Ferial Haffajee The ruby red BMW roadster races down the main road in Eldorado Park, past rows and rows of grim council houses. At full throttle, the front doors open and close to simulate a bird in flight. The Majimbos are in town – the gang’s symbol is a flying bird and Eldorado Park, south […]
Andy Capostagno Rugby Deja vu. The Springbok captain is involved in negotiations to form a players’ union, Louis Luyt is in the news and euphoria over Springbok success has died down to a hoarse croak. Take yourself back to August 1995, less than two months after South Africa had won the World Cup. Louis Luyt […]
Janet Smith When SABC3 announced early this year that it was to screen a two-part South African documentary called Death, TV writers muttered darkly about a bleak society, an odious world view and the depths to which our national psyche had sunk. Then the documentary from writer-director Luiz DeBarros and producer Mark Schwinges won three […]
Krisjan Lemmer Mrs H Bingham, a resident at a Johannesburg retirement village, would like it to be known that her name is Henrietta, not Hugh. And no – she does not know the whereabouts of that aristocratic desperado, Lord Lucan. Henrietta has been inundated with calls from investigative journalists convinced she is Hugh Bingham, the […]
Rupert Jones Banks and building societies in the United Kingdom are pouring money into ever-more sophisticated services, but are they focusing on tomorrow at the expense of today’s mundane issues, such as customer complaints and lunchtime queues? There have been a spate of personal computer (PC) and Internet banking initiatives. This week, Royal Bank of […]
Mark Tran When Kirk Kerkorian started buying shares in Chrysler in December 1990, his closest advisers feared that the famously reclusive corporate raider had gone senile. James Aljian, who had worked with him for 25 years, declared it was “the stupidest thing I ever heard” and Alex Yemenidjian, Kerkorian’s right-hand man, thought: “He’s finally lost […]
Dan Ncayiyana Right to Reply I feel constrained to respond to the letter by my friend and colleague, Professor Cecil Abrahams (May 8 to 14), in which he purports to write “in my capacity as an acknowledged scholar of African studies”. Whatever that distinction may mean (I am not aware of an academic discipline called […]
Ferial Haffajee The government will tax private radio and television stations, as well as signal distributors, to fund local-content production. A draft White Paper on broadcasting says a fund will be established to subsidise local producers. It is understood that private owners may have to pay up to 1% of their profits, which translates into […]
The end is in sight for endless banking queues, writes Charlene Smith The bank client of the future will hardly ever go into his or her bank. Indeed, today already the way to save on frustrations and bank charges is to bank electronically. Increasingly we are moving toward a cashless society with petrol cards, debit […]
Janet Smith Anand Naidoo spent his last night on a recent trip home to Johannesburg strolling famously through his old haunt, the SABC. He went to see his mentor Chris Gibbons presenting News Hour on SABC3, and came away impressed – and not a little nostalgic. News Hour is, after all, not quite the same […]