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/ 1 September 2006

Football minnows are wasting everybody’s time

The advent of micro-countries introduced a new terror to international football. You could beat them and still be humiliated. Fifteen years ago Scotland won 2-0 in San Marino, but the goals took a while to come. The game is remembered for the drawl of the late Ian Archer in a radio broadcast: ”We’ve been playing for an hour and it has just occurred to me that we’re drawing 0-0 with a mountain top.”

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/ 1 September 2006

Finally, White sees the light

If there is a silver lining to last week’s 45-26 defeat by the All Blacks it is that Springbok coach Jake White has recognised the need for a total overhaul. This week’s line-up to play New Zealand near Rustenburg contains five changes and a positional switch. If you wanted to be hypercritical you might argue that White has not been severe enough in his pruning.

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/ 1 September 2006

Andre Agassi: Departure of a legend

I first took notice of Andre Agassi during the 1988 French Open, a tournament I particularly remember as it coincided with my last meaningful attempt to get fit. I’d installed an exercise bicycle in front of the telly so I could watch tennis while I pedalled my way to nowhere.

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/ 1 September 2006

Too batty for the box office

In Hollywood movies, a single plot twist is no longer considered sufficient: the first surprise is the down payment on a more amazing revelation. Off-screen events now follow the same logic: Mel Gibson’s drunk, anti-Semitic rant simply began the widening of eyes that now gape fully with the news that Viacom-Paramount is abandoning its production […]

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/ 1 September 2006

If you don’t get it, forget it

Branford Marsalis, McCoy Mrubata, Greg Georgiades and Paul Hanmer may not have planned things this way. But as sometimes happens in the Republic of Bohemia, they find themselves firmly the focus of debate at dinner tables, where conversation revolves around the question: What is jazz? Marsalis took Sunday Times journalist Bongani Madondo to task for […]