Food : Matthew Krouse Alighting from one’s car and approaching the Wangthai Restaurant, in Pretoria’s genteel nook of Brooklyn, one is greeted by the strangest apparition. A bevy of blonde waitresses, in flowing saris, bowing in infinite submission. It’s the start of a fabulous romance – the love we feel for our stomachs. Wangthai is […]

Jim McClellan There has been no shortage of books about computers over the past few years. Politicians, academics and journalists have all spun out utopian or dystopian techno- visions. But programmers – the people responsible for making this technology work – haven’t produced any grand globe-spanning theories about the heaven or hell on Earth they […]

Jerome Burne Dreams are fascinating: they are personal, intimate and totally inaccessible to anyone else. And yet they are bizarre, mysterious and seemingly nothing to do with the dreamer. We still don’t understand why we dream, but new findings, presented to the recent Conference on the Scientific Study of Consciousness at Tucson, Arizona, have been […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Sardinia | Thursday 7.30pm. A FEISTY Mistral forced the cancellation of the first day of racing at the Sardinia Cup regatta in the Mediterranean this week and South African yachtsman Geoff Meek only managed a fifth place on the second day’s 80-mile offshore race in continuing 35-knot winds. Meek is one of five […]

Andrew Benson : Grand Prix Gustav Brunner quit his job as a designer at Ferrari’s Formula One team this year to become technical director of back-of-the- grid Minardi, but the 47-year-old Austrian still passes the Ferrari factory in Maranello on his way back to his apartment. “They are working very hard at Ferrari these days,” […]

Sudan is suffering the worst famine in its history. And it is caused not by drought but by civil war. The aid agencies are pouring in relief, which enables the combatants to carry on fighting. Kevin Toolis argues that Western governments should call a halt to a policy that’s failed There was no song in […]

Fiona Macleod Criminal charges will soon be laid against animal dealer Riccardo Ghiazza, who recently kidnapped 30 baby elephants from the Tuli bushlands in southern Botswana. Ghiazza is holding the elephants near Hartebeespoort Dam, with the intention of selling them to zoos and animal trainers. Rick Allen, manager of the wildlife unit of the National […]

Larry Elliott : A Second Look The Great Fire of London began in Pudding Lane and raged uncontrollably for days. When the flames died down, large parts of London had been reduced to smouldering heaps of ash. With the benefit of hindsight, the Great Fire was not a disaster. London recovered quickly and the authorities […]

Mark Coetzee : On show in Cape Town Dr Gotz Adriani, in his Joseph Beuys catalogue essay, states that, ”It was not without reason that [Beuys] denied his materials and demonstrations, and even his monuments, any form of permanence.” This exhibition not only demonstrates this point, but unfortunately denies any adequate representation of the artist, […]

Shirley Kossick The shortlist for this year’s Boeke Prize – the annual Exclusive Books marketing device – has something for everyone, from the lightweight to the very serious and from serial murder to genocide. A mixed bag indeed, which makes it all the more difficult to choose a winner since the six novels are so […]