These days, the Million Dollar Challenge is more about cracking the nod than it is about the prize money, reports Andy Capostagno The most delicious irony of the Nedbank Million Dollar Challenge is that you have to be a millionaire in the first place just to crack an invite. A decade ago when Welshman Ian […]

World Aids day came and went this week with a big show of concern. President Nelson Mandela spoke out about the silence around Aids and everywhere people were wearing red ribbons. There is clearly a new public awareness trail that has been blazed by Deputy President Thabo Mbeki. But impressive though the awareness campaign has […]

Gail Smith Akosua Busia does not understand the meaning of the word “no”. The multi- talented actress and writer freely admits: “I come from privelege, and my sense of entitlement is the greatest thing in my life.” This unshakable sense of rightness has enabled Busia to capitalise on every opportunity and setback in the pursuit […]

Preview of the week: Anton Marshall `Hey, have you heard of Renaissance?” I ask experimentally, honestly believing the hype that clubbers are in and slacker journos are out. “Er … Wasn’t that a Leonardo da Vinci painting?” she replies innocently, sipping on a Mule as her low- key rave vest struggles to find a cling […]

Not CD of the week: Sheryl Garratt Happiness is largely a matter of perception. But if the world is split into optimists who see a glass as half- full and pessimists who see it as half- empty, then Canadian singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette goes further: she sees the glass as a dangerous weapon that will inevitably […]

The CSIR has developed a unique system to prevent prison escapes, reports David Shapshak An innovative, low-cost motion detector system could be the solution to preventing the hundreds of escapes each year from police cells, say the police and its developers, the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). The new system consists of two […]

Martin Walker in Brussels The European Union is to send a high- powered delegation to its tiny neighbours, from Switzerland to Monaco and from Andorra to Liechtenstein, to persuade them not to become tax havens and to join Europe’s plans for automatic withholding of taxes on non- national bank accounts. For tiny countries like San […]

Mukoni T Ratshitanga Athol Fugard may have been writing about inhabitants of the electricity department’s disused building in downtown Johannesburg had the characters of his People are living there not been too few and employed. The inhabitants of the building belonging to the Market Theatre Company – where Fugard’s play premiered in March 1977 – […]

Andy Colquhoun Rugby Let us pause before the dogs of war are loosed at Twickenham on Saturday to consider the game’s most important personality. A person who won’t even be on the field. If South Africa were to miss out on their bid for a rare Grand Slam – and for all the bullish talk […]

answered Jann Turner Friday: After a month, I have a whole day off. I’m ready for a day paying off bills. I’m feeling strong, so I start with the post office. Eventually I get to the service-with-a-scowl teller and I pay my phone bill. I’m two-and-a-half weeks late, but hell, that’s not long – is […]