Elvis Costello pays tribute to Frank Sinatra My mam tells me that one of my first words was “skin”. I was not an especially precocious child, I couldn’t say whole sentences, but I knew how to request that I’ve Got You under My Skin be played on the family record player. Then again, I might […]
Shaun de Waal CD of the week The Bassline in Melville, Johannesburg, has proved itself to be one of the city’s most reliable jazz joints, perhaps even its best. Everyone who is anyone in South African jazz has played there, and this CD, Jazz at the Bassline (Sheer Sound), collects 12 works by this country’s […]
Tangeni Amupadhi Gangs have triumphed in Westbury – Johannesburg’s equivalent of the Cape Flats ganglands – after promises of big business and politicians have come to naught. In recent weeks four men have been slain in gun fights – an event familiar to this dirt-poor community which, for decades, has enjoyed the notoriety of having […]
Andy Duffy Psychiatric patients treated and released by Western Cape health authorities have killed seven people over the past 18 months, including two children, amid an apparent collapse in the system set up to monitor them. The former patients, all from the high- security forensic unit at Cape Town’s Valkenberg hospital, represent a small proportion […]
Wally Lambert If you’re thinking about trying your hand at the stock-market game – we’re not talking unit trusts here – you’ll be pleased to know it’s getting easier and cheaper for the man in the street to buy shares. Unlike shopping for bread in the supermarket, buying shares on the stock exchange requires the […]
Hitler had two dreams. One, to take over the world. Two, to create the ‘people’s car’. Thankfully, the first failed, but the second lived on to escape its Nazi enslavement. Jonathan Glancey looks back on the social history of the Volkswagen Beetle When in January 1945 Adolf Hitler returned to Berlin from the Wolf’s Lair […]
A US-linked consultant offered to advise on the premier’s security, writes Stefaans Brmmer A private security adviser this year made a bizarre proposal to spy on be- half of Gauteng Premier Mathole Motshekga. The Mail & Guardian is in possession of a draft contract between the premier’s office and security consultant Bob Power – composed […]
Andrew Worsdale and Phillip Kakaza Announcing at the Cannes Film Festival this week that he would begin shooting the film of Nelson Mandela’s autobiography in October, South African producer Anant Singh said he was still searching for the right man to play the lead role. He said he hoped to find an African for that […]
Wonder Hlongwa The offices of three southern Cape newspapers have been burnt to the ground in an apparent revenge attack for reporting on the activities of gangs in the Hangklip area. The offices of the Hangklip Herald, Hermanus Herald and Gansbaai Herald were set alight in the early hours of last Monday morning. A petrol […]
Ferial Haffajee ‘Steady as he goes.” The seafarer’s motto has served Don Ncube well, and next month this captain of industry steers his ship into new seas. In June he will list Real Africa Durolink, an investment bank of which he owns 37%. These banks are all the rage in this age of mergers, acquisitions […]