN REALITY TV SHOWS FOR 2012

Everybody at this time of the year is blogging about the best (and the worst) of 2012, so I probably should get in on the act too. I love watching reality TV cause it's real and some of them are contests where contestants are pitted against each other for the grand prize. I must just caution readers of this blog that the shows on this list are those broadcast in South Africa by Dstv and the SABC, so don't ask me why certain shows are not on the list as this represents reality TV in South Africa only. So without further ado here is my Top 10 Reality TV Shows For 2012:

1. Ru Paul's Drag Race  a major scoop for Dstv's VuzuTv channel. They broadcast back to back seasons of this extremely popular American TV show. Season 5 is due to be shown in the USA this month. I do hope VuzuTv has pre-ordered their copy!
2. The Amazing Race  is very entertaining too. Here pairs of contestants solve clues to reach the checkpoints first to avoid being eliminated in their race around the world. Gay couples, brother/sister, husband/wife, and even best friends are just some of the contestants who partake in a bid to win $1million!
3. Idols SA , American Idol , X-Factor ..........South Africa seems to be drawn to these singing competitions. Whether you enter and can actually sing or whether you are one of those who think you can sing is another matter all together. Viewers at home sit and watch the show, becoming armchair judges. Maybe a new show should be made called "So you think you can judge?" and for the wannabe singers......."So you think you can sing?".....
4. Suvivor  is another reality show that for some reason beyond me kept SA viewers glued to their TV Sets week after week. I just don't get it. It actually gets a bit boring for me after awhile, but then I'm not an outdoor (in the bush) type of person. Why have I put this show at number 4? If there's nothing else on TV at the time, I'll watch! I love all the backstabbing that goes on. Reminds me a bit of some people I know! LOL
5. Got to Dance ........of all the dance shows I've watched, this is one of the best. A lot of young dance talent gets unearthed here, and when I say "young" I mean children as young as 7 years old compete in this contest which takes place in the UK. This is the one to watch! Very real, good show on VuzuTv on Dstv.
6. The Real Housewives of Atlanta .......this is one of the best in the franchise. Forget about the housewives of New York, Orange County, Miami, mind you I wouldn't like to have cameras following me around 24/7 recording every word, catfight and romantic moment. The reality star for me here is Nene Leakes. Watch the name, she is going far. Some of her recent sucesses are Glee, The Apprentice, and The New Normal.
7. America's Got Talent , SA's Got Talent .........contestants enter and sing, dance, do magic tricks, in fact whatever other talent they posess, just to win prize money. Well the latter is in South Africa. In America you can win $1million and the chance to have your own show in Las Vegas. Actually I find the South African version a bit bland and it's almost as if they are rushing through the contest. Whereas the American version.......now there's real talent.
8. Undercover Boss .......now that's something they should have here in South Africa. For the uninformed, bosses of large companies go undercover and masquerade as workers in their companies to get hands on imformation regarding various problem areas. A very interesting show, although I cannot see local businessman doing the dirty work once they've become a "boss"! LOL
9. The Bachelor .......... a bachelor chooses a bride to be from a group of women, and they all stay together in the "Best Lil Whorehouse in Texas".....actually they don't. But this must really be one of the most boring reality shows on TV.
10. America's Next Top Model ..........hasn't this show been on too long? I mean someone mentioned season 16? Surely viewers must be bored to tears by now! (Yawn......) Unless of course you are a fan of Tyra Banks  I suppose.........

Well that's my Top 10 Reality shows done and dusted. If you want more imformation on any of these shows, you can visit TvPlus my favourite magazine on Facebook!