You’d know that face anywhere? Then thank your right fusiform gyrus. Scientists have identified the bits of the brain that can tell British Prime Minister Tony Blair from James Bond, or whether Margaret Thatcher has borrowed Marilyn Monroe’s hairstyle. The study helps explain that nagging feeling that you know a face, but cannot place it.

Developers of a multimillion-rand luxury residential resort in the Cape winelands may have to go back to the drawing board as a result of a protection order issued by the South African Heritage Resource Agency to preserve the cultural history of the region between Stellenbosch and Paarl. There could be significant changes in the initial design plans at the exclusive Boschendal estate.

One of the many tragic aspects of Phaswane Mpe’s sudden death last Sunday was that he had just embarked on a dramatic new path that he was convinced would bring him fulfilment. Only weeks ago, Mpe gave up a sought-after doctoral fellowship at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (Wiser) to devote himself to an apprenticeship as a healer.

With only one veteran premier, Gauteng’s Mbhazima Shilowa, left in office after the April elections, the African National Congress has battled inexperience and careerism for most of 2004. And the ruling party is also suffering from the ”dented ego” syndrome, where leaders who had expected high national or provincial office and did not get appointed, now snipe at incumbents.

Revel Fox died after a short illness on December 13. Fox was an innovator, an architect and town planner, an urban activist and a man who was, all his life, committed to pushing the professional boundaries in a difficult and often antagonistic political and social terrain. As an architect and planner, he has left an indelible mark.

For all his extraordinary track record (movies, record albums, live performances, political interventions that have placed him centre stage in a number of extraordinary debates and confrontations) Harry Belafonte at the age of 77 remains his tall, handsome, gracious self.

It was with a sense of grey despair that I read of a young father in England being forbidden, by some politically constipated magistrate, either to live in his home or to see his son for six months. Daddy had – in my opinion, quite rightly – given his son a smart couple of smacks on his backside when the boy tried walking in front of a moving car.

In June, the <i>M&G</i> ran a series of letters and articles that claimed the social movements and "radical academics" do not get their facts right. Our research on water cut-offs was included in this criticism. In our 2002 publication, we argued that at least 5,5-million people, and as many as 9,8-million people, had been affected by water cut-offs over a seven-year period. David McDonald exercises his right to reply.