David Shapshak Satire – apart, of course, from chicken – is Nando’s speciality. Its advertising has always piggy-backed on current issues and ridiculed or satirised them. Humour, you see, is their secret ingredient. It has arguably sold them more chickens than their famous Portuguese sauces. Remember the just-recognisable grey- haired global leader with a predilection […]
Anthony Egan SOWETO: A HISTORY by Philip Bonner and Lauren Segal (Maskew Miller Longman) THE SOWETO UPRISINGS: COUNTER-MEMORIES OF JUNE 1976 by Sifiso Mxolisi Ndlovu (Ravan) The city to the south-west of Johannesburg , Soweto, has had a short but significant history. It started largely as a settlement for migrant workers to the Witwatersrand, a […]
She’s a South African New Yorker whose first novel is set in the Oudtshoorn of caves and ostrich farms. Shaun de Waal meets Anne Landsman In Anne Landsman’s debut novel, The Devil’s Chimney (Jonathan Ball), the Cango Caves form the central, or perhaps one should say underlying, metaphor. Their chambers and lakes, stalactites and stalagmites […]
European stock exchanges as we know them are about to be completely transformed thanks to London and Frankfurt. Europe’s two largest markets last week announced they would end decades of heated rivalry and form an alliance to develop a pan-European market in the hope that soon all European exchanges would take part. While some people […]
Howard Barrell and Mungo Soggot The relatively unknown African National Congress politician appointed as South Africa’s top prosecutor has shrugged off fears that he will follow the dictates of his political masters when he takes up his new job in two weeks’ time. Cape Town lawyer Bulelani Ngcuka, deputy chair of the National Council of […]
Charl Blignaut On stage in Johannesburg `There’s one sure way to beat the racist bastards of this world,” conclude Bessie (104) and Sadie (102) Delaney somewhere near the end of their marathon tale of growing up black and surviving a century of civil injustice in the United States, “and that’s to outlive them”. To have […]
Mandy Collins At some stage, hopefully, most of us will progress from owning the most dilapidated car on the block to buying a new or good second-hand car. This usually means trying to understand the world of car finance. The cutting-edge option is time-share. Reportedly, some people have paid R20 000 for a share in […]
Phillip Kakaza Live music Someone has passed a buck to me – it seemed like it when I was assigned to cover the American blues muso, Ronnie Peterson show at the Blues Room. The message came like a razor-sharp command. As if a twentysomething lad knew much about blues music. The little bit of knowledge […]
Andy Duffy The Muslim Judicial Council (MJC), which represents the majority of Muslims in the Western Cape, has called on the People Against Gangterism and Drugs (Pagad) to suspend all activities. The council, previously slated for not taking a firm and public lead against Pagad’s vigilante tactics, says the group’s militant approach has spun out […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Nine-year-old Mita Molete came home from school crying a few weeks ago. She pleaded with her mother not to let her go on a school tour to Durban. Molete, whose scalp was hacked with a panga during the 1992 Boipatong massacre on the Vaal Triangle, has developed a fear of Zulus. “She does […]