I wouldn't normally post something like this but since its to do with a fellow Saffa and Durban local and since I have the means to help out I feel I need to. Donavan van Lill went missing from his home in Chippenham, Wiltshire which is west of London on 3 March. His wallet, passport, phone and car were not taken with him, and nobody has seen or heard from him since.

A FaceBook group has been launched with full info and more pictures of what Donavan looks like so please join the group as it could be you who spots him. The link for the group page is as follows: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=389933046608 please check the group for more information.

Although he might not live in London, Londoners are urged to please keep there eyes peeled since London is a likely hub of where anyone would go.

Here is an extract taken from the FaceBook Group,

"Donavan was last seen at home on Wednesday morning when his housemate went out to work. When Donavan didnt turn up for work people started to worry as it is very out of character for him. When his housemate returned he wasnt there, his phone and wallet and car was still at home. His laptop was open and on and logged on to FB (which is not like him either) so concerns was raised. The police are involved but treating it as low priority because there was no note left and he hasnt left with lots of alcohol or pills or anything. However, the police raised this to medium priority yesterday as this is so out of character for him and there have been no further clues. He has nothing on him except for what he had on.

The police have done searches on his bank account, laptop etc which didnt lead to any clues. The police has his laptop, phone, wallet, passports etc with them. They have also checked CCTV cameras at the train station with no result there.

We call on anyone that feel that they might have the smallest amount of info to call the police on 0845 4087000."

- Marky Mark

DSTV Multichoice has apparently been inundated with requests for porn channels over the last few months, to the extent that they are actually looking at getting with the times by making this available as a pay per view option…but…

You may have heard a bit about this lately. DSTV Multichoice are looking at making porn channels available as a pay per view option, naturally… but you may have also heard about the huge amount of bullshit surrounding the whole saga to the extent that it is getting just a little bit ridiculous now. Recently DSTV decided that if they were going to do this, then perhaps it would be a good idea to get a general feeling about it from the public first… ja bad idea, and quite honestly an epic fail since they are probably wishing they never brought the whole topic up. What they should have just done is, made it available, if you want to watch it, you pay for it, thats it, simples… but no, they had to go and open a massive can of worms, did they not realise that there was going to be a great divide as to who wants it and who doesn't?

Lets be a little realistic and honest about the whole thing, Piet and Sarie are about 50 years old, Piet schmaaks checking the Rugby on Supersport on a Saturday and Sarie schmaaks checking her "whatever" programs and a kiff movie while they stay at home on a Saturday night. They receive an email or letter from DSTV advising that they want to know how everyone feels about having porn channels available but not "freely" available… Sarie immediately gets on her high horse throwing the Bible at it, stating that it is absolute filth and the demise of the human race yada yada yada… because it will be an awesome topic to display her "values" and uphold her status within her Wednesday goss… ur um..book club. Piet just agrees cause not a chance is he gonna be looked upon as the spawn of Satan by Sarie, she may very well deprive the poor bastard of the little bit of action he does get these days. So off goes their petition signed, Sarie and Piet… even though Piet is already skeeming in his mind about how he's gonna manage to hide the DSTV bill every month with the extra Pay Per View costs on it … Now if DSTV just went and did it, Sarie might be scrolling through the onscreen guide and notice a couple channels with titles such as "Gangbangs of New York"  or "Riding Miss Daisy" or something a little more obvious.. but the most she is gonna do is give a little "Sies!" and flick passed it. She doesn't care for it and it obviously doesn't interest her, let alone it popping up with a PIN request just incase she accidently did "tap the button" on one of the channels, because at the end of the day, not a fuck are they gonna cancel their subscription, Piet wont be able to watch his Rugby and Sarie won't be able to watch her programs, and we all no what lies on the other side of No DSTV land… yes, you guessed it… SABC… well, no comment.

The minute you give any of these super conservative bunch a chance at a say, they will tear it to shreds and cause such a big ndaba about it. 

In my opinion DSTV should get with the times and stop acting like it lives in the apartheid era where TV was highly censored, give people the freedom to choose what they want to watch and if they don't want to watch it then they don't watch it. There is actually a full on campaign called "Helping Hand" who are rallying support to stop this from happening because they feel that it will corrupt South African society and cause more sexual abuse amongst the population… have these people just stepped off the Ark? Has anyone cared to let them know that we have had this amazing thing for sometime now called "The Internet", where you don't even have to pay for a dose of smut, you just have to type three letters into Google and voila! and better still its in endless supply. It makes me wonder why these idiots haven't created a huge campaign to block access to porn sites on the net in SA, which I'm sure will cause an outbreak of full scale riots because of it… I'll tell you why, because they know they can't stop that, its way too big, the only reason why they are jumping around about it now, is because DSTV were stupid enough to let anybody voice their opinions about it. I bet you even ol' Piet checks out a few sites when Sarie puts her green face mask on and heads to bed leaving him unfulfilled, cause we all know he schmaaks a piece of that action

All of you with Sky will know, there's loads of porn channels available, some of the free soft porn ones are actually quite hilarious to watch for 5mins like Babestation etc. with the chicks on the phones pulling weird faces and trying to make it look like they actually enjoying themselves talking on the phone, I just can't help but laugh because it is so frickin cheesy its unbelievable. At the end of the day, millions of people have Sky and they have the freedom to choose what the want to watch, that's the way it is. How often do you venture into the high numbered channels where all the pay per view porn is… hardly ever I imagine, and most of the time its by accident cause there's bugger all on and you've gone through the entire list already.

Would you believe 41 000 very sad people have actually voted against having these channels on DSTV… very very sad

Where's the multichoice in Multichoice?

P.S. For anyone wanting to look at blocking porn via ISP's and DSTV, please go to Google and search for "RedTube"

What do you reckon? Comment at will…

- Marky Mark

A very good friend of mine by the name of Denzil Baynes, endured many a cold winter here in London… until one day he came up with a bit of a bright spark idea… he wanted to be a yachtie… and to cut a long story short, thats just what he did. For some time now he's been cruising the Caribbean and the Med… living the dream in every sense of the word… he also likes to keep us updated with his adventures, so from time to time Denzil is gonna give us a little update on where his ridiculously awesome life takes him…. a little inside look at life as a yachtie… prepare for part Uno… Enjoy

Currently I'm on a Caribbean charter which started in Naples, Florida… but first I'll tell you how this whole trip came about.

I left my last boat, Lady Kathryn IV, a 164ft (50 metre) Westport in Monaco in October of last year. My sights were set on progressing up the crew ladder as fast as I could to fulfil my ambition of becoming a Captain of a Superyacht. I spent 3 months in South Africa studying for my 200 ton ticket and endured many hours with my nose buried in books while sitting in the back Cottage at my parents home in Scottburgh, Kwa Zulu-Natal.
After what seemed like an incredibly fast 3 month stint I managed to enjoy a couple weeks relaxing with my girlfriend Lucy after hearing I had passed all my exams.

It was time to head back to America, Fort Lauderdale in Florida. A bit of background knowledge for those who don't know, Fort Lauderdale is the hub for all Yachties to visit Crew agencies, network and wait for the perfect job to roll in. I have family there so it eliminates the crew housing factor which is a huge expense saver when unemployed.
It didn't take long at all for Lucy to find a job, closely followed by myself. Matt, my brother, landed a month of daywork and is still currently employed on a short term contract with another yacht.

I was seeking a Bosun position, now a Bosun is typically the lead deckhand aboard a vessel, then there's 1st mate and at the top of the command chain is of course Captain. I had been getting calls all week from agents telling me they've put me forward to various B0sun positions etc etc, when out of the blue late one evening I received a voicemail from a Captain who'd seen my CV and was looking for a 1st mate. I thought immediately that it was a position a little out if my league however out of courtesy I called the Captain and he still wanted to interview me for the position. I accepted, met him the following day and within a week I was living aboard a 112ft Westport having skipped from Deckhand straight to 1st Mate!

I have just finished a 3 week charter in the Bahamas with the yacht owners, their friends and family. We left Naples, Florida, on the 16th of February with first destination being a members club called Ocean Reef which is based on the South East coast of Florida called the Florida Keys, near Key Largo.

We spent a full week here before heading 50 miles offshore to an island called Bimini where we were to stay 3 extra days. This was an unexpected duration of time due to 35 knot winds keeping us tied to our dock with 10 to 12 foot swell beyond the breakwater.

On the 26th of February we sailed into Nassau, the Atlantis mariner based in Paradise Island which is a smaller island connected by a large bridge to the Bahamian island of New Providence….you got that?
We stayed here in Atlantis from the 26th of Feb to the 6th March which completed the first leg of our charter until the owners return again at the end of March. In the interim we will be sailing the "Ha-Sea II" down South to begin the next chapter… the Caribbean season.

Here's a little something to make you shed a tear or two

[Show as slideshow]

[View with PicLens]

- Marky Mark

Just a few reasons why you should always ask a lot of questions when viewing a property that you are looking at renting as you might just uncover more than what meets the eye….

For every Saffa living in London, we are all too well experienced in the mission of looking for a decent spot, not all of us come over here with £50 000 in our pockets to slap down as a deposit on a house, because if you did have that kind of money to blow on a deposit, then its probably best you stay in SA and buy yourself a nice little mansion. So as the majority of us rent, we've all seen our share of dodgy shit holes that prospective landlords couldn't even expect cockroaches to live in…. lets just say, by the end of this article, you will no doubt ALWAYS request a new mattress or bed

We've all had our experiences where we've moved into an "awesome" spot and only then once deposits are paid and you've signed on the dotted line, you find out there's alot more that meets the eye, for example, the ridiculously noisy neighbour, Moby Dick upstairs that thumps around in her high heels on a wooden floor, the old granny downstairs who keeps knocking and putting letters through your door every time you let a slight fart slip out, even when you've used extreme stealth and precision, quite successfully muffling the thundering sound between your ass cheeks and the layers of cushion in your couch… don't laugh girls, you know I'm talking about all of you haha Sadly its usually all these sorts of things that you only find out afterwards, unless you asked the right questions to the slimey snake err um I mean estate agent beforehand. He may not have to tell you everything without you knowing he's lying or not telling you everything, We've all fallen short of these problems in one shape or form, even myself a few months back where I couldn't do any recording for the entire time I was there due to the thumping sounds of peoples heels above…. but these are all very minor when you read what happened to my good friend "Joe" (not his real name, he's requested me not to mention it, you'll see why)…. Ask yourself this question…. How well do you know the history of the place you are renting right now?

A few months ago Joe moved into his new place with his doll and it seemed like your pretty average rent, everything that met the eye seemed ok and nothing to complain about… yet… until the end of the first night of course. The very next day, Joe had to contact his landlord to ask him if he wouldn't mind changing the mattress since his missus had literally been chomped by bedbugs throughout the night. To Joe's surprise there was no hesitation and the very next day, the old bed was swiftly removed and a brand new bed installed…. all was fine over the next few months, however soon Joe and his doll realised that they needed a bigger boat, so they decided to move out. On the day they were moving out, the neighbour popped in to wish them farewell and noticed the new bed and redecoration of the place… the neighbour then went on to say how nice the place looked after what happened with the previous tenant. As you can imagine, Joe grew slightly inquisitive as anybody would and asked what had happened… well… howz this for a story…. The previous tenant was apparently attacked at the nearby train station and hit over the head with something, he made it home however he died lying face down in a pool of blood from the head wound… on the bed…. After a few days the neighbour noticed a smell coming from the room due to the door being slightly ajar from when the tenant obviously stumbled home injured and met his end. It probably wasn't a very pleasant site however the landlord did a sterling job at cleaning up the place however do you think he replaced the bed??? This is a landlord we're talking about, they'll cut costs even if it costed them there own mother's limbs…. Lets just say, I guess the well cleaned blood stain and bits of brain matter were on the underside of the mattress that could have passed for "other stains" if questioned…. now we know why those frickin bed bugs had such a taste for blood  

Luckily Joe didn't have to spend another night there, because quite honestly I couldn't have.

So… had any previous tenants being victims of a murder in your bed recently?….

Got any tales of renting woe? the comment section is all yours… go wild!  

- Marky Mark

If there was a FaceBook Fan Page called "I Love Lip Syncing", its no secret that Britney Spears would be the owner, let alone just a fan. From lip syncing live on X-Factor a while ago to even The Jen and the Phreak attending one of her shows at the O2 about a year ago noting that she was blatantly miming, I guess it's safe to say its basically what she does…all the time…

Ok, Chris Crocker best you not read any further, I got this from my favourite daily read over at 2OceansVibe and just couldn't resist telling you lot about it. We all know that Britney Spears prances around stage doing cart wheels yet quite seemingly is able to do this whilst keeping her breathing at an exceptionally controlled pace and hooting down the microphone with studio quality vocals… I guess its only the teeny bopping 10 year olds that don't really care since they didn't folk out £65 of their hard earned cash for the shambolical experience… mommy and daddy did. Personally if I really wanted to be within 50m of ol' Brit, which is basically all it is, I wouldn't pay for it, I'd just find out which hotel she's staying at and wait outside (although this will probably eventually get me a 50m restraining order of some sort)… but none the less, this is what you would really hear if they turned her mic up during her songs as this was in fact recorded at a "live" concert of hers through her mic channel.

Makes you wonder just how much sound engineering actually goes into fixing her voice for her albums

I'm thinking… just a pretty face

Speaking of Fan Pages earlier… Have you joined the awesome PharSide FaceBook Fan Page yet? Become a fan and check out some of the videos

[Thanks Seth] 

- Marky Mark

Now I don't really like posting email joke forwards up on PharSide since most people have already seen them and its not fresh, but I got this one today that honestly made me chuckle at my desk for quite a long time… its the best I've seen in a while

So here goes….

You know you're flying S.A.A. when you ask the air hostess for the black pepper and she brings you… 

..

.

.

.

.

.

Wait for it…..

The Sowetan

[Thanks Lorna]

- Marky Mark

If you've been to the South African restaurant called Chakalaka in Putney, you'll know how frickin awesome their chow is, and now finally for us Saffa's in Wimbledon, we no longer have to bust it on the dreaded District Line to get a good taste of South Africa, we've got it nicely tucked away right here in Wimbledon as part of the Horse and Groom Pub.

You may remember the previous raving review I did for Chakalaka in Putney some time ago, where I took on the 25oz Steak Challenge, so when I heard that another Chakalaka had opened up right here in Wimbles, I wasted no time in going to check it out. Once again my fussy little taste buds were mesmerized by the quality of the food. Now let me tell you, this time they were gonna have it a bit harder because to be quite honest, it was Sunday, so naturally I was hanging like a bitch after yet another weekend of insane debauchery in the life of Marky Mark. My taste buds were wrecked and even if I drank a whole bottle of thick bleach, it would still taste like Jack and Coke due to the inner layers of my mouth being well marinated all weekend, so all in all, it was gonna be tough for Mr. Chef Dude in the back. I decided to go for something a little lighter on my already tender tummy, so I had a look at the menu and went for the KingKlip with sweet potato and green beans… when I saw those veggies on the menu I could just hear my ma's voice in my head telling me to be sensible and healthy also I couldn't resist the sudden thought of quality nutrients to bring homeostasis back to my badly self abused body. 

When the food arrived I had a little skrik! The presentation was immaculate and that is one big point I'd like to note, it seriously looked like someone had sculptured every millimeter of surface area on that plate to be perfect… only for me to tuck right in and screw the whole lot up. The fish tasted like fish, but I don't mean the crap you get at your local fish and chip shop, this tasted like real fish, like fish should always taste, it was divine and took me on a little subconscious journey right back to SA and what our fish tastes like back there. Now comes the fun part, it was totally unexpected, I've never been a hectic fan of sweet potato or vegetables for that matter, as my ma will confirm, but call me deprived when I tell you I have never had sweet potato with a bit of cinnamon mixed into it, I am now a ridiculously huge fan, I couldn't believe how frickin awesome it tastes, I actually wanna have it made with something at home when I lock Chef Louise in the kitchen, and not let her out until she has made Darryn and I a good wholesome meal after a long hard days work The beans, oh the beans… lets just say if you told me that there was a vegitable patch outside in the back, I wouldn't be the slightest bit surprised, because those beans that I had there right on my very plate seemed to have come straight from that very patch, and to add to there awesomeness(my ma will go into absolute shock if she hears me saying this about green beans), they were marinating nicely in a delicious white sauce.

Chef Louise and Darryn came down with me this last Sunday evening. Chef Louise had the stuffed chicken breast which aparently tasted as divine as it looked and Darryn had the "all you can eat rib special" which I believe runs on Sundays and Wednesdays, so if you schmaak a ribs, £12.95 all you can eat… not bad hey.

Chakalaka is situated as part of the Horse and Groom Pub at 143-145 Haydons Road in Wimbledon [map], which mind you is also a nice little Saffa watering hole itself. Its owned and run by main man Miguel, who seems to be more than happy to provide awesome hospitality for Saffa's who stroll through his doors. I've heard alot of good things being spoken about the Horse and Groom recently since its had a change of management, and I'm quite looking forward to returning for a few pre-party drinks before hitting the late jols. If you looking to catch a couple of the Super 14 games when they are on Sky (else watch them online here at PharSide) then they are being shown at The Horse and Groom and at least with the main man being a Saffa himself, you know the rugby is going to get preference over some poncy soccer game.

All in all, I was definately impressed and recommend that you guy get your hungry little butts down there for an afternoon of good chow, good dops and good Rugby (that's if the Sharks can eventually pull their fingers out)

- Marky Mark

Theres a bit of a rattle on the net at the mo with news that the Dalai Lama himself is sticking with the times and got himself his very own Twitter account… and before you label it as a hoax… see for yourself… it's Twitter Verified.

With hours now the main man has been racking in followers… welcome to new wave religious recruitment
Next we'll see the Pope taking a cue if he check that his competitor is getting the upper edge.

Don't take this the wrong way but, if Jesus was batting his 2nd innings, do you reckon he'd get himself a Twitter account too to stick with the times?

I've started following his holiness aswell since I quite enjoy his words of wisdom that you hear from time to time. Quite looking quite forward to it as he usually has something that is quite broad minded and gives you something to think about, which in all honesty and personal opinion, is a bit more than what I can say for the Pope who is supposed to be bigger in the sense of global religious domination, not to mention being the top man of the extremely well financed institution which we all very well know.

Follow PharSide  Follow Dalai Lama

- Marky Mark

Durban and most of KZN experienced a massive violent electrical storm last week turning many urban areas into something short of the Camel Trophy…

If you were in Durban last Tuesday you may have noticed a little storm that was occuring outside, well if you didn't then I'm sure your little mutts must have due to all the thunder and lightning. Check out the pics sent to East Coast Radio by the general public. 

Essenwood Road

Florida Road

Umbilo Road

View over Moses Mabhida Stadium

View over Moses Mabhida Stadium – I wouldn't wanna be stuck at the viewing point on the stadium arch with that bolt of lightning hovering around.

Hopefully Robert Mugabe was in town enjoying the view from from the stadium arch at this moment

All I can say is that the weather in Durbs has just short of 5 weeks to sort its shit out before I get there, because I seriously need to get some colour on my pasty little white ass

[Thanks Little Day]

- Marky Mark

Check out the new paint job on South Africa's low-cost airline Kulula.com

You've gotta love this South African touch, which as you know is a break from formality with two tablespoons of humorous touch.

Apparently it was quite a bright spark idea to do this and it looks like whoever came up with this bright spark idea at Kulula is in for a big bonus this year. Pictures of the plane are circulating wildly over the net and even in The Sun newspaper here in the UK, which as you can imagine is doing wonders for Kulula's advertising campaign since the World Cup is just around the corner and thousands of soccer fans are gonna be looking for cheap flights to get around the country… which airline is going to be at the forefront of their little hooligan minds?

I'd say thats a WIN for Kulula

Check it out!

[Thanks Ballie]

- Marky Mark