Dan Glaister Three yars ago it seemed that British pop music was back to its best. Oasis and Blur were fighting it out for the number one spot, Pulp and Suede were in the wings, and the Britpop sound was set to conquer America. But today it is a different picture. Record sales are in […]
madness’ As a falling yen caused stock market ripples, famous economist John Kenneth Galbraith, approaching 90, speaks to Ben Laurance and William Keegan Let’s start with Japan. What do you see as the medium-term and long-term game? Japan is still in the aftermath of one of the great speculative episodes of our time – both […]
The government’s reluctance to hold Cabinet ministers accountable for their performance in office has reached ridiculous levels in the saga of Penuell Maduna, the minister of minerals and energy. This newspaper long ago pointed to Maduna’s recklessness and lack of judgment, suggesting he had neither the ability nor the temperament to head up such a […]
Maureen Freely: A SECOND LOOK As anyone who has ever tried to join it can tell you, the Mile High Club is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s almost impossible to get into position without letting at least one fellow passenger in on the secret. You have to be prepared to stop writhing, […]
Alex Duval Smith in Casamance A quarter of a million West Africans fleeing on foot from fighting in Guinea-Bissau without food or water are heading north into another civil war where they face landmines, hostile Senegalese troops and swamps. As this human emergency advances on Casamance – the region of Senegal where a 16-year independence […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon As the Cold War faltered and ended, the civilised world breathed a sigh of cautious relief. At incredible expense in lives and hope, rampant socialism had been put back in its box. Before that it had been Hitler, just as expensive to crate and pack away. And so the list goes […]
Adam Haupt On show in Cape Town Schisstrrer Saves the Planet! takes its audience into the Willoughby world of schizophrenia. The show is framed by Guy Willoughbys familiar character, Major Schisstirrer. The retired and decidedly demented South African Defence Force character arrives to pitch his right-wing security plan, Bloed Rivier. This time he proposes the […]
Ian Jack BEYOND BELIEF by VS Naipaul (Little, Brown R89,95) In 1979 and 1980, VS Naipaul made a tour of Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia and Indonesia and reached the conclusion, in Among the Believers, that Islam was a poor receptacle for political needs; it couldnt teach people how to run a modern state. Fifteen years later, […]
David Shapshak Bill Gates meets Hugh Grant at a party and gets Divine Brown’s phone number from him, goes the joke doing the e-mail rounds this week. After a night-long romp with Brown, Gates says to her: ”Now I understand why you use the name Divine.” ”Having spent the night with you,” comes the response, […]
Steven Robins: CROSSFIRE Claudia Braude recently criticised Antjie Krog’s much acclaimed book Country of My Skull, for endorsing a postmodern sensibility that celebrates the slippery and subjective character of truth claims (Friday, June 12 to 18). The book, based on Krog’s personal experiences as an Afrikaans radio journalist covering the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, raises […]