Stephen Gray : Unspoilt places All roads into Warmbaths lead to the Elephant Springs Hotel. This is the resort’s old bed-and-brandy joint, the Bronnehof, reclad for all modern travellers wishing to arrive in the Waterberg district. For an introduction try the wooden deck over the main drag, where a menu of genius rejuvenates the weary […]
He’s a white Californian with an internationalist musical style. Janet Smith speaks to guitarist Ry Cooder about his Cuban recordings An old man is dressed for the superb Havana afternoon: dazzling white shoes like ice- creams peeking out from his trouser bottoms; shimmering white hat slithered low over his brows. He lifts his hand to […]
Julian Drew : Swimming Eighteen months is a long time in swimming. At the 1994 world swimming championships in Rome Penny Heyns placed sixth in the 100m breastroke final in a time of 1:10.46 and fifth in the B final over 200m in 2:33.57. Those performances received barely a mention in the nation’s sports pages […]
wilderness Nicky Barker Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry Kader Asmal applied this week for a court order to evict a community illegally living in a proclaimed wilderness area in northern KwaZulu-Natal. The land in question is the Ntendeka Wilderness Area in Ngome Forest, 5 230ha of mixed coastal forest 70km east of Vryheid. It […]
Ann Eveleth South African household furnishings are shrinking to fit into government-built homes – and to lower costs in line with falling consumer spending power, say retailers. OK Furniture, a division of OK Bazaars, said this week it had seen a sharp rise in sales of “slimline refrigerators and ovens” during the past four to […]
Cheche Selepe Life has not been the same for the Malebane household in Katlehong, near Germiston, since the brutal rape and subsequent murder of six-year-old Mamokgethi Malebane last year. Mamokgethi’s younger sister Emma and the other children in the neighbourhood are obeying the new law of the household: never shake the hand of any male […]
The Market’s new play is set in the Big Top, without words — just the sound of a violin. Janet Smith spoke to star Sue Pam- Grant When you’re a kid, you don’t notice the inevitable mud that accompanies a circus because some soft adult is lugging you through the brown slush towards the glitter […]
Mungo Soggot The panel appointed to investigate Emanuel Shaw II’s top state oil job finished its probe this week after hearing testimony from Gordon Sibiya, the senior government official leading the charge against Shaw’s R3-million appointment. The acting director general of the Department of Minerals and Energy, Dick Bakker, said this week that after hearing […]
Neil Manthorp : Cricket Mike Rutherford of the music band Mike and the Mechanics wrote a moving tribute to his late father called The Living Years. It became a hit in most of the world, including South Africa. Hansie Cronje, the South African cricket captain, enjoys the song very much indeed and has included the […]
When Evelyn Groenink set out to investigate the murder of Dulcie September, she found herself embroiled in a Kafkaesque world full of French secret service plots and fake publications In March 1990, while investigating Dulcie September’s workplace for the period just prior to her murder, I discovered something odd. The small company across the hallway […]