BRENDA ATKINSON suggests that beastly is in the eye of the beholder FRENCH librarian and pornographer Georges Batailles, whose literary works were littered with corpses, sperm, eyeballs and the odd boiled egg, sought repeatedly to prove his own dictum that there is no prohibition that cannot be transgressed. Purity and Danger, curated by Penny Siopis, […]
Seth Nthai WE repeatedly hear arguments from certain political parties and individuals that the solution to our crime problems is to devolve enough police powers to provinces. According to them, devolution of police powers would strengthen the arm of the South African Police Service (SAPS). I believe the devolution of police powers to provinces, to […]
FRIDAY, 3.30PM RESIDENTS of Bushbuckridge who are agitating to have the area incorporated into Mpumalanga from Northern Province today delivered a memorandum to President Nelson Mandela notifying him of their intention to take the border dispute to court. “The people have resolved to donate R10 per family and business people from R100 and over to […]
Richard Williams on Eric Cantona, catalyst of Manchester United’s stunning revival, who announced his early retirement this week HOW typical of Eric Cantona that he should stand not upon the order of his going, but simply clear off. No farewell tours, no curtain calls. Yet, being Cantona, somehow the sense of a coup de thtre […]
South African film and film-makers are finally getting the recognition – and the budget allocation – they deserve. ANDREWWORSDALE details the good news IN the mid-1980s, South Africa produced up to 80 films a year, mostly financed through devious tax evasion schemes. Most of them were tacky American Ninja dramas or Platoon ripoffs with KwaZulu-Natal […]
Chris Petit THE UNTOUCHABLE by John Banville (Picador, R118) DISSECTING English characteristics of deceit and betrayal, John Banville locates their impulse not in any grand theorising but in a peculiarly English need for amusement and a corresponding fear of boredom. In one sense, The Untouchable is about dressing up. Victor Maskell – Banville’s fictional version […]
Alex Duval Smith in Washington NINE years after Roseanne began its ground- breaking, irreverent portrayal of working- class family life, television viewers in the United States will switch on with relief tomorrow for the last episode with the family America used to love to hate. Roseanne’s ratings have plummeted in the last two seasons and […]
Dawn Blalock A PLAN to build a high school for disadvantaged students has stirred up charges of racism in Sophiatown – and illustrates how the community is still haunted by its turbulent history. Sparrow Schools Educational Trust, a non- profit group that runs special education schools for disadvantaged children, is trying to buy a plot […]
The imminent sale of Sun Air has brought together many black businesses. Stuart Hess looks at who is bidding BLACK economic empowerment is taking to the skies in more ways than one. Four consortiums headed by black businesses comprise half the companies bidding for Sun Air, the next parastatal up for sale. Tenders for the […]
Joe Slovo’s handpicked Director General, Billy Cobbett, asked the auditor general to investigate a R185-million housing project in Mpumalanga – and lost his job. Stefaans Brmmer, Mungo Soggot and Peta Thornycroft report BILLY COBBETT, Director General of the Department of Housing, has been fired after asking the auditor general to investigate a multi-million-rand housing project […]