Andrew Muchineripi SOCCER Just when we feared the 1999-2000 South African soccer season would never end, it did. And what a sad finale it proved to be at a chilly, overcast, near-deserted Johannesburg Stadium. Bowing to long-running pressure, this humble scribe took some young relatives along and helped swell the crowd to 2 000 for […]

Andy Capostagno RUGBY When a great player shows signs of mortality it is a brave coach who tells him to shape up or ship out. Whether it was because of a knee injury that has not properly healed, a paucity of playing time or that most elusive of facets, a lack of ambition, scrumhalf Joost […]

Olympics Mark Ouma Having learned from her mistakes at the Atlanta Olympics four years ago, Gabriela Szabo plans to fulfil her dream of becoming an Olympic champion in Sydney next September. The 1999 World Female Athlete of the Year, Szabo intends to continue her success this year. What has never come to light before is […]

BLOOD ACRE by Peter Landesman (Penguin) There is a sense of inevitability about this elegant noir novel – that awful deeds will out in dark and slimy places, that one cannot run forever from the wreck one has made of people’s lives. Coney Island during a winter storm is the right place for such a […]

hard place Marianne Merten The University of Stellenbosch is fighting a battle on two fronts: not only is it trying to convince black students that it is no longer a Broederbond bastion, but it is also struggling to honour its commitment to remain a centre of the Afrikaans language. After taking office in 1993, rector […]

Barry Streek OBITUARY Mary Benson, the passionate and committed South African author who died on Sunday June 18 of a heart attack at the London Free hospital, went out, as she did in her own life, in some style. Three months ago, a party was held at South Africa House in London for her 80th […]

Whoever wins Zimbabwe’s election – and however flawed the poll is adjudged to have been – we can be sure of one thing: a massive effort will be needed to prevent our neighbour’s economic collapse and descent into worse anarchy. This will require an end to invasions of productive farmland and acceleration of land reform […]

A WARRANT of arrest has been issued against presidential spokesman Parks Mankahlana for failure to appear in an Mpumalanga maintenance court. Mankahlana is being sued for child maintenance by Thalitha Mthetwa, 37, who claims he is the father of her eight-year-old son. Mthethwa and her lawyer waited hours for Mankahlana to arrive before the court […]

Thebe Mabanga Veteran theatre practitioner and community worker Phyllis Klotz takes her 12-year-old outfit, the Sibikwa Community Theatre Project, to the National Arts Festival this month. Sibikwa has produced prominent stage and television talent like Grace Mahlaba and Isidingo’s bitchy maid-cum-businesswoman, Tina Jaxa. Their efforts have not gone unnoticed and were rewarded with Vita awards […]

Cameron Duodu LETTER FROM THE NORTH Sometimes I can’t help feeling that the “education” that we got in school was invented by a con artist, sold by a charlatan and taught by a mountebank. In my day, for example, we were often forced to memorise “recitations” containing high-minded maxims that were supposed to guide us […]