DINNER PARTY INTEL: Could trams make a comeback in Cape Town?

1. Trams to ease traffic?

A young engineer in Cape Town hopes to bring back trams to the city centre and ease traffic congestion. Luke van Wyk of the Young Urbanists Committee says the rails are still buried beneath the tar in the city centre. Above ground, he is trying to raise awareness and generate excitement for an old mode of transport in a modern city with heavy traffic.

2. Medics get new gowns

India’s state-owned medical universities have banned black gowns and mortar boards at graduation ceremonies. The order from the health ministry is in keeping with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s intention to erase elements of the country’s “colonial legacy” and replace them with “an appropriate Indian dress code”.

3. Tempest delays book launch 

Bernard Cornwell, who has been writing historical fiction since, it seems, the Napoleonic era, has failed to deliver a book this year for the first time in 44 years. His latest, Sharpe’s Storm, has been delayed by a Tempest. Cornwell, 80, an enthusiastic amateur actor, has agreed to play Prospero in the Shakespeare Festival at Cape Cod in the US, where he lives and is also nursing his sick wife.