South africa

Depressed and demoralised after the defeat of his nation of farmers in the second Boer war, Eugène Marais, an Afrikaner patriot, lawyer, naturalist, poet, lifelong morphine addict and journalist, went to live with a troop of baboons in the then remote Waterberg area of South Africa. He camped in their vicinity and was gradually accepted by them and afforded a place in their society. His books about his experiences, My Friends the Baboons and The Soul of the Ape, have subsequently made his name as the father of the scientific study of the behaviour of animals. In The Soul of the Ape he proposed a theory of the evolution of

You can bet on all manner of scummy things on Paddy Power: when Fergie and Andrew will remarry; how Julian Assange will leave the Ecuadorian embassy (odds for him leaving in a diplomatic bag are currently 20/1). Now you can also bet on the outcome of the Pistorius trial. I’ve got a fiver on the Blade Runner getting off. I jest. But given the extensive coverage lavished on the trial so far, is it any wonder that people are starting to have a flutter. The scrutiny has been astonishing – with live television and radio broadcasts available for anyone who cares. South Africa even has a 24-hour TV channel devoted to coverage

The Duke of Cambridge deserves credit for bringing his influence to bear on the growing tragedy of the elephant, whose population is being decimated by poaching. But his advisers should have been quicker to dissuade him from one aspect of his campaign: the threat to dispose of his grandmother’s ivory collection. That Africa’s elephant population is in peril from poachers is not in doubt. Of a total of 400,000 living in the wild, around 50,000 were illegally killed last year, way beyond the numbers which the population could naturally withstand. The future is looking bleak, too, for wild rhino, 1,000 of which were poached in Africa last year out of

By god, you know matters have come to a wretched pass when you feel inclined to defend and protect the International Cricket Council. And yet, remarkably, such a moment is upon us. Like the old Roman republic, the ICC is threatened by a triumvirate. In this instance, Crassus is represented three times as India, England and Australia bid to carve up cricket’s empire between themselves. Few people doubt change is needed. The ICC has been broken for ages. It is easy to conclude that it has outlived its usefulness. Nevertheless, that does not mean any proposed alternative is going to produce better outcomes for cricket. The proposals for reforming cricket’s

Reading the obituaries last Friday, one was left with impression that Nelson Mandela’s only flaws were fastidiousness and a tendency to flirt with every pretty girl he met. Otherwise, he was exemplary in every respect, and of course a human right activist in the exactly the sense that Western liberals find winsome and cuddly. ‘Flawless,’ said Archbishop Tutu. ‘One of the true giants,’ said Blair.  Even the Tory Cameron could barely contain himself, describing Mandela as ‘the embodiment of grace.’  You had to have sharp ears to hear the discordant note struck by Johannesburg’s Business Day, which a ran a front-page story headlined, ‘South African Communist Party admits Mandela was

Sometimes when a significant public figure dies, even, perhaps especially, when that death comes as no surprise and may, indeed, be considered some form of release there is a natural tendency to wonder if the blanket media coverage that invariably follows is altogether appropriate or even seemly. Is it not all too much? A man is merely a man; a woman merely a woman. Sometimes too, it is natural to react to the endless parade of tributes and wonder how genuine they really are. Is there not something vainglorious about them? Is there not something a little ridiculous about all these attempts to cling to the coat-tails of greatness? Perhaps