CINEMA: Stanley Peskin THE brilliantly coloured and designed credit titles for=20 High Heels (1991) are shots of high-heeled shoes which=20 in the film come to be associated with the world of=20 fashion and show business, as well as with=20 impersonation and performance. These are replaced with=20 shots of revolvers, and so murder and mayhem are=20 […]

CDs/Malu van Leeuwen SWANS: The Great Annihilator (Young God) MICHAEL GIRA must be the most depressed individual in=20 the galaxy. “I am insane,” he intones on I am the Sun,=20 with Jarboe warbling somewhere from the third ring of=20 Saturn. Still, if Gira ever cheered up, scores of Swans=20 devotees would sink into irreversible melancholia. […]

CINEMA: William Pretorius BLUE SKY, in which Jessica Lange plays the=20 unconventional wife of an army officer, is British=20 director Tony Richardson’s last film. Working in=20 Europe, Britain and the United States, Richardson’s=20 career has veered wildly from brilliant (Tom Jones) to=20 awful (The Hotel New Hampshire), with seldom a dull=20 He has a definite […]

Michael McMurray ONCE considered to be South Africa’s heart of conservatism, if not darkness, Pretoria is finding itself in a grip of jungle fever as copies of “Whoomp”, a video portraying all kinds of acts across the colour divide, topped the best selling lists last week. “I’m all sold out, the white guys go crazy […]

The poor middle class taxpayer has lost out most in the Budget — again, writes Reg Rumney The Budget presented to Parliament by Finance Minister Chris Liebenberg this week tightens the tax clamp on South Africa’s middle class, particularly professionals. The top marginal rate was raised, tax tables were not adjusted to counter inflation, excise […]

South Africans eager to get housing could learn a lot from the way Afrikaners used co-operatives, argues James McGregor All of South Africa’s citizens are aware of the challenge ahead in aiming to house the nation’s lower- income population. The recently published White Paper quantifies the problem: 40% of all households earn less than R800/month; […]

Phil Collins combines good music with all the right=20 political credentials, writes Pat Sidley FOR those with their hearing (and purses) still intact=20 after the Rolling Stones blast, the best reference for=20 the Phil Collins concerts has come inadvertently from=20 the Stones’ own publicist, who thinks Collins’ concert=20 is one of the best on the […]

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Coenraad Visser AUDIENCES in Gauteng have been treated to a feast of=20 new music — a world premiere and two first South=20 African performances. For the third time Carlo Franci conducted the Transvaal=20 Philharmonic Orchestra in a first performance of one of=20 his works. But enough is enough. This year’s creation, Time of […]

Weekly Mail & Guardian Reporter The total tax burden in the 1994/95 financial year is=20 Total tax revenue will amount to 24,8 percent of gross=20 domestic product (GDP) in 1995/96 — almost the same as=20 the actual 1994/95 figure. Direct taxes remain the most important contributor to=20 total tax revenue in 1995/96 at 52,6 percent […]

Gaye Davis FREEDOM Front member Tom Langley’s nomination as South Africa’s ambassador to Portugal has sparked frantic behind-the-scenes lobbying in a bid to stop his Sources told the Weekly Mail & Guardian there was deep concern in Portugal over the move to post Langley, a former National Party and Conservative Party MP, to the country. […]