As an alcohol and cigarette person, the ban on these goods was devastating to me, at first. At some point I even brewed three 20L buckets of varying alcohol mixtures, which plucked me up so bad that I ended up giving away most of it. I had done this to 'cope' during the lockdown but as it turned out, it just made me loathe the smell of alcohol.

So what are the interests of France in Mali? France has one of the world’s biggest gold reserves but no gold mines. Mali has over 50 gold mines and no gold reserves. And the Sahel is a rich source of uranium.

“If they come to evict us again, we will die until the last person standing” proclaims a woman in Uganda. Her village has been raided before. Homes and crops were burned down. People were chased away with fire and ammunition. Women were physically and sexually assaulted.

It’s unfair. Lewis Nkosi is no more. However, John Maxwell Coetzee has recently celebrated his 80th birthday. Philistines who populate such gory spaces as “Im4theArts” have no clue. JM has already outlived Lewis by six years. Lewis is Black, JM is white, in a country stolen from the ancestors of Lewis by the ancestors of JM. Lewis is my guy.