David Beresford ANOTHER COUNTRY Do rock climbers have the equivalent of a mile-high club? Do they delight, whether to themselves, or to friends, in the altitude, or the particularly diffficult circumstances in which they have “done it” – clinging to the bottom of an overhang, perhaps, or stretched halfway up a rock “chimney”? The question […]
NET WATCH British director Mike Figgis’s latest film, Time Code, claims to be the first digital film shot in real time. The website at www.time code2000.com gives a demonstration of what downloading short movies is all about. The world’s biggest game of Tetris has been played by a group of Brown University students. They used […]
South African teams might not make the Super 12 semi-finals, but their improved play is a boost for the Boks Andy Capostagno If only the wake-up call had come sooner. For most of the first six weeks of the Super 12, South African teams induced a sense of unremitting gloom with one- dimensional game plans […]
John Matshikiza WITH THE LID OFF The plane (I know you’re beginning to get bored with this plane, but so am I) is getting ready to take to the skies. This is no ordinary airline. It is part of the infrastructure of what should be Africa’s pre-eminent carrier, Air Afrique, named after the continent itself. […]
James Montier SHAREWORLD The European Central Bank (ECB) finally managed to get internal consensus last week and raised rates to 3,75% from 3,5%. Essentially, the bank was in a lose-lose situation. If it raised rates it could be seen as panic induced by the weakness of the euro. A decision not to raise rates would […]
Bill Elliott GOLF The blazered battalions of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club (R&A) of St Andrews will be defrocked for this year’s Open in July. In a remarkably forward-thinking move for the conservative R&A, the famous blazers will be dispensed with for on- course officials and replaced by … windcheaters. For the first Open […]
Has Old Skunk Head gone soft? America’s foremost writer, critic and cultural guerrilla has a new book out – an historical romance Maureen Freely In the Sixties she was the high priestess of the avant-garde, and America’s most Parisian intellectual. She took the French New Wave to New York and forced the American Old Wave […]
Ebrahim Harvey LEFT FIELD What future do trade unions have? The recent conference of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in Durban was the most important international union meeting held in South Africa. But coming at a time of the birth of a new millennium, as rapid globalisation is threatening unions as never […]
Glenda Daniels and Barry Streek The African National Congress and the government tied themselves up in knots this week, trying to reconcile ANC secretary general Kgalema Motlanthe’s call for a war against capitalism with the country’s investor-friendly macroeconomic policies. At a Workers’ Day rally, Motlanthe commended the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) for […]
ALAN FINLAY & Reuters, Johannesburg | Friday 4.00pm. THE rand was rocked to a fresh record low of R7,01 against the dollar on Friday, in the wake of a strengthening dollar and growing fears of the potential impact on South Africa of political unrest in Zimbabwe. However by late afternoon it had recovered marginally and […]