David Beresford ANOTHER COUNTRY The image which comes to mind is of Ulysses binding himself to the mast of his ship so that he could hear the song of the sirens without being trapped forever in the land of the lotus eaters. Here I am, trapped on the shore watching him sail on by, trapped […]
John O’Mahony gets a taste for browsing for food on the Net Back when the CD-ROM was being heralded as the saviour of the digital universe, someone presented me with a copy of United States television chef Julia Child’s multimedia cookbook, Home Cooking with Master Chefs. By any standard, this was a spectacular piece of […]
Robert Kirby CHANNELVISION It needs a particular sort of arrogance to treat any language with contempt. Perhaps it’s just plain stupidity – some are just so plain dumb they will never know the difference? I know this is a favourite soapbox of mine, but then I happen to enjoy the English language when it is […]
In her next book, JK Rowling’s trainee wizard Harry Potter will discover that ‘girls are quite interesting’ Stephen Moss There was no sex in the books I read as a child – and I rather liked it that way. Would William have thought of kissing Violet Elizabeth Bott? Did Julian harbour fantasies about George (or […]
WHAT’S NEW Virgin hopes to ship the first cellphone with a built-in stereo MP3 music player this summer. As usual, users will download MP3 music files to their phone via a PC. Richard Branson says: “Why carry a player and a separate mobile when you can have both in one small digital device?” Answers include: […]
Gwyn Topham discovers the Web’s answer to Egoli If Web-based digital entertainment to date has generally consisted of little more than dancing hamsters or slapping a Spice Girl, all is set to change with Freeserve’s move to bring custom-made Net drama to a browser near you. Online Caroline, which appeared yesterday for the first time […]
Iden Wetherell CROSSFIRE ‘African regional leaders have rallied behind President Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s principled stance on land,” crowed Harare’s Sunday Mail – the ruling Zanu-PF party’s main mouthpiece – after the Victoria Falls talks where Mugabe met with three neighbouring heads of state last weekend. This triumphalist message was reinforced by Minister of Information […]
Grant Shimmin OLYMPICS But for one slight problem, Brendon Dedekind would be ideally placed to step into the gulf left by the injured Bobby Skinstad as the poster boy of South African sport. He’s got it all – bar a stud through his tongue – striking good looks, a torso you’d struggle to push a […]
The post-Nyerere Tanzania is returning to a bustling capitalism, but there are signs of further colonialism John Matshikiza ‘Many years ago,” says my friend Juma, “Mwalimu [Julius Nyerere] didn’t allow any of these kind of businesses. He only allowed state shops. Now you see small shops everywhere.” It’s odd. I don’t feel that old. But […]
Franco Barchiesi ELITE TRANSITION: FROM APARTHEID TO NEOLIBERALISM IN SOUTH AFRICA by Patrick Bond (Pluto/University of Natal Press) Studies of the South African democratic transition have seen in the past few years the consolidation of a powerful, academically established orthodoxy, whereby studies of a progressive, social- democratic origin have risen to prominence. Notable among these […]