Michael Billington: London theatre I have measured out my life in productions of Uncle Vanya – two in particular, by Laurence Olivier and Peter Stein, will haunt me to my grave. Katie Mitchell’s RSC/Young Vic co-production may not be on quite the same exalted plane, but it remains a treasurable occasion, penetrating the memory for […]
Lucy Hannan in Garissa It has taken a Cabinet minister’s threat to resign to make the Kenyan government launch an inquiry into allegations ofEpolice torture and sexual humiliation during an operation against bandits in North-Eastern province. Maalim Mohammed, a staunch supporter of President Daniel arap Moi since 1983, produced video evidence of torture in his […]
Jeremy Cronin: CROSSFIRE General Georg Meiring’s blunder in passing on to President Nelson Mandela a cock-and-bull story about a “left-wing” plot has got me thinking about Reserve Bank governor Chris Stals. What is the connection, you wonder? There have been persistent rumours about Stals’s role in the apartheid-era State Security Council. Little light has been […]
Ferial Haffajee The cocktail of a showbiz doyenne, an African princess and a struggle lawyer can only yield interesting results. This combination has seen African Media Entertainment (AME) cause quite a stir on the stock exchange and in the entertainment and film industries. From their offices at the MTN Sundome outside Johannesburg, David Dison (AME’s […]
M&G reporter Gauteng Premier Mathole Motshekga this week strongly denied spying allegations, accusing the Mail & Guardian of a vendetta against him, the African National Congress and the government. Motshekga’s representative, Makhosini Nkosi, responded in writing. l On the investigation by the Negota inquiry, he said: “To the best of our knowledge, the said commission […]
What is the appeal of sitting in a kind of bar, staring into a computer screen?Swapna Prabhakaran investigated Internet cafs Looking for a lounge where they serve real coffee, where the music alternatively spins between kwaito and techno? Or would you rather sip sherry at a nice cosy cabaret? You can do all that and […]
Robert Kirby: LOOSE CANNON At our peril we are all ignoring another fine example Dr Nkosazana Zuma has given us of audacious democratic management skills. Especially when it comes to applying discipline to insolent apartheid-residual control bodies, Nkosazana leads the way. As they say in the good book: if thine hand offends thee, cut it […]
Andy Duffy The group behind the controversial Aids drug, Virodene PO58, has so far spent around R1- million on the drug, including paying its manager roughly R150 000 for three months’ part- time work. Cryopreservation Technologies (CPT) refuses to divulge its funding sources, beyond its 10 feuding shareholders. But the extent of the expenditure, which […]
Bill Buford: GRAFFITI The literary news in New York has been of acquisitions. The most noteworthy, of course, is the acquisition of Random House by Bertelman’s. The Pierpont Morgan library has just been given a gift of rare “American literary properties” collected by Carter Burden, a New York businessman with an interest in the media […]
Janine Stephen Is clearing alien vegetation pouring money into a bottomless pit? Not if it is done correctly. But if no follow-up work is done, you can be back at where you began within a year. South African National Parks (SANP) was given R5-million in January on behalf of Working for Water, to clear areas […]
What do you think? We invite our readers to respond to John Pilger’s analysis of South Africa. The best replies will each receive a free copy of his latest book, Hidden Agendas, published by Vintage. Fax your responses to (011) 403-1025 or e-mail [email protected]
Richard Williams: Movie of the week It has all the virtues of a classic British costume drama. A dead-on sense of period. Clothes so exquisite they make you want to go shopping. What a surprise, then, that we emerge from The Wings of the Dove thinking mostly about sex. Sex and Henry James? Hardly the […]
Shot dead at a taxi rank this week, James Zulu is more likely to be remembered as an Inkatha warlord than the great leader he could have been, writes Jesper Strudsholm The South Coast Herald once branded James Zulu “a warlord”. Zulu threatened to take the editor to court for defamation, but the paper was […]
A paediatrician’s love of orchids led to the discovery that big doses of garlic could triumph over infection, writes Michael Nurok The Roman statesman Cicero advised that one should eat to live, not live to eat. Little did he know that more than 2 000 years later, gravely ill patients at Cape Town hospitals might […]
Mathole Motshekga’s past has come under new scrutiny from the ANC, writes Stefaans Brummer The African National Congress is investigating claims that Gauteng Premier Mathole Motshekga spied for the apartheid government. An ANC commission of inquiry – appointed in February to investigate a string of allegations against Motshekga, primarily of financial irregularities – has now […]
Andy Capostagno Cricket People tell me I have a nice job. Go to as many rugby and cricket matches as you like, don’t pay to get in, write a few lines about the match and spend the rest of the day relaxing in the pool on one of those inflatable chairs with a hole in […]
Despite facing stringent budget cuts, the military has paid out hefty merit bonuses – mainly to white officers, writes Mungo Soggot The Ministry of Defence is probing the armed forces’ decision to pay officers R77-million in performance bonuses, nearly all of which went to white officers of the former South African Defence Force (SADF). Amid […]
Malcolm Hacksley SOLSTICE by Don Maclennan (Snailpress/Scottish Cultural Press, R49) Don Maclennan is intensely respectful towards words, his own and those of others, and uses them remarkably sparingly. The subjects and ideas in these poems call forth a spontaneous response, but the Maclennan response is rigorous in its self-control. Perhaps it is true that “songs […]
As the dust of an almost bewildering media storm finally begins to settle around Breyten Breytenbach’s Boklied, Charl Blignaut asks what the reaction to the play means One should have smelled it from a mile off, really, the faint whiff of scandal rising from the Boklied posters mingling with the cloying fragrance of potpourri and […]
Jarvis Cocker is a latter-day folk hero in Britain. He talks to Caroline Sullivan about his and Pulp’s new album Jarvis Cocker is one of rock’s great kitchen-sink lyricists, so it was fitting that our first meeting took place in a kitchen. It was late 1992, at a party in a south London council flat. […]
Who is . . . Vuka Tshabalala? Swapna Prabhakaran and Mungo Soggot Judges rarely open their mouths outside court. When they do, it is never about their cases. And it is almost never about themselves. It was therefore a surprising decision on the part of Judge Vuka Tshabalala to abandon the rule of silence outside […]
Dear Phillipe:…It certainly has not taken you long to become a household name in South Africa. One week to be precise. Snubbing the media, intimidating and humiliating players. What a start! I know you were critical of the South Africa media long before you set foot on our soil because I read your interview with […]
Unesco has declared 23 April -William Shakespeare’s birthday -the annual World Day of the Book. The idea has spread rapidly and successfully over much of the world. In Catalonia, Spain, for instance, there is a festival of bookselling, and buyers are given a rose. In Holland a well-known author writes a small book and this […]
There are an estimated 7,5-million illiterate adults in South Africa, but the number of adults who are poorly educated and ill-equipped to participate in our economy is much higher. But even for those who can, there is little to read. The recent Department of Education policy document and the multi-year plans released by the department’s […]
THURSDAY, 5.15PM: FORMER state president PW Botha was itching for his trial to continue on Thursday afternoon, but it has been postponed to June 1 to allow his lawyers time to examine additional documents presented by the prosecution. Botha said: “This case was set for four days. Come let’s go on.” He told advocate Piet […]
Last week, Matthew van der Want argued that we should be ashamed of the success of `clichd’ band Just Jinger. Diane Coetzer disagrees At least Matthew van der Want has the one characteristic always admired in the surfers who took to Umhlanga’s most lethal waves: pluck. But, in this case, the word applies less to […]
Jane Rosenthal WAY UP WAY OUT by Harold Strachan (David Philip, R42,99) It’s a strange practice this, of putting out a brand new novel, first print run of the first edition, with snippets of review-type comment already adorning the cover. Way Up Way Out has been done in this way. And it’s not just any […]
Brenda Atkinson Excuse me, I’m about to gush. The object of this critical affirmation is a 500-page directory that will raise the excluded and chronically confused cultural majority in South Africa to the minority ranks (such as they are) of the cognoscenti. A big welcome to the South African Handbook on Arts and Culture for […]
FRIDAY, 4.00PM: FORMER Sarfu vice-president Brian van Rooyen, author of the dossier that spurred a commission of inquiry into the South African Rugby Football Association’s affairs, said he will urge the government to appeal the Pretoria High Court’s decision to set the commission aside. “This decision doesn’t vindicate Sarfu by any means,” he said, and […]
Gareth Patterson: A SECOND LOOK The hunting fraternity initially blamed the animal rights lobby for the expos of “canned” lion hunting last year. They said it was a means of tarring South Africa’s conservation image just prior to the June meeting of the Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species and of dampening the Southern […]
A decade ago the satirist Pieter-Dirk Uys portrayed a beer-paunched yob drunkenly staggering around the stage, yelling: “I’m a white South African – so fuck you all!” The audience would giggle nervously at their recognition of this familiar bully, the quintessential macho rugger-bugger, reckless, brainless and loud, flaunting his bigotry at all those unfortunate enough […]
WEDNESDAY, 11.30AM: PRESIDENT Nelson Mandela has been warned by a traditional healer that his ancestors may be upset after he was attacked by a swarm of bees at his ancestral home in Qunu, Transkei, on Saturday. According to presidential aide Parks Mankahlana, Mandela was stepping out of a bath at his Qunu residence when a […]