Neasa MacErlean Eight tips on how to deal with grievance proceedings: n Understand that there are two main reasons to trigger the grievance system: a dispute with a colleague or dissatisfaction with a management decision. n Resist going down this formal route just because someone gets on your nerves. You will find it hard to […]

Mandy Collins At some stage, hopefully, most of us will progress from owning the most dilapidated car on the block to buying a new or good second-hand car. This usually means trying to understand the world of car finance. The cutting-edge option is time-share. Reportedly, some people have paid R20 000 for a share in […]

Irwin Manoim A printer is a machine which artfully lines up a bunch of microscopic dots on paper to produce elegant love letters, invoices, poems, bar charts and school projects. Most of these sheets of paper go straight from the print tray to the waste bin, while the author experiments with changing the margins or […]

Peet Pienaar speaks to fellow-artist Judith Mason Iwent to see Judith Mason on a cold, murky day, and spoke to an artist who seems to have been quietly observing from the sidelines of the art world for quite a while. How would I contextualise her? I know her well, and know that what I know […]

Sechaba ka’Nkosi A group of highly trained operatives linked to dirty tricks operations in KwaZulu-Natal in the early 1990s has been directly implicated in the recent upsurge of violence in the Midlands town of Richmond. A report by peace monitors suggests that senior politicians, right-wing farmers, police and military chiefs have regrouped and are exploiting […]

Durban Nick Paul Surfing Just when you think you’re sick of big emotional sporting events, when you’ve had the Comrades, and the July, and the men’s and women’s Wimbledon finals and this year the World Cup and the opening sallies of the Tri-Nations, in great big chunks, along comes the Gunston. If you’re a Durbanite, […]

Benjamin Pogrund HESHEL’S KINGDOM: A FAMILY, A PEOPLE, A DIVIDED FATE by Dan Jacobson. (Hamish Hamilton) By dying early, Heshel Melamed gave his children, grandchildren and great- grandchildren the most precious patrimony of all – life. Had his existence continued in the small town of Varniai in Lithuania the family tree would have been terminated […]

Forget the business guru in a dark suit: today’s corporate motivators are trainers, modelled on the world of sport, writes Ian Wylie Sometimes they fall out, sometimes they get fired, but no one wins the soccer World Cup or Wimbledon without a coach. Every good athlete has a coach, helping them to break through barriers […]

Swapna Prabhakaran Like most of Richmond’s remaining residents, Mabel Nxumalo is a portrait of strength. She has a solid, hard- worn look about her and though there is a deep grief in her eyes, there are no tears. A week ago her sister, two of her sons and her daughter-in-law were shot dead. They were […]

Andy Duffy The Muslim Judicial Council (MJC), which represents the majority of Muslims in the Western Cape, has called on the People Against Gangterism and Drugs (Pagad) to suspend all activities. The council, previously slated for not taking a firm and public lead against Pagad’s vigilante tactics, says the group’s militant approach has spun out […]