Harry Pearson On Saturday I met a man from Ashington who recently moved to Portobello in Edinburgh. He said the first week he was up in Scotland, he was chatting to a local woman he’d met at his running club. By way of introducing him to the area she listed the many celebrities who come […]

Broadcast rights might be changed by the new boxing Bill Deon Potgieter Section 29 of the new boxing Bill has caused a stir within the boxing fraternity. If passed, it could have major ramifications on the sport as we know it. Some say it would lead to the demise of boxing in South Africa. Others […]

Stephen Gray My sample of this year’s Aardklop festival – three shows and a literary caf’ event – was indeed modest. That I realised when, queueing outside yet another school-hall, I helped one frenzied audience member sort out his 53 Computicket printouts. And he was going to make only half the total events of the […]

Greg Bowes When legendary DJ Little Louie Vega played here last year he altered the country’s entire clubbing complexion with a steady stream of soulful, carnival grooves. As further evidence of the scope of Vega’s influence on global music culture, Latin house instantly became the sound of South Africa’s summer and continues to be popular […]

Q&A Siyabonga Twala is the latest in a not-so- long line of South African male actors who openly harbour ambitions to make a name for themselves here, and more lucratively, abroad. This Umlazi, Durban native has had a taste of life abroad with his United States tour of Duma Ka Ndlovu’s Bergville Stories (1997). Apart […]

Nechama Brodie The Bang-Bang Club by Greg Marinovich and Joao Silva (William Heinemann) Contemporary visual theorists have spent decades educating people about “ways of seeing”. Images have become texts, subject to interpretation, evaluation, criticism and judgement. We are expected not just to see, but to actually develop a conscious relationship with the visual media that […]

Women’s boxing is big business in the United States, and Michelle Carson is looking for a piece of the action Gavin Foster Former South African kick-boxing champion Michelle Carson is the first South African woman to hold a professional boxing licence, and once the sport’s been legalised – probably at the end of this month […]

Brenda Atkinson Bloodlines by Elleke Boehmer (David Philip) There is a powerful and telling moment in Elleke Boehmer’s new novel, Bloodlines, where her twentysomething white protagonist, Anthea Hardy, regards the coloured woman sitting next to her in her car: “Dora’s race is vividly visible, indelible, and Anthea wants to see it, confront it … Confront […]

One-hundred-and-forty Friday readers can each win a free double ticket to a sneak preview of Jesus’ Son on Wednesday September 27 at 8pm at Cinema Nouveau Rosebank and Cinema Nouveau Cavendish. All you have to do is present this page at the box office of the cinemas mentioned above, from 2pm on Saturday September 23, […]

This year’s Smirnoff International Fashion Awards featured a return to design basics Charl Blignaut I was a touch anxious as I settled into my seat for the South African leg of the annual Smirnoff International Fashion Awards at Vodaworld in Midrand last Friday night. It wasn’t the over-abundance of ruthless Pretoria kugels or the Afrikaans […]