Janice Warman

Saturday

Janice Warman

TRAVEL SPECIAL: Blue remembered hills

From our UK edition

On a nostalgic return journey, Janice Warman wonders why the Eastern Cape is not thronged with tourists… The Eastern Cape has a bloody past: it’s where the English were settled to defend the frontier against the Xhosas in the 1820s, and where the terrible forced removals of the apartheid years happened. It’s the birthplace of Nelson Mandela. And it gained lasting notoriety worldwide for the death of Steve Biko in custody, a death that led to the film Cry Freedom, which portrayed the friendship of Biko and the liberal newspaper editor Donald Woods. It’s an unlikely holiday destination. Most visitors opt for the Garden Route through Knysna and Plettenberg Bay.

Wednesday

Janice Warman

Africa sets an enterprising example

From our UK edition

The hills of Michimikuru are a little piece of heaven: pickers in brightly coloured scarves move slowly through the chest-high bushes of the vivid green tea-fields beneath the slopes of Mount Kenya. But as the saying goes, local colour is other people’s poverty. Just ten kilometres to either side, the desert is encroaching; the mountain’s snowcap is melting; and soaring temperatures, droughts and storms mean the crops of the country’s primary export often fail. It’s the scene of a remarkable initiative, co-funded by the British fair-trade company Cafédirect and the German Ministry for Economic Co-operation and Development, to help the 9,000 small growers of the Michimikuru Tea Company to adapt to climate change.

Wednesday

Janice Warman

Hammond emphasises the Tories’ temporary commitment to 50p tax

From our UK edition

Sit Philip Hammond in front of our very own Fraser Nelson, and you know that one topic's bound to come up: the Tories' commitment to the 50p tax rate.  And so it was at this morning's DLA Piper and Spectator Business Breakfast Debate at the Merchant Taylors¹ Hall in Threadneedle Street. Fraser chided the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, claiming that this Tory policy would leave the restaurants in Zurich "doing very well," as our entreprenurial class potentially leaves these shores behind.  "If the rich are going to suffer, are they going to stay?" Hammond's response? That he didn't think the tax would make people move abroad, and that the Tories would ensure it's only a temporary measure. So that's that, then.

Janice Warman

Safer savings and clearer consciences?

From our UK edition

Janice Warman looks at two ‘ethical’ banks that are drawing customers away from the shamed high-street giants The credit crunch left most of our major banks in disarray, not to say disgrace. But it has been remarkably good for some of their smaller competitors. ‘Ethical banks’ might once have been dismissed by the high-street giants as a benignly unthreatening fringe, just as ethical share investment was considered by mainstream investors to be little more than an eccentric luxury for trustafarians. But in terms of cash savings, as opposed to equities, the opportunity cost of choosing to go ethical varies widely — and may actually be zero.

Wednesday

Janice Warman

Festival business bucks the recession

From our UK edition

If you’re spending this weekend listening to music in a muddy field, you’re part of a significant economic trend, says Janice Warman: festivals are Britain’s boom sector There was no doubt about it. I was irretrievably stuck. Each boot was lapped by a shining circle of mud which, as I tried to move, made ominous sucking noises and seemed to increase its grip. I turned in desperation and appealed to a tall man behind me. ‘Can you help me please?’ He looked down at me. ‘Just a minute — I’ve got to take this call.’ He turned away. But moments later I was free: he and another festival-goer had lifted me clear of my Hunters, retrieved them and put me back in them. Luckily most Brits don’t seem to mind a bit of mud.

Saturday

Janice Warman

Cape Town notebook

From our UK edition

As we circle out into Table Bay and back towards the mountain, the pilot welcomes us to Cape Town – and warns us about the burgeoning violence. For the first time, locals are talking about it too. ‘We all know people who have been raped and murdered,’ says one friend who delivers me to my guesthouse after a meal and watches until I am safely inside. She rings her security company and arranges for a guard to meet her at her door if she is coming home late. So do my other female friends. I’m staying at Kalk Bay, a seaside village a little way outside the town centre, where you can buy freshly caught fish on the quayside and which has the shabby chic of parts of Notting Hill.

Wednesday

Janice Warman

No meltdown — but a deep sense of unease

From our UK edition

On the eve of South Africa’s election, Janice Warman says its economy remains relatively attractive to investors, despite doubts about incoming president Jacob Zuma In South Africa, everything is not as it seems. If you drive along the edge of the Atlantic Ocean from Muizenberg in Cape Town, you will see a sea of glittering shanty roofs that seems to stretch all the way up to Table Mountain — the vast slum that is Khayelitsha. Drive in and it looks different. There is electrification, and portable toilets. There are two-lane metalled roads as well as dirt tracks.

Friday

Janice Warman

An idea whose time has come

From our UK edition

On my walk from Charing Cross station each morning I see Steven outside Boots, rain or shine, his outstretched arm holding the latest Big Issue at eye level for passing commuters. He’s part vendor, part performance artist. Many, like me, stop to buy; others look down and hurry on. Though passers-by might pretend he’s invisible, the company that helps to get him and other homeless people back on track by selling magazines is part of a quiet revolution whose impact is only just beginning to be felt. The social enterprise sector — run for social or environmental purposes (or both) rather than for shareholders’ profit — is a tiny part of business in Britain.