T he Natale Labia Museum in Muizenberg will be the venue for a further series of lectures on women’s writing by Shirley Kossick, professor emeritus of the University of South Africa and one of the Mail &Guardian’s leading book critics. The talks will take place at 10am on the first Saturday of every month, beginning […]

Janet Smith The fax and the trannie have, at last, been declared terminal, allowing designers, advertising agencies, publishers and print- media journalists to clear their desks of extraneous matter to make way for offices with more feng shui than filing cabinets. A colour-burst revolution is under way in this country, changing the way in which […]

Shaun de Waal CD of the week As far as I’m concerned, they should all be given to Bob Dylan, but the Grammy awards are interesting because of what they say about the American music establishment, and BMG’s 1998 Grammy Nominees shows off the pop category. The women get more than their affirmative- action half, […]

Madeleine Roux Moveable feast Cabbage! That vegetable of fear and loathing, forced-fed to reluctant children and mulish husbands. But a cabbage is sweet. A fresh leaf, crunched raw, has a zingy taste that floods the mouth with an astringent feel and sugary finish – just like good wine. But no wine leaves you with that […]

John Francis Lane More than two decades since his death, Pier Paolo Pasolini is still causing ructions in Italy. People are still fighting over his artistic and political legacy, but they are even more divided over the circumstances of his death. Was he killed by a rent-boy? Was he killed by a rent-boy in league […]

Are historical epics such as Amistad dishonest, or do they convey human truths that textbooks cannot? Stuart Jeffries and Simon Hattenstone report The historians are sharpening their quills. Academic bile is flying in all directions. And newspaper columnists are ransacking the good ship Amistad. We’ve seen it plenty of times before. In fact, we see […]

Stephen Bierley Tennis Korda the kick. Korda the cartwheel. Korda the Australian Open champion. There is no better story in any sport than when someone of obvious and undoubted talent finally achieves the major victory that his ability so richly deserves, particularly if it arrives as the minute hand on his career clock nudges towards […]

Robert Kirby: LOOSE CANNON No, I’m not trying to send her up when I offer the embattled Dr Nkosazana Zuma most sincere congratulations on her face-off with the tobacco industry. With uncanny vigilance, Zuma has seen the way things could go if tobacco barons aren’t beheaded more expeditiously. She’s clearly been watching how efficiently South […]

Adam Haupt On stage in Cape Town There is something very ironic about the fact that, in Summer Holiday, our very own obnoxiously heterosexual Boere boy, Steve Hofmeyer, plays a lead role made famous by Cliff Richard, one of Britain’s last remaining ambiguous bachelor boys. A career moment which seems to have set the tone […]

Gillian Dell In your ear What happens when people with a passion for radio are given free rein over a newly independent radio station that many considered little more than a ”volksradio” and way beyond redemption? They take it, remould it and watch it take off. Radio Oranje/OFM, which broadcasts to the traditional backwaters of […]