Dave Hill: FIRST PERSON When the British High Court heard earlier this week that former airline pilot James Williams’ “life had been destroyed” by the failure of an operation to give him back a foreskin, some might have suspected a degree of overstatement. Some – but not an awful lot of men, especially if they’ve […]

Food: Ferial Haffajee There’s nothing like a steaming packet of slap (pronounced slup) chips to sate a raging appetite. Like cricket, slap chips are a great example of how the colonised took the ball – or in this case the spud – and ran with it. The potato chip, South African style, is barely comparable […]

He drinks herbal tea, but it is Zim Ngqawana’s music that is the most healing, writes Phillip Kakaza Some call him the most important young composer in South Africa today. He’s credited with bringing together the oldest South African musical traditions and the international avant garde to create a sound that is both local and […]

Mungo Soggot Minister of Trade and Industry Alec Erwin has denounced a Mail & Guardian report two weeks ago that his officials demanded cash cheques from companies attending a banquet. In a letter to the M&G, Erwin says: “No Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) official has ever asked for cash cheque payments.” He has […]

Angella Johnson: VIEW FROM A BROAD `Please let him touch your breast. They’re beautiful and he loves breasts,” pleaded the light-skinned black woman sitting on a sofa beside me and my partner. Her boyfriend, a bespectacled German engineer, was draped over the side idly plucking at my suspenders. In a room down the hallway of […]

These days, the Million Dollar Challenge is more about cracking the nod than it is about the prize money, reports Andy Capostagno The most delicious irony of the Nedbank Million Dollar Challenge is that you have to be a millionaire in the first place just to crack an invite. A decade ago when Welshman Ian […]

Donna Block Zimbabwe’s stock exchange is the latest casualty of President Robert Mugabe’s stubborn pursuit of economic policies that have savaged the local currency and plunged Zimbabwe into the worst financial crisis of its 18-year history. Since the beginning of the year Zimbabwe’s share market (ZSE), once one of Africa’s brightest rising stars, lost 18,7% […]

Chiara Carter Two separate Day of Reconciliation ceremonies will be held at Blood River where the government is hosting a R800 000 feast to mark the opening of a new memorial to Zulus who fell in the battle. On one side of the drift that divides the Afrikaans and Zulu memorials, Afrikaners will commemorate the […]

Alex Dodd SOUTH AFRICA THE STRUCTURE OF THINGS THEN by David Goldblatt (Oxford University Press) THE INVISIBLE LINE: THE LIFE AND PHOTOGRAPHY OF KEN OOSTERBROEK by Mike Nicol (Kwela/Random House) This year has been a big one for photographer David Goldblatt. Not only did he become the first South African photographer to be honoured with […]