There is the high veld, the middle veld, the low veld, the bush veld, and now thoughts from the thorn veld,
STEPHEN Poliakoff is a prolific and highly successful scriptwriter and film director, a Londoner by birth and career and now in his mid-60s. Like so many creative and accomplished Britons he is of relatively recent […]
Jonathan Jansen, As by Fire: The End of the South African University (Cape Town: Tafelberg, 2017) UNIVERSITIES are fragile institutions. They require calm and as little change and disruption as possible to enable their primary […]
THE seventh week of the year proved momentous for southern Africa. First, thief-in-chief President Jacob Zuma was forced to resign by his own party, but not before prevarication had allowed a number of his criminal […]
Mike Procter and Lungani Zama, Caught in the Middle: The Autobiography of Mike Procter (Cape Town: Don Nelson, 2017) A FEROCIOUSLY fast bowler who could turn to off spin, a dominating and entertaining middle order batsman, […]
Terry Shakinovsky and Sharon Cort with Lauren Segal, The Knock on the Door: The Story of the Detainees’ Parents Support Committee (Johannesburg: Picador Africa, 2018) DURING the 1980s, in its desperate attempt to delay liberation, […]
BEFORE, during and since the ANC’s elective conference in December last year much has been made of personalities. This is not without reason. President Jacob Zuma is widely regarded as ‘thief-in-chief’ and Cyril Ramaphosa’s election […]
Ray Hartley, The Big Fix: How South Africa Stole the 2010 World Cup (Johannesburg: Jonathan Ball, 2016) THE RUN-UP to the 2010 FIFA World Cup held in South Africa lasted five years. It was a remarkably […]
FOR many years there has been major excavation and traffic disruption at the junction of Oxford Street, Tottenham Court Road and Charing Cross Road in London. The reason is the massive tunnel being drilled through […]
PREFACE Over the years Pietermaritzburg’s daily newspaper, The Witness, was kind enough to publish my opinion pieces and the occasional feature article. For a while the former appeared in the series ‘New Ground’, along with […]
IT was a remarkable, passionate outburst of the sort for which Desmond Tutu has become famous. In November 2011 he roundly denounced the South African government over its failure (again) to issue the Dalai Lama […]