Brenda Atkinson The programme preview of South Africa’s first free-to-air commercial television station was a Bondian event, slick with dress suits, French champagne, impeccably understated yet omnipresent waiters, oysters, and a subtle conspiratorial air. e.tv, the Warner Brothers-partnered broadcast competitor that has SABC and M-Net by the balls, last week invited media buyers to a […]
Karlin Lillington The Internet may have been created with the goal of global compatibility, but technology companies are turning a vision of harmony into a battleground over proprietary standards. Last week, the Software Publishers Association, an industry lobby, suggested companies meet later this year to agree on basic technical standards. The proposal came as a […]
machine Andy Capostagno Golf It might be unkind to a fine tournament, but this week’s United States PGA Championship is likely to suffer by comparison. The PGA is older than the Masters and both Jack Nicklaus and Walter Hagen won it five times, so it comes highly recommended. But because the wise men of the […]
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. […]
Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Ginger Mahlamvu (22) was released from jail in May after spending two years behind bars for robbery. But unlike many former prisoners, he is hopeful about his future. “I felt like a useless person, and that I wouldn’t regain my dignity and trust from my family and the community because of […]
fraud Godfrey Thabo Makhubedu The National Education, Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) has asked that criminal charges be laid against staff members of Technikon South Africa accused of corruption and fraud. This follows a series of internal disciplinary hearings against senior staff. In one of the worst instances, Herman Putter, employed at the centre […]
of Ooze This is the first newspaper interview he’s given for 20 years. What’s Stephen King got to be afraid of? Peter Conrad reports To be Stephen King is a traumatic fate: his head serves as an incubator for the world’s bad dreams. His face – currently bare of the beard behind which he hibernates […]
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 […]
Ferial Haffajee A South African multinational has patented the potent part of dagga and is selling it locally. Elevat – a brand owned by Pharmacare – is being hailed as a wonder drug for its treatment of the symptoms of cancer, Aids, multiple sclerosis and other diseases. This exposes the contradictions in South Africa’s policy […]
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 […]