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Cars

Kia Picanto: small car, big heart

Forget pink — small is the new black. Compact cars are so fashionable today that even the Americans have been seduced by the smart fortwo. And with the South African petrol price racing towards the R10/litre mark faster than you can say “Bugatti Veyron”, it’s no surprise that tykes like Toyota’s Yaris continue to park near the top of the sales charts.

So what better time for Kia to spice up their little Picanto. Visually it’s always managed to escape the oversized-trolley look of its kissing cousin, the Hyundai Atos, but the face-lifted new arrival certainly looks a lot better than the model it’s replacing. Amazing what new tear-drop shaped headlights and restyled circular taillights can do. The front grille too has been restyled, the previous gaping mouth replaced with a more subtle, more stylish design.

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Categories
Movies Reviews

‘Michael Clayton’ works in the shadows

“I’m not a miracle worker, I’m a janitor.”

Michael Clayton is a “fixer” for a law firm. He helps Kenner, Bach & Ledeen’s most valued clients out of sticky situations – a hit and run here, a potentially damaging affair there – and he does it well, efficiently and inconspicuously skirting the law. But essentially the former prosecutor is cleaning up after people.

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Music Reviews

Elton John gets down to business

Elton John has a bit of a reputation for being, well, difficult. Once, when staying in a hotel in America, he phoned his management company in London and shouted: “It’s too f***ing windy here – can you do something about it?”

But onstage in Cape Town he’s an absolute gentleman, a consummate professional. Maybe too professional. He’s impeccably dressed, his stylish black coat complementing his red-tinted glasses. And impeccably punctual.

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Interviews Music

Seether’s Shaun Morgan can’t fake it

“You should know that the lies won’t hide your flaws / No sense in hiding all of yours.” More than just lyrics to Seether’s swinging hit ‘Fake It’, the words reflect a way of life for the band’s frontman. That’s startlingly clear when I come face to face with Shaun Morgan Welgemoed. What you see is what you get. There’s nothing fake about him.

He doesn’t even bother to hide his vulnerability: “The bigger it gets the more I realise I wasn’t cut out for the fame part of it.”

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Categories
Travel

Explore the Emerald Isle

There’s far more to Ireland than the Guinness factory, leprechauns and sheep. Like the breathtaking coastline with its tranquil villages and jagged cliffs. The stunning natural beauty, and even the way the lush green grass glistens after the rain. It’s not called the Emerald Isle for nothing.

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Interviews Music

Fatboy Slim is big on beats

“Dance music isn’t at its peak at the moment,” Norman Cook says, rather wistfully, from his Brighton beachfront home on the south of England.

“Five years ago it was breaking rules and turning people on who didn’t like dance music – rock bands wanted to get involved, and people were excited.”

“Since then we’ve kind of lost our momentum a little bit. When big beat came around in the ’90s it gave dance music a kick up the arse, with groups like Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers,” adds the man better known as Fatboy Slim.

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Interviews Music

Karen Zoid living in the present

“It was the best time in my life – I was so carefree,” remembers Karen Zoid of busking on Melville’s streets as a teenager. It certainly beat her grade 10 weekend job as a Mr Delivery call centre phone operator, earning R3.20 an hour towards an amplifier (“Nobody ever knows what they want, they always change their mind!”).

Out on the pavements she could perform to an audience, playing Rolling Stones tunes to 50-somethings, Smashing Pumpkins hits to students, sad Tracy Chapman ballads to loners.

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Music Reviews

James Blunt calls ‘All The Lost Souls’

Poor James, he’s had a tough life. At the posh Harrow School he was called a rude word that rhymes with “Blunt”. After training at Sandhurst (the very same academy that would later welcome Princes Willy and Harry) he was sent to keep the peace in Kosovo – virtually single-handedly – as every press release is sure to remind us. And even when the singing soldier’s debut album ‘Back To Bedlam’ was bought by 11 million people (allowing him to buy a villa in Ibiza), he was derided and ridiculed by millions more.

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Music Reviews

Bruce Springsteen creates ‘Magic’

There are two Bruce Springsteens. One, let’s call him Bombastic Bruce, went through 15 months and marathon 16-hour recording sessions to produce just eight overblown rock tracks. The other, Bare-Bones Bruce if you will, made some bitter, morose songs at home with just a guitar, harmonica and his old tape recorder before bunging them on an album as is.

Both Springsteens are hugely talented – ‘Born To Run’ and ‘Nebraska’ aren’t considered rock classics for nothing. But you only need two fingers to count the number of times they’ve actually met up to share a bottle of whisky. There was ‘The River’. And now there’s ‘Magic’.

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Interviews Music

Bernard Binns: an outsider looking in


Wannabe drummer. Englishman in Vereeniging. ’80s pop star. Marketing-communications company boss. And now, over 20 years after breaking onto the South African music scene with his band The Helicopters, Bernard Binns is back with his second solo album.

Recorded in England, where he now lives following a brief French sojourn, ‘Outside Looking In’ finds the musician in a reflective mood, his new songs recapturing the indie-pop sensibilities of his ’80s calling card ‘Mysteries and Jealousy’, while evoking the melancholy Englishness of Tears For Fears or The Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie.

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