FRIDAY, 7.30PM: ERITREA has confirmed that it bombed the northern Etiopian town of Adigrat on Thursday, killing four people and injuring more than 30. Adigrat has become Ethiopia’s main garrison for reinforcements and logistics, according to the Eritrean News Agency. Eritrea has also revealed that more than 30 civilians were killed or wounded in Ethiopian […]
Richard Williams LUSH LIFE: A BIOGRAPHY OF BILLY STRAYHORN by David Hajdu (Granta, R89,95) Jazz has produced several memorable threnodies – one thinks of John Lewis’s lament for Django Reinhardt or Charles Mingus’s salute to Lester Young – but none more affecting than Blood Count, recorded by the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1967, a few […]
The technology explosion has given a new dimension to office warfare, writes Chris Ball Imagine opening your office post and finding a memo from the boss attacking you in highly abusive terms. But we live in the age of the electronic office, and memos are now often e-mails. Click on “address” after receiving a particularly […]
Andrew Worsdale Very infrequently does a movie stick to the top of my mouth. I’ve become inured to seeing mad-ass Hollywood rubbish, that our dear distributors launch on the stupefied public with as many as 37 prints, to satisfy movie mall “taste”. Happy Together is made by Hong Kong wunderkind Wong Kar-Wai and is released […]
Andy Duffy The charge of patronage politics resurfaced in the Western Cape this week amid claims that the National Party has spent more than R5-million of public money in a crude attempt to buy votes. The NP-led provincial government has doled out much of the cash – extra social services grants to homes for the […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby We have reached that time of the year when people begin to talk in clichs. Stuff like: “We don’t believe that we are favourites for the match. Just because it’s a northern hemisphere team we’re expected to win comfortably, but we won’t be taking them for granted. A test match is a […]
Ann Eveleth A row broke out this week between the Department of Agriculture and other parties engaged in the campaign against land degradation. The heated fracas – on the eve of World Desertification Day next Wednesday – follows a decision by national and provincial agriculture officials to disband a broad-based steering committee set up in […]
David Shapshak Buying a cellphone is easy. Upgrading to a new phone when your contract expires, isn’t. You can either just go out and buy yourself the latest hot item to hit the shelves, or play the sophisticated marketing game which enticed you to buy your contract in the first place: sign up for another […]
Neil Manthorp Cricket The worst possible news for England became the best thing that could have happened to Dominic Cork during the first Test. Darren Gough’s broken finger was the result of crass thinking from the dressing room. Amazingly, Alec Stewart declared after the match that his team had “played risky and daring cricket” and […]
Some call burning flesh a `rite of passage’. Others say it’s an ugly throwback to slavery. But it’s a hot fashion statement, writes Lonnae O’Neal Parker Imagine a carefully fashioned coat-hanger, slow-roasted over the blue-green flame of a Magic Chef range, heading for the fleshy expanse of your upper arm, your chest or the side […]