Donna Block SHAREWORLD I remember my first year at University and my first class, Finance 101. The professor, a wizened old curmudgeon, told us that if we learned nothing else in his class, rule one about finance was that the stock market was a crap-shoot. “You place your bets and you take your chances.” He […]

Budget 2000 has something for everyone: Tax cuts for the hard-working populace, incentives for job creation, a boost for our credit rating – and fiscal discipline for state departments Belinda Beresford Trevor Manuel walked to his budget briefing with a huge smile on his face, secure in the knowledge that he was about to become […]

Jean Spear It seems trendy to criticise backpackers and their guidebooks these days. With the proliferation of mostly generic guides on the market that cater for the backpacker crowd and an established backpacker circuit, travelling is no longer reserved for the elite. But is it such a bad thing? Sure, it is amusing that guidebooks […]

WISDEN editor Matthew Engel said on Thursday he is quitting the job at the cricket almanack for at least a year because he is tired of having to write about England’s “relentless failures.” “I have been obliged to edit Wisden against a background of failure. This is not failure on the part of the almanack […]

State More than half-a-million rand has failed to find its way to the country’s controlling body of professional golf Michael Vlismas GOLF The Southern Africa Tour instituted court action against the Free State’s provincial government this week in an attempt to recover more than half-a- million rand it believes it is owed. Somewhere between Cape […]

Michael Finch ATHLETICS During the 1999 season, there were many certainties in South African athletics – South Africa’s 400m hurdling superstar Llewellyn Herbert would always win on home soil, Wendy Hartman was untouchable in the sprints, and the men’s 400m was a toss-up between Arnaud Malherbe or Jopie van Oudtshoorn. Not surprisingly, the lure of […]

ALTHOUGH Queen “Iyaya” Sesoka, lead vocalist of popular Kwaito group Abashante, is still missing after disappearing on Tuesday, police say while they are aware of it, no missing person’s case has been reported. The 25-year-old singer’s disappearance took a strange turn on Friday when the Sowetan newspaper reported that a caller claiming he was in […]

Movies via the Net could do more than hit your local video hire shop Jack Schofield Cliff Stanford has made one fortune by bringing the Internet to the mass market, through Demon Internet, and now he’d like to make another by using the Net to deliver movies. This week, Britain’s Redbus Film Group, of which […]

Marianne Merten The New National Party aborted its disciplinary action against its outspoken senior Western Cape member Peter Marais this week after his legal team indicated it would cross-examine the party’s national and Western Cape leaders at the hearing. Marais was axed as Western Cape welfare and poverty relief MEC on Valentine’s Day, apparently for […]

Last week in this column, bell hooks made a distinction between romantic love and true love. The former, she told us, quoting from Toni Morrison, is “one of the most destructive ideas in the history of modern thought”. She may be right, but then hooks goes on to define “true love” in terms that don’t […]