Andrew Muchineripi : Soccer National soccer coach Philippe Troussier spent this month shifting through the local and foreign-based talent available to him and now has a list of 30 World Cup hopefuls. One of the most eagerly awaited national squads since the birth of Bafana Bafana is scheduled to be named late next week for […]
Charl Blignaut : Music awards It was pretty evident, on entering the Civic Theatre in Johannesburg on Saturday night, that the 1998 FNB South African Music Awards (Samas) were not going to be the Grammys. The red carpet was peeling up from the steps, liberating several strips of thick white masking tape keeping it in […]
Ferial Haffajee and Sechaba ka Nkosi : WORKERS’ DAY SUPPLEMENT The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) has decided not to field candidates in next year’s election. In a break with a tradition set in 1994 when the labour federation sent 20 top unionists to Parliament, it has now decided not to do so. […]
Andy Capostagno : Rugby Maybe he knew. Maybe he knew that even he couldn’t improve upon 74-28 and that therefore retirement was the most sensible option. Sean Fitzpatrick was probably sitting in the stands at Eden Park on Sunday watching his beloved Auckland Blues deconstruct the Western Stormers and he probably thought, hell, I can’t […]
Durban will once again host a number of international and South Africa poets, when the second Poetry Africa festival takes place at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre, from May 4 to 9. Some 20 poets will present and read from their work and engage in discussion. Jamaican-born musician/poet Linton Kwesi Johnson is the opening-night headliner. Well […]
Duncan Mackay : London Marathon When Dick Beardsley came over from the United States in 1981 to run in the first London Marathon, he received R125E000. This year R1,25-million was set aside to be divided between two runners, the respective Olympic and world champions, for appearing in the race last Sunday, with Josiah Thugwane of […]
Barbara Ludman REIGN IN HELL by William Diehl (Heinemann, R99,95) LUCKY YOU by Carl Hiaasen (Macmillan, R84) Thrillers reflect Americans’ concerns more accurately than CNN – and when one has books by two bestselling writers focusing on right-wing militias, it’s a fair bet that that phenomenon figures in American nightmares. Militias rose to general consciousness […]
Ferial Haffajee South Africa’s trade mission to Angola jetted into Luanda this week with a mandate to fix what apartheid strong-arm tactics destroyed. Pundits say it will cost Southern Africa more than R50-billion to rebuild the rail and road links the previous government helped to destroy. This week President Nelson Mandela and his trade gurus […]
Chris Roper As Mark Coetzee’s black and white photographs once again raise their shapely penises on either side of the acrylic painting of a South African monument that constitutes the middle panel of his Triptych, censorship once again raises its ugly little head in the middle of conservative Stellenbosch University. The last time this happened […]
Anthony Egan LAST DAYS IN CLOUD CUCKOOLAND: DISPATCHES FROM WHITE AFRICA by Graham Boynton (Jonathan Ball, R99,95) This book is hard to categorise. Its title makes it sounds like journalism; parts of it read like an attempt to understand the democratic transition in South Africa. Much of it is reminscences of a childhood in what […]