Neil Manthorp Cricket The worst possible news for England became the best thing that could have happened to Dominic Cork during the first Test. Darren Gough’s broken finger was the result of crass thinking from the dressing room. Amazingly, Alec Stewart declared after the match that his team had “played risky and daring cricket” and […]
Soccer legend Ruud Gullit gives his views on how to survive the biggest soccer event of its kind The most important thing is to take the first round very seriously indeed. It is not just a matter of getting the lesser nations out of the way before the real fun starts: teams that think that […]
This is a conflict as strangely conducted as it is pointless in origin, writes David Hirst in Zalambesa Zalambesa is a natural pathway for armies. It lies on what, when Eritrea was still a province of Ethiopia, was a main highway between Addis Ababa and Asmara. Set in spectacular landscape of deep gorges, fantastic rock […]
Adam Mars-Jones THE WHEREABOUTS OF ENEAS McNULTY by Sebastian Barry (Picador, R110) Sebastian Barry’s new novel is so full of magnetising beauty that it all but harasses a reader into submission. You can try to protest, to say, “I’m a reader and you’re a book, can we not keep this on a professional basis?”, but […]
Chris Roper The Smirnoff International Fashion Awards proved one thing: the fashion world is almost always at least five years behind whatever is culturally and ideologically current. This was brought home to me forcibly when I took my seat and found myself impaled on a glass ashtray. They’re actually encouraging people to smoke in the […]
Suzy Bell He’s decidedly upbeat, helluva hip and deliciously quirky. He’s the feverishly talented young editor of Directions men’s magazine. Brendan Cooper (28) is ever so stylish in antique velvet green Diesel jeans, black Woolies T-shirt, Adidas trainers. With a BA in psychology and after two years gallivanting around Europe, he cut his teeth on […]
Lesley Cowling A new state-of-the-art telescope to be built in the Karoo will give South African astronomers a window seat on the furthest journey yet through southern skies. The construction of the R100-million Southern African Large Telescope (Salt) at Sutherland, approved by Cabinet last week, means local cosmologists can now maintain their position at the […]
Ann Eveleth A row broke out this week between the Department of Agriculture and other parties engaged in the campaign against land degradation. The heated fracas – on the eve of World Desertification Day next Wednesday – follows a decision by national and provincial agriculture officials to disband a broad-based steering committee set up in […]
Princess Anne had some. So did the pope. And so did the king and queen of Spain. Mate de coca, that is, or coca tea. It is recommended for anyone arriving at the high altitude of La Paz, the capital of Bolivia in South America. The tea is credited with warding off the side effects […]
under the microscope Stories emerging at the truth commission this week of the apartheid government’s `chemical warfare’ sound farcical, but the results were sometimes deadly, writes David Beresford The difficulty was in deciding whether it was tragedy or farce that was being played out on the 10th floor of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s headquarters […]
South Africa’s economic fortune may once have been built on gold, but nowadays an ill-timed investment in the metal might just lead to economic ruin. Gold-board shares have recently become among the most volatile of choices, a victim of an erratic international gold price. But there are believers who claim there is money to be […]
Robert Kirby: Loose Cannon In Wachthuis mugs did Meyer Kahn A stately drivel-dome decree; Where George, the sacred fuzzman, ran By canons measureless to man Down to a Muf’madi. I think we’ve got ourselves a real treasure in Meyer Kahn, CEO of the South African Roundheads: Atmosphere for Crime Control Division. Not only is our […]
a game Shaun de Waal Soccer CD of the week When the words “World Cup” come up in conversation, I usually have to ask politely which sport is involved. Okay, it has now been drummed into me that most of the world is presently focusing its attention on a series of soccer games in France. […]
Wally Mbhele and Tangeni Amupadhi The controversial Fivaz report linking disillusioned elements of Umkhonto weSizwe (MK) and the Azanian People’s Army (Apla) to the recent theft of military arms originated from South African policemen assigned to the Robert McBride investigation. The report claims an organisation called Mkapla (an acronym for MK and Apla) plans to […]
Mungo Soggot An illegal investment company that preyed on elderly people has been taken over by the Reserve Bank, amid reports that the collapsed scheme’s mastermind has fled to Beirut with tens of millions of rands. The scheme, Proplace, promised many of its customers a monthly income. Many of them depended on this, after investing […]
Film-maker Wong Kar-Wai tells Rob Yates about his gay road movie, Happy Together, and about his other life It can get to be a bind, being the “most fashionable film director on the planet” (The Face magazine). Seriousness intrudes. People demand explanations, want to talk art. Why can’t they see that this movie- making lark […]
Richard Williams LUSH LIFE: A BIOGRAPHY OF BILLY STRAYHORN by David Hajdu (Granta, R89,95) Jazz has produced several memorable threnodies – one thinks of John Lewis’s lament for Django Reinhardt or Charles Mingus’s salute to Lester Young – but none more affecting than Blood Count, recorded by the Duke Ellington Orchestra in 1967, a few […]
David Shpashak So how do you go about getting a new phone? Find out from your service provider what deals they are offering. Because you already have a subscriber identification module (SIM) card and the reconnection fee is absorbed by the networks, you won’t have to pay for either of these otherwise hidden costs of […]
Some call burning flesh a `rite of passage’. Others say it’s an ugly throwback to slavery. But it’s a hot fashion statement, writes Lonnae O’Neal Parker Imagine a carefully fashioned coat-hanger, slow-roasted over the blue-green flame of a Magic Chef range, heading for the fleshy expanse of your upper arm, your chest or the side […]
Adam Habib: CROSSFIRE There have been a number of innovative and controversial contributions in this column and other sections of the Mail & Guardian about our failure to develop a people- centered democratic transition. First we had John Pilger’s analysis indicting the African National Congress government for taking care of the “haves” and forgetting the […]
Wonder Hlongwa The Ministry of Defence is facing a lawsuit after matric pupil Sibongiseni Zondi (19) died, allegedly as a result of being tortured by soldiers patrolling the conflict-ridden Dalton area in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands. Witnesses say Zondi was called by the soldiers to explain a hand gesture he made to a passing army Casspir. […]
Andy Duffy The charge of patronage politics resurfaced in the Western Cape this week amid claims that the National Party has spent more than R5-million of public money in a crude attempt to buy votes. The NP-led provincial government has doled out much of the cash – extra social services grants to homes for the […]
After Jackie Brown and Get Shorty he’s hot in Hollywood and hailed as a literary genius by writers like Amis and Bellow. But few realise that the king of crime fiction thinks most filmed versions of his novels have been junk. Lawrence Donegan reports In the Squad Seven room at 1300 Beaubein beats the dark […]
Phillip Kakaza Rock In black jeans and fuzzy T-shirts, four- piece band Metal Orizon could easily be mistaken for an Afro-pop band. Yet even before you see them perform, the name Metal Orizon gives you a clue as to what these funky Tswana dudes are up to. Unusually for black people, they are into heavy […]
Renting or letting a property doesn’t have to be a trying experience, writes Wally Lambert You’d think we’d be sufficiently warned by the countless horror movies showing innocent-looking tenants turning nasty or happy landlords becoming heartless to think carefully when entering into a lease or rental agreement. But, whether landlord or tenant, the whole rental […]
Tangeni Amupadhi A high court decision to extend the bail of three Afrikaner youths found guilty last week of murdering and assaulting black people has increased racial tension in the divided Upington community. Blacks in the town have criticised the bail extension as further proof of the judiciary’s lenience towards whites. The court heard the […]
Douglas Rushkoff: ONLINE No matter how much we might love to hate Bill Gates, we can’t help but have mixed feelings about the United States Justice Department and the two dozen or so states suing Microsoft for violating anti-trust laws. Fresh from their unsatisfying victory-with- no-spoils over the tobacco industry last season, US attorneys general […]
Andrew Worsdale Very infrequently does a movie stick to the top of my mouth. I’ve become inured to seeing mad-ass Hollywood rubbish, that our dear distributors launch on the stupefied public with as many as 37 prints, to satisfy movie mall “taste”. Happy Together is made by Hong Kong wunderkind Wong Kar-Wai and is released […]
Lizeka Mda Luvundu Junior Secondary School looks very familiar. After about 8km of gravel road out of Willowvale, I drive around the bend and there are the two characterless cream- coloured blocks of classrooms, joined by a shorter one for the staff room and principal’s office to make a U-shape. A new block of five […]
David Shapshak Buying a cellphone is easy. Upgrading to a new phone when your contract expires, isn’t. You can either just go out and buy yourself the latest hot item to hit the shelves, or play the sophisticated marketing game which enticed you to buy your contract in the first place: sign up for another […]
Alex Sudheim On show in Durban As a storyteller, Alson Ntshangase is more of a Dostoevsky than a Wordsworth. His darkly glowing paintings betray the workings of a mind far more interested in the skull beneath than the skin above. “If I start painting a rose I feel I am wasting my paint because I […]
Sechaba ka’Nkosi The South African Democratic Teachers’ Union (Sadtu) has warned there could be more disruptions in education if the ministry does not review some of its policies. This week, barely hours after the union claimed its most important victory since its inception eight years ago, Sadtu officials said there could be further strikes to […]