Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg In the year 2013 AD, planet earth will witness that old nuclear havoc: the final, inevitable, apocalyptic spectacle of destruction. A blinding flash, pandemonium, rancid corpses twisting with the hot breeze . But all will not be lost. No siree. Because way above the messy implosion there rests a […]
Nick Varley CD of the week Way back, when The Smiths were emerging as the greatest English talent of the Eighties, they took another Manchester indie band out as support on tour. Now, 13 years later, all those who have come across James in a subsequent incarnation – from much-lauded indie kids to derided, alleged […]
The English Academy of South Africa is inviting entries for the FNB Vita/English Academy Poetry Prize for a Translation into English. Among the conditions is that the translation be no longer than 50 lines and be written in the last three years. The closing date is September 30, and entries should be sent to the […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon It has taken France – at long last – to realise Oscar Wilde’s famous parody of a dreary Victorian homily. Wilde turned the phrase around and made it: “Work i s the curse of the drinking classes.” What French bureaucracy is now doing is realising controversial legislation that will reduce the […]
Howard Barrell The Angolan government has moved troops and heavy artillery into position for a large-scale offensive against rebel Unita positions in the central highlands of the country. South African-based security analysts expect an assault to commence in the next few days. The government in Luanda is understood to have sought, and got, the permission […]
Anthea Garman experienced the !Xoe Site Specific exhibition around Nieu Bethesda in the Karoo `Do you have a believable sense of place?” is the simple, cheeky, and only bit of written information about the first installation we stop to see outside Nieu Bethesda. This is artwork number five by Marco Cianfanelli and we’ve chosen to […]
A new superfast transistor is set to revolutionise computer chips, writes Michael Brooks Researchers at Yale University have developed a transistor so sensitive that it can watch single electrons moving along a wire. The presence of one electron in the transistor switches it on, and it switches on and off 1 000 times as fast […]
Phillip Kakaza Live in Johannesburg Difficulties with the political situation at home in Kinshasa, Zaire, prompted them to seek refuge in neighbouring countries. Their first stop was Cameroon, second Kenya and then Namibia. They later settled in South Africa where, on arrival, they were faced with humiliation. But The Fantastique Guys, a 12-piece band, never […]
Who is . . . Graa Machel?
charge Sechaba ka’Nkosi Inkatha Freedom Party moderates have bounced back to centre stage in championing the party’s election campaign for next year. As the IFP grapples with its image as a Zulu-based provincial outfit, its national council has carefully avoided choosing people associated with violence in KwaZulu- Natal and Gauteng in the 1990s to lead […]