If one of your goals in 2013 is to take more time off and get fit while also getting into nature, then we have lots right on our doorstep in Joburg.   I was sent the Friends of Kloofendal newsletter and was amazed by the range of activities and events on offer.
Run by Joburg City [...]

Included in Frommer’s 2012 SA edition under Hyde Park and surrounds, Liz at Lancaster appears in the ‘moderate’ price category below Southern Sun Hotel Hyde Park.  The moderate category seems a fairly elastic one as the rates for Southern Sun Hotel are shown on the range  from R1100 to 3,700 whereas Liz at Lancaster’s are shown [...]

Would any of these viewers have photographed this painting if the comment from the Presidency had been ‘no comment’?

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ferial Hafajee writes eloquently, subtly and critically (as always) on the debate between ‘the personal right to dignity’ and the right for freedom of expression (and so public debate and critique): http://www.citypress.co.za/Columnists/How-a-painting-divided-a-nation-20120527   I have currently not had [...]

Sean Fraser who has written several travel and guide books, has just published one which covers Johannesburg, Soweto, Pretoria and surrounds. I have not seen it yet so am looking forward to browsing through it.  I still think that Nechama Brodie’s book on Johannesburg : The Joburg Book published in 2008, is excellent. For more [...]

Ghandi’s philosphy of Satyagraha (non-violent non-cooperation) was born in South Africa and more specifically in what was then the Transvaal, in the first decade of the 20th Century.  Ghandi arrived in Johannebsurg in 1893 and stayed at various places during the 12 years he was in Johannesburg. For more on this see Eric Itzkin’s excellent book [...]

Yesterday Boekehuis hosted Mark Gevisser, Mbeki’s biographer, in conversation with Fiona Forde, Malema’s biographer. Mark engaged Fiona to expand on some of the issues raised in her biography of Malema: ‘An Inconvenient Youth’. An informed, informative, measured and fascinating interchange followed. Forde’s take is that it is not over till the fat man sings, (my label [...]

. Hugo and Cleary won the non-EU section of the music video category with their black-and-white video for Mathambo’s electronic cover version of Joy Division’s ‘She’s Lost Control’. Well worth watching see http://mg.co.za/article/2011-06-24-pieter-hugo-wins-young-director-award-at-cannes/

Remember there’s a total lunar eclipse on Wednesday 15th June. It starts at 8:22pm, is total from 9:21 pm to 11:02pm, and ends at 00:02am. It will be visible from all of Africa, although north-west Africa misses the start. You don’t need any special equipment to watch this. The next total lunar eclipse will be [...]

See  http://www.sagoodnews.co.za/blog/my_south_africa_by_jonathan_jansen.html#

Mark Gevisser wrote about South African identity in both the build up to the World Cup  Cup http://www.timeslive.co.za/sundaytimes/article439527.ece/I-want-to-imagine-the-SA-of-my-dreams  as well as after the final whistle had been blown:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/jul/10/south-africa-unites-over-football . See his latest take  on what it means to be a South African in late 2010:  http://www.arttimes.co.za/news_read.php?news_id=2683