From the pen of Associate Professor Rodney Edgecombe comes a new work on Romantic poet Thomas Hood, A Self Divided Poet: Form and texture in the verse of Thomas Hood. It is the first to devote itself exclusively to Hood's verse. "Hood figures in general poetry studies, but nothing detailed has been written on his work in the past 50 years," Edgecombe notes.

The International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2009, the biggest and most interdisciplinary polar science project yet, was launched aboard the SA Agulhas on 1 March, one of many similar launches across the globe. The IPY focuses on the Antarctic and Arctic, involving over 200 projects by scientists from over 60 countries, including UCT, under the umbrella of the South African National Antarctic Programme (SANAP).

Two thousand five hundred words in an essay titled Looking Ahead: Targeting key sectors for successful tax reform in South Africa: Retirement Fund Industry and Small Businesses have won UCT student Trevor Chuma first prize of R150 000 in the postgraduate section of the Nedbank/Old Mutual Budget Speech Competition. Neryvia Pillay, also of UCT, was first runner up. Chuma is a financial analyst in the platinum industry.

In the Monday Paper of 2 March, we ran an article on the Positive Beadwork Project, an initiative that helps mothers with HIV-positive children to earn an income through beadwork. For more on the project, visit www.kidzpositive.org.