Word: dour
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...Means to an End Re: "The Black Arts" [Sept. 17], it is diffi-cult to understand why your reporter Daniel Williams should single out the Springboks for being "brutal." After all, both the South Africans and the New Zealanders were originally taught this game by Scottish Presbyterians. The dour Scots obviously never fathomed the English humor in the ridiculous 16-man scrum. It was all meant as a joke, to keep robust adolescent schoolboys occupied during winter - when they could not play cricket. Deon Thom George, South Africa
...Before the former Chancellor of the Exchequer became Prime Minister in June, large swaths of the party faithful viewed him with trepidation. He'd made a good fist of his 10-year tenure at the helm of the British economy, most agreed, but wasn't he too brainy, too dour to win over the wider electorate...
...only richer but a whole lot bigger and faster. While that may sound like progress, the game has suffered, with creativity giving way to cold, hard athleticism. Under as much pressure as any team at this Cup is rugby itself, which can ill afford a tournament full of messy, dour, defense-dominated matches if it is to continue reaching new audiences...
Africa has long been renowned for its musical heritage, but it's only comparatively recently that the continent has been exporting it abroad. Youssou N'Dour and the Senegal born hip-hop artist Akon may have broken into the pop mainstream, but both had to conform to Western tastes and styles of music in order to do so. Nuru Kane, the continent's latest musical wunderkind, hopes to change that...
...There are a plethora of good singer-songwriters in the west African country of Senegal, many of whom - like Cheihk Lo, Baaba Maal and the peerless N'Dour - have become staples for any self-respecting world music fan in the West. But Kane is different. Less traditional but not quite "Western," he mixes soul and Malian blues with rock tunes on a Moroccan three-stringed guitar known as the guimbri. One London-based music critic described Kane's eclectic sound as "evocative of a kind of pan-Saharan Velvet Underground...