The Mail & Guardian has taken something of a battering at the hands of the legal system over the past couple of weeks. After winding ourselves up for the libel case with the KwaZulu-Natal Attorney General, Tim McNally, we were advised by senior counsel to “tender” for a settlement of R50 000, which McNally took. […]
Judge William de Villiers delivered his judgment in the Sarfu case this week, lambasting Mandela for his performance in the witness box. The South African correspondent of The Guardian in London, David Beresford, reflects on his coverage of the hearing and protests: `With respect, M’Lud …’ There have been both moving and historic moments in […]
Elizabeth Wurtzel First Person In late June, Time magazine ran a story illustrated with the faces of Susan B Anthony, Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem, pictured in grave black and white. Next to the likeness of this righteous triumvirate was a colour photograph of Calista Flockhart aka Ally McBeal, above the red-lettered, alarmist question: is […]
It’s all over and there’s barely enough time for both sides to lick their wounds, never mind carry on with their `other’ lives. Neil Manthorp reports from Leeds Cricket boasts the cruellest, most finite moments of any sport. Soccer, through golden goals and penalty shoot-outs, has managed to emulate the “immediate death” nature of the […]
Roger Southall A Second Look Your correspondent William Boot is being incautious in suggesting that Lesotho’s May election was rigged by the ruling Lesotho Congress of Democrats (LCD) (“Lesotho’s election farce”, August 7 to 13). A more careful look at the election is required. Preparations for the election began under the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) […]
Who is . . . Yasser Arafat? Angella Johnson Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has received red-carpet treatment worthy of a state president during his official visit to South Africa this week. It is a long way from the days when he was viewed as the personification of Arab evil, described by former Israeli prime minister […]
Liese van der Watt On show in Johannesburg Barricaded Bryanston seems a fitting backdrop for the first South African exhibition of expatriate Philip Badenhorst, who has been living, working and teaching in Antwerp for the last 21 years. His is an unfamiliar aesthetic – European perhaps – in its detached refusal to engage the exterior […]
Freud’s deathbed fantasies have been brought to life in a collaboration of sculpture, performance and sound, writes Brenda Atkinson Sigmund Freud has become a much- derided father-figure in the Nineties, a paternal icon who has been killed many times over by both his sons and daughters. Post-modernism and feminism have declared the founder of psychoanalysis […]
A war is brewing over alleged favouritism in the SABC’s commissioning procedures, writes Ferial Haffajee Independent television producers believe that the SABC secretly gave a multi-million-rand contract for breakfast television to a favoured firm while pretending to be taking submissions from its rivals. Questions are being asked about the role played in the deal by […]
Keith Henderson THERE’S A HAIR IN MY DIRT! – A WORM’S STORY by Gary Larson (Little, Brown) Unfortunately, the world has been a saner place since Gary Larson decided to leave the world of The Far Side behind him and, although there is a good collection of re-runs to glean inspiration from, the gaping chasm […]