Andrew Muchineripi World Cup The sparring sessions are over. The skirmishes have been completed. The time for war is at hand. If you have been holidaying on Mars, fret not. The real World Cup begins on Friday. With the greatest respect to all those noble qualifiers who have been eliminated, including our beloved Bafana Bafana, […]
Ed O’Loughlin The Pretoria grave of Anglo-Boer War soldier and poet Harry “Breaker” Morant has been taken under the care of the Australian government, 96 years after he was court-martialled and executed for alleged atrocities against Boer prisoners and civilians. The grave, which had suffered from neglect and vandalism, stands in a quiet civilian section […]
Phillip Kakaza Nico Phooko is a versatile young man. He is an artist and a musician. Although his focus is on his art, one cannot separate his artistic output from his professional skills and insight as a musician. “If I find difficulties in singing a song, then I take a paintbrush and depict the emotions […]
Brett Hilton-Barber `I’m an expert in dating early man,” said an American woman. She looked around the conference room where hundreds of scientists were mingling amid fake rocks and designer bushman paintings, and caught the eye of her palaeontologist husband. “That’s my early man,” she smiled. “You could say we’re still dating.” The couple were […]
Angella Johnson: VIEW FROM A BROAD Me, jump out of a plane at 3 000m? You must be joking. No way! Not this side of life. I could not have emphasised the point more strongly when my editor suggested, with an evil grin, that I try skydiving for this column. I gave him one of […]
Neil Manthorp Cricket The stomach churns, the vision blurs periodically, the fear of a failure so instant, and finite, paralyses the instincts and movements that have been second nature for years. Very few men, at any senior level, have opened the batting without experiencing these emotions. Many have suffered worse. It is quite possible to […]
Chris Dunton LET US PLAY edited by Zakes Mda (Vivlia, R30) Let Us Play gathers together three plays – one by the editor, Zakes Mda, and one apiece by Walter Chakela and Hilton Swemmer. Three distinctive works for the theatre, by three dramatists associated with Johannesburg’s Windybrow Centre, the first two are especially designed for […]
Chris Roper On stage in Cape Town The play Sadako is described as “moving and uplifting” in all the press mentions, and you tend to forget what these clichs really mean until you see them expressed around you. When the lights go up at the end of the play, the man next to me is […]
Andrew Worsdale Marleen Gorris has become a soft feminist. Or at least, softer than before. Her first two movies A Question of Silence and Broken Mirrors were savage indictments of male- dominated society. Born in Holland in 1948, Gorris studied theatre and literature before her stunning film debut with A Question of Silence. It tells […]
Shaun de Waal On tour On the new Tic Tic Bang! album, Low Riding, two of South Africa’s best young singer- songwriter-guitarists combine their talents to create what could well be the local album of the year. Matthew van der Want and Chris Letcher have meshed to make a multifaceted work full of surprises, an […]