My 1901 copy of the Origin of Species, signed by my grandfather. It’s worth a couple hundred rand, in case you feel like wasting your time trying to steal it.

Bush takes narrow first place.

Why we ate factory-farmed meat, perhaps in the way we’re struggling to wrap our brains around colonial slavery.

Being surprised by a job at Daily Maverick after I’d thought 20 years of freelancing had made me look successfully ungovernable.

Singing in the Rain. I possibly would not be a journalist if I could properly belt out anything other than Happy Birthday.

I beat a String Theory geek at online chess after 16 straight losses over 11 months. Let’s just call him “AlphaJo”. I was extremely proud of this random achievement for deeply Freudian reasons that shan’t be disclosed here.

AlphaJo’s.

I feel like Bluetooth speakers are the mullets of the outdoor world.

Fran “Fran-o-nator” Beighton, Maverick Insider manager extraordinaire with the steely gaze.

“Yup. And I want a transcript of that Australopith toddler’s thoughts before its ignominious little life expired in an entirely unremarkable one-horse Taung.”

Viktor Frankl, for finding humour during unimaginable times.

Can I have two? Vladimir Putin’s gravitationally challenged pectoral muscles are an assault on the senses.

Le Chocolatier handmade artisan chocolates. The sorrow of knowing this is my last dark chocolate will kill me on the spot.

Putin those pectoral muscles in their place. Also — terrible, terrible puns. I’m quite sure they light up the bit in one’s brain responsible for sadism.

Cold-selling paintball games by telephone from an actual country barn 25 kays south of London during the height of the 1999 English winter. I lived in North London and had to tell everyone we hosted Prince Harry’s birthday party, which may or may not have been true. I also did door-to-door sales in Brixton.

The Paperclip Maximiser will basically repurpose everything into paperclips.

“It’s all in the mind, you know.” — Spike Milligan.

A superministry of the environment. And put a Club of Rome scientist at the helm.

I’d decide to build a time machine in about a split-second.

This is a bit like trying to measure a particle’s position and momentum at the same time. It kind of defeats the purpose.