The annual Springbok Dinner will be a red carpet affair this year as we welcome the World Cup winning squad and coach Jake White to London to celebrate our recent victory with South Africans in the UK. This year the Springbok Dinner will be held at Madame Tussauds on 29 November - when our real life celebrities will stand alongside waxworks of the world’s most famous icons, including our own Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu.

The evening will be filmed for South African television. Don’t miss this chance to dine with the Boks! Book at Springbok Supporters Club UK website.

It is with great sadness that we learned that South African actor Patrick Mynhardt passed away yesterday due to natural causes. Mynhardt was in London with his one-man autobiographical show Boy from Bethulie at the Jermyn Street Theatre in the West End

SA Times had the honour of meeting this wonderful theatre icon and helped promote his play in the UK. One of our journalists, Lamese Abrahams, was the last to ever have the opportunity to interview this great actor. Read her article here.

Please pay your tributes to Patrick by commenting on this article.

You just have to love our Archbishop Desmond Tutu! He has just become patron of South Africa’s Braai Day.

“There are so many things that are pulling us apart, this has a wonderful potential to bring us all together,” Tutu told reporters.
“We have 11 different official languages but only one word for the wonderful institution of braai: in Xhosa, English, Afrikaans, whatever.
“We’ve shown the world a few things. Let’s show them that ordinary activities like eating can unite people of different races, religions, sexes… short people, tall people, fat people, lean people.”

Braai Day takes place on 24 September - so wherever you are, get out your tongs, get some good boerie at your local South African shop and don’t forget to send SA Times pictures of your braai!

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown paid tribute to Nelson Mandela as the “greatest leader of our generation” and one of the “most loved men of all time” as he unveiled a statue of the former South African president in London today.
Celebrities, politicians and a crowd of South Africans turned out to see Mandela attend the unveiling of the 9-foot statue on Parliament Square, where he now stands alongside world leaders such as Winston Churchill, Benjamin Disraeli, Abraham Lincoln and another great South African statesman, Jan Smuts.
“Next to Abraham Lincoln the great emancipator stands Nelson Mandela, liberator of the people,” bellowed Brown. “This statue is for us today more than just a monument, it is a beacon of hope that sends the powerful message that no injustice can last forever.”
Mandela told how he and fellow anti-apartheid campaigner Oliver Tambo had in the 1960s walked across Parliament Square, the seat of British government.
“We hoped that one day a statue of a black person would be erected here alongside Smuts. He [Tambo] would have been proud to be here today,” Mandela said to laughter and loud applause.
He said he hoped the statue would serve as a reminder of all the heroes and heroines who had fought for South Africa’s freedom.
Mandela also used the opportunity to congratulate Brown on his new position and to announce that another 46664 benefit concert would be held in London’s Hyde Park next year in celebration of his 90th birthday.
“I hope very much that I will be back in London to attend this concert,” said a frail-looking Mandela.
During the ceremony it also emerged that his wife Graca Machel had been named a Dame at Downing Street yesterday.
Mayor of London Ken Livingstone, film director Lord Richard Attenborough and Wendy Woods - widow of anti-apartheid campaigner and editor Donald Woods, who first initiated the project of placing a statue of Mandela in a prominent place in London - also paid their tributes.
“Madiba, people all over the world have given you respect and honour. Today in Britain we all say we love you,” said Wendy Woods, first in Xhosa, then in English.
Among the guests attending the ceremony were Britain’s Conservative Party leader David Cameron, rock star Brian May and super model Naomi Campbell.
Campbell was one of the first to approach the statue and reach out to shake the bronze hand, while gushing over the wonderful likeness.
But it was the die-hard South Africans sporting Madiba T-shirts that stayed to toyi-toyi and sing Shozoloza in front of Big Ben long after the former president had been whisked away.

Photos by Christine van der Merwe

SA Times is the first to break the news: Nelson Mandela will be in London next week!

Mandela will be attending the unveilling of a statue of himself in Parliament Square on Wednesday, on the invitation of the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. He will be joined by his wife Graca Machel.

The statue is finally being erected after seven years of campaigning by the Nelson Mandela Statue Fund. Initially it was hoped that the 9 foot bronze sculpture would stand on Trafalgar Square, but city planners refused permission. The Fund founders and Livingstone were adament that the statue should stand in a prominent spot. Now it will finally do so and Madiba himself will be there to witness it!

We will let you know the time - South Africans are sure to turn out in full force!

Comair, the owners of the local budget airline kulula.com in South Africa, is planning on spreading its wings - to London. Comair, which also has a partnership with British Airways to operate its regional routes in Southern Africa, has submitted an application to the International Air Services Licensing Council to commence flights to London. Should it succeed, it will become the fifth carrier to run direct services between Johannesburg and London, along with BA, SA, Virgin and Nationwide.

Let’s hope tougher competition will help see prices fall. In the meantime, more and more indirect routes are popping up across Africa. Air Namibia followed Air Kenya in flying to South Africa and now Air Egypt has announced flights to Johannesburg via Cairo. Sure beats flying via Dubai!

Know any good deals to South Africa? Let us know!

Feeling a little under the weather?
Most likely you are suffering from SWISS – Symptons of Winter in Summer Syndrome.
We’re not kidding! SA Times has learnt that High Street chemist sales of flu and cold remedies are up 60% compared to June and July last year. Pharmacists have dubbed this phenomenon SWISS and ascribe it to the relatively high temperatures combined with damp conditions that we’ve been experiencing so far in Britain’s washout summer.
Time to book that flight home!

Three cheers for Robbie Hunter!!! Hip-hip - hip-hip - hip-hip Horaaay!
The 30-year-old has claimed South Africa’s first ever Tour de France victory by winning the 11th stage of the race in Montpellier today.
The Barloworld rider won a crash-hit sprint ahead of Swiss Fabian Cancellara.
Hunter said: “I have raced in the Tour six times, and I have always been the only South African. I can’t find the words to express how delighted I am to have won finally.”

SA Times had a correspondent at the London leg of the Tour de France – click here to see Christine van der Merwe’s photos of Robbie Hunter and here to view her photos of Team Barloworld.