John Aizlewood NOT CD OFTHEWEEK A greatest hits by any other name, but with a title only Elvis Presley could share, the 27-track 1 (EMI) delivers what it promises: all The Beatles’ British and American number-one singles, from Love Me Do (one American week on its belated release there in 1964, but still 1’s opening […]

The Zimbabwean president’s popularity is at an all-time low and Zanu-PF must decide whether to ditch him Chris McGreal Zimbabwe’s ruling party opened an extraordinary congress this week with the one issue on everyone’s lips officially off the agenda Robert Mugabe’s future. The Zanu-PF party has purged and sidelined critics of Zimbabwe’s beleaguered president ahead […]

Iden Wetherell Thabo Mbeki’s mission to broker a solution to Zimbabwe’s protracted land crisis has ended impaled on the rock of President Robert Mugabe’s monumental ego, it became clear this week. In Harare two weeks ago for talks with Mugabe ahead of a crucial visit by United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan’s envoy Mark Malloch […]

Working-class hero? My arse! He was about as working class as a suburban dentist. Sexy? He was hideous, says Julie Burchill I don’t normally feel the need to return to the scene of a hate-crime once I’ve dissed ’em, they stay dissed but in John Lennon’s case, I will make?an exception. John Lennon! Even his […]

Keith Richards: He wasn’t just a mate of mine, he was a mate of?everybody’s, really. There were the Beatles and there was John. As a band, they were a great?unit. But John, he was his own man. My father just passed away and he?winked at me just before he died. I really feel a lot […]

Ilda Jacobs and Justin Arenstein An underground organisation of racist South African exiles is using the Internet to recruit supporters and plan for the return of “civilised” white rule to South Africa and Zimbabwe. The London-based Springbok Club slams “gutless” white liberals for betraying their race by “toadying” up to the African National Congress, and […]

Peter Preston London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd (Chatto & Windus) What is London? The disaster of the Dome, the grunge of traffic, the cost, the crime, the desolation living rough beneath its arches. Familiar fodder from familiar headlines. Moan, moan, moan (as my Spanish grandson says when he comes to visit). But here, by […]

Medals galore at the Olympics. A world-beating rugby team. A hat-trick of Test victories. England has waited a long time for sporting success and now it seems it won’t stop coming Richard Williams Perhaps the best thing about a prolonged period of humiliation on the sports field is that it has taught the English not […]

Susan Chala and Pule waga Mabe Every child knows what Santa Claus familiarly known as Father Christmas looks like. White, with a long white beard, wearing a red-and-white suit and sporting a large, round stomach. The Santa Claus at Southgate Mall does wear a red-and-white suit, but otherwise he’s tall, young, thin, beardless and white. […]

Ntuthuko Maphumulosoccer The Liberian team has come back with a bang recently beating the Super Eagles of Nigeria 2-1 in a World Cup qualifier and beating Cape Verde 3-0 in the preliminary round of the African Cup of Nations qualifiers. Liberia have visited South Africa once before but not to play the home nation. They […]