THEATRE: Guy Willoughby WHAT can one say about a play that tells two interrelated stories, separated by nearly 200 years, that take place simultaneously in the same room? Welcome to the casually unusual world of Tom Stoppard, a world whose oddity comes uneasily to resemble the one you and I live in. Stoppard has long […]

CRICKET: Jon Swift ONE of the oldest maxims in cricket, whether it be the one-day pyjama game or the more serious stuff of five-day tests, is this: you have to get the runs on the board to have any chance of succeeding. It is a truism which was rubbed into the noses of the South […]

Despite the collapse of USAfrica, the domestic airline business is not saturated, reports Andre van Zyl Paradoxically, the collapse of United States airline USAfrica has focused attention on the domestic airline business in South Africa. Is there enough room for everybody? A quick runaround of some of the local airlines suggested that, contrary to conventional […]

Shadley Nash in Port Elizabeth A reward has been offered for the return of Port Alfred’s mayoral solid silver chain of office, valued at R10 000. Former taxi driver Gordon Bavuma, recently elected as the chairperson of the Port Alfred Transitional Local Council, now has the dubious distinction of being the first “mayor” since the […]

KARATE: Johann van Tonder SOUTH AFRICAN fighters smashed their way through the first All Africa Knockdown Karate tournament in Cape Town last weekend, taking all eight trophies. At the event, visiting Japanese officials awarded the very prestigious rank of Eighth Dan Black Belt to “the father of karate in South Africa”, Shihan Len Barnes, who […]

There’s more to life than Forrest Gump would have us believe, say the people behind a new underground magazine. They spoke to William Pretorius MOST magazines would shudder at taking video nasties seriously, but there’s none of the usual moral gumpf to Mimizine’s assessment of Cannibal Holocaust, a gore fest from Italian director Ruggero Deodata. […]

CLASSICAL MUSIC: Coenraad Visser CONCERTOS for piano and violin by Mozart had mixed success in the first two concerts of the National Symphony Orchestra conducted by visiting British conductor Meredith Davies. Francois du Toit, standing in at short notice for Tessa Uys, gave a carefully considered reading of the composer’s A Major Piano Concerto. As […]

Hugh Lewin, who spent seven years in the Sixties as a political prisoner in Pretoria, joined last weekend’s gathering of some 1 200 ex-political prisoners for a reunion on Robben Island IT IS a weekend of rituals. The ritual of resurrecting the ghosts, re-uniting them, dancing with them from lime quarry to cell-block, and (perhaps […]

Jan Taljaard in Pretoria FEELINGS are running high among former security police members after they were apparently told they have no real future in the new South African Police Service. Since being informed of serious cutbacks in the Crime Intelligence Service (CIS), many of its members are now threatening to disclose sensitive information that they […]