General

News Corp, whose founder Rupert Murdoch has for some time been railing at freely available online news has now announced that it will be teaming up with Microsoft in its fight against free news providers, specifically Google. How this is going to pan out is that “little piece of code in each article would make […]

This whole world, especially the African continent, is fast running out of leadership material. When you look around, it is very easy to see successful men and women who have “made it” in politics or business, whatever that means. In fact, the number of people, especially in the African community, who have made it in […]

“A voice cries out in the desert: ‘Prepare the way for the Lord! Make his paths straight!’ ” — Somewhere in the Good Book. The Mayans said the world would end in 2012 and we laughed them off. Then we started having all these fulfilments of end-of-days scenarios. All manner of evil upon the land; skinny […]

Wian du Preez 7 — Good, solid if unspectacular debut. Welcome onboard son. Good to have a sound alternative to Beast. Adriaan Strauss 7 — Again. Solid, no fireworks, but not much wrong either. Also handy to have when Bismarck needs a rest. They are doing some seriously good work in the Free State with […]

Forget the Thierry Henry of Arsenal days. Forget the mazy runs, the languid sprint and the delightful finishes. There is only one Henry that football will remember, and that is the cheat who popped up on Wednesday night. He used to be revered as “Titi” the legend, but he can now remove a single “i” […]

What is the obsession with mediocrity? Compromise! Middling, equivocal, moderated and ultimately ineffectual solutions. There is only so much oil under the ground, and the same goes for natural gas, coal and uranium. There are only so many rivers for hydroelectricity and the full cost accounting on renewables is harsh: even the best dream of […]

By Pamela Weaver It’s taken me 23 years, but at last I understand why my old man, who is English, still can’t let go of Maradona’s infamous “hand of God” goal against England in the 1986 World Cup. Next time he enters into what, for more than two decades, I have only ever heard as […]

There exists a disturbing phenomenon in our country where no one person appears to be eager to assume responsibility for their individual deeds. The culture of blame shifting and victimhood is so deeply entrenched in the fibre of society that none of us appear willing to account for our individual actions, nor do we muster […]

As Jews one of the first things we learn is that suicide is absolutely taboo. It can never be condoned in religious terms and accordingly should never even be contemplated. There are even separate burial laws for those who have done the deed. Of course in logistical terms there are far more compelling reasons why […]

So I am back in the country. In Cape Town shooting a commercial. Yes, Cape Town. And yes, I know I wrote an article slagging off the place. But that’s life. Full of irony. It has been a great trip. The weather has treated us fairly well (if you can ignore the wind). Our crew […]

“Scrum, scrum, scrum!” The immortal words whispered down from Springbok generation to generation. Someone must have forgotten to tell the vintage of 2009. The Springbok year-end tour is destined for the annals of disaster as the Springboks succumbed to their third tour defeat in a row against “SA – Racens” last night. The English are […]

You might ask what do the Springboks and Stuart Tinner have in common. If your answer is £250 000 (about R3.1 million) you would be right. Each received £250 000 for last night’s performance and some may argue that Tinner showed more talent. Tinner by the way is the chap, who in his socks, kicked a 30m punt […]