Monday morning

"Do you read the Herald?" the man shouts at me as I unlock my car door.

I've staggered back in the heat -- it's only 9.30 but it's already unbearable -- with a shopping basket from OK supermarket (OK is the best performing counter on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange, says the Herald when I read it later), plus the newspapers tucked under my arm.

The Herald is the only paper visible.

"Yes," I shoot back. "Well - sometimes." Slight lie (white lie) but if I admitted I had to buy the Herald everyday for work reasons, there'd be more raised eyebrows. As it is, it's just the why-on-earth-would-a-white-housewife-read-the-government-paper-that-costs-a-whole-dollar question.

"What about NewsDay?" NewsDay is South Africa-based media mogul Trevor Ncube's baby (welcomed, I see today also in the Herald, by info minister Webster Shamu).

"That - " I laugh. I know what the required answer is. "Yes, I read it everyday."