Author: Steven Lang

By STEVEN LANG The Royal Society of South Africa recently awarded the Marloth Medal to Professor Mike Bruton for his lifetime contributions to science. This award is the latest of the long list of honours Bruton has earned since he joined ichthyology at Rhodes University many years ago. Bruton has published over 120 scientific papers in peer-reviewed journals and over 800 popular science articles, and authored or edited 29 books, including five children’s books. He was a professor and founding head of the Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science at Rhodes University and Director of the JLB Smith Institute of…

This hyena was spotted about one-and-a-half kilometres from Matyholweni Gate in the Addo Elephant Park. Even though it was not a very hot day, she clearly loved the cooling effects of the water in the shallow puddles after the rain. She was breathing heavily and might have been about to give birth or she had just had a really huge meal. Photo: Steven Lang.

The fact that 95 by-elections were held across the country on the same day, 11 November, is a little surprising. There aren’t usually so many held all at once, but the Electoral Commission of South Africa had a backlog to dispose of due to the coronavirus, and it wanted to clear the table ahead of next year’s local government elections. The low turnout across the board (37.83%) was not at all surprising, as it is normal for fewer voters to turn up for by-elections, and besides, all political parties have their eyes set on the prize next year. It could…

Remembrance Day is never a happy occasion, but this year it was even more bleak than usual when the truncated parade took place in an almost empty Church Square on 8 November. Those who participated in the ceremonies, and those who just came to watch, were almost all wearing masks adding anonymity to an already sombre mood. Known as Armistice Day in some countries, it is commemorated every year on the Sunday closest to 11 November. It was established to mark the end of the First World War when an armistice between warring parties ended hostilities on the 11th hour…

“She had a deep intelligence. She was very thoughtful and made remarkable suggestions, interventions, on the basis of being a good diagnostician and a good community worker on the ground”.  That is how Nyameka Goniwe was described by Di Oliver, a close confidante from the 1980s. In an exclusive phone interview with Grocott’s Mail, Oliver spoke of the many sides of Nyameka Goniwe, “She was great fun. She loved a party. She loved opportunities to let her hair down and relax because I think that she was very, very tense all the time.” She suffered bouts of terrible depression but rarely…

The Democratic Alliance (DA) stepped boldly into the post Covid-19 world with South Africa’s first virtual political party congress on Saturday. The party’s Eastern Cape congress was in some ways a proof of concept – yes, it is possible to hold a virtual elective meeting and thus avoid cramming hundreds of people into confined spaces. There were 309 delegates taking part in the congress through a mix of about 150 link-ups on Zoom. Many of the delegates participated in groups convened in hybrid connections at party offices around the province. The main purpose of the congress – to elect leaders…

Chairperson of the DA in the Eastern Cape, Andrew Whitfield, said at the party’s Provincial Congress on Saturday that Makana was one of 14 municipalities in financial distress and that although Makana was not mentioned during the Congress by name, he has a “very personal interest in Makana finding its feet”. He said, “I’m sorry that we didn’;t include Makhanda. But the reality is that there are far too many municipalities across the province that are collapsing under the weight of the ANC’s maladministration and corruption.” Referring to the court ruling in which Judge Igna Stretch ordered the dissolution of…

An interview with Professor Tom Moultrie, Professor of Demography, Centre for Actuarial Research, UCT  Professor of Demography at the University of Cape Town, Tom Moultrie, believes it is not irrational to relax lockdown regulations just as the country experiences a sharp increase in the number of Covid-19 infections and deaths. He explains that the main purpose of the lockdown was to buy time for the country and not to restrict the spread of the virus.There was never any realistic prospect of stifling the pandemic in South Africa as has been done in some small island states; however, it allowed the…

In the third fifty years of Grocott’s Mail, from 1970 to 2020, the newspaper has undergone profound changes in almost every aspect of its existence. Readers from the 1970s could never have imagined that news media in general, and newspapers in particular, would change so much. As a family business, the Grocott family had an overwhelming influence on the birth and life of the newspaper. In 1966, William Jeffrey ‘Jeff’ Grocott, great-grandson of the founder Thomas Henry Grocott, became a partner in the firm and ran the business with his father’s brother, Thomas Hugh Grocott until his uncle passed away…

The office usually opens at 7am, but because it was the first day after lockdown, I made sure to arrive at 6.45am. There were already five people ahead of me – all respectfully masked and two metres apart. We were all Addo Park zealots, so we had been eagerly awaiting this day since the President announced the lockdown more than two months previously. We had freshly printed-out forms and everyone knew what was expected of us because we had read the WhatsApps, Facebooks, Tweets and web pages. Staff at the Matyholweni gate were polite but anxious, just like the visitors. They had masks, sanitisers and…