TRANSFER by Ingrid de Kok (Snailpress R42,50) One can only celebrate this triumph of delicate bleakness: One by one the small refusals add up to a life. Or this rich characterisation of complex love: Mouthing under water wetly jewelled words we are acrobatic aquanauts in a chest of swords. The first half of the book […]
Wally Lambert If you’re thinking about trying your hand at the stock-market game – we’re not talking unit trusts here – you’ll be pleased to know it’s getting easier and cheaper for the man in the street to buy shares. Unlike shopping for bread in the supermarket, buying shares on the stock exchange requires the […]
A US-linked consultant offered to advise on the premier’s security, writes Stefaans Brmmer A private security adviser this year made a bizarre proposal to spy on be- half of Gauteng Premier Mathole Motshekga. The Mail & Guardian is in possession of a draft contract between the premier’s office and security consultant Bob Power – composed […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby Ian McIntosh is one of the nicest men I know. He has one Achilles heel. Rugby. He is so passionate about rugby it makes him ill. At King’s Park in Durban he sits two boxes down from the commentators with his brains trust of Hugh Reece-Edwards and Craig Jamieson. Thus ensconced he […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi National electricity supplier Eskom and local authorities are fighting an uphill battle against the booming illegal business of “alternative” electricity supply. It’s alternative, say its practitioners, because most residents whose power has been cut by town councils for non-payment prefer to use their services rather than paying the R650 reconnection fee. The practice […]
James Wood A WIDOW FOR ONE YEAR by John Irving (Bloomsbury, R130) Realism gives John Irving a good name: he is lucky to hitch his wagon to it. Since The World According to Garp (1978), Irving has been praised for the “realism” of his novels – for their tossed plots, for the fat suffusions of […]
Ferial Haffajee ‘Steady as he goes.” The seafarer’s motto has served Don Ncube well, and next month this captain of industry steers his ship into new seas. In June he will list Real Africa Durolink, an investment bank of which he owns 37%. These banks are all the rage in this age of mergers, acquisitions […]
The South African pharmaceutical industry has been greatly expounded in the media in the past few months. The reason is not, however, as a result of the sector’s amazing rise in share prices, but as a consequence of frequent government intervention. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange pharmaceutical index has risen from a December 1997 low of […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Police are three times more likely to commit crime than ordinary members of the public, and that’s official. In its forthcoming monthly report, the Human Rights Committee says statistics provided by Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi show the shocking extent of police involvement in criminal activities. Mufamadi told the National Assembly […]
Phillip Kakaza African music The sound of a marimba drifts out of Guguletu’s St Gabriel’s church in Cape Town where Ayanda Hollow, a budding musician, is conducting music lessons. The tinkling sound is just a hint of what is happening behind the concrete walls. Hollow’s vision of a vibrant mobile school of African music has […]