Men’s Health had a great story this week about two South African surfers who happened to be in Sumatra when the big quake hit. It’s cool to see a magazine get a break on a big story like this and they played it perfectly: a first-person account of the disaster. It also produces the quote of the week, from one of the surfer bunnies, Andrew Brady, from Cape Town:

I locked eyes with Greame during the most violent part of the quake and the feeling of “oh f#ckness” was mutual as the buildings around us began to collapse!

Then off to disaster of another kind: when one man’s unbuntu get’s a kick in the teeth. The Daily Dispatch had a story about a man who help a house warming party in the burbs to get to know his neighbours and ended up being attacked in his bedroom by two goons. What is this world coming to? A very sad barometer of out violent times.

And then Carl Hiaasen, eat your heart out! The Jackie Selebi trial is turning out to be THE soap opera of the year. Everyday this week there have been new accusations of dodgy intentions, dirt and corruption. What amuses me is the image of Glenn Agliotti cruising Sandton for shoes for Selebi and Thabo Mbeki. What kind of a crook  is this, for heaven sake? Doesn’t he have a wife or a flusie of some kind to do the shopping of bribery wares for him? Click here to go to the M&G’s very nicely presented special report on the trial.

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Five things you need to know about SA today

1. The M&G continues to peel the onion that is the intelligence community in SA. The paper says that a covert operation called "Operation Destroy Lucifer” (I kid you not)  not only got President Jacob Zuma off the hook but has been fiddling in other investigations across the country,  including that against Chinese syndicates linked to Glenn Agliotti and Western Cape gang bosses. Read the story here.

2. While the cops are on Venus, all eyes are on  Mars.  New images from the red planet now suggest that there was once a huge lake there. Click here to read the AP story and check out the supercool artist’s impression of the lake in a canyon. 

3. Business Day an entertaining piece of erudite frippery by  a Wits law professor on John Hlophe taking issue with Latin. One doesn’t get this kind of  Smart Alec writing in SA newspaper’s very often. More’s the pity. Read it here. 

4. News24 has an entertaining interview with a Canadian author who has taken to writing novels on Twitter who attended the "140 Characters Conference" in New York this week. Click here to read.

5. And if you’re thinking that Santana is most unloved person in SA, think again. The Times has an interview with the father of Dirk Prinsloo, Advocate Barbie’s ex-boyfriend, who is sitting in a Belarus jail. Best place for him, says Pops.

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