Maureen Barnes Down the tube Without wishing to rub salt into e.tv’s wounds, I noticed that all the recent press schedules for the troubled service show a daily half hour news bulletin at 7pm which hasn’t yet materialised. In its place was a British sitcom, the name of which I don’t know, followed by a […]

Jim McClellan surfs his way to spirituality on the Web Looking to live up to the proclamations of business experts, who have declared that this Christmas online shopping will cross over to the mainstream (at least in the United States), Net retailers seem to be going all out to exploit the seasonal spirit. However, there […]

dream in tatters Cameron Duodu: LETTER FROM THE NORTH There are few countries whose near- destruction, through civil war, has pained me as much as that of Guinea- Bissau. This country fired my imagination in the early 1970s, for although its population was less than a million, it became – together with its sister, the […]

Inside Out, a new local film, seems to have got it the right way round in terms of financing and filming, writes Andrew Worsdale `This movie marks a turning point in the local industry.” This was the less- than-original prophecy on everybody’s lips at the recent bold and upbeat launch of the new SABC3/ African […]

David Shapshak A flamethrower system fitted to cars to ward off hijackers has attracted huge international attention. In the same week South Africa hit the headlines with the discovery of a 3,5- million-year-old skeleton, a local entrepreneur was attracting nearly as much attention for an entirely different reason. Charl Fourie’s flamethrower will launch a fireball […]

Preview of the week: Matthew Krouse Ennio Marchetto, the living cartoon strip, doesn’t need to press buttons in order to transform himself into the 50 famous characters in his show. Present-day computer animators may perform God-like acts in television studios that double up as laboratories for human cloning, but this Venetian mime achieves the impossible […]

Howard Barrell: OVER A BARREL What’s in a word? Probably not a great deal more than the user puts into it. The idea of rigid definitions is discredited, and the way in which a word is commonly used is little more than a rough guide to its meaning. So it is often not easy to […]

Phillip Kakaza The morning sun glitters over Mount Mautse in the eastern Free State. Cocks crow from its majestic slopes and the jungle drums telegraph a mystic rhythm. Welcome to the holy mountains, where people since the early 1970s have been going in hundreds to pray to their ancestors and to God. Ideally situated in […]

The David Gleason Column This is the last column I shall write this year – and I have to say I’m rather glad 1998 has come to a writing end. It has been a brutal year for me personally, but also for many thousands of South Africans who have been trampled upon, caught by the […]

Andrew Worsdale The Great Escape, a fascinating documentary airing on SABC1 at 6.30pm on Sunday December 20, tells the story of the famous Marshall Square jailbreak in 1963 where activists Arthur Goldreich, Mosie Moolla, Charlie Jasset and Harold Wolpe managed to persuade warder Johan Greef to let them out with the promise of payment. Greef […]