We hope that the private response of African National Congress leaders to the results of Tuesday’s local government elections is more sober than the unconcern they have affected in public. The poll registered serious murmurings of dissatisfaction with the ruling party among its traditional support base. The party’s share of the vote is down on […]

Neil Spencer CD OFTHEWEEK This DJ-as-superstar lark has been getting out of hand for some time now. Let’s be clear: musicians make music, disc jockeys play it, and a box of rarities and mixes to scratch and sample don’t amount to a hill of beans, though they can add up to an awful lot of […]

Jill Waterman Dance The removal of funding from government for the State Theatre Ballet Company has led to Maestro Entertainment stepping in to produce and present The Nutcracker from December 1 to 16. This is a tried and tested old work, which in most cases brings in good box office returns. Maestro Entertainment, being a […]

Nechama Brodie looks at the legacy of South Africa’s beauty queens Historically, the spectacle of a pageant was used as a means of expressing national, religious or communal identity. The occasion may have ranged from fertility rites and harvest festivals to military victory parades. Beauty pageants were a natural extension of this, alone or as […]

Barry Streek A report on media diversity published by the government indicates that about 7,8-million South Africans, 18,6% of the population, still do not have access to standard radio broadcasts, the Grade B FM radio reception available on portable radios. KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Northern Province and the Eastern Cape each have more than one million people […]

Andy Capostagno golf If the organisers of the Nedbank Golf Challenge got it wrong, the Southern African PGA has, eventually, got it right. Walking around Sun City last week it was impossible to escape the conclusion that a million-dollar brand had been thrown away on a corporate whim when the Million Dollar changed its name. […]

Glenda Daniels The use of school libraries will become a teaching method when the new draft policy on libraries becomes legislation early next year. Well-resourced libraries will become a new tool in outcomes-based education, according to the Department of Education’s draft policy. Standards for school and public libraries are also about to be raised and […]

Glenda Daniels and David Macfarlane South Africa is due to spend R36-million hosting a major international conference on the environment, the 2002 Rio+10 global summit, but has set aside a fraction of that for a national strategy to protect the environment. Despite the government’s stated commitment to developing such a strategy, a workshop recently hosted […]

“We feel we have retained our support, although not as much as we expected.” ANC losing candidate for Cape Town Lynne Brown “Who can take Tony Leon seriously?” ANC representative Smuts Ngonyama “He [new Johannesburg mayor Amos Masondo] should maybe look at a tortoise shell frame to blend in with the colour of his skin. […]

Thebe Mabanga and photographer Nadine Hutton meandered through South Africa’s rural hinterland on polling day When Alan Paton wrote of a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills, he sought to capture a unique aspect of his childhood and this beloved country. There are a number of other places that are of equally […]