Brenda Atkinson MIXED MEDIA I saw the new Nedbank TV commercial again the other night. Not having grasped the crux of this ad before, I hopefully scrutinised each frame, waiting for the clue that would tie up this skillfully crafted mystery of a small black child leading a blind old white man towards a new […]

The coach of Italy needs a bed. Not as in a bed for the night; but a bed as in somewhere where he can lay down his Kiwi frame for the next two years. “And if I don’t get my bed between now and the time we go into final camp before the Six Nations, […]

David Beresford ANOTHER COUNTRY Piet the mongrel is dead and buried at the bottom of the garden, I am told, under the loquat tree. Most pets tend to have been special, post mortem; it is perhaps the selective nature of memory. But, although some might say the quality is not discoverable among animals, I think […]

Bhorat Haroon Minister of Welfare and Development Zola Skweyiya recently announced his department’s intention to pursue the feasibility of setting up a national income grant scheme. There can be no doubt that such a grant system requires serious consideration, to buttress the current suite of social assistance programmes directed at the country’s most indigent. One […]

Edward Helmore The music industry used to refer to music as “product”, implying something tangible, but the time is near when music will be called “content” – intangible, and entirely apt for something that exists only as digital code on the Internet. In two steps, the two most risk-averse and bureaucratic of the big five […]

NINETEEN soldiers have been executed for sedition or acts of banditry in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the past week, judicial sources said on Thursday. Nine had been convicted and sentenced to death by a military court for murder and armed robbery and were executed in Kinshasa on Wednesday, court sources said. They included […]

Adam Haupt Capoeira, Brazil’s beefy martial arts form, has an interesting history that takes one into Brazil’s colonial past. Its movements evoke its people’s African origins. Given its place in the history of the “new world”, it’s odd that two Swedes – Paul Blomgren and Billy Malm – are in South Africa to “re-introduce” this […]

Mercedes Sayagues A broken jaw from a beating, hate mail, threatening phone calls and night visits by detectives from the criminal investigation department (CID) have not gagged Zimbabwe’s top stand-up comedian, Edgar Langeveldt. Bouncing back after seven weeks of absence due to a wired jaw, Lange-veldt reappears tonight (February 4) at Harare’s Book Caf with […]

Robert Kirby Channel vision I grew wary of the SABC’s motives in broadcasting the now notorious documentary on Sierra Leone after they had given the umpteenth advance warning about the programme: “It includes graphic scenes of extreme physical violence … will be offensive to sensitive viewers … blindfold the children.” In yet another grimy departure […]

Brett Morris It was purely by accident that I found Peace in Jo’burg the other day. I was driving along Louis Botha Avenue, on my way to do all sorts of pre-planned Saturday afternoon things, when my clutch cable snapped. I managed to push my car on to a side street amid a barrage of […]