John Sutherland The shortlist is out and Booker moves into its middle game. Between now and October 25 the final contenders will – on past evidence – enjoy a month in the sun. Bookshops will display and discount the lucky six. Readers will scoop them up. Unfriendly newspapers will excoriate the list as the “most […]
their own Struan Douglas Once, there was an old American street busker who used to play loose jazz grooves. Some kid asked him, “Hey, what’s this cool music you’re playing?” “Juss music”, the old man replied in a rich American drawl. “Oh, jazz music!” said the kid – and the name was born, for a […]
On the eve of the Pride Parade, Charl Blignaut attended the country’s premiere black drag pageant You’d never tell from the outside that Monyaka by Nite is the sort of nightclub given to displaying a galaxy of star- shaped refracting mirrors across the ceiling above its dance floor. >From outside, you’d never even tell it’s […]
Larry Elliott The International Monetary Fund (IMF)is confused. That’s a surprise in itself, because the IMF thrives on certainty, with firm views about everything, even if most of them are wrong. Stuck away in its half-yearly document, the world economic outlook, the IMF has a section called “Macro-economic stability and the forces of globalisation: lessons […]
A fence too flimsy to surround a northern suburbs home and one policeman to patrol more than 50km. This is the border between South Africa and Mozambique. Paul Kirk reports Nearly every morning Sergeant Chris van der Heever jumps into his 4×4 bakkie and drives alongside the 0,9m high fence that separates South Africa from […]
Millions of rands have been poured into an experimental abalone ranching project at Port Nolloth on the west coast.
Q & A Acclaimed jazz musician Don Laka recently launched his new album Supernova, his second recording as a solo artist. Playing solo allows him to be more experimental on acoustics. The name, Supernova, reflects Laka’s growing interest in cosmology. His first album, Destiny, was released internationally and led him to perform at the premier […]
Judge Willem Heath has always said the public and the media are his commission’s greatest allies in the fight against corruption. It is a pity he cannot say the same of senior ministers in the government, notably the two who should have most to gain from his commission’s efforts: Minister of Justice Penuell Maduna and […]
John Matshikiza WITH THE LID OFF Whose town is this Johannesburg, anyway? The city centre swarms with an aggressive cacophony of black bodies that is unrecognisable if your mental picture is still stuck on the metropolis that was thrown up into the highveld sky by the heirs of Cecil Rhodes and Alfred Beit. Jo’burg has […]
Midi TV, owner of fledgling broadcaster e.tv, is besieged by problems, report Mungo Soggot, Donna Block and Ivor Powell Embattled television company Midi TV has hired one of South Africa’s most respected broadcast managers, Quentin Green, to help save fledgling broadcaster e.tv from the gallows. Midi TV’s chief executive officer, Marcel Golding, confirmed this week […]