Maureen Barnes Down the tube Two local programmes gave me the worst case of dyspepsia in the past week. First came Top Billing, which has a certain jolliness about it -but it then confronted us with a profile on Edith Venter. Many readers outside Gauteng will be muttering “Who dat?” – which would undoubtedly depress […]

Andrew Worsdale Movies of the week Film release patterns are very strange. One week there’s a host of movies and film festivals opening, and the next there’s virtually zip to write about. This week sees only four new movies being released, in comparison to last week’s seven along with the feast of films featured in […]

Review of the week Brenda Atkinson There are several possible responses to turn-of-the-century ennui, most of which involve an element of exhausted backlash and sudden nostalgia for other, better times and simpler cultural manifestations. I, for one, am aware of a growing yearning for time-honoured and outdated rituals like thought, beauty and big-band ballroom dancing. […]

retrenchments Evidence wa ka Ngobeni Final examinations at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) hang in the balance this year following ongoing unrest on the campus. Examinations have been postponed for two weeks, but the administration has not yet set a date for them to begin. In an extraordinary move, UWC’s senate has censured […]

Marianne Merten A key figure of the Cape Town gang and drug underworld has moved out of town in the face of new anti-organised crime legislation to clamp down on the profits of illegal dealings and assets bought with illicit profits. For some time Colin Stansfield, head of the drug cartel, The Firm, has been […]

Andy Capostagno Rugby With The Truman Show about to overrun our cinemas there will be those who look upon the final weekend of log fixtures in the Currie Cup as another example of media manipulation. Griquas play the Falcons, Western Province play Natal and the Blue Bulls play Free State. In terms of log positions, […]

Patrick Bond Share World `It is interesting that at times like this Mr [John Maynard] Keynes is again resurrected,” remarked South African Minister of Finance Trevor Manuel at the meeting with his Commonwealth counterparts in Ottawa at the end of last month. “There is a recognition that the standard prescription for macroeconomic stability and growth […]

WL Webb ALEXANDER SOLZHENITSYN: A CENTURY IN HIS LIFE by DM Thomas (Little, Brown) Somewhere in her great biography of her murdered poet-husband, Nadezhda Mandelstam quotes a 19th-century sage to the effect that “Russia exists to teach the rest of the world a lesson”. Whatever Freudian glosses one adds to his motivation, there is no […]

Mandy Collins For those of us without children, the last time school fees figured in our lives was when our parents gave us a small brown envelope for the school secretary, while they grumbled that R20 a term was akin to extortion. Well, times have changed, and if you’re considering parenthood, or have just had […]

OWN CORRESPONDENT, Harare | Friday 4.15pm. THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, a parastatal meant to boost the country’s international tourist business, is to confront President Robert Mugabe on his tendency to commandeer state-owned Air Zimbabwe aircraft at short notice, leaving passengers stranded. A number of industry players, including the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority and the Zimbabwe Tourism […]