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 […]
THE ANGELLA JOHNSON INTERVIEW GRACE KHUNOU had barely been in her job as headmistress for five minutes when an angry parent stood up during a meeting and exclaimed: ”But you are only a girl. What can you know? How can you make this place any better after all this time?” The consensus was that it […]
Despite all the criticism, Nkosazana Zuma’s department is revolutionising health care, reports Jim Day DESPITE scandals, unauthorised spending and a history of putting her foot in it, Dr Nkosazana Zuma’s Health Department is systematically revolutionising South Africa’s health-care system. Zuma is blamed by many for the R14,2- million Sarafina II disaster and the trumpeting of […]
Jim Day LITTLE Leboteng Bakada is sick. The one- month-old girl is suckling at her mother’s breast, but every few moments a cough interrupts her meal for a few seconds before she starts suckling again. ”She has the flu,” says her mother, Yoliswa Bakada. ”It is because we stay in the shacks.” Bakada has been […]