General

It seems like we say this every season but this year’s racing has been outstanding; from the first race of the season in Australia to the Tour of Flanders this past weekend. Breakaways have stayed away by two seconds, Tommy Voeckler has done what he does best (attack and win) and strong teams on paper […]

You sit down to enjoy a cup of coffee with a friend and at one point or another your friend needs to dart off to visit little girls’ room. You know they will only be gone for three mins but for some strange reason you think and feel as though those three mins are the […]

The first story is about Jacob. Now Jacob, son of Isaac wanted to get married. So he went to his uncle’s crib, who had two daughters. One hot. The other not so much. The oldest daughter was not so hot because the Bible says, “Leah had weak eyes”. I suspect she was squint. The younger […]

The Justice Department, when it comes to matters of the Bearded Folk, has the patience of Job. This, as the deadline for comments on the Muslim Marriages Bill has been extended — again. Not that this need to “allow for maximum participation” isn’t an admirable gesture. But the first draft was published 10 years ago. […]

In his recent book, The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism (2010), David Harvey — Distinguished Professor at City University of New York and one of the world’s most cited thinkers — puts paid to any idea that anyone may have had, that the most recent global financial crisis, that started in 2008 […]

By Shelagh Gastrow The South African government has established two key agencies to support our civil society. They are the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund and the National Development Agency. However, their activities and decision-making lie in the mist of obscurity. Organisations are starting to call for greater transparency as it is unclear whether they […]

The windows shattered a few feet away from me and the stranger, a blonde, petite young lass dressed stylishly for revolution in South Africa, 1990. A horde of people charged towards us amid the thud of rubber bullets and teargas smeared our faces. It was the day of Mandela’s release and first appearance in the […]

Today Ricky Ponting resigned as the captain of the Australian cricket teams, ODI and Test cricket. Now as Saffers we are known to have a love-hate relationship with the Aussies, that’s probably because they’re what we want to be. They are what we know we can be if certain crucial quarters pull the right finger […]

Today is the second semi-final of the Cricket World Cup and the national broadcaster, the one which is in such managerial disarray, is not broadcasting the match. Probably the bigger of the two semi-finals to cover, although they would not know that at the time of contract negotiation. What would have happened if the Proteas […]

There is no denying that the launch of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA) “do-not-contact registry” to allow South African customers to permanently opt out of all unsolicited marketing communications will be a massive step forward for consumer rights. But customers need to understand the limitations of the mechanism and companies need to be ready to […]

Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th century American philosopher, lecturer and essayist, once said, “go often to the house of thy friend, for weeds choke the unused path”. That statement says a lot about how cricket fans in South Africa are or not feeling about the Proteas at the moment. First, let’s get the definitive out […]