From today Friday 11 September, News24.com will stop hosting comments on its website, a favourite space that used to attract thousands of comments a day. In announcing the decision on Tuesday, News24.com’s editor-in-chief Andrew Trench said the South African news website had invested a large amount of money in developing a new news site that focused […]

I’ll be the first to admit I know nothing about standup comedy. I’ve probably seen a couple of comedians live, and several dozen on YouTube. I can’t figure out Sarah Silverman (but she seems nice enough) and I adore Amy Schumer (that face, that unexpected whammy in the stomach, that brilliant Roast of Charlie Sheen!). […]

I’m going to describe a city that has been down on its luck for the past few years. No, make that decades. The downtown area in particular – the city centre – is one people have religiously made a point of avoiding. The test for you afterwards is to try and name the city. Actually, […]

The term ‘canned hunting’ probably leaves many people scratching their heads. But for the folks behind Campaign against Canned Hunting (CACH) – who are holding the Global March for Lions this Saturday in Johannesburg – it’s a deadly business. The theme behind this year’s march, which will take place outside the Lion Park in Lanseria, […]

The second season of the swashbuckler television series filmed in South Africa, Black Sails, starts in the United States this weekend. Starring Toby Stephens, it was filmed on location at the Cape Town Film Studios on the road out to Somerset West, where the set doubles for 1715 Nassau during the Golden Age of Piracy. […]

The SanWild sanctuary is on the brink of closure unless urgent funding can be secured. As South Africa’s only dedicated rhino and elephant sanctuary under the control of an animal welfare organisation, this closure would be tragic. The sanctuary has provided a protected refuge for injured, orphaned and traumatised wild animals for the past 14 years, where […]

A strange thing has been happening to Johannesburg lately – people are noticing it. While the rest of the world, especially glossy magazines and TV lifestyle programs, have been focusing on Cape Town, Johannesburg has slowly been getting on with business. The latest to pay attention is Good Magazine, an American quarterly brought out by […]

There are probably few places that conjure ambience more than a library with mahogany shelves crammed with books, all centered on a crackling fireplace. So it’s not surprising that when Cape Town International Airport scored badly on its ambience rating, someone came up with the idea of putting in a library. In June, after a […]

What was a well-kept South African secret is now kind of out the bag. National Geographic Adventure magazine has named Muizenberg as one of the 20 Best Surfing Towns in the world, joining such esteemed company as Byron Bay in Australia, Hanatei in Hawaii, Biarritz in France and Bukit Peninsula in Bali. Most of us […]

A South African advertising agency could be taking its cue from the iconic Kevin Costner movie In ‘The Field of Dreams.’ In the movie, Costner’s character gets this crazy notion that he must build a baseball field in the middle of his corn farm in Iowa. A voice keeps telling him, ‘If you build it […]

It’s no secret that South Africa has some of the best (and wildest) open-water swimmers in the world. The British have the English Channel, but we have the Mozambique (read: shark-infested) Channel, which became a body of water to traverse (or is it traswim) when Thane Williams and Jonno Proudfoot did so in April. That […]

Two of the most iconic theaters in New York City are celebrating the 20th anniversary of apartheid’s demise and Nelson Mandela’s inauguration by showcasing one of the country’s most explosive new exports, culture. Singers and artists are gracing events backed by Carnegie Hall and Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater starting this week and running through November. The […]

Nat Nakasa finally started his journey home today, fifty years after he didn’t want to leave. At a church in the north of Manhattan, not far from where Nakasa jumped out of a seventh-floor window of a building near Central Park in 1965, a service was held to mark the beginning of the repatriation of […]

I must confess that I’d never read much of Mark Gevisser before someone at work in New York brought me this book because it had Johannesburg in the title and I was a South African. They thought I’d relate. Which I did, except it was more to the title than to the author. At last, […]

We love Jo’burg! I have always been a fan of Johannesburg, but never more so than a few weeks ago, after spending only four days there. This city is pulsing, pulling in vibes and influences from all over the world to create a metropolis quite unlike any other. Even the people who live there are […]