Moulded into the plastic soles of my father’s bedroom slippers were the words: “Man-made Materials.” As a child, I pondered that phrase for years. What, exactly, is a man-made material? Where did “man” get the stuff he “made” it from? And if he got it from somewhere and merely melted it down with something else, […]

Many thousands of women undergo plastic surgery to alter their looks, but when Orlan does it, it’s called art. Alex Dodd reports `In the future we will change our bodies as easily as we change our hair colour,” says radical French performance artist Orlan, currently in Johannesburg. She is participating in a conference at the […]

Angella Johnson VIEW FROM A BROAD `When I cool the base, rock this place,” chanted the female singer over the mega sound system. I watched entranced as gum-chewing young men wearing headphones and outsize clothes studiously fiddled with vinyl records on industrial-size players. The Foundation club in Rosebank was certainly rocking. Soon it would be […]

Andrew Muchineripi Soccer Those good people who occupy the houses around Minolta Loftus in a beautiful, tree-lined Pretoria suburb are accustomed to the blue banners of the Blue Bulls and the smell of braaied boerewors. Come noon on Sunday the streets around the citadel of Pretoria rugby are in for a cultural shock as thousands […]

The investigation into the Mpumalanga Parks Board’s dodgy deals is to be carried out in secret, reports Justin Arenstein from Nelspruit Judge Willem Heath personally took control this week of investigations into a dodgy R340-million offshore loan deal set up by the Mpumalanga Parks Board, and promptly threw a blanket of secrecy over his special […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi A high-level investigation headed by Eastern Cape Premier Makhenkesi Stofile into allegations that three senior provincial African National Congress members are “ANC members during the day and United Democratic Movement members by night” has run into snags. The people who first made the allegations against the three party members have failed to provide […]

Wonder Hlongwa South Africa’s branch of the international corruption watchdog Transparency International has accused certain newspapers of feeding public perceptions that corruption increased after the African National Congress took power. In its first report since its inception last year, Transparency International South Africa (Tisa) accuses the newspapers of being influenced by their political agendas. It […]

Anthony Holiday Over a Barrel The secret malaise is no longer concealable. Its symptoms are manifest everywhere from conclaves in Cape Town to the conflict in the Congo. South Africa’s Department of Foreign Affairs – and hence also Deputy President Thabo Mbeki and President Nelson Mandela himself – are taking decisions and engaging in the […]

Andy Capostagno Rugby The Currie Cup has reached its halfway stage and no one is yet counting any chickens. That in itself is remarkable, for the competition has been shared between an elite four provinces for so long that at the very least a well-informed guess should be able to provide the semi-finalists. Natal have […]

A noisy office is not only irritating, it can affect your work performance, writes Peter Baker Colleagues talking, telephones ringing, e-mails bleeping, photocopiers whirring: these everyday sounds make up an “acoustic wallpaper” in most offices -and one that can affect productivity and stress levels. Noise impairs people’s ability to perform simple tasks such as remembering […]