Lunch with Pippa Hudson

Not only is today World Sight Day, but we’re also in the middle of Eyecare Awareness Month, so we thought we’d make space today to have a conversation about protecting our eyesight and keeping it as acute as possible for as long as possible. 

Joining Pippa on the line to chat about eyecare and tackle any questions you may have around the topic, is Andy Muir, who is an optometrist based in Knysna. Andy qualified at what was then the Wits Technikon School of Optometry, now part of the University of Johannesburg, and has continued to further his studies throughout his career. He has been admitted as a member of the British College of Optometrists and has served as a Director of the South African Optometric Association. 

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It’s such a pleasure today to catch up with blind adventurer Christopher Venter.

We first met up with him in 2018 when he published his first book about his adventures as a trans-continental traveller who wouldn’t let the loss of his sight keep him from exploring the world.  Since his initial antics on the back of a scooter, he has gone on to tackle all kinds of new challenges and adventures, defying expectations and refusing to allow his visual impairment to hold him back from living life to the fullest. 

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In our weekly consumer talk with Wendy Knowler, we give an update on the news from the National Consumer Commission about the apple juice recall, speak about luggage damaged in airline transit, including with listener Kayla-Ann Osborn, whose baby car seat was damaged during a flight. We also speak to Trudie Broekmann, an attorney specialising in consumer law at Trudie Broekman Attorneys in Cape Town.

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News

Top 10 manufacturers for September had some interesting stats

Suzuki in 3rd place

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We’re in the last few weeks ahead of the Local Government Elections, due to take place on the 1st of November. Party manifestos have been launched, candidate lists finalised and published, posters have gone up all over town, and the rather last-minute electioneering has begun in earnest.  

And today we’re focusing on Khayelitsha. Thirty kilometres outside the city centre, it’s the largest township in Western Cape, with the 2011 census giving the population at close to 400,000. But the area has grown exponentially over the past 10 years and estimates of the current population vary widely.

To find out more, we’re joined by EWN reporter Kevin Brandt who has visited Khayelitsha as part of Eyewitness News’ coverage ahead of the local government elections.  

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Award-winning musician, composer, and music producer, Chris Querido, is back after a 2-year hiatus. He debuted under the stage name, QUERIDO, in 2019 with a slick synth-pop song "For Tonight" featuring Amy May Roux, and the song raked in hundreds of thousands of streams. Now, two years later,  he's released a new single, "Gemini", produced together with Cape Town-born, New York-based synth-pop songstress, Sulene.

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Today we talk about the opportunities that lie in wait thereafter, and specifically, to ponder what options exist for South African students to go and study overseas after matric.  Some won’t even consider it because of the cost – others might be lucky enough to have a second passport that unlocks access more easily.  Some parents might have assumed that the different educational systems are just too incompatible, or that the language barrier will make it impossible.  Today I want to talk about all these challenges and get some straight answers about who should consider studying overseas, what it would realistically cost to do so, and what other pros and cons need to be considered.

Guest: Heidi Sulcas, who has spent years touring international campuses and has acted as an agent for some 300 foreign universities.  

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The 4th annual UCT Scrub Run takes place this coming Saturday as part of the Sanlam Cape Town Marathon. It is a charity initiative organised every year by the UCT Surgical Society to raise funds for the Red Cross War Memorial Children's Hospital. This year the Virtual Peace Run will be supporting the upgrade and expansion of the hospital's new Emergency Centre, and a few of its paediatric surgeons will run together with UCT medical students and doctors, all of them in full medical scrubs. But members of the public are also able to join in to help raise funds for this good cause. And this year, the ambassador for the event, the Western Cape MEC for Health, Nomafrench Mbombo, will be running with them.

We speak to Buhle Dube, a third-year medical student and head of the Community Development at the UCT Surgical Society.

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The Cape Town Cycle Tour is just 2 days behind us and already the signs are going up for the next big outdoor event – The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon. Happening this coming Sunday, it will be the country’s first major marathon of the year and has been given the go-ahead under strict Covid 19 protocols.  To tell us what that means for runners and spectators alike, we're joined on the line by race director Renee Jordaan. 

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October is Mental Health Awareness Month, and today I want to catch up with a young local artist who is using his own experience of mental health struggles, to try and help others. His name is Farai Engelbrecht, and he goes by the artist’s moniker of Samurai Farai.  

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