Valentine Cascarino Iboh ART Painting in watercolour is frowned upon – the victim of a disturbing myth, mostly harboured by critical modernists who believed watercolour is Victorian and amateurish. Those critics don’t even consider the fact that painting in watercolour presents a direct link to the development of romantic painting in the 19th century. Neither […]

Jubie Matlou previews issues to be tabled before the SADC Economic Summit next week If Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries were to go to war, it would be over a piece of a fabric. Belligerents would consist of South Africa and its Southern African Customs Union (SACU) partners of Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia and Swaziland […]

Mary Dover LIFESTYLE For all the coffee snobs out there, the latest place to hang out is the Illy Boutique in Sandton Square, a new venture launched by House of Coffees. And no, its not true that House of Coffees is closing down – the group is still going strong with more than 30 stores […]

Thebe Mabanga The British rock guitarist Brian May once noted how “we live in interesting times. But we also live in dangerous times.” He may very well have been talking to South Africa’s youth. For although some of South Africa’s 16- to 30-year-olds are justifiably despondent in the face of rising unemployment, those who have […]

Henry Gee looks at the surprising secrets of one of nature’s stickiest surfaces – the gecko’s atom-powered feet Robert Full’s laboratory is more than usually full of gizmos, even for a modern biologist. Full is a biological engineer. Like an industrial espionage outfit, he and colleagues at the University of California, Berkeley, look at nature […]

Nigel Fairhead spoke out this week for the first time about the dastardly murder of his wife and young daughter Lin Sampson The early part of this year was marked by a spate of unusual fires that crackled ominously across the Constantia Valley and left a deposit of ash on everything like a veil of […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 1.45pm. SACKED South African cricket captain Hansie Cronje told the King Commission into match-fixing that former Indian captain Mohammed Azharuddin introduced him to a bookmaker who offered him money for losing a Test in 1996. Cronje said Azharuddin arranged a meeting with the bookmaker known as MK in at […]

Thebe Mabanga IN YOUR EAR The community radio sector has received an impressive boost with the launch of the Coca-Cola Enjoy hour. The project was started in February as a six-week pilot project on Alex FM. The project then became national, incorporating a selection of drive-time presenters, including Alex FM and Voice of Soweto in […]

Tim Adams ANIL’S GHOST by Michael Ondaatje (Bloomsbury) It has been seven years since Michael Ondaatje published The English Patient. Prior to that book, prior to the Booker Prize and to Ralph Fiennes and the seven Oscars, Ondaatje had written two other novels, as well as a critically successful memoir and 10 volumes of poetry, […]

Few South Africans look capable of ending the foreign domination in the Comrades Michael Finch It seems ironic that on a day when the Comrades Marathon is experiencing its finest hour with its largest entry ever, chances of a South African victory on Youth Day (June 16) seem as unlikely as an empty medical tent. […]