Buchan hell! That's poor Cape Town down the drain ... literally

Four months ago I wrote a column that had to be retracted.

Misreading a news report‚ I claimed that Mmusi Maimane had attended a prayer day at Parliament featuring the alleged preacher‚ Angus Buchan. Mr Maimane had‚ in fact‚ not been present – it was his wife‚ Natalie‚ who had attended the event – and the column was rightly retracted and deleted from all Tiso Blackstar platforms.

I was sorry for that mistake. As I told my readers on Facebook in an apology later that day‚ I have only one job as a commentator – to get the facts right – and I had let them down.

But I was also sorry for another reason. My blunder had required the piece to be deleted from public view‚ which meant my impressions of Buchan had also disappeared. Fortunately‚ when Odin shuts a door he sometimes hacks open a window‚ and this week I have a perfectly legitimate reason to write about Buchan again.

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