Jeremy Dowson : Venues in Cape Town On paper, the Drum Caf certainly has a whole lot going for it. Established six months ago as a bar-cum-caf that provides a forum for percussion lessons and performances, the venue would seem to be riding the storm of the pre-millennial cultural zeitgeist – the one which dictates […]
Howard Barrell : Over a Barrel What is one of the cleverest people in South Africa doing indulging so assiduously one of the vainest? Why has Deputy President Thabo Mbeki taken to bowing and scraping before Mangosuthu Buthelezi, Inkatha Freedom Party leader and minister of home affairs? Why has Mbeki been calling him Shenge, offering […]
Mail & Guardian reporter Job-seeking graduates tempted to put a “willing to do anything legal for cash” ad in the classifieds, take heart: the Mail & Guardian graduate recruitment fair will make sure your expensive education takes you further than waiting tables. The fair, to be held at Cape Town’s Good Hope Centre from August […]
Chris Gordon in Luanda and Howard Barrell in Cape Town Angola’s return to arms, which appeared inevitable this week, could spill into neighbouring territories and destabilise the entire Southern African region. In the line of fire are Zambia, which the Unita rebel movement continues to use as a rear supply base and which is bracing […]
Ferial Haffajee and Stuart Hess You can teach an old dog new tricks, as a legion of former apartheid spies, torturers and key dirty-tricks operatives are showing. Many are the frontmen of business’s push into Africa and are leaders in the private security industry, which is worth billions of rands. A former general, for example, […]
Alex Dodd – Milan, Marseille, New York, Rotterdam A short, hard-hitting film about xenophobia in the heart of Johannesburg by local film- maker Zola Maseko has been playing to thunderous applause around the world. This is the first time a film by a black South African director has achieved such widespread international acclaim. The Foreigner […]
Greig Coetzee’s plays have shown alternative sides of the male psyche. Denise rack Louw probed him about his characters `For me, writing is a passion. At times it can also be a pain in the ass; but, like eating and sleeping it’s something I simply have to do,” says Greig Coetzee, author and executor of […]
George Steiner EXPLAINING HITLER by Ron Rosenbaum (Macmillan) It may well be that I am not the right reviewer for this book. Ron Rosenbaum places me and my novel, The Portage to San Christobal of AH, among the principal players in his dark tale. Explaining Hitler, a highly personal study of those who have sought […]
Keith Henderson : Live in Johannesburg The queue for the Springbok Nude Girls outside the Roxy Rhythm Bar, Melville, was the kind which makes you feel it would be a lot easier to turn around and go home. There was probably at least one thing on television last Saturday that you could’ve fooled yourself into […]
Ed Vulliamy in Washington : Basketball After six Naitional Basketball Association (NBA) championships – the latest won in an epic final series against Utah Jazz last month – Americans are accustomed to gravity-defying acrobatics from the Chicago Bulls. But not of this kind. Last Thursday afternoon, the Bulls managed a contortion which beats almost any […]