Luke Alfred speaks to Richie Benaud, doyen of cricket commentators, about the test series which starts next week RICHIE BENAUD has always been a lover of cricket, a commentator who manages to preserve the illusion of impartiality like few others. As a servant of the game who floats almost disdainfully above the petty attractions of […]
* BAD news for coffee junkies. The South African Tea, Coffee and Chicory Association chairman has issued a press release warning of price increase in the wake of a 100 percent increase in the price of unroasted coffee beans over the past 10 months. The association cites the world coffee growers’ Opec-style Retention Scheme and […]
Art’s more fun in the new South Africa, says Humphrey Tyler — who enjoyed the Main festival productions with the most double entendres and hobgoblins THERE were some delightful contradictions at the Standard Bank National Arts Festival in Grahamstown this year and the prognosis is that art could be more fun than before in the […]
RUGBY: Jon Swift THE big man with the ruck-roughened ears carries a mixture of perplexity and exasperation across the scar tissue which serves as his brow. “The Currie Cup this season,” he says. “Don’t ask me. The only thing I know for sure is ek bet nie en ek buy nie. “I mean, Natal beat […]
The ANC’s traditional leftwing tussles with a `pragmatist’ camp for the soul of the party. Paul Stober reports The African National Congress’ parliamentary caucus has become the front line of a battle between the organisation’s “socialist” and “pragmatic” camps. According to ANC parliamentary sources, the battle is about the future direction of the ANC. This […]
Weekly Mail Reporter THE Weekly Mail & Guardian is testing the limits of the new government’s policy of transparency by demanding access to police and Military Intelligence files. This could lead to the first important test of the public’s right to state information as guaranteed under the new constitution. The WM&G has asked the ministers […]
Company failures continue at a high rate. Reg Rumney reports TIGHT monetary policy still seems to be taking its toll among companies, although individuals seem to be sorting out their finances. In the first five months of this calendar year the total number of company failures is 15 percent higher than the first five months […]
Moveable Feast Humphrey Tyler IT makes you weep to see so many people turned away — solicitously, even tenderly, but firmly — from Cabrito’s Bistro in Botha’s Hill, Natal, especially at lunchtime on Sundays, because the little kitchen in the back cannot cope yet with too many guests. Some of the would-be diners settle down […]
CRICKET: Jon Swift IT is of course supposition, for no one in the United Cricket Board would be so arrogant as to make this claim, but South Africa are starting to wield an increasing influence on world cricket affairs. It shows in a number of aspects, some of them spelt out by UCB managing director […]
Hazel Friedman AT last! After much deliberation and volatile exchanges, selections for the South African curated exhibitions of the 1995 Africus Biennale have finally been made from 45 proposals and a scaled-down budget of R40 000. Sadly the selections have occurred against a backdrop of squabbling within the art community. If informed sources are to […]