MUSIC: Gwen Ansell ‘AUTHENTICITY,” says a Zairois buddy of mine who prefers not to be named, ”was probably one of the few decent things Mobutu ever did.” He’s referring to the Zairean dictator’s post- independence campaign to reclaim the country’s cultural heritage. Its manifestations ranged from a strict dress code (men had to wear the […]

New soapie The Burning Issue just doesn’t wash, says ANDREW WORSDALE WHY are South African sit-coms and soapies so strained and dreadful and boring? My belief is it’s because they try to serve as education and as drama, with teaching and issues always taking the upper hand. Apart from the critically acclaimed hit series Soul […]

Bridgette A Lacy THE SEASONS OF BEENTO BLACKBIRD by Akosua Busia (Hutchinson, R97,95) IMAGINE a man who is “a broad-shouldered six- foot-four silhouette headed across the tarmac like a panther on the prowl . Focused. Upright. Full of power.” Did I mention that this man spends winters with one wife on a Caribbean island and […]

The South African team shrugged off all the adversity during their visit to Brazzaville last week … untill the second half of the match when they finally succumbed to Congo fever SOCCER:Julian Drew IT’S only eight o’clock on Sunday morning at the central market in the Patrice Lumumba district of Pointe Noire but already there […]

A philosophical Greg Norman returns this week to the Augusta course that broke his heart GOLF:Bill Elliott BY any of the usual standards applied to this varied life, Greg Norman should have been contemplating his arrival at Augusta in Georgia this week with all the rampant anticipation of a politician approaching his current mistress to […]

CRICKET: Pat McDermott MUCH has been said about the brittleness of the South African top order. It has assumed the proportions of a national crisis in the bars where the followers of cricket dissect the manner in which the touring Australians have shown such disdain for the best this country has to offer. It is […]

RUGBY: Mick Cleary RESPECT is not a concept which the Afrikaner has traditionally handed out with any great generosity to his fellow men. It took the profound dignity of Nelson Mandela, not to mention many years of incarceration, finally to prick the nation’s conscience into doing the decent thing. The British Lions have chosen a […]

SOCCER:Julian Drew FEW people gave Congo much of a chance against Clive Barker’s African Champions in last Sunday’s crucial world cup qualifier in Pointe Noire. Bafana Bafana were unbeaten in seven games and after holding the seeded Zambians in Lusaka, they were favoured to head the group and book their place in next year’s showpiece […]

The Lions squad has its flaws but the team isn’t clawless and there is no room for Springbok complacency RUGBY:Steve Morris SOMEHOW, in the next six or seven weeks, this country has to shake off the complacency that is starting to echo around the prospect of the arrival of the British Lions. There is the […]

JKL Walker THE FATAL ENGLISHMAN: THREE SHORT LIVES by Sebastian Faulks (Vintage, R57,95) AFTER the success of his Great War novel Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks has turned aside from fiction to present, in The Fatal Englishman, a biographical triptych of three young men of apparent brilliance and promise who met early deaths in mysterious and tragic […]