What is sport, and who decides what counts as a sport? High school coaches will tell you that sport is fun, as they nick the heels of weeping 13-year-olds with a well-oiled…
Thirty days ago nobody had heard of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf. Today everybody has a favourite “Comical Ali” one-liner. The Iraqi minister of information has spawned a T-shirt…
For those who continue to bleat about unfair domination in sport, I have four letters: USSR.
The fag-end of a Cape Town summer is a bad-tempered swelter. The heat is frayed, its December esprit evaporated with the ice-cream and tourists. What remains is an exhausted,…
By far the most popular attractions each year at Sasol SciFest, the exhibitions are set to outdo themselves this year with the return of old favourites, some fresh young blood…
If you are too young to have learnt to spell the word “science”, don’t worry – Sasol SciFest has a special programme for children aged four to eight. Called the Playfair,…
Putting women at the forefront of scientific research has been one of the greatest challenges of the National Research Foundation (NRF). The object of the NRF is to support and…
"The audience was now openly hostile, its mute boredom transformed into a continuous murmur of discontent, like angry bees massing in the heat of summer. He thought he saw the…
The story so far: her hull holed by an iceberg, the ferry begins to sink. Todd and Janet declare their true feelings. DeShawn commits a faux pas when talk turns to prosthetic…
In 1911, Gustave Flaubert launched a valiant but vain broadside at the hypocrisy, doublespeak, platitudes and banality of the bourgeois chattering classes. Three years after the…
Those who attack American interests around the globe, who incite peaceful native populations to fanaticism and violence, and who undermine democracy must expect swift and…
Revelations that South Africa attempted to stop a Southern African Development Community (SADC) judicial delegation, declaring the mission “unnecessary”, have resulted in…
A few years ago a student of mine handed in a final-year essay containing the words “correlative”, “oeuvre” and “mandate”. Since I knew the author to be an intellectual pimple…
Sport is elitist. Anyone who wants to argue that toss needs to go two rounds with a pro fighter, and then we’ll see if fuzzy notions of universal brotherhood persist. Sport…
Tom Eaton has met the brain drain. "He’s ghastly. He doesn’t challenge his world-view by reading newspapers (or reading anything, for that matter), so I could name him with…
The Department of Sport and Recreation, in collaboration with a leading pet food manufacturer, has announced that legislation to legalise greyhound racing will be introduced…
The Sky News “Hijack Live” box was disappointingly immobile. As Rupert Murdoch fed the informational equivalent of white sugar to England’s lowest common denominator on his news…
Zimbabwe will host the 2012 Olympics or die trying. This was the word this week from President Robert Mugabe, as he officially endorsed his country’s bid to host the sporting…
I drink Diet Coke. It makes me feel good. It helps me retain my boyish figure. It calms me down. It peps me up. It sings me to sleep at night. I love Diet Coke. I want Diet Coke.…
Short of admitting that you didn’t vote Democratic Alliance, there is no quicker way of being stricken from social rolls in Cape Town than to declare a loathing for beach-going.…
