While Scoop was a short-lived newspaper, about four months in fact, it did produce this quality journalism. I hope you like it.

Sounds extreme doesn’t it? Well lest ye prematurely admonish these god-fearing men as ruthless party-poopers, it must be known that this party had women and men in the same room. Dancing together!

It’s a fucking disgrace if you ask me. Having dared to go against the social mores laid out by the rational Taliban, these rabble-rousers got what they deserved.

Now reports say that there might be other reasons for the deaths, but let’s not dwell on technicalities in case we find we can’t poke fun at fundamentalists.

Funky chicken? Wring his neck. Moon walk… He just struck down like Neil Armstrong.

One would think that forming part of the intelligent youth of today, these evil partygoers would respect their lack of the right to freedom. But such is the way with smart phones and Twitter. They just lose their shit and start partying and crying equality, and other dirty words.

I have seen it happen. Men and women will go to a party. They will talk with one another. Some will dance. Some will fuck in toilets. Sometimes there are more than two people in the toilets and there are even times, God forbid, that there are people of the same sex in there.

But this will happen. It is written in many holy books. “Beware of the disco, for there might be shit music which will cause shagging.”

And as we know the holy books are true, all of them. I support cultural relativism. And dancing leads to sex which leads to moral decay. And then of course God, who is obviously a kak dancer, will visit great vengeance and a bucket load of fury on these breakdancing infidels.

Afghan president, Hamid Karzai has ordered an investigation, according to media reports and offered the suitably ambiguous statement: “This attack shows that there are irresponsible members among the Taliban.”

But he fails to realise it is God’s will that people will not party. President of Heaven always trumps President of Afghanistan.

Originally appeared on ZA News

If you don’t appreciate Victoria Falls you should not leave your house, ever.

He pissed on paradise. And because of that he could never be treated with anything other than disdain. His lanky frame huddled over the thick slab of wooden table used in the restaurant area, as he rattled out banalities in his public school boy English.

“There’s nothing on the menu. It’s all shite mate. Trust me yeah.”

When you’ve endured a two hour drive in the thunderous rain in the back of a truck with chickens fighting for shelter beneath your feet, you’re not really in the mood for more pessimism. But there it was, dripping from his mouth as he sat in dry clothes.

Katembe in Indonesia’s Sumatra Province is beautiful. Thick greenness suggests the rugged travails that await you as you enter the jungle in search of orang-utans. But before trekking the paths that are cleared right before you by a man with a machete, you get to stop off at this backpackers – this was a while ago and I cannot remember its name – for warm food, dry sheets and the melodies of Marley so ubiquitous in South East Asia.

The point of the reverie is that despite the surroundings surpassing your imagined desires, you still have some prick that just doesn’t get it. Or has become so jaded he refuses to see it.

If you look around when you are travelling in a new country or simply in your own town or city, you see so many people who appear to be there out of a sense of obligation.

More recently, at the Victoria Falls, I saw a foursome of fatties, with long socks and bad hairstyles. The one guy walked to the edge of a viewing point turned around shouted at his wife to snap a picture and moved on.

Now one of the people I was with suggested that I needn’t drop into the depths of loathing for this sock-wearing twat, it could be that he had been there the whole week and just wanted a picture he had not yet taken. Clutching at straws considering the photo was generic.

When I got home and was relaying these thoughts to friends who had just got back from a trip to the Kruger National Park in South Africa with some international guests; they started laughing and shouting: “What fucks.”

The reason for their enthusiasm, other than my oratory skills, was that every day they were there, they had seen elephants, buck, birds and even on one day a lion kill. Or the aftermath at least. Their guests said at the end they preferred the Lion Park in Johannesburg because you got to pet Africa’s famous animal.

Travelling to experience new ideas, meet different people or see some of the most magnificent creatures on earth is the end in itself. Not some means to tick off bucket lists or make your Facebook friends jealous. If that is the motivation, stay at home or go to Disney World.

Service delivery riots and protests are happening across the country. People are angry about a lack of water, housing, education and many other services promised to them by government.

In desperation they take to the streets often violently.

Just yesterday there was a massive backlash from religious folk not happy with Red Bull showing that Jesus’ physics-defying walk on water was made possible not from supernatural powers or, in fact, the caffeinated energy drink. It was actually because he could spot stones beneath the water’s surface. The Axe advert, banned late last year, caused a similar stench amongst the righteous for suggesting that heavenly beings (who looked a lot like Victoria’s Secret models) would fall from grace merely to satisfy their sexual cravings for shaggy-haired, skinny nerds sprayed with some aerosol deo.

There are a few obvious reasons why this religious backlash is reprehensible.

It is poor form to suggest that the commercialization of religion, as in the above adverts is any worse than the merchandising of “pro-religious” trinkets and statues, paintings and prose, sold en masse around the globe. This highlights a massive double standard. If it cracks the nod of the Vatican and is sanctioned by the Pope and the religious right, then it’s fine. But if it’s an energy drink trying to make some cash off the back of God then woe shall be upon them.