Nicholas Dawes Parties in Cape Town `Fuck dance, let’s art” is something like a family motto for the hip UK record label Ninja Tune, and it was unsurprising to find it on a flyer for Friday’s SEXsmorgasbord party at the similarly hip Take Four Bistro. This may seem an unlikely manifesto from the people responsible […]

Richard Jago Tennis Martina Hingis made tennis history in a meteoric rise to the top of the women’s game. At the start of the year she led the rankings by 3E000 points and her position as number one seemed impregnable. Then in May she lost to Anna Kournikova in Berlin – and cracks began to […]

Mail & Guardian reporter Employees who are fed up with the nonsensical vocabulary and endless meetings of the modern workplace have found a way to undermine both with a new pastime: Buzzword Bingo. Instead of numbers, bingo cards are filled with the platitudes of business speak – terms such as “add value”, “going forward”, “synergy”, […]

Tangeni Amupadhi One of eight policemen being investigated for killing Josiah “Fingers” Rabotapi two weeks ago has admitted wrong-doing in the death of a suspect. Henry Beukes, who has been the subject of investigation for at least three murders of suspects in his 22-year career, acknowledged in 1994 he used more than necessary force in […]

Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD `When I cool the base, rock this place,” chanted the female singer over the mega sound system. I watched entranced as gum-chewing young men wearing headphones and outsize clothes studiously fiddled with vinyl records on industrial-size players. The Foundation club in Rosebank was certainly rocking. Soon it would be […]

Moulded into the plastic soles of my father’s bedroom slippers were the words: “Man-made Materials.” As a child, I pondered that phrase for years. What, exactly, is a man-made material? Where did “man” get the stuff he “made” it from? And if he got it from somewhere and merely melted it down with something else, […]

Brenda Atkinson Multimedia The world of William Kentridge is one of considerable public profile, prolific artistic production, and enigmatic private symbolism. South Africa’s most acclaimed artist, his conceptual and aesthetic sensibilities have brought him growing critical kudos over the decades. But despite his international ubiquity, Kentridge remains something of a dark horse. Reserved in interviews […]

Kenyan scientist Joyce Poole, an expert on elephant behaviour, comments on the recent kidnapping of baby elephants from Botswana As a scientist who has spent two decades studying the social behaviour and vocal communication of elephants, I have been asked to comment on the capture of 50 baby elephants in the Tuli Block, Botswana. It […]

cash Insurance companies are paying claims in vouchers rather than cash, writes Ferial Haffajee The trauma of being mugged, having your car stolen or house broken into can be assuaged by the thought that if you’re fully insured, you should soon be getting a payout to replace your lost belongings. But when you lodge an […]