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/ 5 November 2004
A couple of years ago Britney Spears and her entourage swept through my boss’s office. As she sashayed past, I blushed and stammered and leaned over my desk to shake her hand. She looked right into my eyes and smiled her pageant smile, and I confess, I felt dizzy. Celebrities are fascinating because they live in a parallel universe — one that looks and feels just like ours yet is light years beyond our reach.
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/ 5 November 2004
Persistent fuel shortages, a flourishing foreign-currency black market and empty pharmacy shelves at state hospitals seem to jar with Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor Gideon Gono’s portrayal of the economy. During his Monetary Policy Statement for the third quarter last week he described the economy as being in the ”spring season characterised by improvements all round”.
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/ 5 November 2004
If you wanted to play devil’s advocate it might be argued that South Africa’s triumph in this year’s Tri-Nations was more than a little fortuitous and that, since each of the three teams won their home games and lost away, it was merely treading water.
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/ 5 November 2004
The defeat of John Kerry could bring a silver lining for one Democratic presidential hopeful: Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose chances of reoccupying the White House as chief executive looked better this week than ever before. Had Kerry won, he would almost certainly have run again in 2008. By the time Clinton’s next chance came around, in 2012, she would have been 65, and probably perceived as too old.
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/ 5 November 2004
Two weeks ago, it seemed that — once again — Arsenal were going to be simply unstoppable this season. However, their past two Premiership outings have cast some doubt on this dominance. First there was the defeat to Manchester United, which brought to an end a remarkable unbeaten record.
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/ 5 November 2004
The psychological warfare between Sir Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger is meant to be one of the Premiership’s intriguing features. This time, however, there has been no battle of wits. A stupid conflict has been allowed to go on too long and both men are losers.
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/ 5 November 2004
Ruud van Nistelrooy, we salute you. Oh great, long-faced Dutchman, you are the saviour of Sir Alex Ferguson, ailing footballing god. In your hands lies the fate of the fêted Fergie. You and your sexy Dutch accent, your glorious locks and long, long legs, could just save Manchester United from another season of decline.
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/ 5 November 2004
Galacticos? Junk Galacticos? Mediaticos? At the moment the subdivisions of stardom at Real Madrid are blurring to the point of irrelevance before the realisation that points, not prices, win prizes. So it was numbers, rather than names, that occupied Real as they prepared for the visit of La Liga newcomers Getafe on Sunday.
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/ 5 November 2004
An unforgiving deadline has distanced this column from destiny. At the time of writing, Monday night, George W Bush and John Kerry were still kneeling at their respective bedsides, reciting the Overlord’s Prayer (“Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray my yes-men their vows to keep -”), and the future seemed uncertain.
Indeed, Monday’s observer (trapped five days in the past by the slow wheels of print journalism), had to make do with supposition.
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/ 5 November 2004
The South African government’s refusal to disclose the number of children receiving antiretroviral (ARV) drugs in KwaZulu-Natal province has raised fears among Aids activists that children’s rights to health care and life are being violated.
The national treatment plan, unveiled last November, initially targeted the treatment of 53Â 000 people by March 2004, which has since been extended to March 2005.