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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jun/29/candice-carty-williams-bernardine-evaristo-first-black-authors-to-win-top-british-book-awards

Books

2020-06-29T17:45:42.000Z

Alison Flood

Evaristo and Carty-Williams become first black authors to win top British Book awards

Candice Carty-Williams and Bernardine Evaristo have become the first black authors to win the top prizes at the British Book awards, landing the book of the year and author of the year gongs respectively. Carty-Williams took the book of the year accolade on Monday night for Queenie, her debut novel about a young black woman navigating life and love in London. She beat titles including Three Women by Lisa Taddeo and My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite to the award, which is judged on quality of writing, innovation of publishing, and sales. Carty-Williams said she was proud and grateful to win, but also “sad and confused” that she was the first black writer to receive the top award. “Overall, this win makes me hopeful that although I’m the first, the industry are waking up to the fact that I shouldn’t and won’t be the last,” said the author. “The power of Queenie is the way it makes you feel: energised; moved; comforted. It is such an assured and original piece of debut fiction,” said judge Pandora Sykes. “Weighty issues about identity, race, family, heterosexuality and mental health are distilled into prose which is easily digestible, but extremely impactful.” In the week after a study found that black and Asian audiences were being overlooked by UK publishers, judges also praised Carty-Williams’s bestseller as “a book that was capable of changing industry perceptions of what stories can be commercially and critically successful”. Evaristo, the joint winner of last year’s Booker prize for her polyphonic novel Girl, Woman, Other, was named author of the year at the British Book awards, also making her the first black writer to win in that category. Evaristo also won the fiction category, beating her fellow Booker winner Margaret Atwood to the prize. The novelist, who became the first black British woman to top the fiction paperback charts earlier this month, said she was honoured. “This is such an interesting moment in our cultural history because the Black Lives Matter movement has generated an unprecedented amount of self-interrogating in the publishing industry,” said Evaristo, who described her recent experience topping the charts as “quite surreal”. “I was already adjusting to seeing my name on the bestseller list for 20 weeks, off and on, but then to hit the top spot and then to realise that I was the first woman of colour to get there since records began, well, it’s a lot to take in,” she said. “I’ve been writing for a very long time, and it’s incredibly gratifying to know that my work is finally reaching a wider readership. It’s also fantastic to see so many other books by writers of colour storming the charts. I’m pretty sure this is unprecedented. Of course, this has been triggered by the tragedy of George Floyd’s death and we should always remember that.” The novelist, a signatory to an open letter from the newly formed Black Writers’ Guild which is calling for sweeping change in British publishing, said that publishers were “definitely listening to us today”. “We’ll see if they deliver on their promises,” she said. “I hope they don’t revert back to the status quo once the heat has left the conversation around racism, as will inevitably be the case. It’s high on the agenda today, but history shows us that unless there is a crisis, such as riots or the Stephen Lawrence murder, racism as a topic and anti-racism as a cause soon gets demoted.” Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer won crime and thriller book of the year, seeing off Lee Child and Val McDermid to become the first black author to win that category, too. The British Book awards, also known as the Nibbies, are produced by the UK’s book trade magazine the Bookseller. Monday’s ceremony, which was held entirely online for the first time, also saw Taddeo’s Three Women win the narrative non-fiction book of the year, and Holly Jackson win the children’s fiction category for A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. Atwood’s The Testaments won audiobook of the year, while Elmer creator David McKee was named illustrator of the year.

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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/15/mother-superior-its-been-a-great-year-for-onscreen-mums

Culture

2017-12-15T06:00:09.000Z

Cath Clarke

Mother superior: it’s been a great year for on-screen mums

At a screening I went to recently, one of the biggest laughs came when the lead character, a 58-year-old grieving mother, drilled a small hole into the hand of a dentist. No, not nice. But honestly, he was being inexcusably patronising. The film was the Oscar-buzzy Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and the grieving mother was Mildred Hayes, played by Frances McDormand at her finest since Fargo. Mildred’s daughter was raped and murdered seven months earlier. Furious at the police’s failure to arrest the killer, she rents three billboards the size of double-decker buses outside her small town, Ebbing, Missouri, to shame the local sheriff (Woody Harrelson) into action. Her signs read: “Raped while dying.” “Still no arrests.” “How come, Chief Willoughby?” Mildred is a mother on a mission. Everyone has a mum. Films are full of them. The problem is a lack of variety. Movie mothers tend to be monsters (Mommie Dearest, Carrie, Precious, Animal Kingdom), angels (Bambi, The Grapes of Wrath) or just a bit nothing-y (pretty much everything else). That, however, could be changing. While 2017 has been an awful year for women in film in most respects, it has thrown up a riot – or whatever the collective noun for mums ought to be – of complex on-screen mothers. Top of the pile is Mildred. When In Bruges director Martin McDonagh started writing his firecracker script eight years ago, he couldn’t have predicted the relevance of his storyline about a woman attempting (tragically after the fact) to protect her daughter from a sexual predator. But after a year of women being angry because of men, here comes Mildred striding on to the horizon like an avenging angel lobbing molotov cocktails. Like a lot of gritty heroines, she is far from perfect. Her moral compass is skewed, and Chief Willoughby is not one of the bad guys. When he says he would do anything to catch her daughter’s killer, you believe him. McDonagh recently told the New York Times that he wanted the character to be flawed. “We didn’t want to do anything to make her more likable or lovable. For once, we don’t have to show the female side or the light side or the nurturing, mothering side.” Lady Bird. Photograph: Moviestore/REX/Shutterstock Showing the “nurturing, mothering side” in all its complexity is what actor-turned-director Greta Gerwig does in her solo directorial debut Lady Bird (in UK cinemas 23 February), a movie in which a mother lobs molotov cocktails of the emotional variety. The film’s working title was Mothers and Daughters, and it’s loosely based on Gerwig’s teenage years in suburban California, the film stars Saoirse Ronan as 17-year-old Christine “Lady Bird” McPherson, with Laurie Metcalf as her tough-love mum Marion. Unlike most coming-of-age stories, which focus on boys, Lady Bird’s central love story is mother-daughter. Hollywood has always been lacking in epic mother-and-daughter stories. But with “mum” no longer a pejorative term (“mom jeans” = Vogue-approved denim choice), planet film is catching on to the excellent-ness of mothers. Lady Bird opens with Lady Bird throwing herself out of the passenger seat of a moving car being driven by her mum. Two seconds earlier, the pair are bonding over an audiobook of The Grapes of Wrath, silently crying at exactly the same line. But that somehow turns into a blazing row. “You’re infuriating!” Gerwig doesn’t pull any punches. The relationship is a battlefield. Marion wants the best for Lady Bird, but her anxiety mostly manifests in criticism and irritation. She witheringly tells Lady Bird that she doesn’t have a hope in hell of getting into a prestigious arts university. For Lady Bird, these are the “I hate you” years. With strops and slammed doors, she rejects her mum, while at the same time searching for her approval. My favourite bit of dialogue in a film brimming with brilliant dialogue, goes: Lady Bird: “Why don’t you like me?” Marion: “I love you.” Lady Bird: “But do you like me?” Silence. Gerwig has talked about Marion and Lady Bird being two sides of the same coin. In an interview with Pop Sugar, she described the fraught relationship between teenage girls and their mums: “It’s almost like something chemical happens where you just fight in this way. You’re so similar, and you’re being pulled apart, and I think that makes it more complicated. Because they know that they’re losing you. So there’s this intensity to it that’s unlike anything else.” By the end of the movie, Lady Bird and Marion know each other more deeply than before, taking their first steps into an adult relationship. It’s like 90 minutes of therapy. I, Tonya. Photograph: Allstar/CLUBHOUSE PICTURES How about monstrous moms? This year has certainly been awash with dysfunctional ones. Mother!, Darren Aronofsky’s bizarre film, stars Jennifer Lawrence as, well who, exactly? Mother Nature giving birth to the messiah? It would take five margaritas and a smoke of something behind the bike shed to work out where Mother! sits in cinema’s mothers canon. The most monstrous mother is yet to come. I, Tonya (in UK cinemas in February) turns the fall of disgraced US Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding into a black comedy. Harding was implicated in 1994 in the knee-capping of her arch skating rival Nancy Kerrigan. Allison Janney is already being talked about for an Oscar for her performance as LaVona Golden, Harding’s pushy stage mom. Golden has been called the nastiest movie mum since Faye Dunaway in Mommie Dearest. She’s a hard-drinking, chain-smoking, throwing-a-knife-at-her-daughter villain. But Janney is on LaVona’s side, as she explained to Vice: “She worked very hard to get herself out of the life she was in. Then she had this daughter with this talent, so every penny she made working as a waitress went to Tonya’s skating. She was going to make sure she rose to the top, despite all the odds, because the skating world did not embrace her.” One of the most depressing things about reading the allegations of sexual harassment in Hollywood has been the realisation: so this is how (some of) the men in the industry I write about think about women. Films are meant to allow us to enter into the life of someone else, to help us empathise. But to these men, female lives are meaningless. For them, women are objects. (“Take your clothes off.” “Put this in your mouth.” “I’m going to do this to you.”) Seeing the mothers and daughters in these films feels so important now. The Florida Project. Photograph: CAP/FB/Image supplied by Capital Pictures But the cinema matriarch I truly lost my heart to this year was Halley, the 21-year-old single mum played by newcomer Bria Vinaite in Sean Baker’s The Florida Project. If I saw Halley and her six-year-daughter Moonee (Brooklynn Prince) on the bus, I would probably scowl with disapproval. Halley gives Moonee fast food for lunch, giggles when she swears and lets her run rampage. I would judge her. Maybe not after seeing The Florida Project, which tells a story behind the statistic that in the US, 35% of single-mother families live below the poverty line. Halley and Moonee are among the hidden homeless, renting $30-a-night motels in Florida within a mouse’s whisker of Disney World – “the happiest place on earth”. If you do the maths, Halley was 15 or 16 when she had Moonee. Now, at 21, she is parenting with no money and no safety net, and yet she loves Moonee with an unwavering, self-sacrificing love. Like angry Mildred in Three Billboards, she is a mother we needed to see in 2017.

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https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/jun/25/ten-talking-points-from-the-second-round-of-world-cup-2018-matches

Football

2018-06-25T07:00:59.000Z

Guardian sport

Ten talking points from the second round of World Cup 2018 matches

1) VAR: a change of heart This hasn’t been an easy talking point to write. But maybe, in the end, it’s not you. It’s us. The experience of Video Assistant Refereeing in the English season had only pointed one way at this World Cup. The endless delays while a middle-aged man fiddles with his ear. The jeers in the stadium. The complete absence of any information. It all felt like something that would diminish decisively the primary experience of the stadium-going fan. But in Russia it has actually worked well. A quick sprint off to check a screen. Decisions made in seconds not minutes. Less fussicking and prancing about and super-officious officialdom. VAR has prevented rather than created controversy, and has stilled the tedious chunter about decisions, so often a last resort for those who would rather not analyse the actual game. If it does nothing else World Cup VAR has saved us from the grisly spectacle of Neymar’s backward dive against Costa Rica being rewarded with a match-turning penalty. If it makes him stay on his feet just a little more, everyone wins. And meanwhile English football take note. It doesn’t have to be an enormous VAR palaver after all. Barney Ronay World Cup Fiver: sign up and get our daily football email. 2) Free-scoring England must still improve service for Kane There has been only one other World Cup, in 1966, when England have scored more than their current total of eight goals. Harry Kane has five of them, putting him at the top of the list for the Golden Boot, and meaning Gary Lineker is the only England player in history to have scored more World Cup goals. Yet the strange thing is that Kane’s team-mates have found it unusually difficult to provide him with chances from open play. Two of Kane’s goals have come from penalties, one was a fluke and the other two arrived from corners. That apart, it is difficult to think of a clear chance for Kane. If his team-mates can start picking him out, it may be that the World Cup has not actually seen the best of Kane yet. Daniel Taylor Harry Kane scores his first goal from the spot against Panama, but he needs more opportunities from open play. Photograph: Matthew Childs/Reuters 3) Travel can unearth the most poignant of family tales Following your team around the globe occasionally conjures wondrous stories of coincidence. Staying at the Oka hotel in Nizhny Novgorod was an England supporter whose mother, recently passed away, hailed from the once-closed city around 250 miles east of Moscow. She had left for north London in 1946 and would never return, with her son having pledged to visit her birthplace in her stead. That England’s schedule would take them back to Nizhny, formerly Gorky, was already a stroke of luck, but the fan had actually discovered, much to his amazement, that the address where his mother had lived was virtually opposite the hotel allocated to him by his travel company. And, what is more, the building is still occupied by someone bearing her maiden name. His next mission is to meet, face to face, the cousin he never knew he had. The football almost felt like a sideshow to the main event. Dominic Fifield 4) No such thing as a wasted trip for Peru and Egypt fans How do you measure your World Cup experience? For the number of countries whose elimination is guaranteed after two games, with no points and in some cases not even a goal to cheer so far, the football side of things clearly can’t have been a highlight. But spending time in the cities where the likes of Egypt and Peru have been out in force to support and represent their nation, there is a tangible sense that they will go home from Russia feeling they’ve had the opposite of a worthless trip. Maybe it has something to do with the length of the wait to experience something like this. It has been 28 years for Egypt and 36 for Peru. Their joy at throwing themselves into the party, their emotions at singing their national anthems and waving their flags, the fervour with which they supported teams as they went out fighting, meant something in itself. Amy Lawrence After 36 years of waiting, an early exit has not dampened Peru fans’ enthusiasm. Photograph: Darren Staples/Reuters 5) Passions run high and show international game still matters England's Harry Kane wins World Cup 2018 Golden Boot after scoring six goals Read more There is a school of thought that Neymar was laying it on a bit thick when he burst into tears after Brazil’s late win over Costa Rica but in one sense his lachrymosity was good to see. Whatever you think of the Paris Saint-Germain forward’s solipsism, he is clearly desperate to succeed at a World Cup and it is a counterpoint to any suggestions that this competition does not hold the allure of old to its star participants. “These tears are from happiness, overcoming obstacles, grit and will to win,” he wrote on Instagram after his outburst. What we have seen in the past week and a half – from Neymar’s emotion to Germany’s wild celebrations against Sweden, the pile-ons whenever England score and the atmosphere of intense hostility when Switzerland faced Serbia – is that international football still stirs passions like no other form of the sport. It is easy to get sniffy about some of the quality on show but that is to miss the point that World Cups have always appealed more to the visceral than the cerebral. A group stage full of incident and tension suggests reports of the tournament’s ill health have been exaggerated. Nick Ames 6) Bierhoff pours fuel on the fire Germany will never forget Toni Kroos’s sensational 95th-minute free-kick that sunk Sweden and rekindled their World Cup hopes. But Sweden must move on quickly from the pain, which was compounded by the way that the German bench gloated in the red-raw aftermath of full-time. “It was disgusting behaviour from the Germans, a total lack of respect,” said the midfielder, Emil Forsberg, and he was not the only Swede to offer up emotional sound-bites. Janne Andersson, the manager, was fuming during the post-match melee and he could not keep a lid on it during his press conference. “People behaved in ways that you do not do,” Andersson said. Sweden can still qualify by beating Mexico and their focus has now turned to that. One tip for them – avoid listening to Oliver Bierhoff, who is a member of Joachim Löw’s Germany staff. “The fact is that Sweden’s negative way of playing and so much time-wasting doesn’t deserve to be rewarded,” Bierhoff said. David Hytner 7) Shaqiri and Xhaka mix football with politics There was more gloating when Switzerland recorded their 2-1 victory over Serbia but this time there was rather more to it. A bit of background. Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka are ethnic Albanians with their roots in Kosovo, where a Serbian crackdown on the Albanian population only ended with Nato military intervention in 1999. Shaqiri was born in Kosovo but his family were forced to flee to Switzerland when he was a baby due to conflict while Xhaka was born in Switzerland – his parents having also fled there from Kosovo. “My uncle’s house burned down and our house was left standing but everything had been stolen or broken and the walls were sprayed,” Shaqiri has said. Xhaka’s father had been a political prisoner for three-and-a-half years, having committed the crime of demonstrating in favour of Kosovarian democratic rights against the communist central government in Belgrade. When Shaqiri and Xhaka scored the goals against Serbia, they made the sign of the Albanian double-headed eagle. Fifa may discipline them for provoking the general public. After what their families lived through, they would surely do it again. DH Xherdan Shaqiri and Granit Xhaka show sport and politics cannot be separated. Photograph: Antonio Calanni/AP 8) United by football – and parkrunning By the eternal flame, there is a vast statue of the unknown soldier, stretched prone, his right arm reaching out towards an unseen finish line. About 100 yards away, a gaggle of runners engage in a slightly awkward group warm-up while a terrier called Phoebe scurries about in a frenzy of excitement. This is the Kazan parkrun and, like so much else in Russia this month, the World Cup has made it a little different. Parkrunning is a phenomenon that began in Bushy Park, Teddington, in October 2004. The idea is simple: a timed 5km run on a properly measured course, the ethos being very much about participation rather than competition. It has proved wildly successful, and now stretches to 1,533 parks across 20 countries. A subculture of “parkrun tourists” has developed, as runners “collect” races along various themes. More than 20 runners, for instance, have ticked off all 52 London parkruns, while a recent trend is to try to complete a list of parkruns starting with every letter of the alphabet (apart from X; there are no Xs). Zs, understandably, are prized, which is why one visitor from London made the trip to Zhukovsky, about 25 miles from Moscow, on the Saturday before the World Cup began. The Kazan parkrun began in April 2015. It features a brutal hill in the middle of each of its two laps, and attracts an average of 29 runners. On Saturday, there were 38, at least five of them British, including Simon Marland, the secretary of Bolton Wanderers, who came a highly creditable fourth. The week before, there had been around 30 Australians. The local reaction was bemused but welcoming, as the World Cup does its job of bringing different cultures of together. Jonathan Wilson 9) Will Van Marwijk resist Australia’s Cahill-craving? World Cup 2018: complete guide to all 736 players Read more The front page of Saturday’s Herald Sun wondered “Time for Cahill?” The Australian asked “Forget Wally – where’s Timmy?” After one point and two games in which their only goals have been Mile Jedinak penalties, Australia seems to be losing patience and wants a return to what it knows. And more than anything it knows Tim Cahill. He may be 38-years-old, hasn’t started a game of any description since November and hasn’t scored a club goal since April 2017, but there’s still seemingly a big part of the Australian psyche that can’t let go. Which isn’t a surprise: this is Australia’s fifth World Cup, the first being in 1974 and Cahill has scored in the other three. It must feel weird for him not to be starting. But he’s stayed on the bench for their opening two games and apparently not happy about it either: will the unflaggingly stubborn Bert van Marwijk give in to the clamour? Nick Miller 10) Russia can support Russia again Russia’s 3-1 victory over Egypt put the debate to rest: their defeat of Saudi Arabia wasn’t just a fluke. The Russian team have gelled unexpectedly well, dissecting a flawed Egyptian side that nonetheless boasted a threat in Liverpool star Mo Salah. Behind the winger Denis Cheryshev, the rising star Aleksandr Golovin, and the surprisingly spry Artem Dzyuba, Russians are also joking about it coming home. It’s a sea change from the mood before the World Cup when this side was said to be the worst in the country’s history. And the press let them know it. “I’m a little bit surprised that the national team continued to speak to the media at all because it was a really bad attitude from the press and from the fans,” Igor Rabiner, a popular Russian sportswriter, told me last week. Russia’s first real test, Uruguay, will come on Monday. If the team continues to play as they have, they’ve a fighting chance. And the country will be behind them. Andrew Roth

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/21/rwanda-plan-could-fail-first-test-in-lords-as-peers-move-to-thwart-sunaks-bill

World news

2024-01-21T06:00:21.000Z

Shanti Das

Rwanda plan could fail first test in Lords as peers move to thwart Sunak’s bill

Rishi Sunak is facing a possible defeat in the House of Lords this week over his controversial Rwanda deportation plan as peers prepare multiple bids to thwart its progress through parliament. The first test will come on Monday when peers debate a motion laid by former Labour attorney general Peter Goldsmith, which seeks to delay the ratification of the new Rwanda treaty until the government can show the country is safe. The international agreements committee, which is chaired by Lord Goldsmith and has four Conservative members, says that measures including an improved complaints process, training for Rwandan officials and a new asylum law guaranteeing people will not be returned to countries where they could be in danger must be in place before the treaty can be endorsed. Any such changes would also need to be given time to “bed in” to ensure they work in practice. Once the government had supplied further evidence, it should then allow for a further debate before proceeding to ratification, Lord Goldsmith has said. The motion will be debated by peers tomorrow, giving the prime minister a first indication of the extent of the opposition the Rwanda plan will face in the Lords. The motion is expected to receive support from Labour and the Lib Dems, as well as crossbench peers and potentially some on the “one nation” wing of the Conservative party. In November last year, the UK supreme court ruled unanimously that the government’s Rwanda plan was unlawful, saying it breached the European convention on human rights as genuine refugees could be returned to their home countries where they might face harm. Its ruling also cited concerns about Rwanda’s poor record on human rights. A few weeks later, the UK signed a treaty with Rwanda in which it agreed to address the safety concerns. The treaty needs to be ratified by parliament to come into effect. The government also introduced a new bill, which is now heading into the House of Lords after a torrid passage last week through the Commons, which seeks to make clear in law that Rwanda is safe. Labour has called the entire plan a “farce” and a “gimmick”. Last week, three Conservatives frontbenchers resigned saying it was not tough enough. Should the Goldsmith motion succeed and ministers accept it, it could delay the treaty for months and push back Rishi Sunak’s plans to start flights to Rwanda, putting him in a perilous position ahead of a general election. If ministers were to ignore it they would be required to explain why and could see it go against them in legal challenges further down the line. In a separate bid to thwart the Rwanda plan, the Liberal Democrats are also set to launch a challenge on the Rwanda bill which will seek to kill off its passage through parliament for good. Lib Dem peers are set to table a “fatal motion” which will say that the current plan to deport some asylum seekers to Rwanda breaches international law and will waste millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money that could be better spent on public services. The Lib Dem leader Ed Davey said: “Millions of pounds and months of squabbling later, there is still absolutely nothing to show for their failing Rwanda scheme. Our country cannot afford to waste any more time on a scheme that even senior Conservatives admit won’t work.” Sign up to First Edition Free daily newsletter Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. To be successful, the motion would need to be backed by Labour and cross-bench peers. If passed, it would prevent the Rwanda bill receiving a second reading in the upper chamber. Fatal motions are not often successful but if it were to be, it could force the government back to the drawing board. Initially announced in April 2022, the government’s Rwanda plan aims to send some asylum seekers arriving in the UK to Rwanda to have their claims processed there. Anticipating further turmoil in a Downing Street press conference on Thursday, Rishi Sunak urged peers not to “frustrate” what he called “the will of the people”. “The treaty with Rwanda is signed and the legislation which deems Rwanda a safe country has been passed unamended in our elected chamber. There is now only one question: will the opposition in the appointed House of Lords try and frustrate the will of the people as expressed by the elected house? Or will they get on board and do the right thing?” he said. Recent polling by YouGov suggests about 77% of Conservative voters support the Rwanda plan compared with 20% of Labour voters and about 48% of Britons overall.

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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/sep/26/law-passed-enabling-actors-to-remove-age-from-imdb

Film

2016-09-26T16:36:12.000Z

Andrew Pulver

Law passed enabling actors to remove age from IMDb

The state of California has passed legislation that will enable actors and other film industry workers to remove their ages from the Internet Movie Database and other publicly accessible websites. The Customer Records bill, numbered AB-1687, was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown on 24 September and specifies that subscribers to a “commercial online entertainment employment service provider” can demand that age information be removed. The rationale is to “ensure that information … regarding an individual’s age will not be used in furtherance of employment or age discrimination.” Actors union SAG-AFTRA had campaigned in favour of the bill, with the organisation’s president Gabrielle Carteris writing on 16 September: “Age discrimination is a major problem in our industry, and it must be addressed. SAG-AFTRA has been working hard for years to stop the career damage caused by the publication of performers’ dates of birth on online subscription websites used for casting like IMDb.” Though the bill covers all occupations, its effect on actors has been the focus of reporting in the wake of Junie Hoang’s failed bid in 2013 to get her age removed from IMDb.

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2012/nov/26/government-curb-supermarkets-adjudicator

Environment

2012-11-26T12:51:55.000Z

Natalie Bennett

How best can the government curb supermarkets' power? | Natalie Bennett

Last week, MPs debated plans for a new groceries code adjudicator , destined to be known as the "supermarket watchdog". Will it be enough to curb the power of the supermarkets? There's been a strong push from campaigners for the adjudicator to have more teeth, and the Lib Dem farming minister, David Heath, has said the government is prepared to listen. But then we've heard many similar promises from Liberal Democrat ministers in this government before. And the fact that the government has gone for an adjudicator rather than the original proposal for a more proactive ombudsman – and shows no signs of going back on that – doesn't inspire much hope. Despite Heath's warm words, as the bill currently stands, the power to fine supermarkets will be implemented only if the government decides that its preferred option – naming and shaming supermarkets which unfairly use their market power against suppliers – isn't working. There are also issues around only suppliers being able to report cases to the adjudicator: what then for a campaigning group with evidence of workers being mistreated by a developing-world supplier? Grocery sales in Britain were worth more than £143bn in 2009, and large grocers – those with a turnover of more than £1bn a year – account for about 85% of the total, with Asda, Morrisons, Sainsbury's and Tesco taking two-thirds of that mighty swag. Proper regulation of these companies matters to all of us. It matters for consumers because the level of genuine competition, when more and more small local shops are forced out by the giants, can only fall. And contrary to popular advertising-driven opinion, the supermarkets aren't necessarily the cheapest shopping option. That's even without mentioning their sometimes dubious marketing practices. It also matters in terms of jobs. The British Retail Planning Forum calculated in 1998 that, on average, the opening of a single large supermarket results in the net loss of 276 jobs. Meanwhile, the Face the Difference report from the Fair Pay Network showed that none of the major supermarkets have seen fit to implement living wage policies for their lowest-paid staff, even though remuneration packages for top executives continue to run into millions of pounds. Finally, it matters to our environment. First, because supermarkets build their systems around shipping food long distances around the country, using practices that result in vast amounts of waste – as the Guardian reported in the grave case of Prince Charles' carrots . As supermarkets spread around the country, they strangle what the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England has called local food webs. As supermarkets tend to favour big suppliers – factory farms and large acreage monocultures over smaller and more diverse suppliers – they help to create conditions where the economics for the latter just can't stack up. In recent years, supermarkets have been making big noises about mending their ways, treating their suppliers – particularly the smaller ones – more fairly. Unfortunately, there's more than enough cause to doubt these claims. Just consider the struggle dairy farmers had recently to get a price for their milk that even covered their cost of production. So unless we give this adjudicator real teeth, it's difficult to see how positive change is going to happen. It's something I saw first-hand as a teenager working for a hardware wholesaler who was successfully selling into big superstores – so successfully that he nearly went broke every month. He was on 30-day payment terms with his suppliers, but the big chains would only offer him 60 days (in theory; that more often stretched to 90 days). Every month they ordered more goods from him and every month he had to scrabble around to find the cash. And at least he wasn't selling perishable goods, which are at the mercy of subjective quality judgments – as farmers and food manufacturers are. More recently, I've seen first-hand what an alternative model might look like. I'm a member of The People's Supermarket in London, a small co-operative which uses as much as possible small local suppliers – for example, one potato farmer in Kent in season, one potato and pepper grower in Essex. It makes ready meals on site from food approaching its use-by date, greatly cutting waste. This is the kind of food model I think we need in order to build more resilient, sustainable, and low-carbon food supplies. We don't want supermarkets wringing the last drops of profits from the blood of their struggling suppliers and their underpaid workers – all to bring us perfectly shaped globes of tasteless, over-processed monocultures, rather than tasty, fresh and local fruit and vegetables.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/23/lewis-hamilton-f1-australia-gp-qualifying-2024

Sport

2024-03-23T10:18:38.000Z

Giles Richards

‘Messes with the mind’: Hamilton hits 14-year low in Australian GP qualifying

Lewis Hamilton delivered a damning assessment of his Mercedes car, bemoaning that it “messes with the mind” after he was left struggling in qualifying for the Australian Grand Prix, failing to make it into Q3, his worst return over the single lap in Australia for 14 years. Hamilton could manage only 11th place in Melbourne, where Max Verstappen eased to another pole with a dominant drive for Red Bull while the seven-time champion once more had to fight what seems a wilfully petulant vehicle. Max Verstappen blitzes to Australian GP pole as Lewis Hamilton slumps Read more The British driver was left unhappy with a performance from the Mercedes he felt was hard to nail down at Albert Park. He had been confident in third practice and was a tenth of a second off the front in the fourth. However, Hamilton could then not repeat that pace in qualifying, leaving him disappointed and perplexed. “The inconsistency in the car really messes with the mind,” he said. “There is a long list of things to fix. Our car is on a knife-edge. In the afternoon the wind picks up and the car becomes unstable, but the others can pick their pace up in qualifying and I am not sure why. It didn’t feel the same in qualifying from practice even though we had lighter fuel. It is not a great feeling for everyone in the team but we will keep working away.” Mercedes were optimistic at the start of the season that their entirely new design direction would deliver a stronger car, and one that was at least matching expected parameters, but for the third year in succession they have been left scratching their heads as to why it is not performing as expected. Lewis Hamilton (right) walks down the pit lane during qualifying. Photograph: Mark Thompson/Getty Images “It is three years in a row where I have had a similar feeling,” said Hamilton. “If we can make the car more consistent maybe we can be more competitive but there is a lot of work to do.” The 39-year-old will join Ferrari next season and on the form of these opening meetings a long slog in the Mercedes lies ahead with 22 more races to come. He qualified in ninth at the season opener in Bahrain and eighth at the second round in Saudi Arabia, and has been out-qualified in each meeting by his teammate George Russell who was seventh in Australia. He has only eight points to Russell’s 18 this season. Sign up to The Recap Free weekly newsletter The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend’s action Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Red Bull claim pole for Australian GP but off-track issues continue to fuel F1 drama Read more Since the new regulations were introduced in 2022 Mercedes have struggled to master them to even close to the extent Red Bull has achieved. Hamilton, who until 2022 had taken a win in every season of his career in F1 since his debut in 2007, has now gone without a victory for 57 races, the last at the 2021 Saudi Arabian GP. Mercedes have won only once since 2022, indicative of how they have failed to match their rivals. Their change in design philosophy, adopted early last season, was expected to solve many of the issues with which they have struggled but most importantly to provide a consistent and stable base from which to develop, the absence of which is clearly of concern to the team. A situation the team principal, Toto Wolff, conceded was not acceptable. “It’s especially underwhelming because we were within a tenth in final practice,” he said. “The conditions were a little bit different but there is no excuse. We have a car that is difficult, and as much as I am annoyed at myself for saying this for a long time, we just need to continue working on it and trying to get better. It is not because of a lack of trying that we are where we are, but it’s not good enough.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/sep/21/liszt-transcendental-studies-paganini-review-daniil-trifonov-deutsche-grammophon-cd-classical

Music

2016-09-21T14:30:23.000Z

Andrew Clements

Liszt: Transcendental Studies; Paganini Studies CD review – delicacy, dazzle and virtuosity

Daniil Trifonov has climbed to the top of the pianistic tree so effortlessly that it’s sometimes hard to remember he is still only 25 and has the time and potential to develop even more. As this collection of Liszt’s studies shows, Trifonov is already an exceptionally thoughtful interpreter, with musicianship that more than matches his technical gifts. It would be easy for such a young pianist to use these pieces to showcase his own technique. But while there is never any doubting the brilliance of Trifonov’s playing, that is only the starting point; the delicacy and transparency of his performances are often more striking than their moments of rampaging virtuosity. The Transcendental Studies dominate this set, and take up the first of the two discs. While these 12 pieces no longer seem as daunting as they once did, and new recordings come along relatively frequently – Kirill Gerstein’s was released by Myrios a couple of months ago, for instance – they are still formidable to play. In the sleeve notes, Trifonov makes the point that they are not really studies, pieces that focus on technical or musical issues, but wider-ranging poems – “existential meditations” he calls them – that trace a spiritual journey, a pianistic hero’s life, and just happen to be phenomenally hard to play. Watch the trailer for the Transcendental album That tendency to introspection comes across in Trifonov’s accounts, which seem to have deepened and matured even between the performance of the set he gave in London two years ago and this recording, made last September. There’s no empty rhetoric, even in those pieces, such as the fourth study, Mazeppa, and the climactic eighth, Wilde Jagd, in which virtuosity is highlighted, while another of the great challenges, No 5, Feux Follets, becomes an entrancing exploration of keyboard texture, in which the astonishing delicacy and evenness of Trifonov’s playing almost gets taken for granted. The major work on the second disc is the set of six studies Liszt composed in honour of Paganini that celebrate the virtuosity and showmanship the great violinist made his stock-in-trade. Even here, though, there’s wonderful subtlety and refinement alongside the brilliance in the performances; the colours Trifonov extracts from the piano in a piece such as the famous La Campanella, or the final Theme and Variations, based on Paganini’s 24th solo-violin Caprice, are bewitching. The two small sets of concert studies are included – the performance of Waldesrauschen, which prefigures so much of what Ravel and Debussy achieved later, is ravishing, the account of Gnomenreigen dazzling and immaculate. This is a exceptional collection of performances. Watch Daniil Trifonov perform Liszt studies

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/29/alleged-far-right-plotters-on-trial-in-germany-accused-of-plan-to-overthrow-state

World news

2024-04-29T12:47:57.000Z

Kate Connolly

Alleged far-right plotters on trial in Germany accused of plan to overthrow state

Nine people have gone on trial amid tight security in the southern German city of Stuttgart in one of three cases linked to an alleged far-right plot to overthrow the state led by a pseudo-aristocrat businessman. The men are charged with high treason, attempted murder, and membership of a terrorist organisation in relation to the alleged coup, which was foiled in nationwide raids in 2022. They are identified as belonging to the “military wing” behind the group’s ringleader, the 72-year-old self-styled aristocrat Heinrich XIII, Prince Reuss. The Stuttgart trial is the first of three separate court proceedings – split up over time and space for security and logistical reasons – in what amounts to the biggest legal case of its kind in postwar Germany. Twenty-six people are due to appear in the dock. Federal prosecutors in December initially filed terrorism charges against 27 people, one of whom has since died. Tight, airport-style security controls held up the planned start of Monday’s trial by more than an hour. The first day was largely taken up by the reading of the 33-page indictment. The men, aged between 42 and 60, include a metalworker, a coronavirus denier and YouTuber, a kitchen salesman who had formerly served as a reservist in Afghanistan, an IT expert, a former soldier turned agricultural machinery mechanic and a roofer. They appeared in court in handcuffs. All of them were dressed casually, in puffer jackets, jeans, open, untucked shirts and cargo trousers. Some of them were seen to smirk and snigger as the indictment was read out, waving and smiling at people in the public gallery. All of faces of the men were concealed by books and files held up by police officers when cameras, as is typical for a German court, were briefly allowed to capture the minutes before the start of the proceedings. A defence petition for all three trials to be held at the same time and place was rejected by judge Joachim Holzhausen as unworkable. The lawyers had argued that a fair trial would not possible if evidence that connected the three court cases – referenced as trials pertaining to the military wing, the political wing and the esoteric wing of the group – was not shared between the courts. Two of the men said through their lawyers that they planned to respond to the accusations. Another said he would acknowledge questions relating to his person, but not to the charges he faced. The remaining six said they would reserve their right not to say anything throughout the trial. The prince, the plotters and the would-be putsch: Germany to try far-right coup gang Read more In Stuttgart alone, 300 witnesses are due to be called, including 270 police officers and several experts, over a period of 48 court dates. Those on trial on Monday include former and existing members of the armed services, including the elite force, as well as a police officer. One of them, identified in the court documents as Markus L, is accused by prosecutors of shooting at two police officers who stormed his house to arrest him. If convicted, the men can expect sentences of between one and 10 years and, in the case of Markus L, up to life imprisonment. Prosecutors said the accused had stored up to €500,000 (£428,000) in cash, along with 380 guns, 350 bladed weapons and just under 150,000 rounds of ammunition, which they referred to among themselves by the codename “bonbons”. Speaking before the trial, Andreas Singer, the president of the Stuttgart court, told journalists: “We’re not just talking about a group of nice avuncular figures who had a few strange ideas.” Masked police officers lead Heinrich XIII Prince Reuss (front centre) to a police vehicle during a raid against ‘Reich citizens’ in Frankfurt last December. Photograph: Boris Roessler/AP The group had begun setting up a nationwide system of 286 militarily organised groups, referred to as “homeland security companies”, which were due to come into action on “Day X”, the day on which the coup was to take place, starting with a power cut to create chaos, followed by a storming of the parliament building in Berlin, in which government figures were to be taken hostage, with the use of violence encouraged. Reuss, an antisemitic businessman descended from a formerly aristocratic family, founded the group with the express wish to violently eliminate the state order. He is due to go on trial in Frankfurt along with eight others, seen as the main figureheads behind the plot, on 21 May. A third trial will take place in June in Munich. Sign up to Headlines Europe Free newsletter A digest of the morning's main headlines from the Europe edition emailed direct to you every week day Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Names on the group’s hitlist allegedly included Chancellor Olaf Scholz, the leader of the conservative opposition, Friedrich Merz, and two leading television personalities. The maximum security courtroom in Stuttgart – built inside Stammheim prison to hold the trials of the far-left Red Army Faction members in the 1970s – has been fitted with 2-metre-high bulletproof glass to protect the public, and judges and prosecutors. Ahead of the trial, authorities said they had been tracking support for the accused men, including among people in the Querdenker anti-Covid restrictions movement, who posted messages on social media saying they would “hold a vigil” for those on trial and were “planning to get them released”. Journalists and spectators wait in front of the courthouse on the first day of the trial in Stuttgart on Monday. Photograph: Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images The trials are expected to throw light on the Reichsbürger (Citizens of the Empire) movement, which rejects the legitimacy of modern Germany. According to constitutional experts, there are about 23,000 Reichsbürger members in Germany, about 10% of whom are said to be ready to use violence. Prosecutors say the alleged coup plotters believed that the Federal Republic of Germany was a partnership being run by the deep state and that, by carrying out the coup, they would be freeing people from its grip. They also believed in the US-based QAnon conspiracy theory, according to prosecutors. The trials are scheduled to go on until at least the start of 2025. At the weekend the interior minister, Nancy Faeser, told German media that the state would “come down hard” against extremist structures. She said: “These military Reichsbürger are driven by hatred towards our democracy. “We will continue to take a tough course … until we have completely exposed the Reichsbürger structures and destroyed them … No one in the extremist scene should feel safe.” Prosecutors said that their investigations into the group may go well beyond the three scheduled trials involving the 27 defendants, owing to the fact that the identities of at least 136 further people who signed up to the group is known. They and others connected to them may well yet face prosecution.

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https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/30/willis-earl-beal-noctunes-album-review

Music

2015-08-30T07:00:01.000Z

Corinne Jones

Willis Earl Beal: Noctunes review – idiosyncratic small-hours ballads

Written by an isolated lake at night during the breakdown of his marriage, Noctunes finds Beal downbeat, softer and more vulnerable than on his 2013 release, Nobody Knows. The long, drawn-out synth strings of album opener Under You bleed into all tracks across the album, which drift past as a soporific collection of ambient ballads evoking insomnia and loneliness (Like a Box being a notable, trancey exception). While the minimalist voice-synth-drums setup intermittently hints at new age meditative music or 80s ballads, Beal’s outsider lyrics and occasional sorrowful howl stop the album from slipping into well-trodden territory. It’s an intriguing record, unpredictable and weird even in its simplicity.

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https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/nov/06/fifty-years-of-the-walking-dead-welcome-to-franchise-tv

Television & radio

2017-11-06T12:00:33.000Z

Stuart Heritage

Fifty years of The Walking Dead? Welcome to 'Franchise TV'

In terms of TV, 2017 has been the year of the spin-off, sequel, reboot and remake. Will and Grace came back. Curb Your Enthusiasm came back. Twin Peaks came back. 24 came back. Star Trek came back. Even Legion, arguably the most deliberately esoteric series of the last 12 months, was technically an offshoot of the X-Men movies. The Walking Dead: season eight, episode three recap – Monsters Read more The television landscape is littered with variations on existing properties, because networks are increasingly cloistered away behind their own paywalls and they need big, recognisable names to draw subscribers. Original ideas, always harder to market, are starting to lose ground fast. It’s the same hole that the movies have been stuck in for a decade. And now, already, this trend seems to have located its natural endpoint. Because AMC wants to keep The Walking Dead on air for much longer than you’d expect. The network’s CEO, Josh Sapan, has even started to throw the F-word around. “The use of the word ‘franchise’, we don’t take lightly. It’s not a sloppy or casual word,” Sapan recently said. “We’ve studied the best. Some have been around 30, 40, 50 years. We have a chance for a lot of life in the franchise.” The Walking Dead will keep running long after you and everyone you love has died Oh God. If AMC has its way, The Walking Dead will keep running long after you and everyone you love has died. Maybe even longer. I’ve got a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that, even if the world is destroyed in a fiery flurry of nuclear explosions, AMC will somehow find a way to film and broadcast a new cockroach-based Walking Dead spin-off bookended by a new Talking Dead spin-off where distracted celebrity cockroaches gather together to add absolutely nothing to the viewing experience. ‘There’s an awful lot to be said for bowing out at the right time’ … Mad Men Photograph: Justina Mintz/AP Worse, AMC isn’t alone in thinking this. After the Kevin Spacey abuse accusations started trickling out, reports that Netflix was considering all manner of House of Cards spin-offs quickly followed. There’s apparently a Doug Stamper series in the works, and Robin Wright will want something, and why not go the whole hog and do a Young Sheldon-style House of Cards prequel called Lil Frankie? Similarly, HBO seems equally committed to fracking Westeros for stories once Game of Thrones ends – it is said to be simultaneously developing five separate spin-offs – even though this last season has shown the mess that can be made when showrunners let go of George RR Martin’s hand. Perhaps this is the way of the world now. Perhaps the Golden Age of TV was simply a Big Bang, and 50 years from now when we’re all snared up in a dingy mycelium of eighth-generation franchise spin-offs, we’ll be able to trace all of television back to a single clutch of shows made during a miraculous five-year period when people actually invested in original ideas. Tales of Tyrion: what could a Game of Thrones spinoff series look like? Read more I hope this isn’t the case. There are already signs that eyeing up franchise TV isn’t the smartest idea – Fear the Walking Dead has started to erode the audience of its parent series, so the tactic carries with it a real danger of diminishing returns – plus in retrospect the best shows from the Golden Age were the most finite. Mad Men resisted the urge to make a spin-off, and as such has retained all its power. As much as everyone clamoured for a follow-up movie at the time, The Sopranos now feels like a satisfying novel with a definitive ending. I’m convinced that The Leftovers will only grow in stature over time, because nobody will ever think to dilute it with The Further Adventures of Nora Durst. There’s an awful lot to be said for bowing out at the right time. Hopefully TV will remember this. It is, after all, what makes it better than cinema.

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https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/sep/25/disabled-woman-was-not-moved-for-holly-willoughby-and-phillip-schofield-to-see-queen-lying-in-state-itv

Media

2022-09-25T15:09:20.000Z

Sophie Zeldin-O'Neill

Disabled woman was not moved for Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield to see Queen lying in state – ITV

ITV has denied accusations that a woman in a wheelchair was moved aside to make way for presenters Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield as they entered Westminster Hall to see the Queen lying in state. In a now-deleted tweet quoted by the Mail on Sunday, a member of the public posted on Twitter that her disabled mother had been moved out of the way for Schofield and Willoughby to “make it in time for the 10am slot”. Posting a picture of the pair, she wrote: “This is a photo taken by my sister’s husband yesterday after he had queued with my sister, their 10-year-old daughter and my disabled mum for 13-plus hours. My mum was ushered out of @hollywills and @schofe way so they could #queuejumpers without even a thanks #schofieldgate #queuejumping.” The Mail on Sunday also claims that the This Morning hosts were not on the accreditation list to see Queen Elizabeth II lying in state, but that the names of their production team had been used to help them gain access to Westminster Hall. In a statement, an ITV representative said: “This Morning asked Phillip and Holly to attend Westminster Hall to make a report on the Queen lying in state as part of a wider piece around the death of the monarch. “They followed all restrictions and guidelines and attended the media area, entering via the media centre door, in a professional capacity alongside many other broadcasters and media. They neither jumped the queue nor took anyone’s place in the queue. We asked them to attend and Holly and Phillip continue to have our full support.” With regards to accreditation, they said: “Phillip and Holly had full accreditation which was organised by the This Morning production team. Any claims otherwise are untrue.” Schofield and Willoughby have been the subject of criticism since their visit to Westminster Hall on 16 September. The furore began when their visit was contrasted with that of David Beckham’s on the same day. The former England captain waited in line for almost 14 hours to pay his respects, despite reportedly being offered a pass by an MP to jump the queue. Responding to the accusations, Willoughby said: “Like hundreds of accredited broadcasters and journalists, we were given special permission to access the hall. It was strictly for the purpose of reporting on the event for millions of people in the UK who haven’t been able to visit Westminster in person … None of the broadcasters and journalists there took anyone’s place in the queue. We of course respected those rules.” On the day, the presenters’ TV segment used footage from the official feed because media outlets were not allowed to film inside. In an 11-minute round-up of events, Willoughby showed pictures of her three children laying flowers at Buckingham Palace, as well as a letter that her daughter Belle wrote to the late monarch. The pre-recorded segment ended with the pair on Westminster Bridge discussing the visit. “It was one of the most profound moments of my life,” Schofield said. Sign up to First Edition Free daily newsletter Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Since the allegations of queue-jumping first surfaced on social media, more than 70,500 members of the public have signed a petition calling on Schofield and Willoughby to be axed from This Morning. About a quarter of a million people saw the late monarch’s coffin as she lay in state for four days, according to preliminary figures released by the UK government, with wait times sometimes exceeding 24 hours. The controversy over the allegations came up during the Labour conference, with the party’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, expressing concern for their welfare after they received a barrage of social media abuse. She said: “I’ve been worried about them because even though they are celebrities ... they are human beings and I just think, ‘Wow.’ The way in which the online attack on them, as a human being … to have that, I just think, is really damaging.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/17/rolls-royces-jet-engines-to-run-on-synthetic-fuels-as-part-of-net-zero-plans

Business

2021-06-17T15:14:46.000Z

Jasper Jolly

Rolls-Royce’s jet engines to run on synthetic fuels as part of net-zero plans

Rolls-Royce, the jet engine maker, has said that all products launched after 2030 will be capable of running with net zero carbon emissions as part of decarbonising plans that rely heavily on replacing fossil fuels with synthetic alternatives that are yet to be approved. The manufacturer and other aviation companies face a huge challenge to cut their products’ carbon emissions. No existing technology can fly passengers across the world without producing tonnes of carbon dioxide. Rolls-Royce is instead pinning its hopes on synthetic fuels, which the industry calls “sustainable aviation fuels”, or SAF. Almost identical chemically, but produced from non-oil sources, the fuels could theoretically result in significantly less or even zero new carbon emissions across their lifecycle. Rolls-Royce plans to gain regulatory approval by 2023 for using synthetic fuels in all engine models currently in production, the company said on Thursday. That would mean two-thirds of existing planes using Rolls-Royce engines could be adapted with minor engineering changes. However, the company has so far been unable to set interim science-based targets – the gold standard – for reducing its group-wide carbon emissions because of uncertainty over how the supply of synthetic fuel will grow. The chief executive, Warren East, said Rolls-Royce faced a “double challenge”, but that decarbonising would offer a “commercial opportunity”. “Our customers use our products and services in sectors where demand for power is increasing, and also these sectors are among the hardest to decarbonise,” he said. In March, an Airbus A350 with Rolls-Royce engines flew on 100% synthetic fuel for the first time, but no long-haul zero-emissions flight has yet been completed using synthetic fuels, and they remain far more expensive than petroleum fuels. British Airways plans to run transatlantic flights partly on synthetic fuel next year, after investing in a US producer. However, the oil producer Shell this year pulled out of a joint venture that aimed to produce synthetic fuel in the UK. Synthetic fuel production from innovative sources such as plants or even household waste is difficult to scale up, while “electrofuels” – produced from air using electricity – are between three and six times more expensive, according to the European Union Aviation Safety Agency. Rolls-Royce is also considering using nuclear power from small modular reactors to make electrofuels, although the reactors are still in development. This article was amended on 18 June 2021. An earlier version said that Rolls-Royce was unable to commit to science-based targets for emissions reductions. In fact, it has committed to net zero emissions by 2050, but has so far been unable to set interim targets. This has been clarified.

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/25/qanon-conspiracy-theory-explained-trump-what-is

US news

2020-08-25T19:36:20.000Z

Julia Carrie Wong

QAnon explained: the antisemitic conspiracy theory gaining traction around the world

To Donald Trump, it’s “people who love our country”. To the FBI, it’s a potential domestic terror threat. And to you or anyone else who has logged on to Facebook in recent months, it may just be a friend or family member who has started to show an alarming interest in child trafficking, the “cabal”, or conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and the coronavirus. This is QAnon, a wide-ranging and baseless internet conspiracy theory that reached the American mainstream in August. The movement has been festering on the fringes of rightwing internet communities for years, but its visibility has exploded in recent months amid the social unrest and uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic. Is QAnon taking over America? Not so fast Read more Now, a QAnon supporter is probably heading to the US Congress, the president (who plays a crucial role in QAnon’s false narrative) has refused to debunk and disavow it, and the successful hijacking of the #SaveTheChildren hashtag has provided the movement a more palatable banner under which to stage real-life recruiting events and manipulate local news coverage. Here’s our guide to what you need to know about QAnon. So what is QAnon? “QAnon” is a baseless internet conspiracy theory whose followers believe that a cabal of Satan-worshipping Democrats, Hollywood celebrities and billionaires runs the world while engaging in pedophilia, human trafficking and the harvesting of a supposedly life-extending chemical from the blood of abused children. QAnon followers believe that Donald Trump is waging a secret battle against this cabal and its “deep state” collaborators to expose the malefactors and send them all to Guantánamo Bay. A man holds a sign condemning supposed pedophilia in the film industry, in Hollywood on 22 August. Photograph: Christian Monterrosa/EPA There are many, many threads of the QAnon narrative, all as far-fetched and evidence-free as the rest, including subplots that focus on John F Kennedy Jr being alive (he isn’t), the Rothschild family controlling all the banks (they don’t) and children being sold through the website of the furniture retailer Wayfair (they aren’t). Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, George Soros, Bill Gates, Tom Hanks, Oprah Winfrey, Chrissy Teigen and Pope Francis are just some of the people whom QAnon followers have cast as villains in their alternative reality. This all sounds familiar. Haven’t we seen this before? Yes. QAnon has its roots in previously established conspiracy theories, some relatively new and some a millennium old. The contemporary antecedent is Pizzagate, the conspiracy theory that went viral during the 2016 presidential campaign when rightwing news outlets and influencers promoted the baseless idea that references to food and a popular Washington DC pizza restaurant in the stolen emails of Clinton campaign manager John Podesta were actually a secret code for a child trafficking ring. The theory touched off serious harassment of the restaurant and its employees, culminating in a December 2016 shooting by a man who had travelled to the restaurant believing there were children there in need of rescue. QAnon evolved out of Pizzagate and includes many of the same basic characters and plotlines without the easily disprovable specifics. But QAnon also has its roots in much older antisemitic conspiracy theories. The idea of the all-powerful, world-ruling cabal comes straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fake document purporting to expose a Jewish plot to control the world that was used throughout the 20th century to justify antisemitism. Another QAnon canard – the idea that members of the cabal extract the chemical adrenochrome from the blood of their child victims and ingest it to extend their lives – is a modern remix of the age-old antisemitic blood libel. How did QAnon start? On 28 October 2017, “Q” emerged from the primordial swamp of the internet on the message board 4chan with a post in which he confidently asserted that Hillary Clinton’s “extradition” was “already in motion” and her arrest imminent. In subsequent posts – there have been more than 4,000 so far – Q established his legend as a government insider with top security clearance who knew the truth about the secret struggle for power between Trump and the “deep state”. Though posting anonymously, Q uses a “trip code” that allows followers to distinguish his posts from those of other anonymous users (known as “anons”). Q switched from posting on 4chan to posting on 8chan in November 2017, went silent for several months after 8chan shut down in August 2019, and eventually re-emerged on a new website established by 8chan’s owner, 8kun. Q’s posts are cryptic and elliptical. They often consist of a long string of leading questions designed to guide readers toward discovering the “truth” for themselves through “research”. As with Clinton’s supposed “extradition”, Q has consistently made predictions that failed to come to pass, but true believers tend to simply adapt their narratives to account for inconsistencies. For close followers of QAnon, the posts (or “drops”) contain “crumbs” of intelligence that they “bake” into “proofs”. For “bakers”, QAnon is both a fun hobby and a deadly serious calling. It’s a kind of participatory internet scavenger hunt with incredibly high stakes and a ready-made community of fellow adherents. How do you go from anonymous posts on 4chan to a full-fledged conspiracy movement? Not by accident, that’s for sure. Anonymous internet posters who claim to have access to secret information are fairly common, and they usually disappear once people lose interest or realize they are being fooled. (Liberal versions of this phenomenon were rampant during the early months of the Trump administration when dozens of Twitter accounts claiming to be controlled by “rogue” employees of federal agencies went viral.) QAnon supporters await the arrival of Donald Trump for a rally at Mohegan Sun Arena in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, in 2018. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images QAnon might have faded away as well, were it not for the dedicated work of three conspiracy theorists who latched on to it at the very beginning and translated it into a digestible narrative for mainstream social media networks. A 2018 investigation by NBC News uncovered how this trio worked together to promote and profit off QAnon, turning it into the broad, multi-platform internet phenomenon that it is today. There now exists an entire QAnon media ecosystem, with enormous amounts of video content, memes, e-books, chatrooms, and more, all designed to snare the interest of potential recruits, then draw them “down the rabbit hole” and into QAnon’s alternate reality. How many people believe in QAnon? And who are they? Nobody knows, but we think it’s fair to say at least 100,000 people. Experts in conspiracy theories point out that belief in QAnon is far from common. While at one point, 80% of Americans believed a conspiracy theory about the Kennedy assassination, a poll by Pew Research in March found that 76% of Americans had never heard of QAnon and just 3% knew “a lot” about it. The largest Facebook groups dedicated to QAnon had approximately 200,000 members in them before Facebook banned them in mid-August. When Twitter took similar action against QAnon accounts in July, it limited features for approximately 150,000 accounts. In June, a Q drop that contained a link to a year-old Guardian article resulted in approximately 150,000 page views over the next 24 hours. These are rough figures to draw a conclusion from, but in the absence of better data, they hint at the scale of the online movement. In general, QAnon appears to be most popular among older Republicans and evangelical Christians. There are subcultures within QAnon for people who approach studying Q drops in a manner similar to Bible study. Other followers appear to have come to QAnon from New Age spiritual movements, from more traditional conspiracy theory communities, or from the far right. Since adulation for Trump is a prerequisite, it is almost exclusively a conservative movement, though the #SaveTheChildren campaign is helping it make inroads among non-Trump supporters (see below). QAnon has spread to Latin America and Europe, where it appears to be catching on among certain far-right movements. Why does QAnon matter? First, there’s the threat of violence. For those who truly believe that powerful figures are holding children hostage in order to exploit them sexually or for their blood, taking action to stop the abuse can seem like a moral imperative. While most QAnon followers will not engage in violence, many already have, or have attempted to, which is why the FBI has identified the movement as a potential domestic terror threat. Participation in QAnon also often involves vicious online harassment campaigns against perceived enemies, which can have serious consequences for the targets. QAnon is also gaining traction as a political force in the Republican party, which could have real and damaging effects on American democracy. Media Matters has compiled a list of 77 candidates for congressional seats who have indicated support for QAnon and at least one of them, Georgia’s Marjorie Taylor Greene, will in all likelihood be elected in November. People march during a ‘Save the Children’ rally outside the Capitol building on 22 August in St Paul, Minnesota. Photograph: Stephen Maturen/Getty Images As the hero of the overall narrative, Trump has the unique ability to influence QAnon believers. On 19 August, at a White House press briefing, he was given the opportunity to debunk the theory once and for all. Instead, he praised QAnon followers as patriots and appeared to affirm the central premise of the belief, saying: “If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it; I’m willing to put myself out there, and we are, actually. We’re saving the world from a radical left philosophy that will destroy this country and, when this country is gone, the rest of the world will follow.” QAnon believers were jubilant. Didn’t you mention #SaveTheChildren? What’s that all about? Participating in QAnon is largely made up of “research” – ie learning more about the byzantine theories or decoding Q drops – and evangelism. Most of the proselytization relies on media manipulation tactics designed to catch users’ attention and send them into a controlled online media environment where they will become “redpilled” through consuming pro-QAnon content. 'Mind-bogglingly irresponsible': meet the Republican donors helping QAnon reach Congress Read more QAnon followers have for years used a wide range of online tactics to achieve virality and garner mainstream media coverage, including making “documentaries” full of misinformation, hijacking trending hashtags with QAnon messaging, showing up at Trump rallies with Q signs, or running for elected office. A very potent iteration of this tactic emerged this summer with the #SaveTheChildren or #SaveOurChildren campaign. The innocuous sounding hashtag, which had previously been used by anti-child-trafficking NGOs, has been flooded with emotive content by QAnon adherents hinting at the broader QAnon narrative. (It doesn’t help that the debate around human trafficking is already full of bogus statistics.) On Facebook, anxiety over children due to the coronavirus pandemic, a resurgent anti-vaxx movement, and QAnon-fueled scaremongering about child trafficking have all combined to inspire a modern-day moral panic, somewhat akin to the “Satanic Panic” of the 1980s. Hundreds of real-life “Save Our Children” protests have been organized on Facebook in communities across the US (and around the world). These small rallies are in turn driving local news coverage by outlets who don’t realize that by publishing news designed to “raise awareness” about child trafficking, they are encouraging their readers or viewers to head to the internet, where a search for “save our children” could send them straight down the QAnon rabbit hole.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/dec/13/bbc-radio-ed-stourton

Media

2008-12-13T00:01:00.000Z

John Plunkett

Stourton to quit Radio 4's Today programme next October

Ed Stourton is to leave BBC Radio 4's Today programme after 10 years, to be replaced by the corporation's North America editor, Justin Webb. Stourton will continue to present the programme until Webb returns from Washington next October. The BBC said he would be leaving to concentrate on "other projects". Webb will present the programme for a year, on rotation with current regulars John Humphrys, Sarah Montague, James Naughtie and Evan Davis. Webb, an occasional presenter on the Today programme in the past, is regarded as one of the stars of the BBC's US presidential election coverage after replacing Matt Frei as North America editor late last year. He has also previously fronted Radio 4's Broadcasting House programme. Webb said Today "has been a part of my BBC life for many years, and more importantly it's a part of British life. It's an honour to have the chance to join the team. There isn't a more challenging job, or a more satisfying job, in British broadcasting. I am delighted." The Today editor, Ceri Thomas, said: "Justin has always excelled on radio and has become a truly formidable North America editor for the BBC. "The chance to bring his foreign affairs expertise home to the programme was too good to miss." Mark Damazer, the Radio 4 controller, said Stourton would "continue to grace Radio 4 after he leaves Today". Stourton has presented Today since January 1999.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/14/jacob-rees-mogg-and-ruth-davidson-in-tory-conference-spotlight

Politics

2017-09-14T17:37:09.000Z

Rowena Mason

Jacob Rees-Mogg and Ruth Davidson in Tory conference spotlight

Ruth Davidson and Jacob Rees-Mogg will be two of the most visible politicians at the Conservative party’s annual conference, which is set to be dominated by leadership speculation, angst about how to win over young voters, and the shape of Brexit. The MSP and MP, mooted as possible candidates to succeed Theresa May, are making a series of high-profile appearances at fringe events in the first week of October, with the Scottish Conservative leader giving two public interviews and speaking at two receptions. Rees-Mogg, the rightwing backbencher who has been the subject of summer speculation over his leadership ambitions, is lined up for at least six fringe events focusing on the challenges of Brexit. The power pose is dead – here’s how to really stand strong Read more Cabinet ministers appear to be keeping a relatively low profile, with Boris Johnson scheduled to appear at just one event on “global Britain”. The conference will be a key test of the feeling among activists toward May, but party sources said the mood among the grassroots and MPs was expected to be depressed after the disappointing election result. One unwelcome guest for the prime minister will be the former chancellor George Osborne, who has been using his editorship of the Evening Standard to campaign against her Brexit strategy. He will appear at a fringe event about devolution and the “northern powerhouse”, after staying away last year in the aftermath of the referendum. The party’s fringe guide and agenda, published this week, shows the Conservatives will spend most of their time wrestling over how to appeal to young people, and what went wrong at the election. Justine Greening, the education secretary, and Sajid Javid, the communities secretary, will start the first day with a session on “delivering a fairer future for young people”, as concern grows within the party about the overriding appeal of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to younger voters. Greening’s brief covers university tuition fees and Javid is responsible for housing policy, which were two issues Labour used to attract the votes of under-35s at the election. The former cabinet minister Eric Pickles will present a report about problems with the party’s centralised election campaign. It will identify the party’s depleted activist base as a major problem and recommend ways to enthuse younger supporters. In an interview with The House magazine, Robert Halfon, a former deputy chairman of the party, said on Wednesday that the party needed “radical, counter-intuitive revolution … if we are to survive”. “If we don’t radically reform our messaging, our machinery; if we don’t focus on policies that really are there to help the lower paid, which are supported by people in metropolitan areas, I think, we’ll face a precipice. Corbyn will be in No 10,” he said. Voters backed the party with “gritted teeth” and the Tories’ problem with young voters was massive, he said. But he cautioned against concluding that they supported Labour because of its pledge to scrap tuition fees. “It isn’t just about money. I think if we make that mistake, we will make a big mistake as a party. I think young people are voting Labour because they believe that it is a noble thing to do,” he said. “Who would not want to vote for a Labour party whose main mission is to help the underdog. I would love to do it, because why would you not want to do that?”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/20/jeff-bezos-rocket-design-an-inquiry

Science

2021-07-21T01:11:10.000Z

Matthew Cantor

Why does Jeff Bezos’s rocket look like that? An inquiry

Jeff Bezos’s 11-minute trip aboard a Blue Origin rocket to the edge of space on Tuesday left the world’s richest man feeling “unbelievably good” and his crew “very happy”. But afterwards, as he wondered aloud how fast he could refuel, the rest of the world was left pondering just why the New Shepard rocket had such a distinctive shape. As social media erupted with innuendo, we contacted a few experts to find out why it looked, in the words of one astrophysicist, so “anthropomorphic”. At one major research institution, the press officer referred us to the gender studies department, but Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, was able to shed some light on the topic. Bezos blasted for traveling to space while Amazon workers toil on planet Earth Read more New Shepard consists of a mushroom-like crew capsule that flares out over a long shaft, called a booster. The rounded top appears more bulbous than that of many other rockets, but it’s not unique. “There’s a long history of what we call hammerhead rockets,” on which the capsule’s diameter is wider than the booster, said McDowell. “If you’re careful, it actually has perfectly fine aerodynamics.” Just like the tips of passenger and military jets, capsules come in all different shapes. New Shepard’s interior is designed to “maximize the interior volume” to hold six passengers, said Laura Forczyk, the owner of Astralytical, a space analytics company. It also needs a “big, flat bottom” for stable re-entry, McDowell said. “They went through a lot of iterations coming up with the perfect shape to give them the most volume, the best windows, and [a design that] wouldn’t kill anyone onboard,” said the astrophysicist Scott Manley in a private video shared with the Guardian. “And this is the shape they came up with, this dome shape.” As for the booster, engineers work to minimize its mass, making it as small as possible. “It is easier to balance a long and skinny cylinder than it is to balance a thicker, fatter cylinder,” Forczyk said. How the billionaire space race could be one giant leap for pollution Read more These competing concerns can lead to a capsule that is wider than might originally have been envisioned. “It comes down to optimizing two different things and not being able to make them quite match,” McDowell said. He pointed to other examples of rockets with slightly flared tops, including the Atlas V Starliner, expected to launch next week. Adding to those “anthropomorphic” qualities is a ridge near the top that is “very, very obvious”, Manley said. That’s there to accommodate a “ring-shaped fin” that is fundamental to the re-entry process, counteracting the effects of the fin at the bottom as the booster travels in reverse. All this adds up to some particularly memorable optics. Was there any subtle aesthetic messaging involved? “I don’t know if I would have made the design this way, but I’m sure it was driven entirely by physics” as well as cost savings, said Forczyk. Still, “they can’t not have noticed,” McDowell said. “You’ve got to imagine there was a meeting where someone went, ‘Do you really want to fly looking like this?’ But I’m guessing an engineer got up and said, ‘This is what the math says. This is the optimum configuration. So this is what we’re gonna fly.’”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/feb/04/bushfire-brandalism-australian-artists-replace-bus-shelter-ads-with-political-posters

Art and design

2020-02-04T02:52:29.000Z

Jenny Valentish

Australia's largest unsanctioned art show': guerrilla bushfire campaign hijacks bus shelters

It’s amazing what you can get away with in a hi-vis vest. On Thursday 30 January, pedestrians in some suburbs of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane would have walked straight past activist artists (vandals, some critics might call them) removing advertising from bus shelters and inserting artwork protesting the Morrison government and its handling of Australia’s bushfire crisis. “Bushfire Brandalism”, the action is being called. 'Australia is on fire': the political posters taking over bus shelters – in pictures Read more Sydney-based artist Scott Marsh chuckles about the hi-vis vests: “It’s the cloak of invisibility.” Marsh, known internationally for his political murals, contributed a portrait of Scott Morrison with the words “climate denial” emblazoned across his forehead. A QR code on each poster links people to a bushfire-related charity of the artist’s choice. It also gives the collective an idea of how and where people are connecting with the campaign. Unfortunately, many of the works get taken down as fast as they go up. The collective said on Monday they installed 78 posters last week, describing it as “the nation’s largest unsanctioned outdoor art exhibition”. But only a few posters remain. A volunteer for Bushfire Brandalism pulls advertising from a Sydney bus shelter, replacing it with a political poster. Photograph: Adam Scarf The practice of “brandalism” – also known as “subvertising” or “anti-advertising” – isn’t new. In 1979, Billboard Utilising Graffitists Against Unhealthy Promotions (colloquially known as “Bugger Up”) was formed in Sydney and spread to other Australian cities, targeting cigarette and alcohol advertising. British artists the KLF have been associated with the practice since the 90s, and in 2015, more than 80 artists took over 600 Parisian bus shelters during the COP21 UN climate change conference. You can smell it in the air – now is the time to really push on climate change Scott Marsh Forty-one artists are involved in this latest Australian iteration, including Georgia Hill, Tom Gerrard, Sarah McCloskey, Ghostpatrol, Callum Preston and E.L.K, as well as anonymous artists. In one poster, a Caramello Koala has burst and is melting above the words “Save an Aussie icon”. In another, Blinky Bill runs from an encroaching wall of flames. The collective launched three weeks prior to the posters going up, via a group chat of artists on Instagram. They were dismayed at what they saw as biased bushfire coverage and at the misinformation being shared by some media – particularly the Murdoch-owned press. Three posters installed in bus shelters: How’s the Serenity by Thomas Bell; Burnt Blinky by Anonymous; and Listen to Your Home by Callum Preston. Composite: Luke Shirlaw, Adam Scarf, Bushfire Brandalism “It felt like taking over public space was an appropriate angle to tackle it,” says one organiser who doesn’t want to be named. “There was a lot of discussion about the divided attitudes and experiences of people living in the city versus the regional areas – but we were limited in time and resources, and also those type of ‘adshell’ spaces only really exist in the city centre.” Many of the artists involved aren’t known for being political in their work. The same can’t be said for Marsh, who has for years responded to policies he takes issue with – starting with Sydney’s lockout laws, when he was an art student living behind the Coke sign in Kings Cross. “People were losing their jobs and it didn’t make any sense at all – [there was] dodgy stuff when you started looking into it,” he says. “I went to the Keep Sydney Open march, and then had the idea of doing a mural of Casino Mike [Baird, the then-NSW premier].” Then there was his mural of Alan Jones with a ball gag in his mouth; and one lampooning Israel Folau for the crowdfunding campaign he launched after Rugby Australia stripped him of his contract following homophobic social media posts (Folau is depicted begging next to a Lamborghini). 'Love won': vandalised George Michael mural in Sydney gets a makeover Read more Marsh’s murals are frequently defaced or painted over, such as his short-lived “Merry Crisis” Scott Morrison mural that lasted three days (he turned it into a merchandise line and raised $131,424.50 for Australian fire brigades) and a saintly George Michael portrait, which got painted over in black ink before locals reclaimed it with pro-marriage equality messages. Marsh’s depiction of Cardinal George Pell and Tony Abbott – A Happy Ending – was painted over within 24 hours by three men who labelled it “pornography”. On one occasion, Marsh even obliterated his own mural – Kanye Loves Kanye – after he reportedly sold a one-off print of it for $100,000. Scott Marsh’s The Happy Ending, featuring Tony Abbott and Cardinal George Pell, was painted over within 24 hours. Photograph: Scott Marsh “The interactive stuff’s more fun than murals,” Marsh says. “I did a Fraser Anning Easter egg hunt last year.” (Those who found the eggs were encouraged to throw them at the Fraser bunny.) Before last year’s federal election, he made posters of Clive Palmer falling asleep during question time “and invited people to draw dicks on him”. 'It's telling that people are convinced they're real': the satirical signs of Sydney’s ‘nanny state’ Read more Sometimes Marsh really goes the extra mile. Not content with the mural of Cardinal Pell in his prison greens that he put up in Sydney 50 metres away from St Mary’s Cathedral, Marsh flew to Rome on his own coin and did the same near the Vatican. When he has to act fast, he has a printed paper version of the mural, pastes it up and finishes the job with paint, but in any case, passersby were surprisingly supportive. The last of the 78 Bushfire Brandalism posters have now gone up, but for Marsh, tackling the issue of climate change is far from over. He continues to create works relating to the Adani coalmine, not least because of all the family holidays he spent at the Great Barrier Reef. “It’s really hit home for me,” he says. “I’m frustrated with the lack of action. I got distracted for a while, but you can smell it in the air that now is the time to really push on climate change. If nothing happens now, it’s never going to fucking happen.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/dec/17/the-50-best-films-of-2015-in-the-us-no-2-45-years

Film

2015-12-17T12:00:04.000Z

Peter Bradshaw

The 50 best films of 2015 in the US: No 2 – 45 Years

One of the enormous and incidental pleasures of Andrew Haigh’s superlative drama 45 Years is the way it presents us with two superb actors absorbed in the kind of roles and script that don’t come along too often. Older actors usually get to play supporting parts which are sketchily or condescendingly conceived, in movies which are of varying quality, to say the least. This movie was different. It put Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay centre stage and gave them the career-opportunity of a lifetime. They took it. The 50 best films of 2015 in the US: the full list Read more Rampling got the chance to play a role that had nothing to with menacing or decadent sensuality; Courtenay played someone who wasn’t diffident or wet. They are both quietly electrifying. They are Kate and Geoff Mercer, a retired childless couple living in the charming if somewhat featureless Norfolk landscape, in a village just outside Norwich. Kate is a former headteacher with a natural calm air of authority which still commands respect thereabouts and Geoff used to be manager at a local engineering company: he is seems of a lower social class and lacks her effortless poise and self-control. Watch a video review Guardian In fact, he can still get a bit lairy with a drink inside him. This very mismatch has something romantic about it, especially as they are preparing to celebrate their 45th wedding anniversary. Yet that faintly arbitrary number — 45 — is due to the fact that an earlier party had been cancelled, and something appears to be subtly wrong. The uneasy calm of their relationship is destroyed when Geoff gets a letter out of the blue saying that the body of his old girlfriend, who was killed in a walking holiday in Switzerland, has now been discovered in the ice and snow, perfectly preserved. The past comes rushing back to overwhelm the present. Which are your favourite films of 2015? Read more Piece by piece, brick by brick, the edifice of their relationship begins to collapse — and so do their lives and their sense of themselves. The film terrifyingly shows how as time goes by, we can build our identities on a lie, or at least on a delusion, and these identities become teeteringly unsafe towers liable to collapse if they are suddenly examined or challenged too closely. Perhaps there is something dangerous in the very act of an anniversary party itself: the sudden, unwonted focus on the marriage — why did we get married, anyway? — and the appearance of dozens of old friends and faces with disturbing associations with the past. Rampling, Courteney and Haigh interviewed Guardian At the end, Kate appears to be in torment, but Haigh’s final, disquieting shot suggests that, in Shakespeare’s phrase, there’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. Look around you — at Kate and Geoff’s anniversary party, or in the office, or at home, or in the street. Everyone looks happy, or calm at any rate. But perhaps every single one of these faces is concealing a terrible, painful secret, like Kate and Geoff. 45 Years is a fiercely disturbing film.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/may/22/martin-amis-literature-crusader-peers-chutzpah

Books

2023-05-22T05:00:48.000Z

Lisa Allardice

‘Damn, that fool can write’: how Martin Amis made everyone up their game

‘Y ou’ll be reading me every now and then at least until about 2080, weather permitting. And when you go, maybe my afterlife, too, will come to an end, my afterlife of words.” So wrote Martin Amis in his heavily autobiographical final novel Inside Story in 2020. With a body of work spanning 50 years, he leaves 15 novels, two short-story collections, one memoir and seven book-length works of journalism and history. Did posterity matter to him? Hell, yes. “There is only one value judgment in literature: time,” he insisted. Back in 2009, I called Amis – as editors all over the world would have been calling or emailing leading writers on Saturday night – to ask if he might write a tribute to the American novelist John Updike, who had just died. Time was tight and we were aiming high, but as with every major (and not so major) event at that time, Amis was the writer everyone was after. And on Updike, the last postwar American literary giant? It had to be him. Happily, he felt a duty to contribute to what Gore Vidal called “book chat”. With a cigarette dangling, he would pout extravagantly at the camera – you can almost smell the smoke and ambition “Call me back in 10 minutes,” he said in his unmistakable transatlantic drawl (he hadn’t yet made America his permanent home). Had he said he would do it? Would he file in time for tomorrow’s front page? I wasn’t sure, but duly called him back 10 minutes later, hiding in a cupboard in the bowels of the Guardian, where we went to make private calls. “Ready?” he said. And – I may have imagined this bit – lighting a cigarette, he proceeded to dictate a whole piece, replete with semi-colons, quotation and his hallmark neologisms (not for Amis the correspondent’s punctuation-less cablese). He spoke and I typed. “There aren’t supposed to be extremes of uniqueness – either you are or you’re not – but he was exceptionally sui generis,” he drawled. A daring take on the Holocaust … Martin Amis at the Booker ceremony in 1991, holding a copy of Time’s Arrow – the only one of his books nominated for that award. Photograph: Rebecca Naden/PA We repeated the exercise barely three months later when another of his great heroes and friends, JG Ballard, died. This time we made it to over 1,000 words. “Very few Ballardians (who are almost all male) were foolish enough to emulate him. He was sui generis,” Amis enunciated with verbal italics. “What was influential, though, was the marvellous creaminess of his prose, and the weird and sudden expansions of his imagery,” he continued. “Marvellous creaminess”, “weird and sudden expansions” – how did he do that? OK, so he had written at length about both Updike and Ballard before. And he was routinely invoked as a successor to both. But still. Of all the writers I’d worked with during many years as a literary editor, Amis was the only one I knew who could pull that off. The sheer smarts and chutzpah of composing a piece off the cuff, without even going to the bother of turning on the computer, was quintessential Amis. 'He took the novel onto another plane of intimacy' Martin Amis Read more He will for ever be remembered as part of the “Class of 83”, the inaugural Granta Best of Young British novelists list that also included Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Salman Rushdie and Kazuo Ishiguro. “He has had a baleful influence on a whole generation,” bemoaned AS Byatt of Amis in 1993, as one of the Granta judges tasked with finding successors a decade later. Not because he was a bad writer but because so many had been foolish enough to try to emulate him (to echo Amis on Ballard). If, as is often said, this generation of writers were the closest the books world gets to having rock stars, then Amis was Mick Jagger. Those 70s photographs (The Rachel Papers years) of him pouting extravagantly at the camera, cigarette dangling – you can almost smell the smoke and ambition – announced a changing of the guard. His pose, like his prose, poised somewhere between provocation and seduction. Where the literary world had been grey and tweedy, presided over by ageing grandees (Amis Sr, William Golding, Anthony Burgess, Iris Murdoch), now it was young and outrageously brash, and Amis was the frontman. Old devils … Amis and Salman Rushdie in 1995. Photograph: David M Benett/Getty Images At an event in 2020 with Salman Rushdie, Rushdie asked him if, back in those heady days, he felt part of a gang. “That’s the way ‘movements’ start,” Amis replied. “Ambitious young drunks, late at night, saying, ‘We’re not going to do that any more. We’re going to do this instead.’” And with this “gang” – which also included his great friend, the late journalist Christopher Hitchens, and Ian McEwan – the young drunks went on to became “the old devils”, to borrow a Kingsley Amis title, that pretty much comprised the literary establishment for years. “There was a feeling,” he said of this time, “that there were places to go that the English novel didn’t go, and was being too fastidious about.” And he spent the next few decades making sure he was the first to go there. Who but Amis could have had such a firm grasp on the collar of what John Self, the narrator of Money, called “the panting present” to have written a novel of that title at the beginning of the 80s, that decade of Thatcherite greed? And then envisage ecological collapse in London Fields at the end of it? Which writer would have dared to take on the Holocaust (Time’s Arrow in 1991, and The Zone of Interest in 2014) and Stalin’s Great Terror (Koba the Dread in 2002), with, as Tim Adams put it in the Observer, “his full ironist’s swagger”? Or to have imagined the last 24 hours of 9/11 terrorist Mohamed Atta in The Second Plane in 2008? In his crusade for fine writing and his declaration of war on cliche, Amis made everyone up their game. Over the years, critics have fallen over themselves trying to outsmart Mart: lobbing hyperbole and volleying adverbs (Amis was a huge tennis fan). “So just how good is Martin Amis?” “Why do we love to hate Amis?” they would come out, strutting, pistols cocked. But Amis was already in the bar. For a time, he seemed happy to fill the role of novelist as public intellectual. He riffed elegantly on everything from the porn industry to the Royal family. “He is always putting it up to you somehow, making the reader feel brilliant too. Or a bit stupid,” wrote Anne Enright of his collection of criticism The Rub of Time in 2017. “This is the best fun going when everyone is drunk, as they seemed to be in the 1980s, and literary London was like one long dinner party in which everyone knew where you went to school.” Sign up to Bookmarks Free weekly newsletter Discover new books and learn more about your favourite authors with our expert reviews, interviews and news stories. Literary delights delivered direct to you Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. ‘Anyone who’s any good is going to be funny’ … Amis at home in 1981. Photograph: Martin Lawrence/Daily Mail/Shutterstock Inevitably, the poster-boy turned into a target, and at one point Amis the dazzling young stylist looked in danger of being overshadowed by Amis the grumpy old controversialist, with ill-judged comments on Islamism and euthanasia. But after what he called an “eisteddfod of hostility” from the British press and his move to New York, he largely reserved his opinions for his writing. He was planning a collection of short stories on the subject of slavery in the US – “boy will I cop it,” he said in a recent Guardian interview – as well as returning to the Third Reich for a third time with a “modest novella”. And yet, despite many years as Britain’s foremost literary celebrity and contrarian, Amis somehow managed never to win the Booker (he was only shortlisted for Time’s Arrow) nor to be cancelled. Of his instinct to shock, he observed: “Every novel worth reading is funny and serious. Anyone who’s any good is going to be funny. It’s the nature of life. Life is funny.” And it is clear from the irrepressible punchiness of his prose that he had a blast writing. “It seems to me a hilariously enjoyable way of spending one’s time,” he said. And so, at his daring comic best, he was great fun to read. He was famous for his biting satire and swaggering prose, but there was always tenderness not far beneath The insolence, the silliness, the seriousness, the grotesqueness, the erudition and audacity were all swept up in those inimitable sentences and corralled into order by his cleverness with form. As Enright summed up in her review: “Damn, that fool can write.” And, like an imposing building slightly worn with time, Amis changed the landscape of literature so dramatically that it is hard to remember what it looked like before. And for all the macho-ness of his writing, his influence can be seen in writers of the generation that followed, for instance his friend Zadie Smith. ‘Money is his best novel – it’s not even close’: the cream of Martin Amis’s writing Read more “He was a talismanic figure for my generation of novelists, and an inspiration to me personally,” says another friend, Kazuo Ishiguro. “He was famous, notorious even, for his biting satire and swaggering prose, but there was always a surprising tenderness not far beneath that surface. His characters were always yearning for love and connection. I believe ultimately his work will age well, growing over the years.” We will be reading him for decades, weather permitting. But to go back to 2009 and Amis’s closing words on Updike: “His style was one of compulsive and unstoppable vividness and musicality. Several times a day you turn to him, as you will now to his ghost, and say to yourself, ‘How would Updike have done it?’ This is a very cold day for literature.” And so it is today. Younger writers will ask: “How would Amis have done it?” He was exceptionally sui generis.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/jan/19/actionandadventure

Film

2007-01-19T00:00:19.000Z

Peter Bradshaw

Rocky Balboa

Euphorically running up those Philadelphia steps to the pounding music must take a little longer for Rocky these days, you'd think, what with the Zimmer frame and the nursing team on hand with the canister of Grecian 2000. But he's back for one last wildly implausible shot at heavyweight boxing glory - in a movie called Rocky Balboa. Just that. Not Rocky 10 or Rocky 18, but Rocky Balboa, which is evidently supposed to have a dignified, end-stopped ring to it: simply his full name, a man movingly rendering up a final account of himself. Maybe when Stallone returns with the fourth Rambo next year, the title should just be John J Rambo, signifying the same sort of gravitas and spiritual acceptance: tying the old red bandana round the head one more time, before heading out to Basra and kicking the asses of a few young punk insurgents, just to show he's still got the chops. Incidentally, Sylvester Stallone is 60. It could be that Rocky the Italian Stallion, the legendary boxer he first created in 1976, is supposed to be younger than that, but no one in this film ever has the bad taste to mention his precise age. At any rate, Rocky is now a melancholy widower running a Italian restaurant. Then he gets a chance to prove himself in the ring. Again. We get the usual "training" montage showing this Saga-vintage Michelin Man running, lifting heavy weights and roaring motivationally at himself. The famous Stallone face now looks more asymmetrical than ever; it's as if a gallon of Botox has been injected into one side of his head, and his lower lip is so skewed that its right corner is now directly under his right earlobe. The unfortunate effect is that of an invisible angel of death hooking Rocky's mouth with a fishing line and implacably reeling him in.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/feb/21/naming-storms-has-been-success-say-uk-meteorologists

UK news

2022-02-21T16:00:06.000Z

Mark Brown

Naming storms has been success, say UK meteorologists

In just six days the UK has been battered by a triple whammy of Dudley, Eunice and Franklin and next up could be Gladys. But does the naming of storms heighten awareness to the danger, or inure us? Liz Bentley, chief executive of the Royal Meteorological Society, says that it does work and heightens awareness. “Having named storms gives them a kind of uniqueness, identity and higher profile … that need for people to listen and take action.” The naming of storms in the UK and Ireland is a recent phenomenon, although it has been used around the world for decades. But in 2015 the UK Met Office and Ireland’s Met Éireann launched the Name our Storms project to improve communication of high-impact weather events. The public are invited to suggest names for the storms and a list of alternate male and female names is issued in September. Last year it began with Arwen and if there is a storm later this week it will be Gladys. Future names include Imani, Nasim, Ruby and Tineke. The naming of storms comes on top of the system in which the Met Office issues yellow, amber and rare red warnings. Bentley accepted that having so many weather warnings could inure people to their danger. “I’ve heard people say: ‘We always have warnings and people become blase about them.’ But they are there for a reason.” People will only become blase, Bentley believes, if they stop believing them. “The worst thing that could happen is that we push out lots of these warnings and then nothing happens. There’s that feeling of we’re crying wolf.” She said the Met Office had done an impressive job in naming Eunice last Monday. “To get that message out five days in advance is pretty good going.” Named storm warnings work, said Bentley, pointing to the 22 lives lost in the “great storm” of 1987, which came through when most people were asleep. Eunice was during the day and three people in the UK were killed. “Any loss of life is terrible but it could have been an awful lot worse.” The pioneer of storm naming as we know it was a meteorologist called Clement Wragge, who worked for the Queensland government between 1887 and 1907. It was adopted by US navy and air force meteorologists during the second world war for the naming of tropical cyclones and became common practice in the US and Australia from the 1950s. Andrew Charlton-Perez, professor of meteorology at Reading University, was part of a team that explored the impact of naming storms by looking at Storm Doris, which took place in 2017, and how information flowed. “You can definitely see very large spikes in attention around that term a couple of days before the event, there really is communication going on.” Naming Storm Eunice so far in advance “really did change behaviour”, he said. “Both the warnings and storm naming is all about changing behaviour and making sure that people don’t put themselves at risk so I think yes absolutely, that worked in this case.” He praised the Met Office for making the right calls at the right time, meaning people took note. “You can end up with doing this too much and people get inured to it.” So far, that was not happening, he said.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/sep/15/anarchy-the-mclaren-westwood-gang-review-

Film

2016-09-15T21:35:54.000Z

Peter Bradshaw

Anarchy! The McLaren Westwood Gang review – scrappy tribute to Sex Pistols mischief-maker

There’s something appropriately anarchic about Phil Strongman’s scrappy but nonetheless watchable documentary tribute to Malcolm McLaren, the uncategorisable flaneur, entrepreneur, poseur, artist-manqué and mischief-maker who died in 2010, having invented the Sex Pistols. This film looks a bit patchy, occasionally the audio quality isn’t of the highest and, despite the title, there is hardly anything about Vivienne Westwood. (Strongman uses what appears to be archive interview footage of McLaren.) Yet like Julien Temple and Greil Marcus, Strongman places McLaren and punk in the tradition of anarchism, situationism and pop art, with interesting supporting material and claims that McLaren always wanted to be the “British Andy Warhol”. A shrewd guess, and it could be true. Unfortunately, McLaren didn’t have Warhol’s stamina and his gift for flattering celebrities, and he was maybe a little too sardonic and dyspeptic to have Warhol’s career. He was a one-off.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/aug/06/terry-oneill-best-bowie-shoots-david-never-needed-coaxing

Art and design

2019-08-06T14:56:25.000Z

Thomas Hobbs

Terry O'Neill on his best Bowie shoots: 'David never needed coaxing'

From Audrey Hepburn to the Beatles, Frank Sinatra and Elton John, there aren’t many pop cultural icons Terry O’Neill hasn’t photographed. One of his subjects, Hollywood actress Faye Dunaway – who he famously captured hungover, surrounded by newspapers the morning after winning an Oscar in 1977 – became his wife, even if the memory now frustrates him. He agrees that a photographer falling in love with one of their subjects is rarely a good idea: “That was a waste of 12 years of my life!” Yet the legendary photographer insists none of these stars compared to David Bowie. “He was my creative muse,” O’Neill tells me authoritatively over the phone. “He was so charming and warm, and one of the few people [other than Faye] I really felt friendly towards.” The flash startled the dog … a session for the Diamond Dogs album. Photograph: Terry O’Neill/Iconic Images Currently suffering from prostate cancer, O’Neill is confined to bed and admits that he’s severely lacking in energy. But the mention of Bowie will occasionally cause the 81-year-old’s hoarse cockney drawl to soften and lighten up with enthusiasm. “I treated David like a Shakespearean actor as you never knew who was going to show up,” he says affectionately. “He could look alien-like or female-like; it was always so exciting as everything he did was so unpredictable.” Over a 20-year period, O’Neill captured Bowie’s shapeshifting artistry better than just about anybody else, standing behind the camera as the Space Oddity singer transformed into theatrical glam avatar Ziggy Stardust, then morphed into the coke-addled Thin White Duke, who in 1976 notoriously told Rolling Stone’s Cameron Crowe: “I think I might have been a bloody good Hitler. I’d be an excellent dictator.” Although, O’Neill claims: “I don’t actually remember him saying that stuff.” His last magazine shoot with Bowie in 1992 was shot like a sentimental happy ending, with O’Neill’s warm closeups giving off the impression he was delighted the star had managed to make it out of the 1970s alive. “It felt like we had come full circle,” he agrees. O’Neill’s photographs have left such a lasting impression because he was able to demystify some of the 20th century’s biggest icons and cut to the core of their personalities. His photographs of Audrey Hepburn, for example, went beyond the clichés of her delicate beauty and prioritised her goofy side, as she pulled silly faces while relaxing by the pool. The imperious strength of Winston Churchill, meanwhile, is something O’Neill ripped into pieces. Instead, we saw a frail old man who was admirably trying to keep up the illusion of the cigar-munching British Bulldog despite the fact he had become so weak he had to be carried around in a chair by minders. “It was 1962 and I was going home from the office and saw this crowd forming,” he recalls. “I burst my way through it to take a photograph and it was Churchill leaving the hospital. I didn’t really know his whole story so I just shot what was in front of me. The fact I didn’t have any emotional baggage maybe helped.” Farewell Ziggy … Stardust’s final outing, for an NBC late-night show in London, 1973. Photograph: Terry O’Neill/Iconic Images Three years earlier, O’Neill had started working at the Daily Sketch, becoming one of the youngest photographers on Fleet Street. “I wanted to be just like W Eugene Smith, who was such a great photojournalist. His images were full of truth.” One of the first important gigs he can remember taking on was photographing Laurence Olivier dressed as a woman for a performance at the London variety show The Night of a Hundred Stars; perfect training for the gender fluidity of Bowie that would await him later on. “There was a 12-year-age gap between me and the next youngest photographer,” he recalls. According to O’Neill, nobody in Fleet Street wanted to interact with the youth scene and its emerging bands, such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. This left him with an opportunity to capture the swinging 60s with real freedom. “I remember I was asked by an editor to go photograph this ‘little band’ called the Beatles at Abbey Road Studios, then that led to me working with the Stones,” says O’Neill. “All the old timers didn’t want to take these photographs on and almost looked down on them. It meant us youngsters could jump in and take up the opportunity. I could go out and create my own world. There was no other time like it; it was just so much fun!” By the time O’Neill started shooting Bowie during his Ziggy Stardust tour in 1973, he was much more of a respected name in the photography world. But while he had taken important concert photographs before, O’Neill was able to enjoy these ones a lot more. “You couldn’t bloody hear the Beatles,” he explains, “but Bowie’s show actually entertained you and had a story to it. I could hear every word and he really gave you a proper show.” Scantily clad in fishnets and monster claws over his chest, rocking a garishly orange mullet, Bowie’s on-stage “bravery” during this era impressed O’Neill, especially the way he wasn’t afraid to look effeminate at a time where this could get you beaten up. Most of all, he liked the fact that Bowie took charge of his own image during their sessions, particularly for their Diamond Dogs shoot, where the singer had a specific, animalistic, bare-chested pose in mind. He also brought a dog on to the set, which jumped up in shock at the flash of the strobe lighting, perfectly capturing the kind of avant garde chaos Bowie had intended for his dystopian album, influenced by George Orwell’s 1984. A contact sheet from the Diamond Dogs shoot. Photograph: Terry O’Neill/Iconic Images “I loved that he had all these characters and took charge of our sessions and told me exactly what he wanted,” says O’Neill. “It meant that our pictures had a purpose. I guess with most of the other pop stars I shot, it was sometimes very aimless. With David, you never had to coax things out, they just came naturally.” Yet just a year later, during a shoot for the Los Angeles Magazine, O’Neill could almost be photographing a different person – Bowie appears gaunt and looks like he hasn’t been sleeping. “There was a lot of cocaine all of a sudden,” admits O’Neill. “He was really big on drugs. I never felt I was in a position to have a word with him about it as don’t forget: we were all around the same age!” One of O’Neill’s most famous Bowie shots co-stars a fellow countercultural hero. “One day he told me, ‘Come to my office tomorrow, I’m bringing someone special.’ I got there and it was William Burroughs, and I was completely staggered. They were both dressed in fedora hats like father and son,” he giggles. Was that the Naked Lunch author’s idea? “No, David decided on that.” ‘I’m bringing someone special’ … with William Burroughs for Rolling Stone in February, 1974. Photograph: Terry O’Neill/Terry O'Neill Around this period, O’Neill heard that Elizabeth Taylor was hoping to cast Bowie in her new movie Blue Bird, so engineered a shoot between the pair. But Bowie, who was by this stage doing lines of coke for breakfast, showed up four hours late. “It was only because of Liz’s professionalism that the shoot even happened,” he reflects. “David showed up stoned out of his head.” In these photographs, Taylor looks bemused at being left waiting for so long, as Bowie hugs her apologetically. Yet as the shoot went on, Taylor thawed and Bowie began holding her more and more affectionately. By the end of the day, they looked more like lovers than acquaintances. “With his charm, Bowie could always affect women,” says O’Neill, “and that’s what happened on that day. But Liz never gave him the part in the movie, which I guess was telling.” ‘David showed up stoned out of his head’ … with Liz Taylor in 1975. Photograph: Terry O’Neill/Iconic Images Bowie was never anything other than interesting, according to O’Neill, who insists that modern pop stars are pampered and manufactured. He believes they’re nowhere near as interesting as the people he was fortunate enough to photograph. When I ask him if he’d be excited to shoot a modern star like Beyoncé, he dismissively replies: “Definitely not. I don’t care about pop stars any more. There’s nobody I want to photograph so I’ve lost interest to be honest. There are no great pop singers like Elton John. The new acts just aren’t as interesting to look at. When Frank Sinatra and all of those guys died, it was awful. It really felt like the end of an era.” ‘I don’t care about pop stars any more’ … Terry O’Neill today. Photograph: Terry O'Neill He hopes his new book, Bowie by O’Neill, will help a new generation of fans connect with the singer, with the photographs also helping spark memories of a period the photographer admits is now more than a little hazy. O’Neill, who was awarded an honorary fellowship from the Royal Photographic Society back in 2004, sounds genuinely humbled that he’s still being asked to reflect on these photographs. “At the time, I just carried on taking pictures. When I worked with Frank [Sinatra] he told me to be a fly on the wall and that’s what I was. I never realised that these photos would live on for as long as they did,” he says. “Bowie’s name is going to live on forever and if, by extension, that means my photographs do too, then that’s a really incredible thought.” Bowie by O’Neill: The Definitive Collection with Unseen Images by Terry O’Neill is published by Cassell Illustrated on 8 August, £40.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/14/nadine-gordimer-south-africa-secrecy-bill

World news

2014-07-14T17:38:25.000Z

Justice Malala

Nadine Gordimer used last interview to condemn South Africa's secrecy bill

We are already falling all over each other to pay homage to Nadine Gordimer. The stampede will increase as the news is carried over our borders and spreads across the world. She is, after all, one of our greats: a committed and relentless voice against apartheid throughout her life, a literary giant who received the greatest accolades – a Booker and Nobel, among many others - from a swooning global audience. In the darkest times of South Africa’s apartheid nightmare in the early 1960s, when the jackboot of apartheid was stamping on every dissident voice, she helped the journalist Nat Nakasa set up his iconic literary magazine The Classic. He was forced into exile in the United States, where Gordimer visited him, and where he took his life in 1965. Two days before his death he told a friend: “I can’t laugh anymore and when I can’t laugh I can’t write.” That was the world that Gordimer chose to immerse herself in; a world in which to live consciously and with conscience as a white South African was to condemn yourself to a life of harassment and pain. She walked away from her comfortable white – silent, acquiescent – community, and became a pariah: her books banned, her movements spied upon, her freedom curtailed, her black friends breaking the law to have a drink with her. And so we will be falling all over each other to mourn her, to sing her praises. We do death well here. We did it with Nelson Mandela and many of his comrades, as so many of their generation succumbs so frequently to death these days. We will do just as well - even better - with Gordimer. Within a couple of hours of the announcement of her death, the ANC issued a fulsome tribute: “Our country has lost an unmatched literary giant whose life’s work was our mirror and an unending quest for humanity.” It is true. But there is another way to honour a giant such as Gordimer – or any other of the mighty oaks of our struggle who are falling in their numbers these days – that is beyond platitudes. It is a better way to honour them. That way is to seek to live as consciously as they did. It is to speak for the opening up of the avenues for freedom – of speech, of expression, of thought – as Gordimer did unrelentingly for the six decades of her public life. Over the past few years Gordimer’s voice has inspired many journalists and activists to stand up against possibly the most pernicious piece of legislation to be brought before South Africa’s democratic parliament, the euphemistically-named Protection of State Information Bill. It is a secrecy law. It will force journalists to reveal their sources and will send whistle-blowers to jail. It is a piece of law which has no place in a country once led by a Nelson Mandela. “The reintroduction of censorship is unthinkable when you think how people suffered to get rid of censorship in all its forms,” she said in a recent interview published on Monday in the South African publication The Times. “And the fact that it’s called the Protection of State Information Bill is very disquieting. State information belongs to all of us - this is our right under the constitution. This has got nothing to do with betraying the safety of the country.” At 90, Gordimer’s fierce commitment to the freedom she helped attain - now encapsulated in the South African Constitution - can be heard in these words. Hers is a voice that many will laud this week and into the future, but that many in South Africa's ruling elite do not emulate. Indeed, our parliament has already passed the secrecy bill, and it now sits on President Jacob Zuma’s desk awaiting his signature. No doubt his office will issue a statement singing Gordimer’s praises this week, and men in suits from his office – and perhaps the president himself – will be at her funeral. We owe her more than that. We owe her the gift of straining every sinew in our bodies to walk in her footsteps, to leave behind a South Africa in which our children can exercise her greatest gift to us: to speak, to raise our voices, without fear.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/nov/25/oscar-isaac-x-men-apocalypse

Film

2014-11-25T13:17:01.000Z

Ben Child

Oscar Isaac to play Apocalypse in new X-Men film

Oscar Isaac will play Apocalypse, an immortal mutant, in the next X-Men movie, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Isaac recently signed up for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed and played King John in Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood in 2010. But it is largely in lower-budget independent films that he has made his name, winning rave reviews for his portrayals of a down-and-out musician in the Coen brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis and an unpredictable ex-con in Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive. His latest film is the awards season-friendly crime drama A Most Violent Year, opposite Jessica Chastain for director JC Chandor. Series stalwart Bryan Singer returns to direct the new, 80s-set episdoe, titled X-Men: Apocalypse, following critical and box-office success for this year’s 70s-set Days of Future Past. Michael Fassbender once again portrays Magneto, with James McAvoy as Professor X and Jennifer Lawrence as Mystique. Producers are currently casting for new actors to portray younger versions of Cyclops and Jean Grey. X-Men: Apocalypse is expected to centre on the titular villain, who in the comic books was the first mutant human, born more than 5,000 years ago. In the most famous instalment, 1995’s Age of Apocalypse, the immortal emerges as the new ruler of an Earth where mutants have enslaved their human counterparts. Singer aims to shoot early next year for a May 2016 release date. Interview: Oscar Isaac

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/21/gay-christian-church-lgbt

Opinion

2019-03-21T19:37:53.000Z

Lucy Knight

Being a gay Christian can be hurtful and gruelling. But I refuse to lose faith | Lucy Knight

Iwas at a comedy show in Soho recently, when my slightly too loud cackle attracted attention from the comedian. One thing led to another, and I ended up being teased affably about my love life as the audience laughed on. Once my excitement about having spoken to one of my favourite comedians – Mae Martin, if you’re curious – had died down, I realised something pretty significant had happened. I had said, “I have a girlfriend” in front of a room full of people without even thinking about it. Granted, that doesn’t really sound like a stop-the-press moment. Mae Martin is a queer performer, after all. And in theory, I’m a strong, independent lesbian who doesn’t care what anyone thinks. But any gay person who has experienced that niggle of anxiety before announcing their queerness will understand. A lowlight was confiding in a pastor when I was 18. He politely informed me my feelings were from the devil I came out almost five years ago, and the majority of people I interact with couldn’t care less about the gender of the person I’m dating. My family and friends adore my girlfriend, and I no longer have personal qualms about my sexual identity. Yet even when I’m 90% sure the person I’m addressing will be accepting, I still get that little jerky stomach-knot right before I say the words “gay” or “girlfriend” to someone new. Growing up in the church has played quite a big part in these insecurities. The ultimate lowlight was confiding in a pastor about my sexuality when I was 18. He politely informed me that my feelings were from the devil, and went on to share our conversation – which I had believed to be confidential – with the church the following Sunday as part of his sermon on “sexual immorality”. There was also the church member who arranged to meet me for coffee in order to say I needed to repent; and the friend who bought me a book on “conversion therapy” for Christmas. I could go on. Most LGBT+ Christians I’ve come across have similar stories to tell, if not worse. So why do we bother going back to these places and people that have hurt us? The simple answer is that I still believe in a loving God, and I still have faith that views will change, and things will get better. I don’t necessarily expect non-Christians to understand that. Plenty of queer people have been hurt by the church. “Go to hell” placards at Pride parades, “conversion therapy” and politicians such as Tim Farron haven’t exactly given Christians a good reputation among the queer community. During my undergraduate degree, I basically gave up going to church altogether because it felt like all the Christian students were hardened anti-gay evangelicals. There’s a time and a place for what I call “activist church-going”: going to a church where you know you won’t be accepted just to remind them that queer Christians do exist. I can work up the stamina to do this from time to time, but it can be incredibly draining to constantly place yourself in an environment where you’re not really welcome. LGBT people of faith caught in the crossfire between two communities | Letters Read more Most of the time, however, the only way to navigate the world as a queer Christian is to find support. Becoming part of Facebook groups such as Diverse Church, Queer Christian Collective and No Fear in Love showed me there was a future for people like me. Meeting Christians who were happily in same-sex relationships – even married with children – showed me that the model of Christian marriage drummed into me throughout my childhood was not the only option. Now, my girlfriend and I go to an affirming church in London where I feel, for the first time in a long time, welcome. Still, “feeling welcome” is a pretty low bar. It remains prohibited for same-sex couples to get married in Anglican places of worship, and a lot of churches won’t let openly queer people so much as serve the coffee. I wish I could promise that queer people would be accepted if they went to a church. But many Christians have a long way to go before they can truly live out the full “Love thy neighbour as thyself” thing. The acceptance and tolerance, though, needs to go both ways. A Stonewall report last year showed that one in 10 LGBT+ Christians experienced faith-based discrimination from within the queer community. This can be anything from creating an atmosphere in which it is shameful to admit that you are a person of faith, to outright aggression and insistent questioning about what you do or do not believe. I get it – a lot of LGBT+ people have reason to dislike Christians. But we have to stop shutting people out because they don’t fit into a designated box. Queerness, for me, is a complete rejection of restrictions. We try to understand difference and yet stand together in solidarity. The queer community does get it wrong sometimes, but when we get it right we represent a radical, unconditional, non-judgmental approach to love. And isn’t that exactly what the Church also claims to promote? Lucy Knight is a newspaper journalism student at City University

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2018/oct/15/its-not-a-shared-stake-when-the-treasury-grabs-the-money

Business

2018-10-16T06:48:42.000Z

Nils Pratley

Labour's shares plan for workers has glaring flaws | Nils Pratley

If you thought John McDonnell’s plan to force all big companies to give a collective 10% stake to their workers was a detailed policy announcement, think again. Judging by a comment aimed at a business audience, the shadow chancellor is prepared to be flexible. “If you can achieve the same objective by a different route, then come and talk to us,” said McDonnell in an interview with the FT. Let us hope flexibility includes a willingness to start almost from scratch. The only strong part of plan A was the enthusiasm for boosting employees’ share stakes. The problem lay in basic features of McDonnell’s “inclusive ownership funds”. The most glaring flaw – obvious to anyone who crunched a few numbers – was that the plan didn’t look like share ownership as the rest of the world understands the term. The central oddity was that individual employees would merely be entitled to a maximum of £500 from dividends every year and any dividend balance would go to the Treasury. At Lloyds Banking Group last year, that would have meant 68,000 staff sharing £34m while the Treasury received £185m if the 10% ownership limit had been reached. That is plainly more of a tax-raising measure than anything else. More extreme examples can be found at other FTSE 100 companies. One could point to other difficulties. Would companies depress wages and pensions contributions in response? Who would decide how the collectively owned shares are voted? Would the employees or the Treasury collect the proceeds from the 10% stake when companies are taken over? Employee share ownership is fertile territory for a popular policy and McDonnell’s instinct was sound on that score. But any credible approach can’t involve the Treasury helping itself to a few billion quid. And, in the interest of fairness to UK-owned companies, the shadow chancellor, if he wants to take the route of compulsion, must explain how he would impose his plan on foreign firms operating in the UK. If he can overcome those hurdles, McDonnell could have something workable. But it will require more than technical tweaks. Superdry sloppy on currency hedges Clothing retailers complaining about the warm weather has become an annual autumn event. Last year Next was first out of the traps. This time it is Superdry, where the additional grumble was about the long, hot summer. The company estimates the weather-related whack to profits this financial year will be £10m, a hefty blow. Superdry wants to reduce reliance on “heavier weight product”, meaning jackets and coats. Good idea, but it would have been better to start more than five months ago. Yet the more alarming part for investors was probably the other half of the warning. Losing £8m from foreign exchange hedges is sloppy and the explanation was weak. The financial instruments did not provide “the same degree of protection as expected” and the fault seems to have been caused by poor communication between buying teams and the finance department. Superdry’s Regent Street store in London. The company says it wants to reduce its reliance on jackets and coats. Photograph: Stuart C Wilson/Getty Images for Superdry Its chief executive, Euan Sutherland, says the company is now on top of the problem. One should hope so. Hedging currency risk is basic stuff for clothing firms with international expansion plans. The boasts about being a modern “global digital brand” are less impressive if £8m can be lost via lack of old-fashioned financial discipline. The result is that, instead of full-year profits of about £110m, the City now expects a figure slightly below £90m. It would represent the first fall in annual profits since 2012. In the circumstances, the severe 21% fall in the share price looks about right. Johnson has egg on his face over Patisserie borrowing “I didn’t even know there were bank overdraft facilities,” said Luke Johnson at the weekend, talking about how on earth Patisserie Holdings, where he is the long-standing executive chairman, could report net cash of £28.8m in May but confess to having net debt of £9.8m last week. His declaration of ignorance was too loose. Under “liquidity risk”, page 10 of Patisserie’s 2017 accounts clearly stated that “short-term flexibility is achieved by overdraft facilities”. Page 38 recorded zero borrowing at the balance sheet date but repeated the information that the group “has a short-term overdraft facility in place”. Page 39, while stating that cash balances fund normal trading activity, added: “The group also has access to both short-term and long-term borrowings to finance individual projects.” So what, precisely, was Johnson claiming in the Sunday Times? Was he saying that separate borrowing facilities were set up without his knowledge? Or was he conceding that he didn’t know the true state of the authorised facilities? There is a big difference between the two positions.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2009/mar/29/work-and-careers-recession

Money

2009-03-29T00:01:00.000Z

Isabel Hardman

Plugging a gap year to your advantage

Clambering through the Colombian rainforest or "finding yourself" in an Australian bar have become rites of passage for many 17- and 18-year-olds before they hit university. But embarking on a gap year during a recession will call for a little more pragmatism from this year's school leavers. Of the 130,000 pre-university gap years taken annually in Britain, a growing number are workplace-based. Applications for Year in Industry (Yini) placements offered by EDT, the educational charity, are up by 10% this year. The average Yini salary - for spending nine to 12 months in sectors such as engineering, IT or science - is £12,000-£13,000, which looks much more attractive these days than finding yourself in Mexico with a maxed-out credit card. Furthermore, 25% of placement providers will sponsor their protégés through university, with the incentive of a job waiting for them at the end. Despite rising unemployment, a growing number of companies is offering Yini placements, according to EDT. "Companies recognise that they can get hold of really good graduates before they start university, and they are cheaper than a graduate employee," says Penny Tysoe, marketing manager at Yini. With jobs increasingly scarce, this could be a good time to take a constructive gap year before going on to higher education. "The longer you can wait to enter the jobs market, the more chance you have," says Tom Griffiths, founder of gapyear.com. "If you take a gap year and get work experience now, that can help you get a good university place. When you graduate with not just a degree but work experience from your gap year as well, you will stand out to employers." Most Yini placements are in science and technology-based industries, while paid work placements for an 18-year-old in the media and other creative sectors are less easy to come by. "Gappers" are also turning to courses run by business colleges, such as Quest Business Training in London's Belgravia, which runs a 10-week Learn and Earn gap-year course that equips students for life as an office temp, but also runs workshops in creative advertising, public relations and marketing. Such workplace training also answers university admissions tutors' demands for gap years that develop skills for seminars rather than skydiving. Judith Kark, head of development at Quest, says: "Generally our students' experience in the workplace makes them glad that they are going to read English, because they have met someone they like on their placement in public relations who also read English." In a credit crunch, the gap year is also shorter than it used to be, as gappers find themselves working for longer to fund their travels. Instead of going away for 12 months after they leave school, some are simply travelling in their summer holidays. In 2008, some 8% of Raleigh International's summer expedition members were school leavers, but this year that figure will be 13%. The attitude of parents to their children's gap years also seems to be changing. "The bank of mum and dad will, I hope, be demanding to know more about what the gap year involves," says Richard Oliver, chief executive of the Year Out Group. "I would hope that 18-year-olds are beginning to look on gap years more as a career advantage and as something which, after university, will get them a job quickly rather than simply a sangria-fuelled holiday."

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/oct/12/challenge-extreme-masculinity-harvey-weinstein-degrading-women

Opinion

2017-10-12T05:00:32.000Z

Rebecca Solnit

The fall of Harvey Weinstein should be a moment to rethink masculinity | Rebecca Solnit

This past week was not a good week for women. In the United States, it was reported that a man who allegedly raped a 12-year-old girl was granted joint custody of the resultant eight-year-old boy being raised by his young mother. Earlier in the week, the severed head and legs of Swedish journalist Kim Wall, who disappeared after entering inventor Peter Madsen’s submarine, were discovered near Copenhagen. A hard drive belonging to Madsen, Danish police said, was loaded with videos showing women being decapitated alive. A Swedish model received rape threats for posing in an Adidas advertisement with unshaven legs. The University of Southern California’s dean of medicine was dumped after reports resurfaced that he had sexually harrassed a young medical researcher in 2003. A number of men at liberal publications were revealed to have contacted Milo Yiannopoulos, urging him to attack women – “Please mock this fat feminist,” wrote a senior male staff writer at Vice’s women’s channel, since fired. And, of course, movie mogul Harvey Weinstein was described by the New York Times as a serial sexual harasser; his alleged offences, according to a TV journalist, including trapping her in a hallway, where he masturbated until he ejaculated into a potted plant. My life has been marked by sexual harassment – just like all women Suzanne Moore Read more This week, the New Yorker ran a follow-up story by Ronan Farrow (the biological son of Woody Allen, who has repudiated his father for his treatment of his sisters), expanding the charges women have made against Weinstein to include sexual assault. He quotes one young woman who said “he forced me to perform oral sex on him” after she showed up for a meeting. She added, “I have nightmares about him to this day.” Weinstein denies any non-consensual sex. Saturday 7 October was the first anniversary of the release of the tape in which the United States president boasted about sexually assaulting women; 11 women then came forward to accuse Donald Trump. And last week began with the biggest mass shooting in modern US history, carried out by a man reported to have routinely verbally abused his girlfriend: domestic violence is common in the past of mass shooters. Underlying all these attacks is a lack of empathy, a will to dominate, and an entitlement to control, harm and even take the lives of others. Though there is a good argument that mental illness is not a sufficient explanation – and most mentally ill people are nonviolent – mass shooters and rapists seem to have a lack of empathy so extreme it constitutes a psychological disorder. At this point in history, it seems to be not just a defect from birth, but a characteristic many men are instilled with by the culture around them. It seems to be the precondition for causing horrific suffering and taking pleasure in it as a sign of one’s own power and superiority, in regarding others as worthless, as yours to harm or eliminate. Or perhaps it’s an extreme version of masculinity that has always been with us in a culture that gives men more power and privilege than women; perhaps these acts are the result of taking that to its logical conclusion. There must be terrible loneliness in that failure to perceive or value the humanity of others, the failure of empathy and imagination, to consider oneself the only person who matters. Caring about others, empathising, loving them, liberates each of us; these bereft figures seem to be prisoners of their selfishness before they are punishers of others. Much has also been written to explain why the mass shootings are not terrorism (except when the shooter is, as he is rarely, Muslim), but perhaps terrorism can be imagined as a cultural as well as political phenomenon, a desire to instil fear, assert dominance, devalue the rights and freedoms of others, assert the power of the violent and of violence. There is an ideology behind it, even if not an overtly political ideology, of self-aggrandisement, cruelty, the embrace of violence, and hate. This is also a week in which white supremacists marched in Charlottesville again, where activist Heather Heyer was mowed down in August, and where black, Jewish, and Asian friends of mine have been menaced by violence and hate. This ideology of dominance and idealisation of violence has its racial dimensions too. And it has its president now, in the racist misogynist in the White House. It’s the authoritarianism of violence that seems too often overlooked, the acts that are the opposite of the democratic ideal that all people are created equal, with certain inalienable rights. There is no greater authoritarianism than that of someone who violates the will, the body, the wellbeing, or takes the life of another. The crimes in question, from sexual assault to mass killings, seem designed specifically as assertions that the perpetrator has the power of a god, the victims are powerless. Hugh Hefner at the Playboy club, London, in 1969. Photograph: AP That powerlessness of others seems to be desired and relished in these cases. It’s time to talk about the fact that many men seem erotically excited by their ability to punish, humiliate, inflict pain on women – the subject of a lot of porn. When you jerk off while cornering an unwilling woman, you’re presumably excited by her powerlessness and misery or repulsion. Another of Weinstein’s victims told the New Yorker, “The fear turns him on.” Fox News founder and CEO Roger Ailes took pleasure, according to his victims, in degrading the employees he sexually exploited and harassed. Journalist Gabriel Sherman reported in 2016, “The culture of fear at Fox was such that no one would dare come forward” until Gretchen Carlsson broke the silence with a lawsuit. This year several black employees sued the network for racial discrimination. We’ve also recently had a host of obituaries for Hugh Hefner. Some included the arguments that Hefner and his magazine were harmless or liberating. But they insisted that women were for men to use if they met a narrow definition of attractiveness, and to mock or ignore if they were not. While often portrayed as part of the sexual revolution, the magazine and Hefner were instead part of the counter-revolution, figuring out how to perpetuate women’s subordination and men’s power in a changing era. The young women who lived in – and sometimes described feeling trapped in – the Playboy mansion were there to please the old goat at the centre of it and his friends, and not the other way around. Some of the playmates ended up dead – Dorothy Stratten’s face blown off by an estranged ex-husband at 20, Paula Sladewski’s body found “burned beyond recognition” in a Miami dumpster, and so forth. News anchor – and Roger Ailes victim – Andrea Tantaros said of the Fox network, “behind the scenes, it operates like a sex-fuelled, Playboy mansion–like cult, steeped in intimidation, indecency and misogyny,” which is not an endorsement of the Playboy mansion. In the 1970s culture wars, it was Hugh Hefner v feminism Samira Ahmed Read more There is a solution, but I don’t know how we reach it, except in a plethora of small acts that accrete into a different world view and different values. It’s in how we raise boys, in what we define as erotic, in how men can discourage each other from the idea that dominating and harming women enhances their status. Perhaps it’s in young men in power learning from the fall of Roger Ailes, Bill Cosby, Bill O’Reilly, and now Harvey Weinstein – and myriad Silicon Valley executives and more than a handful of academics – that women have voices and, sometimes, people who listen believe them, and the era of impunity might be fading from view. Though the change that really matters will consist of eliminating the desire to do these things, not merely the fear of getting caught. In Darren Aronofsky’s film Mother!, Jennifer Lawrence plays a young earth goddess of a woman restoring her poet husband’s house to the best of her ability, alone, while he ignores her requests to have some say in what does and doesn’t happen, who does and does not enter their home. You can interpret the story, as Aronofsky intended, as an environmental allegory in which the house is the earth, the destruction is environmental destruction, the recklessness that accompanies selfishness. Or you can just see it as a film about things going increasingly wrong in an unequal marriage between an egomaniac without empathy and a woman who is all too giving and not respected, by her husband or by the increasingly destructive guests. It works either way. It’s a film for our time and one I can only hope captures a moment that will pass, because I want the ideals of democracy to be at last fulfilled, because it’s past time to talk seriously about the poisonous lack of empathy and imagination that lies behind the corpses and the nightmares and the everyday fears.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/jun/14/canterbury-cycling-kent-whitstable

Travel

2014-06-14T05:00:00.000Z

Tim Clark

Canterbury trails: pedalling the Garden of England

Route information Length 7.5 miles Duration 2-3 hours Start The Westgate, Canterbury Finish Whitstable Bay Classification Easy-moderate Terrain Some hills, on-road Map OS map 150 Canterbury and East Kent The Crab and Winkle Way Ancient woodland, undulating hills and a snapshot of Britain's railway heritage reward cyclists who venture along north Kent's aptly named Crab and Winkle Way, a homage to Whitstable's famous seafood. The seven-mile route, which runs from Kent's historical heart at Canterbury to Whitstable and the north Kent coast, is short enough to cover in an afternoon and quiet enough for the kids with plenty to offer nature and history lovers along the way. A short ride from the station, Canterbury's ancient Westgate provides a dramatic send-off, its twin grey cylindrical towers topped with crenellated turrets and speckled with arrow holes, dominating St Dunstan's Street. You'll pass to one side of this medieval city gate, which was built in 1380, the largest of its kind in England, replacing a Roman gate that stood on the same site: the entrance is so narrow traffic routes round it in one direction, and only those heading back towards the station get to squeeze their vehicles (or bikes) through. One can almost imagine stern men in chainmail scowling out from under their helmets or a warning arrow whistling through your wheels as you pass by. From the city walls, St Dunstan's Street offers an eclectic mix of the old and new as weavers-style cottages, Tudor-beams and leaded windows, Victorian terraces and Georgian townhouses intersperse with payday loan shops and the odd boarded up frontage. These waymarkers of the ages guide you out of the city, and along the old pilgrimage route toward St Dunstan's church. In July 1174 King Henry II stopped at this small church to do public penance for the murder of Thomas Becket. Donning penitential garments and removing his shoes he walked barefoot to Canterbury Cathedral to confess his sins and be scourged by monks. The Crab and Winkle Way leads riders in the other direction, fully shod, to climb 200-feet out of Canterbury, starting as a gentle incline but building steadily. This mild penance is not without reward, however, affording a stunning view of the cathedral from the top of Neal's Place Road. From here, you can also take a short detour to the Blean Woods , the largest ancient broad-leaved woodland in southern England with a choice of nature trails, up to 10 miles long, for walkers or cyclists. Wildlife haven As well as being an RSPB reserve, the woods are one of the few areas in England to support the heath fritillary butterfly. Look out for their yellow and brown forms flitting through open glades where the Blean's trees are coppiced to enable their breeding - in a good June there are thousands of them. Guided walks (adults £3, children £2) during June include an early evening saunter, where you can listen for nightjars and bats, and learn about the wood's bird and mammal life. From natural to industrial history: leaving the roads through rolling countryside brings you to Clowes Wood, where the old Canterbury and Whitstable railway line used to run. Built in 1830, it was the first-ever regular passenger line: taking excited Victorian daytrippers from Canterbury to Whitstable. A history of the railway and plans to restore the line can be found on the Crab & Winkle Line Trust website . Though long disused, nuggets from the railway's past can still be glimpsed today. The Winding Pond, once used as a reservoir for thirsty steam engines, now makes for a quiet lunch stop, made all the more perfect for full tummies because it's mostly downhill from here to Whitstable Harbour, with a brief final section through the town. Pubs are few and far between along the route but, perched on the edge of Whitstable beach, the Old Neptune – where a picture of Peter O'Toole commemorates the day he bought the whole pub a pint after a day's filming in 2007 – is a welcoming retreat. Nearby Wheelers Oyster Bar's Moroccan-style monkfish is particularly tasty and the oysters are a must. Head chef Mark Stubbs also runs a cooking school every Wednesday. Other options Viking Coastal Trail The Viking Coastal Trail is a triumph of traffic-free cycling, hugging the glistening coast for miles along the ancient isle of Thanet before ducking inland for a brief on-road section. This 27-mile, flat circular trail is a peaceful jaunt of wide seafront paths beside low cliffs, beach huts and bathers, harking back to the original staycationers, the Victorians. There are links to one of their most famous chroniclers, Charles Dickens, who wrote and found inspiration for some of his novels in Broadstairs. Beyond that, Romans, early Christian missionaries and, of course, the Vikings all claimed pieces of what was once an island formed by a now-extinct river. On a sunny day there's little better than following their lead by bicycle, and for littler legs there's a shorter, nine-mile traffic-free, stretch from Margate to Reculver. The formidable Reculver Towers, the remains of the 12th-century Abbey, are the route's traditional starting point. Margate and the Turner Contemporary gallery appear before Broadstairs at 12 miles, where Morelli's 1950's-themed ice-cream parlour is well worth a visit. There's also a replica Viking ship at Pegwell Bay. Isle of Harty Trail The eight-mile circular Isle of Harty Trail is a flat, mostly traffic-free ride on another of Kent's former islands, perfect for a short jaunt with the family. In the pioneering days of flight, the Isle was visited by the Wright Brothers and was home to six Wright Fliers, but today marsh harriers, golden plover, curlew, pintail and teal dominate the skies. The 900-year-old Harty Church is worth a peek for its 14th-century Flemish chest, engraved with two jousting knights. visitkent.co.uk Kent by numbers 4,273 miles of public rights of way in the county, ideal for cycling and walking holidays 80 country parks, picnic sites and nature reserves 20 farmers' markets call the Garden of England home Useful information How to get there Canterbury West is served by Southeastern's high-speed rail link out of St Pancras. Trains from London Victoria go direct to Whitstable and Canterbury East. Where to eat and drink Wheelers Oyster Bar in Whitstable, the oldest restaurant in town, also offers takeaway snacks. The Hare and Hounds (01227 450266, 4 Blean Hill, Blean, Canterbury, no website) near Blean offers a range of pub food and traditional ales. Where to stay For places in Whitstable look no further than the quaint fishermen's huts. A pebble's throw from the sea, they suit close families and couples looking to cosy up after a long day. At the old fire station on London Road in Canterbury, the quirky and fun Arthouse B&B is suitable for couples and families and is right on the cycle route. Neals Place Farm (Tents from £10 per night, motorhomes from £20 plus £2.50 per person, ), near Canterbury, is a working farm with a farm shop, as well as showers and toilets. Other places of interest Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury Historic River Tours, Whitstable Castle and Gardens, Reculver Towers, St Augustine's Abbey. Bike Hire Kent Cycles, near Canterbury West station, pre-booking essential. For more information on holidays in England, go to VisitEngland.com

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/aug/11/hospital-waiting-lists-in-england-reach-record-high

Society

2022-08-11T14:16:18.000Z

Pamela Duncan

Stroke and heart attack patients waiting almost an hour for ambulances in England

Ambulances are taking almost an hour to reach patients who have had a suspected stroke or heart attack, more than three times the 18-minute maximum wait, the latest NHS data shows. Ambulance crews in England took an average of 59 minutes and seven seconds to respond to “category two” 999 calls, the second most serious category of incident. That also includes people suffering from an epileptic fit, major burn or sepsis, which kills 48,000 people a year. The almost hour-long delay recorded in July was the second longest since records began after the one hour, one minute and five second response time to such calls experienced in March. In another sign of the extreme pressure on England’s 10 regional ambulance services crews took on average nine minutes and 36 seconds to attend life-threatening emergencies – the joint longest delay on record. These are “category one” incidents in which the patient needs immediate medical attention because they are having a cardiac or respiratory arrest or severe allergic reaction, for example. The delays in July were worse than the nine minute and six second average response time recorded in June. Ambulance services’ struggle to meet waiting time targets came as they experienced unprecedented pressure, with staff dealing with 85,397 category one callouts – the most ever. One in 10 such patients waited at least 16 minutes and 55 seconds, another record high. The Liberal Democrats said that the figures showed that people calling 999 could no longer rely on an ambulance responding promptly. “Behind these figures lie heartbreaking stories of people left waiting hours in pain and distress for an ambulance to arrive. It is utterly shocking that when people call 999 they can no longer be confident that they will get the emergency care they need,” said Helen Morgan, the party’s communities and local government spokesperson. “Liz Truss herself has admitted that under the Conservatives people are facing appalling ambulance delays. Yet neither she nor Rishi Sunak have set out a credible plan to solve this crisis.” Morgan called for ambulance services to receive extra funding and the Care Quality Commission, the NHS watchdog, to investigate long responses to 999 calls. There have been major declines in ambulance response times in recent years and growing numbers of reports of patients left for many hours in pain and distress. All 10 ambulance services went on their highest form of alert last month amid a heatwave and Covid-related staff absences. One NHS boss told the Health Service Journal then that the situation was “dire for staff and patients” while another said that delays in crews handing over patients to A&E staff were “possibly the worst ever and it’s only July”. In April Deborah Lee, the chief executive of Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS trust, tweeted how, after suffering a suspected stroke at home, her husband had driven her to hospital after hearing her “lamenting ambulance delays. What if my husband hadn’t been there and my daughter had called for an ambulance and I’d been put in the Cat 2 ‘stack’?”, she said. Thursday’s latest NHS monthly performance statistics contained more grim findings. Sign up to First Edition Free daily newsletter Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The number of people in England waiting to start routine hospital treatment has risen to a new record high of 6.7 million. More than 350,000 patients have been waiting more than a year to be seen – one in 20 patients. A total of 520,000 patients (519,917) – another record – waited more than four hours in England’s major A&E departments last month, with just 57% of patients being admitted, transferred or discharged within the four-hour target, which states that 95% of attendees should be dealt with within that time. “We are seeing the sharp demise of the health service and we are seeing little to no political will to act on or acknowledge the crisis – neither of the [Conservative] leadership candidates seem to recognise the scale of the crisis at hand,” said Dr Adrian Boyle, the vice-president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, which represents A&E doctors. The health service also missed all eight of its main cancer targets last month. More than 5,700 patients – a record 40% of the total – waited more than two months for treatment after an urgent referral by a GP. The target is for 85% of patients to be seen within two months. NHS England highlighted the service’s progress in reducing the number of people on the waiting list for hospital care who had been waiting for at least 18 months. They fell from 75,992 in January to 53,911 in June. Earlier this week it claimed to have virtually eradicated two-year waits for care by the deadline of the end of July. “Today’s figures show the immense pressure our emergency services are under with more of the most serious ambulance callouts than the NHS has ever seen before, at levels more than a third higher than pre-pandemic,” said Prof Sir Stephen Powis, the organisation’s national medical director. “Recognising the pressure on urgent and emergency care services, we are working on plans to increase capacity and reduce call times ahead of winter in addition to our new contract with St John Ambulance to provide extra support as needed.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/31/states-laws-challenge-teaching-evolution

World news

2013-01-31T16:31:00.000Z

Paul Harris

Four US states considering laws that challenge teaching of evolution

Four US states are considering new legislation about teaching science in schools, allowing pupils to to be taught religious versions of how life on earth developed in what critics say would establish a backdoor way of questioning the theory of evolution. Fresh legislation has been put forward in Colorado, Missouri and Montana. In Oklahoma, there are two bills before the state legislature that include potentially creationist language. A watchdog group, the National Center for Science Education, said that the proposed laws were framed around the concept of "academic freedom". It argues that religious motives are disguised by the language of encouraging more open debate in school classrooms. However, the areas of the curriculum highlighted in the bills tend to focus on the teaching of evolution or other areas of science that clash with traditionally religious interpretations of the world. "Taken at face value, they sound innocuous and lovely: critical thinking, debate and analysis. It seems so innocent, so pure. But they chose to question only areas that religious conservatives are uncomfortable with. There is a religious agenda here," said Josh Rosenau, an NCSE program and policy director. In Oklahoma, one bill has been pre-filed with the state senate and another with the state house. The Senate bill would oblige the state to help teachers "find more effective ways to represent the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies". The House bill specifically mentions "biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming and human cloning" as areas that "some teachers are unsure" about teaching. In Montana, a bill put forward by local social conservative state congressman, Clayton Fiscus, also lists things like "random mutation, natural selection, DNA and fossil discoveries" as controversial topics that need more critical teaching. Meanwhile, in Missouri, a bill introduced in mid-January lists "biological and chemical evolution" as topics that teachers should debate over including looking at the "scientific weaknesses" of the long-established theories. Finally, in Colorado, which rarely sees a push towards teaching creationism, a bill has been introduced in the state house of representatives that would require teachers to "respectfully explore scientific questions and learn about scientific evidence related to biological and chemical evolution". Observers say the move is the first piece of creationist-linked legislation to be put forward in the state since 1972. The moves in such a wide range of states have angered advocates of secularism in American official life. "This is just another attempt to bring creationism in through the back door. The only academic freedom they really want to encourage is the freedom to be ignorant," said Rob Boston, senior policy analyst at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. Over the past few years, only Tennessee and Louisiana have managed to pass so-called "academic freedom" laws of the kind currently being considered in the four states. Barbara Forrest, a philosophy professor at Southeastern Louisiana University and close observer of the creationism movement, said that the successes in those two states meant that the religious lobby was always looking for more opportunities. She said that using arguments over academic freedom was a shift in tactic after attempts to specifically get "intelligent design" taught in schools was defeated in a landmark court case in 2005. Intelligent design, which a local school board in Dover, Pennsylvania, had sought to get accepted as legitimate science, asserts that modern life is too complex to have evolved by chance alone. "Creationists never give up. They never do. The language of these bills may be highly sanitized but it is creationist code," she said. The laws can have a direct impact on a state. In Louisiana, 78 Nobel laureate scientists have endorsed the repeal of the creationist education law there. The Society of Integrative and Comparative Biology has even launched a boycott of Louisiana and cancelled a scheduled convention in New Orleans. Louisiana native and prominent anti-creationist campaigner in the state Zack Kopplin said that those pushing such bills in other states were risking similar economic damage to their local economies. "It will hurt economic development," Kopplin said. There is also the impact on students, he added, when they are taught controversies in subjects where the overwhelming majority of scientists have long ago reached consensus agreement. "It really hurts students. It can be embarrassing to be from a state which has become a laughing stock in this area," Kopplin said. Others experts agreed, arguing that it could even hurt future job prospects for students graduating from those states' public high schools. "The jobs of the future are high tech and science-orientated. These lawmakers are making it harder for some of these kids to get those jobs," said Boston.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/24/considerable-strain-how-australian-officials-saw-the-china-rift

Australia news

2022-06-23T23:32:45.000Z

Daniel Hurst

‘Considerable strain’: how Australian officials saw the China rift

Australian officials stayed in “regular contact” with the Chinese embassy in Canberra to “explain our decisions” even when Australian ministers were subjected to a two-year diplomatic freeze, newly released documents show. The former Morrison government had been “willing to engage with China in dialogue at any time”, according to Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade briefing notes, which also described the relationship as being under “considerable strain”. Australian government ministers were blocked from meetings or calls with their direct Chinese counterparts for more than two years, although lower-level diplomats and public servants kept in communication. Thaw or cold war: will Labor succeed in unfreezing Australia-China relations? Read more The high-level freeze finally ended when the new deputy prime minister, Richard Marles, sat down for an hour with China’s defence minister, Wei Fenghe, in Singapore earlier this month. China’s new ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, is expected to outline his views on the next steps in the relationship when he addresses an event in Sydney on Friday afternoon. Documents obtained by Guardian Australia under freedom of information laws provide an insight into the Morrison government’s China strategy in the lead-up to its electoral defeat last month. They include a question time brief prepared in February for the then foreign affairs minister, Marise Payne. This said Australia was “ready to talk anytime” so long as no preconditions were set. Dfat prepared Payne and senior officials for the possibility they needed to defend the then Morrison government’s sometimes-heated rhetoric on China. A briefing pack for a Senate estimates committee hearing held on 17 February included a response if asked: “Shouldn’t the government be doing more and speaking less?” “The government has committed to standing firm to protect our sovereignty, values and principles,” reads the proposed response. “Sometimes that will mean speaking out on matters of principle and concern.” Marles said this month that the Albanese government would continue to stand up for Australia’s interests and values, but with a different “tone”. He has promised to avoid “the chest-beating that we’ve seen from the former government”, and cited former US president Theodore Roosevelt’s foreign policy mantra to “speak softly and carry a big stick”. The FoI documents show that in February, Dfat officials prepared an answer to the potential question: “Do we have a functional China strategy?” “Yes,” the planned response said. “It is based on a measured and deliberate approach that prioritises the national interest; a commitment to agreed rules, including trade rules; a willingness to engage with China in dialogue at any time, without preconditions.” The same document noted that Dfat’s first assistant secretary for the East Asia Division, Elly Lawson, “was in regular contact with” Wang Xining, who was acting as ambassador before Xiao’s arrival in Australia in January. ‘Naughty guy’: top Chinese diplomat accuses Australia of ‘sabre wielding’ with nuclear submarine deal Read more “We continue to explain our decisions to Chinese counterparts and take a strategic approach to managing issues in the relationship with China,” the document said. But it appears not all ministers were singing from the same song sheet. Dfat’s question time brief for Payne, also dated 17 February, included a positive line about the arrival of Xiao to Australia. “The Australian government welcomes China’s new ambassador-designate and we also welcome his statement that he will work to increase engagement and communication,” the Dfat brief to Payne said. Three weeks earlier, the then-defence minister Peter Dutton sounded less optimistic. Dutton said the Australian government welcomed the new ambassador and still wanted “a good, strong, friendly relationship with China”. But Dutton immediately pivoted to say that China was “at loggerheads” with Australia and “many, many other countries”. “It’s a belligerent approach, and it’s unacceptable, and I hope the new the ambassador is sincere in what he says, but we need to talk about human rights issues,” Dutton said on 27 January. Albanese government urged to keep focus on human rights as it rebuilds relationships in Asia Read more Australian officials also provided Payne with a summary of the “14 grievances” outlined by the Chinese embassy in late 2020, including Australia’s “interference” on Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan issues and negative Australian media reporting about China. A question time brief for Payne, dated 19 November 2021, said Australia and China could discuss differences over policy “but we won’t reverse decisions taken in the national interest in exchange for dialogue and cooperation”. The brief also denied that the Aukus deal – including plans for Australia to acquire nuclear-powered submarines – signalled any change in strategy towards China. Payne last met China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, on 24 September 2019 in New York, and the pair last spoke by phone on 29 January 2020, the documents confirm. Scott Morrison last met China’s premier, Li Keqiang, in November 2019 in Bangkok and president Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 in Osaka in June 2019. The already frosty relationship worsened in 2020, in part because the Chinese government objected to the Australian government’s early advocacy for an independent international investigation into the origins of Covid-19. Beijing then introduced steep tariffs, unofficial bans and higher screening requirements on Australian exports such as barley, beef, wine and coal, prompting Australia to denounce “economic coercion”. The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said on Thursday it was good the defence ministers had met, but repeated his call for Beijing to remove the trade sanctions, saying that would “go a long way towards restoring improved relations”. Albanese to meet Macron in Paris for ‘important reset’ of Australia’s relationship with France Read more Albanese told the ABC’s 7.30 program he looked forward to “further dialogue between ministers of our respective governments”, while predicting that it would remain “a problematic relationship”. Xiao met on Tuesday with the Australian Labor party’s national secretary, Paul Erickson, who is understood to have consulted with the Albanese government about it ahead of time. Australia: On 21 June, PRC Ambassador to Australia Xiao Qian met with Paul Erickson, National Secretary of the Australian Labor Party. "The two sides exchanged views on relations between the two parties & the two countries and issues of common concern."https://t.co/quuwnDvaMP pic.twitter.com/T3FrLdfAtk — Geoff Wade (@geoff_p_wade) June 22, 2022 Erickson is believed to have informed the ambassador during the meeting that Australia’s positions on the 5G rollout, human rights, foreign interference, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the South China Sea remain the same as the previous government’s positions.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/28/joe-rogan-neil-young-spotify-streaming-service

Opinion

2022-01-28T14:29:45.000Z

Eamonn Forde

The Joe Rogan v Neil Young furore reveals Spotify’s new priority: naked capitalism | Eamonn Forde

Neil Young this week issued Spotify with a blunt ultimatum: it’s me or Joe Rogan. The Canadian-American musician criticised its exclusive hosting of the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in a letter to his manager and record label published online, which asked his music be removed from the streaming service. Spotify chose Rogan, removing Young’s entire back catalogue. Young’s objections were based on what he saw as “life-threatening Covid misinformation” being pushed by Rogan. This claim was supported in a letter sent to the streaming service earlier this month, signed by 270 medical and scientific professionals who called for Spotify to stop spreading Rogan’s unfounded point of view. Young had the courage of his convictions – and the backing of his long-term label Reprise Records (part of Warner Music Group), because, as he said in a statement on his website, removing his music would mean “losing 60% of my worldwide streaming income in the name of Truth”. The decision from Spotify draws an entirely new battle line for the service when facing down artists. In the past, fights tended to be around commercial issues, with artists arguing the micro-payments it made for streams were unfairly low; this new conflict is remarkable for being entirely ideological. These recent moves feel like a grand betrayal of Spotify’s roots in liberal Sweden, where it was founded. This is a company where diversity is applauded, paternity leave is encouraged, the mental wellbeing of staff is deemed paramount and efforts to promote artists from outside of a heterosexual and Caucasian orthodoxy have become part of the raison d’etre – such as the Unlike Any Other initiative around Pride 2020 and the Frequency campaign in 2021, which was intended to help elevate Black artists. WHO chief backs Neil Young over Covid misinformation row with Spotify Read more What is unfolding is a complex ethical and financial conundrum for Daniel Ek, Spotify’s co-founder and CEO. Is he happy for Spotify to amplify medical misinformation through, among others, its crown-jewel podcast, a show it paid a rumoured $100m (£75m) to have on an exclusive basis? Or will he have the company tightly police and factcheck what its podcasters say? The rapidly curdling, and inherently Faustian nature of the Rogan deal should not surprise anyone. Rogangate says a tremendous amount about Spotify’s new priorities. No longer just a music streaming service, Spotify now regards itself as an audio platform and podcasting as its new centre of gravity. Part of the appeal of podcasts for Spotify is that they represent a different type of listening: rather than an album every two or three years from a favourite artist, there is new content every week, at least. Such frequency of output reinforces consumer loyalty – and so subscribers – far better than any single artist can, which may be why Spotify is so hesitant to let Rogan go, or even just to curb some of his more extreme opinions. Rogan draws in listeners – with an estimated 11 million for each episode – and he holds them there. We can date the shift to April 2018, when the company launched its direct listing on the New York stock exchange – and Manhattan, rather than Stockholm, became the company’s geographical and cultural epicentre. This was the moment Spotify became more Wall Street, and less Stortorget. Spotify has a history of making bad decisions. There was an ugly and public war with Taylor Swift in 2014 over its royalty rates. Then there was its bungled “hate content and hateful conduct” policy in 2018, which was seen to remove a disproportionate amount of content by Black artists. But in those instances, Spotify eventually softened its stance. This tendency to conciliation has collapsed as the company recalibrates its ethical and ideological viewpoints to be much more American: naked capitalism, regardless of the negative consequences, seems now to triumph internally at the company over all. The problem, though, with not just flirting with, but financially enabling, someone who prides themselves on “saying the unsayable” is that they may go further and wilder with every utterance. It’s not as if Spotify was hoodwinked into giving Rogan a show: he self-produced his podcast since 2009 and the media provider signed him up precisely because the controversy he generates brings in audiences. While it might make sense in terms of its balance sheet, fighting Rogan’s corner could prove to be Spotify’s most reckless, arrogant and hubristic decision yet: the ultimate cost being not its market cap, but its reputation, its listeners’ loyalty and its soul. Eamonn Forde is a music business and technology journalist

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/nov/30/gareth-southgate-england-manager-man-for-the-times

Football

2016-11-30T15:14:27.000Z

Barney Ronay

Gareth Southgate: no star power, no magic bullet, but a man for the times | Barney Ronay

Divorced, beheaded and died; sacked, disgraced, resigned. Not forgetting, of course, seduced by sheikhs, humiliated by an emerging volcano‑nation and bought and sold for a pint of wine and a keynote-speaker gig. Like doomed Tudor wives, this seems to be the lot of England football managers now, remembered more for the frenzied drama of their departures than any tangible success on the pitch. With this in mind welcome, finally, to the dawning of the age of Gareth. After a trial period that ended just short of matching Sam Allardyce’s 67-day reign, Gareth Southgate has finally been appointed England manager. At the end of which the Football Association has at least given us something new. England managers have traditionally fallen into two groups: those in the process of being jeered out of the job and those about to be jeered out of the job, just as soon as everyone gets round to it. Gareth Southgate: ‘I want to give England a team that they’re proud of’ Read more In his temp-to-perm role Southgate has created a third category, the first England manager to face the prospect of losing the job before he had actually got it. And the first to begin rather than end his England reign with an apology, Southgate kicking things off last September with a series of ashen‑faced mea culpas: for the mess left by his predecessor, for simply being there in the first place; and most memorably for football’s basic existence as a sporting industry. Get in there, Nord! Go, The Gate! So here we are. No bells will be rung, no flags fluttered, no fond, beaky tattoos commissioned at the news. Instead Southgate becomes England’s 14th proper manager to a kind of anti‑fanfare, a shared yawn of indifference. The only real note of fascination seems to have been the lo-fi nature of his appointment, it’s austerity‑era detailing. No England manager has ever been so inexperienced at club level. No England manager has won so little silverware. No England manager since the turn of the millennium has been paid as little. Gareth Southgate gets his instructions across during England’s friendly against Spain. Photograph: Nick Potts/PA Beyond this sympathy for a popular and decent coach has been tempered by the slightly grudging sense of a closed-shop promotion. Shortly after Roy Hodgson’s departure, it was put to Harry Redknapp that at least Southgate knew the FA system. “What system?” Redknapp asked. “The losing system?” Does any of this actually matter? Here’s a fun statistic. The FA has spent £55m on England managers’ salaries since the turn of the century. Since then the team have reached three quarter‑finals, and failed to win a knockout game at any time in the past decade. Go back further and in knockout matches against major tournament winners England have beaten only Denmark since the 1966 World Cup and have reached one semi-final away from home in 66 years of tournament football. David Squires on … Gareth Southgate's pitch for the England job Read more There is a pattern. And it isn’t to do with managers, or even the oddly tender idea of discovering some magical but hitherto lost national identity. The basic disjunct remains the same. England continues to produce quite‑good players who arrive at tournaments tired, insular and incurious, whose careers are consumed instead by the unceasing Mammon of English club football. There is a structural blockage here. No other major European nation has two distinct entities running its football league and national teams, as has been the case with England since the 19th century, hot-housed now by the brutally focused success of the Premier League. Whoever wears the blazer may pick the players and ask them to play. But the FA will only ever be borrowing a set of parts, whatever frazzled and stretched domestic outliers can make it through the haze. Meanwhile, there goes another England manager: fall guy, patsy and a wonderful piece of misdirection for the structural flaws beneath. Gareth Southgate managed England at the European Under-21 Championship in the Czech Republic in 2015. Photograph: Carl Recine/REUTERS Chuck in the wider dying-back of international football, an England programme where the most urgent encounter of the next year is a home game against Slovenia, and the weariness around Southgate’s appointment looks like part of an end point being reached, a role that has found its own receding limits. Which is a shame because for all the caveats, the existential crisis of England-dom, there are some good reasons why Southgate may be just the right man for this job. Much of the snark at his appointment has centred on his lack of obvious charisma, an absence of A-list heft and flash. And yet it is this celebrity obsession that has helped hold English football back, the hankering after some magic bullet, a manager whose star power can somehow fix a century of failed systems and clogged arteries, like Superman zooming around the world to turn back time. Instead Southgate presents an earnest, bookish figure carrying out his public duties with the air of an ambitious young geography teacher hurrying into class three hours early to set up his papier mache sedimentary rock bed. In one old Aston Villa club video John Gregory can be seen suggesting the nickname “Nord” is an oddly specific reference to the 1980s TV presenter Denis Norden, who, like Southgate, “always knew everything”. Knowing everything. Quietly climbing the ladder while gaining relevant technical experience. Goes against the grain this kind of thing. He has the air of a young geography teacher hurrying to class early to set up his papier mache sedimentary rock bed If Southgate looks the safe choice, this is perhaps because he’s also the right choice. As has already been pointed out, of the six people sat around the table at his interview – the others were Greg Clarke, Martin Glenn, Dan Ashworth, Graeme Le Saux and the 73-year-old Howard Wilkinson – only one was actually qualified to hold forth on the precise qualities required to manage this England team. Luckily he was the one that got the job. Southgate played for England 57 times, captained his club in a European final, played under Terry Venables, Glenn Hoddle and Sven-Goran Eriksson, cares about development and coaching structures and has been in charge of the under-21s for the past three years. What more is he supposed to have done? Wallowed around the Premier League picking up funny habits and moaning about international friendlies for the last 20 years like his much‑trumpeted predecessor? Gareth Southgate shows the strain after missing in the penalty shootout in the Euro 96 semi-finals. Photograph: PA There has been something very English about the urge to play down Southgate’s success with the under‑21s, who lost in the group stage at the 2015 Euros to a Portugal team with four European champions-in-waiting, but came back to beat the same opponents en route to winning the Toulon tournament this past summer. As under-21s manager Southgate won 27 of 33 matches. He picked Jack Butland, John Stones, Luke Shaw, Eric Dier, Dele Alli, Raheem Sterling, Marcus Rashford and Harry Kane. The team played several ways, switching between a possession game and deep counterattack. Remind me: what part of this are we supposed to find drab and colourless, or dismiss as just a company man on the rise? From here Southgate will be seen looking studious in various Premier League stands before the March double-header against Germany (in a friendly) and Lithuania. The challenges on the field are clear enough. The question of whether Wayne Rooney makes the best XI must be resolved. Ideally Southgate will make this decision on form over the next three months. Joe Hart’s position in goal will be under scrutiny. The combinations in central midfield need attention, with craft currently losing out to muscle and running power. Either way, for the first time, England have a manager who has actually played in a tournament semi-final, and who radiates an understated decency at a time when the weather around the FA is likely to have less to do with lukewarm qualification matches and plenty to do with welfare and governance and leadership. Southgate may or may not end his England days with an echo of his uneasy start, a reign bookended by apologies. But he seems like a man for the times.

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https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/jul/23/richard-desmond-buys-channel-five

Media

2010-07-23T16:37:55.000Z

Steve Busfield

Richard Desmond buys Channel Five for £103.5m

Channel Five has been sold to Richard Desmond, owner of the Daily Express, for £103.5m. RTL Group announced at shortly after 5pm that it had signed an agreement for the sale of Five Group to Desmond's Northern & Shell. Gerhard Zeiler, the chief executive of RTL, said: "With a significant recovery of the UK TV advertising market and Five performing well in the first half of 2010, we saw a window of opportunity to realise a transaction based on a fair evaluation of Five. The disposal is in line with RTL Group's strategy of being number one or two in each of our markets. "I would like to thank the whole team at Five and CEO and chair Dawn Airey for their passion and professionalism, especially in the difficult past 20 months which saw a comprehensive restructuring of the company." The owner of Express newspapers and OK! magazine has indicated that he will invest in TV content and is keen to expand its entertainment offering, possibly with an interest in Big Brother. Desmond, who still owns a raft of porn channels, also spent money on OK! magazine which lost money for the first six years of his ownership but is now highly profitable. It is unclear what chief executive Dawn Airey's position will be although she is rumoured to be able to move to RTL following any departure from Five. Desmond is expected to face a grilling by MPs on the House of Commons culture committee once the deal has been done. But the deal is unlikely to be blocked by regulators because there are no competition issues. Desmond's combined share of the UK media market will still be relatively small if the purchase goes ahead. But John Whittingdale, the Tory backbencher who chairs the culture, media and sport committee, will write to the newspaper and magazine proprietor asking him to appear before committee members. MPs will question him on his future plans for the channel, which was put up for sale by its German parent company. The firm's flagship terrestrial channel has been hit by falling ratings in recent years and some TV industry sources claim Desmond could transform Five into a UK version of E! Entertainment, the American channel that broadcasts a diet of celebrity news and profiles 24 hours a day. However, under the terms of Five's licence, which runs until 2014, it must screen a set amount of news and current affairs each year. Desmond visited Ofcom, the media regulator, last week to reassure them that he will continue to meet those requirements. MP are nevertheless also likely to seek assurances that Desmond does not intend to fill Five's schedule with "tabloid TV" shows. Observers have suggested that Desmond might be tempted to follow the example of the Spanish owners of Hello! magazine, the bitter rival to OK!, who are planning to launch a TV channel in their home market. Owning Five could also give him the chance to develop TV shows by exploiting the commercial relationships he has with leading celebrities who are signed to OK!, including Katie Price and Kerry Katona. He will be barred from promoting his titles on Five under EU cross-promotion rules, but Desmond will be free to use his publications to market Five's shows. Sources close to Desmond played down suggestions that he might dumb down Five, which already serves up a populist schedule dominated by US crime drama CSI, reality TV and Australian soaps. In a sign that he was confident of sealing the deal today, an email was sent yesterday to Daily Express employees from senior editors which read: "Please note that as from now Five should be known as Channel Five." The next nearest bidder was said to be offering less than half the £100m Desmond is prepared to spend. "No one else can get close to what Desmond is prepared to pay", said a source close to the bidding process. The Express owner, who is worth around £950m, is a controversial figure. He amassed a large part of his fortune from pornographic magazines, which he has now sold, and adult pay-TV channels. He bought Express Newspapers, whose titles include the Daily Express, its Sunday sister title and the Daily Star, almost exactly 10 years ago for £125m. Desmond's critics say he has failed to invest in the papers, cutting costs and axing or outsourcing jobs while taking tens of millions of pounds out of the business. To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediatheguardian.com or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000. If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

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https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2013/jul/24/slovenia-summer-holiday-houses

Travel

2013-07-24T06:00:00.000Z

Nell Card

Slovenia: a home in the hills

Slovenia offers stunning scenery at affordable prices, often in the form of cheap ski holidays in the Julian Alps. But it's not necessarily the first destination that springs to mind for those wanting an affordable, stylish summer stay. Two newly renovated properties on the edge of Triglav national park are set to change that. The characterful self-catering houses are owned by Matthew Norfolk, a British interior designer. "I was thinking about buying a property in northern Spain," he said when we met. "But when I rode through the valley, a view of the Soca river opened up and I knew I'd found somewhere special." Having travelled across almost every continent (mainly on two-wheels), Matthew settled on two villages in the foothills of the Alps: Kobarid and Podmelec. Kobarid is a two-hour drive from Ljubljana airport, and just 9km from the Italian border. The village, which sits on the edge of the fast-flowing, milky-blue Soca, was made famous when Ernest Hemingway documented the Italian retreat from Kobarid during the first world war in his 1929 novel A Farewell to Arms. Although it was devastated between 1915 and 1917, a handful of sturdy buildings survive in its old streets, including Pri B'zjak, a three-story, 280-year old house that once belonged to a carpenter, Ivan Kodeli. His hand-painted gold and green shop sign hangs on the wall in the front room. Found objects decorate the interior of Pri B'zjack "We were using it as a ramp for materials before we realised what it was," Matthew confesses. At the centre of the house, a cherrywood spiral staircase connects the three floors, leading from the high-spec kitchen up to two en suites on the first floor, and a giant en suite bedroom in the loft. The sign is one of many relics Matthew found when renovating the property, which had stood empty for almost 20 years. Other discoveries included a bag of grenades and two pistols wrapped in oilcloth, all stashed in the old kitchen stove. The windowsills and exposed larch beams are decorated with more of his finds: a battered birdcage, a telegraph key once used to transmit morse code, a small model of Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and a tiny pair of wrinkled leather boots. The objects connect the building with its past, and co-exist with modern day comforts: primary-coloured soft furnishings, Ikea homewares and mementoes from Matthew's travels. A north-African jalabiya (dress) hangs on the wall beneath a straw mask. There was a welcome pack on arrival: bread from the bakery, local cheese, milk and butter from the mountain cattle, Slovenian jam and honey. In recent years, the area has emerged as a champion of the slow-food movement: organic local produce and wines fill menus at the local restaurants. On our first evening, we headed to Topli Val, a restaurant in the Hotel Hvala, for oysters and carpaccio of bream followed by linguine with spongy morels (a dish we re-ordered a couple of nights later). Dessert was a traditional Slovenian pastry stuffed with honey-drenched nuts, the house wine a soft Slovenian sauvignon blanc. The giant loft bedroom in Pri B'zjack Apart from Topli Val, the village has a Michelin-starred restaurant in Kotlar which is renowned for its seafood and, 5km out of town, Hisa Franko, a slow-food restaurant that specialises in local, seasonal and foraged food: wild herbs, flowers, chestnuts and mushrooms. There is a pizzeria or a "kava bar" (coffee shop) on almost every corner. Opposite the house, the Kobarid museum has extensive displays of first world war weaponry, clothing, medals and maps. The white-washed walls were lined with black and white photographs taken during the Caporetto breakthrough, a battle fought in the hills above Kobarid, where lines were drawn and rudimentary defences were carved into the rocks. We followed the 5km Kobarid historic trail up into these hills and along the lines of the Soca front, through what is essentially a mountainous museum. Swallowtail butterflies led us along alpine paths towards the Soca gorge, where a wooden footbridge crosses a turquoise river that burbles with minerals and rare marble trout. From here, we followed marked paths to the Kozjak brook, which feeds the river from the east. The brook runs through several pools creating a cascade of six waterfalls that culminates in a 15m-high column of white water called the Kozjak slap (waterfall). From a slippery wooden walkway, we saw a pair of spotted salamanders skulking on green rocks in the pool below. The Italian army built three defence lines in the Soca region, and the narrow, historic path we trod took us through the trenches and forts that once defended the banks of the river. It was difficult to compare our surroundings with the black and white images of destruction on the walls of the village museum. Outdoor pursuits on offer in the Soca valley The next day we drove into Triglav national park, which extends along the Italian border in the north-west corner of the country. According to local legend, the park is the home of Zlatorog, a mythical ibex said to have horns of solid gold. He lives on the slopes of Slovenia's highest peak Mount Triglav – the quarry of centuries of treasure hunters. Skiers flock here in the winter months, and come spring it's popular for fly-fishing and extreme sports: canyoning, rafting and paragliding. Hikers and bathers wade through vast wildflower meadows towards the high mountain lakes of Bled and Bohinj. We soon realised that it was a public holiday and the banks of Lake Bohinj (a winding two-hour drive from Kobarid village) were full of like-minded day-trippers. Armed with a picnic, we joined families and couples for a 12km-walk around the circumference of the lake, stopping midway for a picnic and a paddle. Matthew's second renovation, in Podmelec, a village in the Baca valley a little way south-east, sits at the top of a steep, single-lane track. Another former carpenter's house, it is smaller than Pri B'zjak, with a simple three-storey open-plan layout. "This is where I stay in Slovenia. It feels like home." Matthew says. "You'll see what I mean …" The wooden floors are strewn with faded kilim rugs, and reclaimed tools and trinkets line the exposed beams. The main room is prime lounging territory, with a woodburner, a giant leather sofa and double doors that open on to a traditional handcarved balcony overlooking the rooftops of the village and, beyond that, densely wooded hills. Nell Card gathers garlic leaves for a pesto supper high in the Baca valley Podmelec is tiny, with two churches and not much besides. There is no shop, no pizzeria, no kava bar … And after two hours of driving up from Lake Bohinj, neither of us fancied the 10km drive to Tolmin, the nearest town. The fridge was bare, but there was a bottle of red, so we dined on porridge oats cooked in water and supped wine on the balcony overlooking the hills. On the edge of the village was a handpainted sign pointing towards another waterfall. The next day was damp, so we pulled on our jackets and headed uphill towards the roar of this "slap" that feeds the Soca. The wet weather had brought out more yellow-spotted salamanders and, turning a corner, we were hit by the unmistakable whiff of wild garlic – at our feet was an expanse of white flowering wild plants. We picked a bunch on our way down and whizzed up a wild garlic pesto (with oil, hazelnuts and hard cheese) for dinner. Both of Matthew's restored homes are creaky and cosy and, although Kobarid has the added bonus of restaurants and supermarkets, Podmelec has a rare rural charm: we walked past the same man in blue overalls each day, drove past the same clapped-out orange Fiat 125 on the same stretch of road each day. The only thing missing was a sighting of the fabled golden-horned ibex. The trip was provided by luxurysloveniaholidays.com; a week in the Podmelec house costs from £395 a week; Pri B'zjak from £495. EasyJet flies to Ljubljana daily from Stansted from £56 return

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https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jul/21/netflix-crown-beginning-to-slip-subscriber-numbers

Media

2018-07-21T15:00:42.000Z

Mark Sweney

Netflix has revolutionised television. But is its crown starting to slip?

The rise of Netflix has torn up TV schedules and destabilised Hollywood, but last week it was the streaming service’s turn to be shaken. Shares in the maker of Stranger Things and The Crown suffered their biggest drop in two years on Monday after a surprising failure to hit subscriber targets. A torrent of Netflix-produced content – 700 original TV shows and 80 films this year alone – has kept the fans rolling in and made Netflix a darling with investors. But last week’s figures revived doubts about the US company’s business model. Here are some of the challenges that Netflix must address if it is to sustain its $165bn (£127bn) valuation. Subscriber growth Netflix stock fell more than 14% in after-hours trading on Monday after the company missed subscriber growth forecasts for the second quarter by 1 million. The company still added 5.2 million new users globally, which, given its base of 130 million, hardly feels like a crisis. However, the Netflix investment case relies on remaining in constant high-growth mode, and that means continuing to be able to acquire new subscribers steadily, quarter after quarter. And that is getting tougher as the “easy” subscribers in the US and major western markets have mostly been converted. “Netflix’s big challenge is maintaining growth worldwide while its customer base saturates in core western markets,” says Richard Broughton, analyst at Ampere. “Netflix is having to work ever harder to gain new subscribers.” The low-cost nature of the streaming service – a premium subscription costs £9.99 per month in the UK and $13.99 in the US – means that it needs inexorable growth to pay for its content. Must-watch shows and films beget happy customers and draw new subscribers, which helps pay for even more content. Netflix’s content budget is $8bn this year alone – it costs a lot of money to attract a Hollywood star such as Will Smith to a sci-fi film like Bright – and in recent years it has been raised by about $1bn annually. Netflix is stuck in a costly and precarious cycle. Disney intends to withdraw all its content, including the Star Wars films, from Netflix as a prelude to setting up its own video-on-demand service. Photograph: Jonathan Olley/AP Debt Netflix is running up substantial liabilities as it struggles to bridge the gap between revenue and the spiralling cost of content. Ampere puts Netflix’s total liabilities at $30bn-$33bn, with debt about a third of this, while the majority is programming commitments. Its debt mountain has grown from $300m as recently as March 2016 to almost $9bn at the end of the second quarter this year. In April, it issued its fifth bond in three years, which added $1.9bn in fresh debt. Netflix declares a profit – expected to be about $1bn this year – because it is able to spread the costs of making shows over a number of years. Its total streaming obligations, for making and licensing TV and film content, will cost it $18bn over the next few years. It also has $3bn-$5bn in costs it expects to pay relating to “traditional film output deals or certain TV series licence agreements where the number of seasons to be aired is unknown”. The growth machine is struggling to keep up. Netflix expects a negative free cash flow of between $3bn and $4bn this year, meaning the amount its spends on content, marketing and other costs in 2018 will exceed what it earns from subscriber revenue ($16bn) by at least $3bn. Rivals In the early days of building a streaming empire, Netflix was able to get hold of the rights to TV shows and films on the cheap. Rights owners and future rivals had not identified the global potential of subscription video-on-demand rights, and Netflix prospered. The value of those rights has now spiralled, which has pushed up Netflix’s content budgets and fuelled its drive to produce its own content. This strategy is also designed to help maintain Netflix’s popularity as some partners withdraw content because they now see Netflix as a threat to their own ambitions. Last year, Disney said it would pull all its content from Netflix in the US – including the Marvel superhero films, Star Wars, Pixar films such as Toy Story and big hits such as Frozen and Beauty and the Beast – as it tries to launch its own rival service. Disney’s $71bn bid for Rupert Murdoch’s Fox, which includes the studio behind films such as X-Men and Deadpool and TV shows such as The Simpsons, is a move to control crown-jewel content to supply its service and further starve Netflix. In addition, although Netflix’s huge budgets – the first series of The Crown cost £100m – have opened up a new golden age of television, they have also stoked inflation for top on-screen and off-screen talent, with rising costs further fuelled by competition from Amazon and Apple. “Netflix has invested big and inflated the market for scripted drama, but this is classic unsustainable bubble territory,” says Tim Mulligan, analyst at MIDiA Research. Youth-oriented shows such as Thirteen Reasons Why have been a hit, but teenage viewing habits are changing. Photograph: Beth Dubber/Netflix Young viewers Netflix is doing fine against traditional TV companies. Earlier this year, the BBC revealed that 16- to 24-year-olds spend more time with the US streaming service in a week than with all of BBC TV, including the BBC iPlayer. Youth-targeted shows such as Stranger Things and Thirteen Reasons Why have been major hits, but Netflix faces some of the same pressures caused by the rapid generational shift in viewing habits. The BBC’s research found that more than 80% of children go to the Google-owned YouTube for on-demand content (half also go to Netflix). Last week, media regulator Ofcom revealed that 16- to 34-year-olds spend more time watching non-broadcast content – such as streaming services, catch-up and on-demand TV – than traditional scheduled TV. YouTube was again found to be the biggest winner, accounting for the highest proportion of non-broadcast viewing in the age group. The BBC’s research found that children aged five to 15 spend more time each week online (15 hours and 18 minutes on average) than they do watching conventional or streamed TV (14 hours). All media is now in competition for attention, and online it is the Facebook-owned Instagram and Snapchat that are currently dominating the attention of younger generations. Moving into sport and news A key part of Netflix’s rapid growth is that it is cheap: the most popular £7.99-a-month package is seen by many as a bargain for access to such a vast range of content. Last week, Ofcom revealed that subscribers to streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon had overtaken numbers taking traditional pay-TV services such as Sky and Virgin Media for the first time. However, Netflix’s low-cost nature has meant that subscribers mostly choose to bolt it on as an additional option. Viewers mostly keep their main pay-TV subscription, which is more expensive but provides wider content such as exclusive football and news services. Some analysts believe that Netflix needs to develop its content offering and become more like traditional TV companies in order to become a “must-have” service. “Netflix is the TV disrupter that everyone is watching to see what they do next,” says Mulligan. “To move to the next level they need to add global news and sport to their content offer.” Doing so would also justify the inevitable price rises that Netflix is having to introduce as it continues the race to cover its costs. The company is already experimenting in Europe with a high-definition “ultra” subscription, which costs €16.99-€19.99 a month in Germany and Italy. Traditional pay-TV companies such as Sky, which originally built its business on exclusive Premier League rights, charge up to £100 a month, though this also includes costs for landlines and broadband. “Netflix’s long-term strategy is that it has to increase its revenue from subscribers; it needs to move into those content genres to replicate the journey of traditional pay-TV companies,” says Mulligan. “You need a full suite of content if you want to be a real substitute, not just an additive service.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2007/jul/12/theatre2

Stage

2007-07-12T08:50:56.000Z

Michael Billington

Theatre review: Saint Joan / Olivier Theatre, London

Aside from a touring production of Widowers' Houses, this is the first Shaw play the National has presented in 13 years: a symbol of our scandalous neglect of a great dramatist. But Marianne Elliott's production should put to rest the notion that Shaw was simply a didactic old windbag. Even if it occasionally lapses into self-conscious theatricality, it is intellectually vigorous, visually exciting and boasts a glowing performance from Anne-Marie Duff. However, Elliott's first innovation, following the lead she set in Pillars of the Community, is to suggest that this is an ensemble play rather than a star vehicle. Rae Smith's central raked platform is constantly surrounded by watching actors on chairs. This transforms the very first scene, when Joan persuades a military squire to back her mission to the Dauphin, from a piece of rustic comedy into a public demonstration of her power. And later it turns the trial scene into a noisy, disruptive affair in which the Catholic hierarchy's attempt to save Joan's soul is barracked and heckled from the sidelines. Occasionally, in its attempts to give the play extra urgency, Elliott's production lapses into the kind of spectacle Shaw deliberately avoided. The raising of the siege of Orleans is like something out of Stomp, with the company hammering corrugated iron walls with staves. The Dauphin's coronation in Rheims Cathedral is emblematically displayed. And, at the end, Joan's burning is symbolically shown as she mounts a pile of stacked-up chairs from which she falls backwards as the flames lick her feet. All this is excitingly done. It also suggests that modern physical theatre has much in common with 19th century Lyceum melodrama. But the virtue of Elliott's production is that it boldly expresses the idea at the heart of Shaw's play: that Joan's championship of the individual conscience was a threat both to the established church and feudal power. All this comes across in the brilliant scene where Warwick and Cauchon, watched by a fiery English chaplain, debate how best to suppress her subversiveness. As Angus Wright's silky Warwick pours tea from a silver pot for Paterson Joseph's earnest bishop, you have a sense of the timeless collusion of church and state against any external challenge. When Cauchon asks "what will it be when every girl thinks herself a Joan and every man a Mahomet?" you are also topically reminded of the dangers inherent in anarchic individualism. Shaw's peculiar genius in this play, in fact, was to present the case for and against Joan: as Eric Bentley once wrote, "the happy fact about Shaw's impartiality is that he seems to be not on neither side but on both sides". And this emerges clearly in the trial scene. Joseph's Cauchon valiantly fends off the baying pack in his attempt to save Joan's soul. And Oliver Ford Davies delivers the Inquisitor's great speech about heresy's threat to the social order directly to the audience with a calm, rational persuasiveness. On the other side of the equation, Anne-Marie Duff's Joan offers a superb mixture of assurance and vulnerability. With her soft Irish accent and arrestingly bony features, she looks and sounds like an outsider in a conformist world: we also see the startling physical transformation she undergoes from beskirted peasant to close-cropped soldier. But Duff's great gift is to convey Joan's humanity. There's a great moment in Rheims Cathedral when Christopher Colquhoun's sympathetic Dunois suggests that the army cannot rely for ever on God's intervention. Duff turns away in baffled tears at this direct challenge to her faith. And in the trial scene the belief that she has been deserted by her voices produces a series of heart-wrenching wails. In the truncated epilogue, Duff also cuts a figure of startling solitude as her guilt-ridden contemporaries, including Paul Ready's wonderfully fey Dauphin, flee in terror at the thought of her return. This seems to me a sure sign that Elliott has got Shaw's play exactly right: that now, as then, Joan's brand of reckless individualism presents a threat to social order. What amazes me is that we have managed to live without this potent political masterpiece for so long.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/dec/29/stefflon-don

Music

2022-12-29T11:00:18.000Z

Christine Ochefu

Stefflon Don: ‘That’s what it is to be an artist – you’ve always gotta evolve’

Stefflon Don has carved out her own niche within UK rap’s boys’ club with relative ease. Thanks to her cutting verses, the 30-year-old star has a string of features: Anne Marie, Sean Paul, Nile Rodgers. And yet, no album. This year, that will finally change as she releases her long-awaited debut, Island 54. It holds true to her willingness to meld multiple music styles – the dancehall of her youth, lightning-fast verses influenced by grime, even South African dance style amapiano – and her eagerness to prove herself as a creative force. On the album you’re playing with lots of genres. What motivated you to explore new sounds? It’s just been natural. [The amapiano track] is very interesting, right? I love amapiano. I go to Ghana every year for New Year. If you’re in a dance, all you hear is afrobeats, amapiano, it always gets everyone going. It’s just a hype! I was brought up in Holland, my parents are Jamaican, so everything is a mix. I’m so used to hearing many different languages and many different sounds that I connect with. That’s why my music is very versatile – I don’t stick to just one thing because I’m not one thing. You often draw on your Jamaican heritage. What does Jamaica mean to you as a musician? I grew up in a Jamaican household. That’s the first culture I knew, the first language I’ve heard from being in the womb. It’s very important for anyone that comes from a massive cultural background like that to embrace it. Someone once told me you can’t buy culture. It doesn’t matter how much someone from another background loves making the music, they’re just not gonna be Jamaican, are they? If they weren’t heavily invested in that culture, that upbringing, the food, the language – that’s something money can’t buy. I’m always gonna put Jamaica to the forefront because that’s who I am. Rap and dancehall can be hard genres to break as a woman. Have you ever felt that? No – I’m not living my life like, “I’m a woman and I have to prove myself.” I’m just trying to prove myself, period. That’s my mentality, more so now than ever, because I’ve been around for a minute and I feel like everyone is like: “OK, I know she can do this and that – what else?” That’s what it is to be an artist – you’ve always gotta evolve. But I would like to see more women in the UK rap scene. As artists we’re very competitive, so if there are more people doing stuff and being seen, it’s only going to make other artists be like, “OK, I need to put my best foot forward.” Why did you title the album Island 54? My label is called 54 London. Five minus four is one, and 54 also represents the 54 countries in Africa. The island is me – I’m an island girl. From Africa to the islands, and this is the type of music I’d want to hear on an island with all my friends and family. You had your breakout in 2016 and many fans would assume that you’ve already released your debut album. Why now? I wish I’d done one before, but I don’t think I understood all the elements of what it takes to make an album. I always took my music seriously, but I didn’t ever think: “OK, what type of thing do I want to make, what message do I want to get across?” Now, in this stage of my life, I’m more focused and serious when it comes to a project. I want people to know me more; the album is a good way to do that. Is proving yourself something you’re anxious about? I’m not really worried about numbers. I feel like when you produce something great, it lasts for ever. But the business mindset is that everything should be big at the beginning. It’s very sad. People are scared to drop music or try new things because the numbers might not match up – that’s not what music is about. That’s why so many things sound the same, because it’s the safest thing to do, to sound like someone else. People have to remember that we’re not in the time that we used to be; there’s hundreds of thousands of songs coming out. You can drop something so great, but then there’s 55 other people that dropped the same day. Nowadays people only want to hear the first four seconds of a song before they decide whether they want to listen to the rest because there’s so many things to consume: gaming, apps, scrolling every minute. The only way to stand out is to make sure those first 10 seconds make someone want to listen to the rest. How do you want your debut album to be received? I want people to see it as a masterpiece and understand that I am very much deserving of the No 1 spot. Sign up to Sleeve Notes Free weekly newsletter Get music news, bold reviews and unexpected extras. Every genre, every era, every week Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Comments on this piece are premoderated to ensure discussion remains on topics raised by the writer. Please be aware there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/22/the-hunt-for-radovan-karadzic-ruthless-warlord-turned-spiritual-healer

World news

2016-03-22T16:13:01.000Z

Julian Borger

The hunt for Radovan Karadžić, ruthless warlord turned ‘spiritual healer’

It has been just over two decades since genocide was last perpetrated on European soil, a discomfiting memory that has been largely buried in a continent now intent on stopping the arrival of escapees from more recent mass murder. Europe’s killing fields are now impromptu camp sites for Syrian refugees. The amnesia about the continent’s capacity for slaughter will be broken in The Hague on Thursday, where judgment will be passed on Radovan Karadžić for charges of genocide and crimes against humanity during the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It will be a historic moment in the 24-year history of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), often called the Hague war crimes tribunal. For international justice as a whole, it will arguably be the most important moment since Nuremberg. A guilty verdict is expected by almost everyone involved in the case. Karadžić had, after all, put himself at the head of a breakaway Serb statelet, an entity dedicated to “ethnic cleansing”, the Orwellian term for the systematic use of terror against Bosnian Muslims and Croats. The remaining doubts concern the details and, in particular, whether the highly emotive, politically resonant charge of genocide will be made to stick, and on how many counts. What is certain is that the defendant will revel in the event. This grandiloquent psychiatrist-poet, a bear of a man with waves of white hair, has played the role of national martyr throughout the proceedings. He is largely derided or forgotten among Serbs in Bosnia and in Serbia itself, but his swansong performance could present the chance of a comeback, an opportunity to tap into a reservoir of victimhood. More than 20 years after the end of the conflict, Bosnia is more divided than ever. Karadžić and his general, Ratko Mladic, in 1995. Photograph: AP Thursday’s verdict will be a reminder of the scale of the killings – some 100,000 people died in Bosnia alone, with other victims in Croatia and Kosovo – and of the glacial pace at which justice has arrived. The long wait is due in part to the nature of the court, which has strived to be meticulously even-handed, allowing defence lawyers considerable latitude in drawing out the trial. The trial lasted five years, and the bench has taken an additional 18 months to arrive at its verdict. However, the greatest delay was the 13 years it took to arrest Karadžić and bring him to The Hague for trial. For the first two years following his initial indictment, in July 1995, he was able to live quite openly in the alpine village of Pale outside Sarajevo, which served as the capital of the Bosnian Serbs’ breakaway republic during the conflict. Even though there were 64,000 Nato-led peacekeepers in the country after the war, there was no political will to risk either peacekeepers or the peace itself on arrest operations. By the time that changed, in 1997, Karadžić had slipped into hiding, where he managed to stay until 2008, despite the best efforts of a heavily armed, deeply resourced multinational posse. As Bill Clinton approached the end of his second term in 2000, he saw capturing Karadžić as a pillar of his foreign policy legacy. A special task force inside the National Security Council was told to put new urgency into the search operation, with no expense spared. Before 9/11, the pursuit of Balkan war criminals involved the biggest deployment of special operations troops anywhere, involving Delta Force, Seal Team 6, and the SAS. Karadžić was their number-one target and a priority for the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency and MI6. He was the world’s most-wanted man. The lessons learned in the manhunt for Karadžić and his fellow warlords were carried forward to Afghanistan, Iraq and the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden, for the most part without the UN resolutions that provided legal underpinning for arrest operations in the Balkans. David Petraeus, the future US commander and CIA director, was an army brigadier general at the time. Stationed in Sarajevo, he became fascinated by special forces methods there and insisted on going on a night raid with them. “One day, I put him on a helicopter and dressed him up [in civilian attire] and a ball cap,” the man leading the hunt, Lieutenant Colonel Andy Milani, told Paula Broadwell, Petraeus’s biographer, whose affair with her subject would end his career. After a trip across eastern Bosnia’s vertiginous highlands, the helicopter was met by Milani’s Delta Force soldiers. “We jumped in a van with blacked-out windows, and you could tell he was like a kid in a candy store,” Milani said. Petraeus and his men would make unannounced visits in the middle of the night to Ljiljana Karadžić, the fugitive’s wife, with the aim of rattling her with a show of bravado about his imminent capture, in the hope she would rush to warn him, and give away his location. Petraeus called it his Eddie Murphy routine (after Murphy’s role as convict-turned-cop in the movie 24 Hours). However, Balkan reality did not work like Hollywood. Ljiljana was followed wherever she went and was one of the first targets of surveillance drones, a new toy US special forces were trying out in Bosnia. But she led them on a wild goose chase. Delta Force soldiers lay in wait for his convoy on a mountain road, one of them dressed in a gorilla suit The manhunters used every trick they could think of, scanning the remote villages along the Bosnia-Montenegro border for signs of unusual activity – internet logons in the middle of the night, TV satellite dishes in otherwise poor settlements, newspaper subscriptions. The NSA was persuaded to waive normal practice and allow intercept intelligence to be shared, unfiltered and without delay, with the operational units tracking Karadžić in Bosnia. In one of the more bizarre episodes of the chase, Delta Force soldiers lay in wait for his convoy on a mountain road, one of them dressed in a gorilla suit, which had been flown in from the US the previous day. The idea was that Karadžić’s bodyguards, known as the Preventiva, would be dumbfounded and slow down their vehicle long enough for the Delta Force ambushers to fire a specially designed concussion grenade at the car doors to stun the passengers. The daring scheme would have gone down in Delta Force history, but the central player in the drama failed to turn up. Not for the first time or the last, the initial tip-off had been mistaken, or more likely, deliberately misleading. Karadžić and his supporters took delight in pulling the collective chain of the world’s most powerful military machines. The elusive quarry deepened the West’s humiliation by using his time in hiding to hit something of a literary peak. Karadžić published a collection of poems, in which one section was titled I Can Look for Myself. His novel, Miraculous Chronicles of the Night, sold out at the Belgrade International Book Fair. Wanted posters issued for Karadžić and Ratko Mladic. Photograph: Danilo Krstanovic/Reuters Years later, after interrogating members of Karadžić’s inner circle, the war-crimes tribunal’s own investigators came to the conclusion that Karadžić had left Bosnia for Serbia on Christmas Eve 1999, crossing the Drina River border by boat after nightfall. In that case, the Clinton administration’s intensified manhunt – with all its gadgets, elite units and elaborate schemes – came too late. The prize horse had already bolted. After Karadžić arrived in Serbia, the picaresque tale became even more bizarre. The trail went cold until 2005, when a self-styled spiritual healer and clairvoyant, Mina Minic, answered a ring on his doorbell in Belgrade to find himself face-to-face with a tall man with a long bushy beard, abundant white hair done up in a top-knot tied with a black ribbon. He looked “like a monk who had done something wrong with a nun,” Minic would recall later. It was Karadžić, trying out a new identity provided by sympathisers in Serbian intelligence. He introduced himself as Dragan Dabic, a therapist who had just returned home from a stint in New York following an ugly split with his wife. Regrettably, she had refused to forward his professional credentials. Dabic was eager to learn the ways of a Balkan seer, including the use of a visak, a pendulum that is supposed to identify disturbances in the energy field around sick or troubled patients. Dabic soon acquired his own visak, and his career as a mystic healer blossomed. He adopted the un-Serb middle name of David and used it increasingly as a professional moniker. He also set up a website called Psy Help Energy which advertised the David Wellbeing Programme. He got involved in a project with a Belgrade sexologist aimed at rejuvenating the sperm of infertile men Among other services available were acupuncture, homeopathy, “quantum medicine” and traditional cures. He also sold necklaces he called Velbing (well-being): lucky charms that he claimed offered health benefits and “personal protection” against “harmful radiation”. Karadžić had studied psychiatry in Sarajevo and had dabbled in the softer end of therapy. In the 1970s for a while he served as the in-house psychiatrist to the city’s multi-ethnic football team, with the optimistic goal of instilling in the struggling side a will to win, and later played the same role for Red Star Belgrade. The Sarajevo players remembered him making them lie on the floor in a darkened room while he played taped music and told them to imagine themselves as bumblebees flying from flower to flower. To create Dabic, he took this experience and embellished it with New Age concept of the “life force “the life force”, “vital energies”, and “personal auras.” In his spare time, he got involved in a joint project with a well-known Belgrade sexologist aimed at rejuvenating the sperm of infertile men. It was claimed that sluggish sperm would start moving faster if Dabic placed his hands in their vicinity. He lived in one of the high-rise apartment blocks that lined Yuri Gagarin Street, named in honour of the first man in space, in the shabby remains of the concrete Socialist dream that was New Belgrade. The local kids called him Santa Claus, the kindly old man who would stop and talk to them on the way to the corner grocery store. One of Dabic’s neighbours, who had a flat across the stairwell from him, was a woman who worked for Interpol and whose job it was coordinate the hunt for international fugitives such as Karadžić. Karadžić (left), while living as Dragan Dabic. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images As his confidence in the disguise grew, he became ever more daring. He emerged as something of a star on the Serbian alternative medicine circuit, publishing a regular column in Healthy Living magazine, and securing a franchise to represent a US vitamin company in the region. He also started visiting his local bar, the Luda Kuca (“Madhouse”), a smoke-filled, rough-edged place that appealed to a shifting crowd of impoverished war veterans, Bosnian Serbs and Montenegrins. It served country wine, šljivovica (plum brandy), and pungent, undiluted nationalism. On the wood-panelled walls were pictures of the Serb modern nationalist pantheon, with pride of place reserved for Radovan Karadžić. On at least one occasion he was persuaded to pick up a gusle, the single-stringed fiddle of the region, and perform an epic Serb ballad under a framed portrait of himself at the height of his power. Yet no one recognised him. In the end, this epic feat of hiding in plain sight was brought crashing down by a slip by Karadžić’s businessman brother, Luka. Late one night in the spring of 2008, he called Dabic with a phone using an old Sim card that the war-crimes investigators had on their records as being associated with the Karadžić support network, and had passed on to the Serbian intelligence services (BIA). In May, an investigator was dispatched to check on the recipient of the call, this strange Gandalf-like figure in New Belgrade, and the penny dropped. The investigator and his colleagues then had to ask themselves what to do next. Like the rest of the Serbia, BIA was in transition. There was a pro-western reformer in the presidency, Boris Tadić, but the parliament and many of the key posts, including the top intelligence posts, were still in the hands of nationalists. The investigators gambled their careers and, instead of going to their own bosses, took their suspicions to Tadić’s office, and kept up their surveillance. But Karadžić’s fate still hung in the balance. It was only when Tadić was able to put together a liberal coalition, three months after May parliamentary elections, that he was able to replace the BIA leadership with his own man. By this time, Karadžić was aware he was being watched. According to his lawyer, Sveta Vujacic, the fugitive began to spot unfamiliar faces in mid-July, brushing past him on the stairwell at his apartment block or at the Luda Kuca. “He knew he was encircled,” Vujacic recalled. On the evening of 18 July, the man known as Dragan Dabic left 267 Yuri Gagarin Street in a light-blue T-shirt and a broad-brimmed straw hat pulled low over his face. He was weighed down with baggage: a white plastic bag, a raffia shopping basket and a knapsack, all of which appeared to be full. He walked to a nearby bus stop where he was soon discreetly joined by one of his BIA trackers. They both boarded the number 73 bus bound for Belgrade’s northwestern suburbs. Dabic sat towards the front. His shadow was several seats back. When they reached the greenbelt around the Serbian capital, a couple of patrol cars steered in front of the bus and four plainclothes policemen boarded, two in the front and two in the back. They made their way toward the middle, posing as inspectors, showing their badges and asking to see tickets. The old man in the straw hat was reaching into his pocket for his fare when he felt a policeman’s grip around his arm. “Dr Karadžić?” the policeman asked. “No, it’s Dragan Dabic,” the man protested. “No, it’s Radovan Karadžić,” the policeman insisted. “Are your superiors aware of what you are doing?” the man asked. “Yes, fully,” came the reply. The officer ordered the driver to stop the bus, and the captive was escorted onto the grass shoulder. At 9.30pm on 18 July 2008, the flamboyant fiction that had been Dragan David Dabic evaporated. In his place, the ghost of Radovan Karadžić, the former high priest of “ethnic cleansing” who had haunted the Balkans for a decade, rematerialised on a Belgrade roadside as a flustered old man, his straw hat askew, clutching a white plastic bag to his breast. Adapted from The Butcher’s Trail by Julian Borger. To order it for £13.99 (RRP £17.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/mar/02/chlorinated-chicken-foods-us-trade-deal-uk-eu

Opinion

2020-03-02T11:59:43.000Z

Nick Dearden

It's not just chlorinated chicken: five foods a US trade deal could bring to the UK | Nick Dearden

Nothing symbolises British fears of a standard-slashing US trade deal better than chlorinated chickens: those zombie birds, barely able to move, cluck or feed, stuffed with chemicals that force them to grow to unbelievable sizes, sitting in their own waste, covered in sores rather than feathers. At the end of their miserable life of confinement, they are washed in chlorine or a similar chemical to get rid of the bacteria that infect them. Why chlorinated chicken is centre of the table in UK-EU talks Read more In fact, the wash is believed to hide rather than eliminate some bacteria, potentially driving much higher rates of food poisoning in the US, not to mention the appallingly treated workers in the industry who suffer “rashes, burns, destruction of the eye tissue, difficulty breathing, and inflammation of the respiratory system” as a result of exposure. But chicken is only the tip of the iceberg. Despite government claims, here are five other unpleasant foods that could make their way to our menus as part of a UK-US trade deal. Antibiotic meat Much US meat is produced on an industrial scale, with conditions as bad as those in the chicken sheds. In particular, hormones, steroids and antibiotics are regularly used to make animals bigger and faster, and to prevent them getting ill in the unnaturally close conditions in which they are kept. Many cows and pigs never see sunlight, walk freely or eat grass. Many of the chemicals used are bad for us too – antibiotic overuse is threatening to make these vital drugs useless, and to bring down a pillar of modern medicine. Another chemical, ractopamine, is regularly fed to industrially farmed pigs in the US, despite making the animals collapse, turn aggressive, suffer liver and kidney dysfunction, and even die. But it probably affects humans too, which is why not just the EU but also Russia and China have banned this dangerous chemical, as well as US pork that contains it. GM foods The majority of US processed foods contain genetically modified ingredients, unlike British food. The US is demanding a “science-based” approach to food. This sounds good, but in trade deals “science-based” is a shorthand for more genetically modified food and more intensive chemical use. It contrasts with the EU’s precautionary principle, which takes a cautious approach to health risks and bans foods where there’s a credible risk to health. In the US, the balance of proof works the other way, and there is a high barrier that has to be passed before “harm” translates into regulation. Lead paint, banned in most of Europe before the second world war, was not prohibited in the US until 1978. Boris Johnson and his lead negotiator to the EU have talked about the need for the UK’s approach to food standards to be “governed by science”. GM is coming this way. More pus, more pesticides Dairy cows at a farm in New York. Photograph: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images US rules allow milk to have nearly double the level of somatic cells – white blood cells that fight bacterial infection – that the UK allows. In practice, this means more pus in our milk, and more infections going untreated in cows. Much US milk would be deemed unfit for human consumption in Britain. Vegans don’t escape unscathed, because the US allows far more pesticide residue on fruit and vegetables, and allows 72 chemicals banned in the EU, including some responsible for serious harm. That’s before we get to the truly horrific – the rat hair, insect fragments and excrement traces that the US allows in small amounts in food. Unsafe baby food Even baby food carries higher risks in the US. In Britain, baby food has special standards including a complete ban on artificial colours and E-numbers, very low maximum levels of pesticides and limits on added sugar. The US has no specific regulations for baby food. A recent test of baby foods in the US found that 95% contained toxic metals, with 73% containing traces of arsenic. While the amounts may be small, the lack of tight regulation on US baby foods, and the certainty that sugar is often added to toddler snack food, should cause deep disquiet. All-American Stilton cheese and Cornish pasties Cornish pasties being prepared in Bude, Cornwall. Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images Britain currently protects certain foods to ensure they’re made to specific standards and to promote local farming and industry. Think Cornish pasties, Melton Mowbray pork pies, Scottish wild salmon and Stilton blue cheese. In trade talks to date, the US has “pressed the UK to move away from current EU approach on generic terms”. American companies would be able to produce Cornish pasties on a massive scale and sell them back to us. The US also wants to “eliminate … unjustified labelling” saying it unfairly discriminates against American foods and, incredibly, the administration “view[s] the introduction of warning labels as harmful rather than as a step to public health”. These are not marginal concerns for the US – food is not an aspect of a future deal that Britain will be able to simply opt out of. It is central to US objectives that call for “greater regulatory compatibility to reduce burdens associated with unnecessary differences in regulations and standards” including “a mechanism to remove expeditiously unwarranted barriers that block the export of US food and agricultural products”. The US trade deal is a threat to our food standards and our farmers, and the US will not sign a deal that doesn’t have food standards in it. Nick Dearden is director of Global Justice Now

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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/may/22/scott-morrison-horizon-church-sheds-tears-last-prime-ministers-speech-at-his-church

Australia news

2022-05-22T03:38:46.000Z

Josh Butler

Scott Morrison sheds tears as he gives last prime minister’s speech at his church

Scott Morrison has choked back tears as he addressed his church hours after conceding election defeat in what he said would be “the last thing I say as PM”. The outgoing prime minister said he had experienced “a very difficult walk over the last four years”, thanking members of his Horizon church at Sutherland for their support and reading a Bible verse. “We’re called to trust and obey. And that’s the life of faith,” he said. Morrison returned to the Pentecostal church, in his home electorate of Cook, on Sunday morning. It was the same church he invited journalists to during the 2019 election campaign to watch him pray and sing. Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison have emptied the Liberals’ broad church Katharine Murphy Read more Morrison gave thanks to “our church family” on behalf of himself, his wife, Jenny, and their two daughters. “You’ve given us a great foundation from which we could walk what has been a very difficult walk, I’ve got to tell you, over the last almost four years,” he said. “God calls us. Whether you’re a prime minister, a pastor, running a business, teaching in schools, working in the police force, it doesn’t matter. We’re each called to trust and obey, and that’s the life of faith He calls us to. That’s how we live our faith, each and every day, regardless of what your job is, and to express it through how you do that.” Morrison grew emotional at several points during his three-minute address, appearing to choke back tears, putting his hand up and slightly slumping. He referenced the term “for such a time as this”, from a Bible verse taken to mean that people are placed in specific situations by God to carry out tasks. “At the last election, we really understood it was for such a time as this. And now we understand it was for such a time as that,” Morrison said, to laughs from the crowd. Seeking some guidance after his election defeat, Scott Morrison has left Horizon church where he and Jenny attended this morning’s service. @10NewsFirst pic.twitter.com/CPqHEkEDvu — Taylor Ryan (@taylorryan_10) May 22, 2022 “I’m very pleased that the last thing I say as PM is here. So I’m not going to rely on my own words,” he said, again choking back tears as he read off his phone from the Bible verse Habakkuk 3:17. “Even if the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, if the yield of the olive fails and if the fields produce no food, even if the flock disappears from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls, yet I will triumph in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my salvation,” Morrison read. In a second reading, from the Book of Micah, Morrison quoted, “My God will hear me. Do not rejoice over me, enemy of mine. Though I fall, I will rise. Though I live in darkness, the Lord is a light for me.” “May God bless Australia. May God bless our community. And may God continue to show his favour on this wonderful church family,” he said, as he left the stage. 4:52 Australian election 2022: how the night and results unfolded with Amy Remeikis – video He had been introduced on stage by the church pastor Brad Bonhomme, who called Morrison a “man of integrity” and a “man of courage”. “History will celebrate the courage of Scott Morrison,” the pastor said. Bonhomme claimed a person who “heads up a television station on Foxtel” had called him recently, asking him to pass on thanks to Morrison for the jobkeeper wage subsidy program through the Covid pandemic. “Scott, Jenny, Horizon church celebrates you,” Bonhomme said. Morrison in his Saturday night concession speech had said he “still [believes] in miracles”, a callback to his 2019 victory speech. Anthony Albanese’s election victory restores the faith of Labor’s true believers Read more In an Instagram post on Sunday afternoon, Morrison again referenced his faith, saying he would “serve my local community”. “We are blessed to live in such a great country. The resilience and strength of Australians supported by our policies, has ensured that we have been able to prevail as a nation in difficult times. How good is Australia!” he wrote. “I wish Mr Albanese and his government all the best for what will be further challenging times ahead.” “I am now looking forward to returning to the shire, my family and continuing to serve my local community. For me life has always been about faith, family, friends and community. We are not our jobs but who we are as unique individuals, (in my view), loved by God.” “Jenny and I thank Australia for the honour to have served. I thank my family, friends and colleagues for all their support, especially my dearest friend Josh Frydenberg.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2022/jul/20/scientists-picking-over-ice-age-bones-discover-vultures-once-soared-in-australias-skies

Science

2022-07-19T17:30:09.000Z

Donna Lu

Scientists picking over ice age bones discover vultures once soared in Australia’s skies

Australia’s first vulture species has been identified after the reclassification of a century-old fossil specimen. The extinct vulture lived during the middle and late Pleistocene period – commonly known as the ice age – between 50,000 and 770,000 years ago, researchers estimate. The bird was previously classified as an eagle but new analysis has shown it was an old world vulture, a group with 16 living species. The raptor has been renamed Cryptogyps lacertosus, meaning powerful hidden vulture, and classified in a new genus. Scientists compared the fossil specimen to a wedge-tailed eagle, focusing on the lower leg bone. Photograph: Ellen Mather, Flinders University It was similar in size to a wedge-tailed eagle, but anatomical differences suggest it was a scavenger rather than a hunter. “The key thing that separates this fossil from our eagles is that the structure of tarsus – its lower leg bone – is much less … developed in ways that would support musculature,” said the study’s lead author, Dr Ellen Mather, a palaeontologist at Flinders University. “Clearly, this was from a species that wasn’t using its feet for killing like an eagle would.” The bird lived at the same time as Australia was inhabited by megafauna including marsupial lions (Thylacoleo) and 2-metre tall giant wombats (Diprotodon). “It would have played a very important role as a scavenger, consuming carcasses that were left behind by particularly the megafaunal marsupials – quickly breaking them down and preventing the spread of disease,” Mather said. “In the modern day a lot of scavenging is done either by smaller marsupials or mammals. You see wedge-tailed eagles taking up that role as well, but they don’t necessarily do the role as efficiently as vultures do because they’re not specialised for it.” A fragment of a Cryptogyps lacertosus wing bone was first found on the Warburton River in South Australia in 1901. The team analysed the original specimen as well as newer fossils from the Wellington caves in New South Wales and Leaena’s Breath cave in Western Australia, comparing the bones to living vulture and eagle species around the world. Cryptogyps lacertosus lived at the same time as Diprotodon, the largest known marsupial to have ever lived. Photograph: Illustration/Anne Musser The researchers believe the vulture’s demise may have been linked to a mass extinction event in Australia about 50,000 years ago, during which up to 79 species of large mammals died off. These extinctions “would have severely reduced the resources needed to support a scavenging species”, they said. Sign up to receive an email with the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning Sign up to receive the top stories from Guardian Australia every morning “Australia’s pretty much the only continent where we can confirm that vultures went completely extinct,” Mather said. “Asia, Africa, Europe and both North and South Americas have their own vultures. Their fossil record varies in the diversity but a lot of the surviving species today are also currently endangered.” Nine vulture species are listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as critically endangered. The Australian bird was formerly named the powerful grave eagle, “Taphaetus” lacertosus (scientific names found to be invalid are indicated by quotation marks). The research was published in the journal Zootaxa.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/21/wheres-malcolm-turnbulls-condemnation-of-eddie-mcguire

Opinion

2016-06-21T04:21:05.000Z

Kristina Keneally

Where's Malcolm Turnbull's condemnation of Eddie McGuire? | Kristina Keneally

Eddie McGuire continues to enjoys the privilege and protection that is often afforded to white, wealthy and well-connected men. Seriously, how many chances does Eddie McGuire get? He hasn’t shown much inclination to learn from past mistakes, including comments about Indigenous AFL player Adam Goodes. His time as CEO of Channel Nine was panned and short-lived, but long enough to “bone” Jessica Rowe and take Jana Wendt off air. The NSW Parliament officially declared him a boofhead, for goodness sakes. And now McGuire has stupidly threatened to lead a pack of men to “bomb” and drown a female journalist, Caroline Wilson, whose opinions and tough questioning style McGuire apparently doesn’t like. Australian election 2016: new poll has Labor at 51% and Coalition at 49% – as it happened Read more Initially McGuire shrugged his comments off as a joke. The prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, made the point last year that not all disrespect for women ends in violence, but all violence against women begins with disrespect. Eddie McGuire’s comments about ‘drowning’ journalist Caroline Wilson Guardian Turnbull was quick to condemn Sheikh Shady Alsuleiman last week for his violent language about homosexuals and women. I agree with Turnbull and welcome his statement. Last night on Q&A, Turnbull said he would stand up for any Australian who was being denigrated on the basis of sexual orientation, religion or gender. But our feminist PM hasn’t yet seen fit to call out Eddie McGuire. Our non-feminist foreign minister, Julie Bishop, gave McGuire a pass and excused him for just joking around. Bill Shorten didn’t think the joke was funny. Neither did Tanya Plibersek nor Penny Wong, both making clear statements about its inappropriateness and violent imagery. Most significantly, Caroline Wilson made clear the McGuire’s comments were not funny, but offensive and sexist. Turnbull and Bishop should call out Eddie McGuire. Chastising McGuire and speaking up against violent imagery against women would be 100% in line with the federal government’s anti-domestic violence advertising campaign. These ads seek to influence the influencers, to make them aware of how their excuses of “boys will be boys” and “he’s just kidding around” allow disrespect against women to grow and violence against women to be normalised. McGuire is an influencer. He reaches a lot more people than Alsulieman does. Young men in particular listen to McGuire. Thanks to the AFL, radio, television and commercial sponsors, he has a massive reach to mainstream Australia. McGuire obviously also has massive sway within the AFL. The league’s CEO Gillon McLachlan popped up on TV to tell the nation that Eddie had apologised, that was sufficient, and really, a few blokes joking around about drowning a woman is really all our collective fault. Can't you take a joke, love? Why the 'banter' isn't funny any more Brigid Delaney Read more No, Gillon, it’s not. It’s the fault of those men who said it, and those people who excuse it. And frankly, many Australians didn’t agree with McLachlan that McGuire’s non-apology was sufficient. McGuire initially sought to blame Wilson and downplay the incident. From Rosie Batty to Tracey Spicer to Wilson herself and to women – and men – all over social media, McLachlan and McGuire were told clearly that they just weren’t getting it. On his third attempt, McGuire finally apologised on Monday evening and pledged to donate money to support victims of domestic violence. Where Turnbull and McLachlan failed, the community – women and men – stepped into the breach and showed leadership. But here’s a dismal prediction: by next week, all will have returned to normal. McGuire will still be on air. He will have faced no actual consequences. An opportunity for a real learning moment will have passed. And the next time some other boofhead wants to make a sexually denigrating comment or a violent threat against a woman, he won’t have much reason to think twice. The cycle, depressingly, continues.

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https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/oct/20/krishnan-guru-murthy-taken-off-air-for-swearing-about-steve-baker

Media

2022-10-20T12:57:00.000Z

Jamie Grierson

Krishnan Guru-Murthy taken off air for swearing about Steve Baker

The Channel 4 News anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy has been taken off air for a week after he was caught making an offensive comment off-camera about the Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker. During an off-air moment after his exchange with Baker on Wednesday, Guru-Murthy was heard to say: “What a cunt.” He will not now return to Channel 4 News before 4 November, due to a pre-existing week of leave, the broadcaster said. In a statement published on Thursday, Channel 4 said: “Channel 4 has a strict code of conduct for all its employees, including its programming teams and on-air presenters, and takes any breaches seriously. “Following an off-air incident, Channel 4 News anchor Krishnan Guru-Murthy has been taken off air for a week.” After the incident, Guru-Murthy apologised to Baker on Twitter. He wrote: “After a robust interview with Steve Baker MP I used a very offensive word in an unguarded moment off air. “While it was not broadcast, that word in any context is beneath the standards I set myself and I apologise unreservedly. “I have reached out to Steve Baker to say sorry.” In an interview with Times Radio, Baker said that sacking Guru-Murthy would be a “service to the public” if he was found to be in breach of his code of conduct. “I had an interview earlier with a journalist I don’t have a great deal of regard for who I felt was misrepresenting the situation through the construction of his question, which I called out, I think live on air, or I thought it was a pre-record,” he said. Sign up to First Edition Free daily newsletter Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “And he clearly didn’t like that, quite right, too. But I’d be quite honest, I spent a long time live on air, calling him out on his conduct as a journalist and glad to do so any time. “But it’s most unfortunate that he’s sworn on air like that. If it’s in breach of his code of conduct, I do hope they sack him – it would be a service to the public.” Baker later replied to Guru-Murthy’s tweet, accepting the apology and saying he “appreciated” the gesture.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/apr/25/mccains-100-days-what-if

Opinion

2009-04-29T20:00:00.000Z

Melissa McEwan

McCain's 100 days: Melissa McEwan in an alternative universe

In which the author imagines the first 100 days of a McCain presidency in an alternate universe. Day 1: Having spent the nearly three months between election day and inauguration day being brought up to speed by Dick Cheney on effective concealment strategies for the Bush administration's plethoric dirty secrets and giving Vice President Sarah Palin a crash-course in introduction to government, President McCain does not hit the ground running. He is stunned to find out that the September suspension of his campaign did not magically solve the financial crisis and that the fundamentals of the economy are not strong. Day 2: President McCain nominates the only Republican willing to accept the position as secretary of the Treasury, whose appointment is fast-tracked through Congress in light of the growing economic crisis. Day 3: Treasury secretary Ron Paul promptly disbands the department of the Treasury. Days 4-18: The stock markets crash, precipitating a run on the banks, which in turn hastens the financial collapse. Mass chaos erupts across the country. Vice President Palin blames the economic catastrophe on University of Illinois professor William Ayers and calls for his execution. Texas announces its secession from the union. Chuck Norris is elected president of Texistan. Day 19: President McCain tries to restore order by giving a televised speech which will later become known as the "My Friends, We're Fucked" debacle. Day 20: Dick Cheney shoots President McCain in the face. Day 21: President McCain apologizes to Dick Cheney for all the trouble his being shot in the face has caused the former vice president. Day 22: The National Inquirer publishes a story that secretary of education Ann Coulter is pregnant with President McCain's love child. White House press secretary Jonah Goldberg denies the report, calling it "just another piece of liberal fascism, evidence of the secret history of the American Left, from Mussolini to the politics of meaning." MSNBC's Chuck Todd points out that Mussolini was not part of the American Left, prompting Goldberg to harangue MSNBC into terminating Todd's employment. Todd returns to his previous role as Murray on HBO's Flight of the Conchords. Days 23-29: Photographic evidence of the McCain-Coulter liaison surfaces and is widely published across the blogosphere, eventually erupting in the mainstream press. Cindy McCain files for divorce. Education secretary Ann Coulter tearfully admits the reports are true. Day 30: President McCain resigns, making his presidency the shortest in American history by one day. President Sarah Palin, the first female president of the United States, is sworn in. Feminists mourn. Day 31: President Palin appoints her second-in-command. Samuel "Joe the Vice President" Wurzelbacher's first order of business is to call a press conference where he explains his primary role will be "czar of shit-kicking." Day 32: With the country having disintegrated into utter pandemonium, President Palin tries to foster national unity by declaring war on Iran. The National Review declares Palin a political savant. The New Republic also backs the invasion, "reluctantly". The American people, now largely subsisting on a diet of venison and Styrofoam, are too busy killing each other for shotgun shells and scrounging through trash piles to properly appreciate her alleged genius. Days 33-67: 10% of the American population succumbs to rabies. Day 68: President Palin becomes a grandmother for the second time when her oldest son Track and daughter-in-law Miley Cyrus-Palin have a bouncing baby boy, Trek. Day 69: The US dollar is officially worth less than a Ron Paul Liberty Dollar, the national currency of Texistan. Canada and Mexico begin construction of giant walls along the United States' northern and southern borders. Day 70: President Palin finally releases her long-awaited plan for economic recovery. Lacking what Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman, blogging from his fall-out shelter in an undisclosed location, calls "anything resembling a functional knowledge of finance, commerce, or even basic math," the report inspires further widespread panic among the dwindling numbers of still-sentient Americans. Days 71-99: The American military stages a coup, withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, and redeploying them to the United States, where they remove from the White House and associated cabinet offices President Palin, Joe the Vice President, secretary of state Todd Palin, attorney general Judith Sheindlin, and the rest of the Palin administration, all of whom are deported to Texistan. Several suffer horribly during the swine flu epidemic that follows. Martial law is instituted to re-establish institutional stability and general order across the 49 states. In what the history books will deem the "Great American Do-Over," military leaders will convince the man who should have been president to come to Washington and assume the presidency, marking the beginning of a period of restoration after our long national nightmare. Day 100: President Al Gore is sworn in.

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/20/complete-siege-of-gaza-satellite-map-of-worst-affected-areas

World news

2023-10-20T13:43:55.000Z

Lucy Swan

‘Complete siege’ of Gaza: satellite map of worst affected areas

Israel has imposed a “complete siege” on Gaza, bombing it from the land, sea and air and cutting off power, food and water to the territory’s 2.3 million inhabitants. The war was launched in retaliation for the 7 October attack by Hamas militants, in which gunmen killed 1,400 when they stormed military posts, massacred civilians in their homes and took nearly 200 hostages. Israel’s war in Gaza – the fifth since 2007 – has quickly become the most fatal, with more than 3,785 Palestinians killed and 12,500 wounded. Residents there were already trapped. Israel and Egypt, Gaza’s other neighbour, have maintained a crippling blockade on the 25-mile-long area for 16 years. The UN says the blockade constitutes collective punishment, which is a war crime. This annotated, composite image of the Gaza strip before the conflict began shows some of the worst-affected areas within the fenced-off territory and describes some of the challenges facing its population. Hospitals within the evacuation area N Erez crossing Currently closed, restricted access prior to Hamas incursion Hospitals in southern Gaza Gaza Strip Israel IDF named Evacuation route al-Rasheed road IDF named Evacuation route Salah al-Din road Beit Hanoun Town has been bombed intensively since Israel started retaliatory strikes. Hospital out of operation since 7 October Beit Lahia Israel-Gaza perimeter fence Buffered by a 100- 400 metre restricted access and No-go zone Gaza City Large areas of city bombed, including much of the upmarket Rimal district, home to ministries of the Hamas-run government Jabalia Swathes of densely populated refugee camp reduced to rubble in strikes Shati refugee camp Third-largest camp among eight in Gaza Strip; extensively damaged in airstrikes Kfar Aza One of more than a dozen Israeli communities attacked by Hamas on 7 October Shifa hospital Gaza’s largest medical facility and nerve centre of its entire healthcare system is overwhelmed by patients. Tens of thousands more sheltering there Gaza City Naha Oz crossing Closed permanently in 2010 al-Ahli Arab hospital Hundreds killed in blast on 17 October Gaza wharf Karni crossing Closed permanently in 2011 Salah al-Din road Strike hit civilian convoy on 13 October less than an hour before the IDF declared the road one of two ‘safe routes’ for people evacuating south Gaza River On 13 October Israel’s military ordered people in northern Gaza to evacuate south across the Gaza River Gaza River Gaza power plant Ran out of fuel on 11 October, two days after siege cut off electricity, water and food supplies to Gaza Gaza power plant Nuseirat camp Nuseirat Camp Refugee camp, which takes its name from local Bedouin tribe, sustained damage in strikes Central and southern Gaza More than 353,000 internally displaced people staying in UN shelters. Many are sleeping outdoors with water, food and medicine in critically short supply Deir al-Balah Besieged southern Gaza town where concerns over living conditions have prompted some families who fled there from north of Gaza River to return Bani Suheila Khan Younis Scarce resources are running out fast in the southern town, whose population has swelled by hundreds of thousands since the evacuation order Khan Younis Bani Suheila One of the few areas where piped water is supplied to households for a few hours a day; the volume is less than 4% of water consumed by Gaza before 7 October. Distribution to the rest of the city is limited by the inability to pump water due to the lack of fuel No-access zone, Part of sea blockade enforced by Israel Sufa crossing Closed permanently in 2008 Rafah Egypt Egypt Rafah Crossing Thousands of people headed there in the hope of leaving Gaza for Egypt, but it has remained closed, which also prevents aid from entering Gaza Kerem Shalom crossing Currently closed, used for trade in peacetime Guardian graphic. Source: Google Earth, OHCA and Guardian reporting

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/07/article-50-bill-may-sees-off-attempt-to-give-mps-veto-over-brexit-deal

Politics

2017-02-07T19:57:56.000Z

Rowena Mason

Article 50 bill: May sees off attempt to give MPs veto over Brexit deal

Theresa May has faced down a Conservative rebellion over Brexit in the House of Commons, rejecting calls for MPs to be given the power to send her back to the negotiating table if they do not like her proposed divorce deal from the EU. Brexit debate: MPs vote down Labour move to give parliament veto over Brexit deal – as it happened Read more The government said it would only let MPs have a vote on May’s final Brexit deal on a “take it or leave it basis”, despite Labour, the Scottish National party and some Tories demanding greater power to order a rethink after two years of talks. A string of MPs branded the offer of a final vote a “con” and a “Hobson’s choice”, aware that a refusal to back the final deal struck by May would leave Britain reliant on damaging tariffs set by the World Trade Organisation. But the Commons still voted 326 to 293 to approve the government’s plan without amendment, with just seven Conservative rebels voting against their party and a few more abstaining. Among those who defied the whip were former ministers Bob Neill, Claire Perry and Anna Soubry, joining veteran pro-EU former chancellor Ken Clarke. Neill, a former communities minister, said it was the first time he had ever voted against his government. But their rebellion was virtually cancelled out by six pro-Brexit Labour MPs, Frank Field, Ronnie Campbell, Kate Hoey, Kelvin Hopkins, Graham Stringer and Gisela Stuart, who voted with the government. Justifying the government’s position, David Jones, the Brexit minister speaking for the government, said: “I can’t think of a greater signal of weakness than for this house to send the government back to the European Union and to say we want to negotiate further.” Government concedes that Brexit 'concession' is anything but John Crace Read more In a dramatic last part of the debate, Perry even accused some of her more committed pro-Brexit colleagues of acting like Islamic extremists during the debates in the Commons in recent weeks. Nicky Morgan, the former education secretary, was among those to abstain, sitting resolutely on the government benches, next to a whip trying to persuade her to vote. George Osborne, the former chancellor, was absent. The vote means May has cleared two days of debate in the Commons without the Brexit bill being amended, with just one day to go. There is still the potential for a revolt over the issue of guaranteeing the rights of EU nationals living in the UK, with a number of Tory MPs from both the remain and leave camps still thinking about whether to back a Labour amendment. However, the government remains relatively confident the Brexit bill will pass its third and final Commons reading on Wednesday without changes, before heading to the Lords. Ministers attempted to dampen the Tory rebellion early in the debate by promising MPs a vote on whether to accept her Brexit deal before the European parliament is asked to approve the terms, probably in October 2018. This was initially accepted by Labour’s shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, who said it was a “huge and significant concession” leaving him struggling to make many more points in his speech. “This is a significant victory for parliament, and follows months of concerted pressure from Labour,” he said. “Labour has repeatedly said that parliament must have a meaningful vote on any final Brexit deal, that means MPs are able to vote on the final deal before it is concluded, that the Commons has a debate and vote before the European parliament does, and that the vote will cover withdrawal from the EU as well as our future relationship with the EU.” However, many backbenchers remained unconvinced that parliament was being given enough of a say on the final deal, which will have to be struck over the next two years before the UK leaves the EU by the end of March 2019. Chris Leslie, the Labour backbencher whose amendment was picked for a vote, said the government was still not offering a meaningful choice for MPs on its Brexit deal. “The government’s so-called ‘concession’ falls short of giving parliament a meaningful vote,” he said. “Ministers have failed to produce a new amendment, so their commitment will not be binding. The minister refused to give parliament the option to reject the deal and tell the government to go back to negotiate a better one. “And on the nightmare scenario – that we could leave the EU with no deal at all, and face damaging barriers to trade with Europe – it seems parliament could have no say whatsoever.” Angela Eagle, the former Labour shadow cabinet minister and leadership contender, described the offer as a “Hobson’s choice”, meaning MPs could face a choice in two years’ time between hard Brexit and no deal at all. Starmer subsquently came under criticism from opposition parties over Labour’s decision to applaud the government’s concession and withdraw its own frontbench amendment. Caroline Lucas, co-leader of the Green party, said MPs “must not be duped by the government’s attempt to quell unrest on their backbenches”. “The vote they’re offering, which will give MPs a choice between an extreme Brexit and falling off a cliff edge into World Trade Organisation trade rules, isn’t a concession, it’s an ultimatum,” she said. Some Labour MPs were also unhappy with Starmer’s positive approach towards the government and unimpressed by the concession. “He needs the cover to be able to say ‘we’ve won this major concession’ as a way to get people to vote it through. But the truth is we have won nothing since this whole process began,” one Labour MP said. “The government were just trying to give cover to some of their rebels by promising something they already said a month ago – either we vote on a deal they make, or crash out on WTO terms which would be catastrophic. We knew that already.” However, Starmer’s decision to hail the early vote as a victory could mean shadow cabinet ministers who are conflicted over Brexit, such as Clive Lewis and Diane Abbott, may feel more comfortable with voting in favour of the bill on Wednesday, as they will be able to argue that the party helped shape the process. Abbott, the shadow home secretary, and Barry Gardiner, shadow trade secretary, are understood to have been pushing the Labour frontbench to abstain on Wednesday’s vote if the bill emerges unamended after three days of debate. This view was challenged by Emily Thornberry, the shadow foreign secretary, at a meeting on Tuesday where she rejected the idea that the Labour party’s answer to the greatest decision facing Britain is to say it could not decide either way. At the end, the shadow cabinet decided collectively that Labour’s position would be to vote in favour of triggering article 50 regardless of whether amendments pass.

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jan/14/cancer-cure-joe-biden-medical-research

US news

2016-01-14T15:20:08.000Z

Eli Rosenberg

Why Joe Biden's call for a 'moonshot to cure cancer' may not be far-fetched

It was one of the more dramatic moments of Barack Obama’s final State of the Union address: the president turned to Joe Biden to appoint the vice-president to lead an effort to cure cancer “once and for all”. The exchange made for one of the most buzzed about highlights of the speech, the promise of a “moonshot” goal so lofty it almost appeared quixotic. But leading US cancer researchers and doctors say they have very real hopes for the pledge. They describe the state of research around one of the world’s leading causes of death as a golden age, and expect that more funding could lead to many additional breakthroughs. “This is truly a historic moment in the history of cancer,” said Dr Ronald DePinho, the president of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas. DePinho, who met with Biden in Texas last year, said the space race metaphor was apt. “We have a line of sight to make a decisive assault on the problem,” he said. Doctors said that recent advances in data-analysis, research and technology served as examples for what the new White House program could help achieve. “This recognizes what many people in our field have been sensing over the past few years,” said Dr William Nelson, the director of the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. “We’re getting better and better and the number of tools we’re getting are increasing.” Nelson joined others in pointing to breakthroughs in immunotherapy, a newer treatment that uses the body’s immune system to combat tumors, as a source of great hope. Overall, cancer death rates decreased by about 1.8% for men, and 1.4% for women, per year between 2002 and 2011, according to the National Cancer Institute. For many, an emphasis on prevention was important. “A lot of what I read about is cures and breakthroughs for cures,” said Dr Elizabeth Platz, a cancer researcher and professor of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But what we know from a public health perspective is that the best thing we can do is prevent cancer in the first case.” Platz pointed to research and information campaigns about the dangers of smoking for example, or that HPV can cause cervical cancer. “You will be shocked at how the steep decline of lung cancer mortality has been directly attributable to Surgeon General’s report” in 1964, she said. Still, funding has lagged in recent years. Though the National Cancer Institute will receive a $264m increase in federal funding this year – an influx that Biden helped secure in December’s spending bill – researchers and policy advocates said that federal funding for medical research had fallen short for many years before that. “We’ve been suffering,” said Dr Robert B Diasio, the director of the Mayo Clinic Cancer Center. “It’s been very tough for many cancer investigators to carry on their research.” Funding for the National Institutes of Health, which includes the NCI, had decreased by 22% between 2003 and 2013 when measured against the increasing costs of research, according to 2015 study from the United Medical Group. In contrast, between 1998 and 2003, the NIH’s federal funding doubled, the study said. Medical experts suggested that the federal government could help cancer doctors and researchers by facilitating a more centralized source of the data about the illness. “One of the barriers is that kind of infrastructure to be able to let researchers and clinicians and doctors pool their data so all of us begin to learn from it,” said Dr Nikhil Wagle, a medical oncologist and researcher at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston who was part of a group that met with Biden’s staff last week. Others suggested that the White House work with the FDA to accelerate its drug approval process. Though there was some speculation that Biden mouthed his surprise about the announcement during the speech, the vice-president worked behind the scenes on the issue in 2015, a year that his son, Joseph “Beau” Biden III, died from brain cancer at the age of 46. When he announced in October that he would not run for president, he called for a “moonshot in this country to cure cancer”. “It’s personal for me,” Biden said in a blog post published on Tuesday. He said he would work to increase the resources and funding to support cancer research, and “break down silos” to increase collaboration among those in the field. He took questions about the program on Twitter on Wednesday afternoon and launched a website to collect the stories of those affected by cancer. Researchers stressed that the program’s effectiveness could come down to a simple ingredient. “We need to see the money flow out of Washington,” Diasio said. Into “where a lot of the cancer research is being done”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/11/harrison-ford-star-wars-han-solo-indiana-jones

Film

2013-10-11T13:33:00.000Z

Ben Child

Harrison Ford: does Star Wars need a septuagenarian Han Solo?

So Harrison Ford is still not quite sure whether he wants to spark up the Millennium Falcon's hyperdrive one last time and head back into the Star Wars universe. During an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, to air on Friday, Ford knocked back assumptions that he is dead set to play Han Solo once again in JJ Abrams' upcoming Episode VII. "I've not quite made the choice," the Mirror quotes him as saying. Of course, we don't know the context for Ford's comments. The wily old tease may have been mugging for the studio audience, lapping up the howls of disappointment that no doubt followed such a statement. But the 71-year-old action movie star said he would play Indiana Jones once again "in a New York minute". "I don't think there is any barrier to Indiana Jones being an old fart," he said. "I'm old enough that we don't need [Sean] Connery anymore – I'm old enough to play my own father." Ford, who is currently promoting his role in the sci-fi movie Ender's Game, is also taking a role in the latest film in Sylvester Stallone's execrable Expendables series. All of which begs the question: what is so wrong with Star Wars? Reading on mobile? Click here to view Ford and Chewbacca's confrontation on Jimmy Kimmel Live A septuagenarian Solo might not be quite as quick with a blaster these days, but the reaction to rumours of Ford's potential involvement in the new Disney take on the long-running space opera has been universally positive. With Abrams having revived Star Trek's fortunes on the big screen (unless one asks hardcore Trekkies), most filmgoers are keenly anticipating a triptych of movies that could consign George Lucas's hapless prequel trilogy to a dustbin filled with the rotting remains of Jar Jar Binks and that guy with the cucumber-shaped forehead from Yoda's Jedi council. Not Ford, though. Despite its launching him to fame and fortune, he remains unconvinced of the series' magnificence. Let's look at some of the comments attributed to the actor over the decades. While promoting 1983's Return of the Jedi, Ford told an interviewer: "Three is enough for me. I was glad to see that costume for the last time." In 2010, he described the character as "not so interesting to me", adding: "I thought he should have died in the last one, just to give it some bottom." There is, of course, the famous and possibly apocryphal line, attributed to Ford while shooting the original films and aimed at Lucas: "George, you can type this shit, but you sure can't say it." (He may have had a point.) Ford has been absent from Star Wars reunions in recent years, so it's clear that something is up. Over the decades, commentators have suggested the actor favours Indiana Jones because Han Solo is ostensibly a supporting character, and because Ford's career as a leading man did not really take off until Raiders of the Lost Ark, in 1981. Here's the thing: audiences may want more Han Solo, but I don't know many people who really want to see Ford strap on the whip and fedora once again for another outing as everybody's favourite decrepit, swashbuckling archeology professor. At least, not after the mess Lucas and Steven Spielberg made of the CGI-ruined Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Abrams has the film-making guile to successfully resurrect favourite characters without letting them overwhelm the action, as he proved with Leonard Nimoy's wise and statesmanlike return as Spock Prime in 2009's Star Trek. Ford might not be as front and centre in Episode VII as he might be in another Indiana Jones film, but his role would be more meaningful than a glorified cameo. And critical commentary would not necessarily focus on his ability (or lack of) to perform acts of physical dexterity. It is, presumably, easier for a gentleman of advanced years to pilot a technologically advanced space freighter through an asteroid field than it might be for him to outpace giant rolling boulders and leap desperately out of the way of booby-trapped spears. With luck, Ford is just joshing us, playing up the grumpy old space git persona he's carefully moulded for more than three decades. Waiting for the world to cheer him back into the hot seat. But there was little sign of the moody Ford when discussing Ender's Game this week. On Tuesday, he gushed over the movie's source novel by the controversial anti-gay American writer Orson Scott Card as a "very impressive act of imagination". Here again, Ford is in a supporting role, but happy to enthuse for the media. Not so with Star Wars. Come on, Harrison: give the people what they want for once. There are myriad Star Wars characters best forgotten, but Han Solo is not one of them. Besides, we're betting you can still do the Kessel run in 12 parsecs if you put your mind to it. Harrinson Ford defends Ender's Game

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jul/01/i-fled-nazi-germany-i-hope-the-us-doesnt-turn-its-back-on-refugees

Opinion

2019-07-01T16:06:23.000Z

Aryeh Neier

I fled Nazi Germany. I hope the US doesn't turn its back on refugees | Aryeh Neier

When Kristallnacht (the night of broken glass) took place on 9 November 1938 – a night that Jewish homes, businesses, schools and synagogues throughout Germany were attacked and, in many cases, destroyed – my parents, my older sister and I were living in Berlin. After that, we knew we had to leave. But where could we go? The United States had closed its doors to most Jewish refugees. The same was true almost every place else. Fortunately for us, in the late 1930s Britain accepted several tens of thousands of Jews fleeing Germany and Austria. My sister, then aged 10, was one of about 10,000 unaccompanied children who made up the Kindertransport. She traveled to England in spring 1939. My parents and I were able to follow a few months later. We arrived when I was two years old, on 16 August 1939, two weeks before the start of the second world war in Europe. Almost certainly that saved my life. Admitting so many Jews was controversial. At the time, Britain suffered from high unemployment; taking in people who would compete for jobs was problematic. There was also a fear of spies and saboteurs masquerading as refugees, who would harm the country if war broke out. And, of course, some of those opposing admission of refugees were antisemites who wanted to maintain Britain’s racial purity. Yet those espousing humanitarian principles prevailed. Among them, standouts included two members of Parliament, Colonel Josiah Wedgwood (of the famous pottery family whose 18th-century ancestor of the same name had fought against slavery) and Eleanor Rathbone, a longtime campaigner for women’s rights. They enjoyed strong support from this newspaper, then known as the Manchester Guardian, which played a crucial role. Some in the US also sought the admission of Jewish refugees. A bill was introduced in Congress to accept 20,000 unaccompanied children, along the lines of the Kindertransport to Britain, but it failed. A ship carrying 900 Jewish refugees from Germany was denied permission to land in the United States in June 1939. Antisemites in the state department played a leading role in killing various proposals to admit Jewish refugees. The failure of President Franklin D Roosevelt to take a stand, despite the efforts of his wife, Eleanor Roosevelt, allowed the antisemites to prevail. After the war, and after revelations about the Nazi death camps, expressions of antisemitism in the United States were muted. The Truman administration took strong stands against racism and, starting a couple of years after the war, admitted significant numbers of Jews and other refugees, my parents and I among them. Unlike our admission to Britain, this was not life-saving, but it provided us with opportunities. My family’s experience helped to set me on a path in which my entire career has been devoted to protecting rights. Whether or not Trump is re-elected, the antagonism to refugees that he has generated will not soon disappear In subsequent years, the largest number of those admitted as refugees to the United States were escaping communism. They included Hungarians fleeing after their failed revolution against the Soviet Union in 1956; Cubans who left after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959; Vietnamese who fled after the triumph of North Vietnam and the Vietcong in the early 1970s; and Jews from the Soviet Union in the 1970s and the 1980s. The United States also admitted refugees from rightwing military dictatorships in Latin America and elsewhere, and from military conflicts in different parts of the world, but not on the scale of those seeking refuge from leftwing regimes. Over the years the US has accepted, in absolute terms, more refugees than any other country. In proportion to population, however, the US has accepted fewer refugees than the United Kingdom and far fewer than Canada. Though American attitudes toward refugees have fluctuated since the second world war, there has never before been hostility to refugees and migrants comparable to that generated by Donald Trump. He has banned all migrants to the US from several predominantly Muslim countries, suggesting that they are terrorists; he has labeled Mexican migrants rapists; and he has described the arrival of those fleeing violence in Central America as “an invasion”. Since beginning his presidential campaign in 2015, Trump has made hostility to migrants, including asylum seekers, the running theme of his appeals to his most fervent supporters. Whether or not Trump is re-elected, the antagonism to refugees that he has generated will not soon disappear. Trump made it the main focus of his effort to secure support exactly because he recognized its popular appeal. Yet I do not think that the nationalistic and xenophobic strain in American attitudes that the president has cultivated and brought to the fore will necessarily continue to prevail. In Britain on the eve of the second world war , when the country was in great danger, and more recently in countries such as Canada and Germany, a small number of political leaders proved capable of securing extremely generous responses to humanitarian crises. The Latin American countries currently accepting millions of Venezuelans are demonstrating a similar spirit. President Trump’s policies have polarized public opinion, arousing revulsion from many Americans as well as enthusiasm from others. I think it is possible that some Americans who are appalled by Trump’s scorn for refugees could turn the country around and demonstrate that America is also capable of great generosity. Aryeh Neier is an American human rights campaigner. He was the president of the Open Society Institute from 1993-2012 and a founder of Human Rights Watch. His most recent book is Taking Liberties: Four Decades in the Struggle for Rights

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2011/apr/12/capital-fm

Television & radio

2011-04-12T10:30:00.000Z

Johnny Dee

A week listening to … Capital FM

Capital FM is currently running a contest encouraging listeners to tune in at work and win £1,000 for their workplace. How I pity anyone who works somewhere where this listening torture is forced upon them. It is not the commercials that are so bad, or the inane banter of the DJs, or even the constant trails for the aforementioned workplace competition, it's not even the music itself – it is the relentless repetition of the same 10 songs over and over and over again. Listen for an hour and you will get a snapshot of the nation's favourite pop music; you won't hear a guitar but you will hear plenty of Auto-Tune. Fine. Listen for longer and you will hear that same snapshot again and again and again. Capital's tight playlist policy would be fine if it was just a jukebox station you tuned into for a quick pop fix, but the nine stations that now comprise this national network used to be individual local radio stations. Now they are just part of some "McRadio" franchise similar to the other Global Radio (Capital's owner which now controls vast swathes of the FM dial) multiple locals operation, Heart. If you live somewhere where Capital has taken over, I'd like to hear if you think it's an improvement. Local identity hasn't been completely abandoned. Although all nine stations share a simultaneously controlled music soundtrack, the news, ads and traffic reports are tailored to each area. Then again, when I chanced upon a travel bulletin from the Derbyshire version of Capital it said there were "problems in all the usual areas" which would have worked equally well for anywhere. The other clever thing Global has done is to make each station's breakfast show individual – a smart move, particularly when the London flagship station features Johnny Vaughan whose wideboy demeanour confirms every stereotype about flashy southerners held by people north of Watford Gap. Thanks to the excellent Radioplayer website it's easy to dip in and out of the various Capital breakfast shows. Everyone outside London seemed a lot calmer but they all relied on the newspapers to feed them banter. One morning last week Vaughan read out a story from the newspaper about a city worker who'd emailed his friend asking if he wouldn't mind if he "had a go at his ex" but had accidentally cc'd the aforementioned "ex". Vaughan and his co-host Lisa Snowdon seized on the story as a chance to discuss their favourite topic – the battle of the sexes (yawn). "You girls do it too," piped Vaughan controversially. "No, we don't, come on, back me up girls," volleyed Lisa. The next day the same story had made it to the breakfast crew in Yorkshire but rather than discuss the sexual politics of the email, they jumped on the fact that the "city" in the story must be London. "Other cities are available," piped one of the team comically. "Other cities that don't smell," added a superfluous member of the gang. Regionalism aside, I found myself coming back to the Yorkshire version of Capital FM. If Capital is the McDonald's of British radio then Hirsty, Danny and Jo Jo were the Grand Royale With Cheese – the same but different. Different, as in actually pretty funny. They were certainly more entertaining than Vaughan and his straight man – sorry, "girl" – Lisa Snowdon. Throughout the day when a pair of DJ drones called Roberto and Bassman take over you are never more than 20 minutes away from hearing Rihanna. With Vaughan and Snowdon the same rule applies to "funny" accents or some similarly 70s flavoured sexual innuendo. When a dog expert was interviewed about methods to stop dogs chewing furniture and suggested people purchase a "smoky bone", this was all the ammunition Vaughan needed to see him through the next 20 minutes. "You like a smoky bone, don't you Lisa?" he quipped. Last week, news that Wills and Kate would be honeymooning in Corfu meant 30 minutes of Stavros impressions and tales of the in-laws' "gaff" on the island. For Londoners who grew up in the 70s, 80s and 90s Capital was more than a local radio station, it was the cool countercultural alternative to the stuffy BBC – even the adverts, like the one for "the big red building in Petticoat Lane", became iconic. Today the network it has spawned is as countercultural as a cheese sandwich and just as unimaginative. Despite its formulaic and dull approach to pop music its commercial muscle is such that Lady Gaga has changed the opening line of her single Born This Way for them from "It doesn't matter if you love him or capital H-I-M" to "It doesn't matter if you love him or Capital FM". It's probably assured her a few thousand more plays but I can't help but think less of her because of it. As for Capital FM. I won't be back. Unless I move to Yorkshire. So, have you ever listened to Capital? What do you think? And have you ever been to the "big red building in Petticoat Lane"?

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2017/oct/30/crossword-blog-a-vintage-mystery-with-a-bizarre-twist

Crosswords

2017-10-30T10:46:55.000Z

Alan Connor

Crossword blog: a vintage murder mystery with a bizarre twist

The Observer’s first crossword setter, Torquemada, published a collection of puzzles in 1934. Its title read: The Torquemada Puzzle Book. A miscellany of original crosswords, acrostics … etc., & Cain’s Jawbone. A Torquemada mystery novel. Compiled by “Torquemada.” Among its “telacrostics” and “triple cricket acrostics” was an intriguing puzzle in the form of a story. Its solution was sadly lost ... until recently. I spoke to Patrick Wildgust of Shandy Hall, home to the Laurence Sterne Trust, about a new edition of the tale – which comes with a £1,000 prize. Right, so what is Cain’s Jawbone? Cain’s Jawbone is perhaps Torquemada’s crowning glory. A murder mystery that asks for the identification of the victims as well as the murderers – but only after the pages of the novel have been put into the correct order. Tell us more. Opposite the story’s epigraph “How easily murder is discovered!” (Titus Andronicus) and the name of the dedicatee, Dorothy L Sayers, is this introduction: Cain’s Jawbone, the bald narrative of a series of tragic happenings during a period of less than six months in a recent year, has met with an accident which seems to be unique in the history of the novelette. The pages have been printed in an entirely haphazard and incorrect order, a fact which reflects little credit on somebody. The author assures his readers, however, that while it is now too late for him to remedy the ordering of the pages, it is quite possible for them, should they care to take the trouble, to reorder them correctly for themselves. Before they attempt to do this, they may care to be assured that there is an inevitable order, the one in which the pages were written, and that, while the narrator’s mind may flit occasionally backwards and forwards in the modern manner, the narrative marches on, relentlessly and unequivocally, from the first page to the last. A space for notes is provided at the bottom of each page. Cain’s Jawbone. And you recently acquired a copy: how did that come about? I was given it by Geoffrey Day, who is a Trustee of the Laurence Sterne Trust and a Sterne scholar. He had had the book for years but had not been able to solve the puzzle. I could see a link (‘only connect’) to Sterne, who said that writing “when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is) is but a different name for conversation”. I thought that the 100 pages of Cain’s Jawbone would require some concentration but that the solution would surely be found. I showed it to friends. I showed it to visitors to the museum. I used it with students and writers and it became more and more fascinating and more and more complex. Someone did manage to solve it, or so the Observer’s archives suggest. But we didn’t print a solution. Was your call for help in these pages last year helpful? You don’t have to be coy if our readers were no use. Yes, thanks to that message a contact was made. A significant contact, as it turns out. OK. And how satisfied are you that you now know the correct solution? Completely satisfied. That’s a short response but I can’t really go into the details. Understood. Tell us a little about how Torquemada’s work moved between literature and puzzles. Edward Powys Mathers first came to the attention of the literary world with the publication of his translations and versions of Asiatic love poems. Even at this early stage, there was an element of masquerade, as he introduced poems that were not translations but composed by Powys Mathers himself. He was heartened by the eager acceptance of his own poems; he created alter egos (Mr J Wing and Mr John Duncan) and disguised his authorship under their names. Powys Mathers also loved detective fiction and his background knowledge (from the name of Sherlock Holmes’s tobacconist to the reason Father Brown disliked hat-pegs) was matched only by his memory for tales of the supernatural. His Observer crossword persona, Torquemada, was created in 1926 and he created more than 670 puzzles using the name of the feared Spanish Inquisitor. Plus Cain’s Jawbone. And now the competition is re-opening? I kept showing the book to friends and writers who came to Shandy Hall. The conceptual writers Christian Bök and Craig Dworkin were particularly interested, and I set my mind to find a way to bring it a wider audience. The Laurence Sterne Trust is an independent museum and we couldn’t afford to publish a new edition but the winds of chance blew John Mitchinson [QI producer and founder of the publisher Unbound] and his father into the museum one day. I was already a subscriber to a couple of Unbound books and had great admiration for this reinvention of the idea of a book’s subscription list (Sterne published A Sentimental Journey with 16 pages’ worth of subscribers); the decision was made to give it a go. Subscribers to Cain’s Jawbone will receive its 100 pages unbound in a box. This means that they can be spread out and placed next to each other – so much easier than when pages are bound, as in the original publication. A space for notes is provided as well as a page to submit with the answer. Only solutions submitted on a page from the box will be eligible. The Trust had a happy success a couple of years ago when Tom Gauld created another nonlinear narrative – a “Myriorama” or “Endless Landscape”. Beautifully executed and mathematically incredible, the game is now in its third issue and bringing income to the Trust. Cain’s Jawbone is as much a game as Sterne’s Tristram Shandy: a game of words to entertain and amuse. Hopefully, we will reach the target and the book will become a reality. I hope so, too. More details at Unbound.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/appsblog/2013/jul/26/best-android-apps-galaxy-on-fire-2

Technology

2013-07-26T10:26:52.000Z

Stuart Dredge

20 best Android apps this week

It's time for our weekly roundup of brand new and notable apps for Android smartphones and tablets. It covers apps and games, with the prices referring to the initial download: so (Free) may mean (Freemium) in some cases. The equivalent iOS roundup will be published later in the day. For now, read on for this week's Android selection (and when you've finished, check out previous Best Android apps posts). It's a heavy games week this week, hopefully there'll be a better balance with non-games releases next week. Galaxy on Fire 2 HD (Free) Fishlabs' sprawling Galaxy on Fire space epics have always been a reliable source of mobile entertainment, and the latest installation is no different. It sees you shooting and trading your way across the galaxy, with more than 10 hours in its main campaign mode, and additional quests unlocked through in-app purchases. BOINC (Free) BOINC is the work of the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. It's an app that runs in the background when your Android is plugged in, charged and connected to a Wi-Fi network, and "harnesses the unused computing power of your Android device and runs jobs for scientific research projects". A bit like the same establishment's SETI@home project, but for a wider range of research. Google Play Games (Free) Google Play Games is essentially Android's version of Xbox Live or Apple's Game Center: a way to "discover new games, track achievements and scores, and play with friends around the world", integrated into developers' games, but also with this standalone app. It'll be interesting to see if Google puts more welly into its discovery aspects in the coming weeks and months, to help recommend games your habits suggest you'll like. Todoist: To Do List, Task List (Free) Productivity app Todoist has been out for a while on Android smartphones, but its latest update adds native tablet functionality. It's a to-do list and task-tracking app that synchronises with the Todoist website, with a premium account option to get text, email and push-notification reminders, among other features. Ionage (Free) Ionage is a real-time strategy (RTS) game set in space "where you use giant floating space platforms to do battle in a steampunk themed story of galactic conquest". Which sounds nice. It's also exclusive to Android, and while it plays nicest on tablets, developer Twice Circled promises it's been "resourcefully optimised" for smartphones too. Wedding Dash (Free) PlayFirst's "Dash" series of games are best known for Diner Dash, but this new game transfers the idea to wedding-planning. It sees you juggling tasks on the touchscreen to help heroine Quinn arrange cakes, flowers and grumpy brides, while fending off pigeons and fires. That's a helluva wedding. In-app purchases unlock extra levels and features. Quad Drawer (£0.79) "Your apps, quicker," promises the blurb for this launcher app, which styles itself as an on-device drawer that you can rummage through for apps by typing a few letters of whatever you're looking for. Apps can also be sorted alphabetically, by install date, or by most / last used to make them easier to find. Pixel Defenders Puzzle (£0.65) I fell hard for this when reviewing the iOS version last year: it sees you matching pixels and characters to make more-powerful characters, who then attack enemies at the top of the screen. If you've ever played the (also addictive) Triple Town, it's a bit like that but with extra fighting, and a fantasy-RPG theme. Well worth a try. Mushihimesama Bug Panic (£4.99) Good luck pronouncing the title to this shoot 'em up, although you'll need even more luck (and plenty of skill) to play it well. This is an old favourite from Japanese developer Cave, with bullets flying all over the shop, a punishing-yet-rewarding difficulty curve, and three control systems to suit your playing style. Totally Pregnant (Free) Talking of punishing-yet-rewarding difficulty curves... No, this is a very helpful-looking app designed for mothers-to-be, with 3D videos showing how babies develop in the womb, lots of advice, discounts on products and a database of questions and answers on all things pregnancy-related. Battle Dragons (Free) Dragons! If you're missing Game of Thrones, Battle Dragons may at least ease your fire-breathing giant-winged withdrawal symptoms. A bit. It sees you raising a dragon army then sending them off to battle other players, while building and defending your own fortress, and setting up "Dragon Tribes" with Facebook friends. If that reminds you of iOS game Clash of Clans, you're on the right lines – and with that game still not winging its way to Android, Battle Dragons could pick up plenty of fans. Minecraft Skin Studio (£2.39) Minecraft-maker Mojang likes this app for creating and sharing "skins" for Minecraft, and has provided an official endorsement. The app helps you browse more than 50k skins created by other players to modify Minecraft's desktop version – sorry, not the mobile or Xbox versions yet – and create your own. Prince of Persia Shadow & Flame (£1.99) Another famous gaming hero returns to Android with this new Prince of Persia game from Ubisoft. Fans will know what to expect: platform leaping and plenty of sword-slashing combat, with 14 levels, touchscreen-friendly controls and spiffing graphics. Sparky Lock Screen (£1.31) The Google Play reviews are very positive for this collection of lock-screen themes, for Android smartphones only for now. Besides a varied collection of themes, its key appeal is how simple they are to set up and swap between. Riptide GP2 (£1.99) Water-based racing game Riptide GP was highly popular on Android, but its sequel offers plenty of new features. You can race nine hydro jets through a range of courses in single-player career mode as well as online multiplayer races. It plays nice with the Google Play Game network, and the visuals really are impressive – especially on devices with Tegra processors inside. Sugar Rush (Free) Swiping on a screen to make matches from 'candy' sweets? WHY HAS NO ONE THOUGHT OF THIS BEFORE?! Oh, hang on... Yes, it's fair to say Sugar Rush shares some of its DNA with Candy Crush Saga, as you pop sweets three-at-a-time while looking for jackpots to boost your score. DeathSmiles (£7.99) If you've a.) finished Mushihimesama Bug Panic and b.) have plenty of disposable income, here's another of Cave's shoot 'em ups to try. This time, the theme is "gothic horror", which means more skulls, but about as many bullets flying in your direction. The Smurfs 2 Keyboard (£0.79) SwiftKey? SchmiftKey! Swype? Schmype! And so on. They may be scrapping for the title of best Android keyboard-replacement app, but now there's a new contender: The Smurfs. "Let The Smurfs assist you in all your typing needs, bringing joy and fun to all your texts!" And you may laugh, but wait until your child demands it... Smart Layover (Free) This is handy for frequent flyers: an app that aims to help you make the most of layovers in more than 140 airports/cities, with deals and discounts for in-terminal shopping and eating, suggestions for sightseeing, and flight alerts and notifications to ensure you don't miss a connecting flight. Shake For Help (£0.66) This app turns your Android device into a connected panic-alarm: you set it up with specific emergency contacts, then it contacts them with your location if it's triggered by shaking the device. It runs in the background, and yes, it's possible it may be set off by mistake – in which case, shaking the device turns it off. That's this week's selection, but what do you think? Make your own recommendations, or give your views on the apps above, by posting a comment.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2010/may/28/local-newspapers-newspapers

Media

2010-05-28T12:03:57.000Z

Roy Greenslade

Roy Greenslade: Blackburn paper campaigns against drink and violence

A campaign aimed at curbing senseless violence - "Every action has consequences" - has been launched by the Blackburn-based daily, the Lancashire Telegraph. It follows the death of Adam Rogers, 24. In trying to prevent a fight, he was killed by a single punch from a 17-year-old youth who had been drinking in a local pub. Last month he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years' detention. The campaign was launched 10 days ago with a three-page special which included features on the victims of violence. It also revealed the reality of weekend revelry in the centres of Blackburn and neighbouring Burnley. Crime reporter Sam Chadderton wrote: "There are real concerns nationally about a culture in our town centres which sees drink-fuelled revellers turn to violence as a first option... And locally, there have been a number of high-profile cases in which flashpoints have resulted in death and lasting injuries." The police are supporting the campaign, which aims to crack down on the problem of under-age drinking. Several pubs have also given their backing. Telegraph editor Kevin Young said: "Too often violence is a first option among young men fuelled by drink. The death of Adam Rogers was utterly shocking... Our call today is for others to join the Telegraph and the Rogers family in our drive to raise awareness of the terrrible consequences of spontaneous violence." Blackburn MP Jack Straw, in calling it "a very, very important campaign", said: "The absolutely fundamental issue on my part is to force up the minimum price of alcohol in the supermarkets and convenience stores... it is harmful to night life and it is harmful to the children their families." Sources: Lancashire Telegraph/holdthefrontpage

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/11/republican-presidential-candidates-election-2024-trump-desantis-haley-christie

Opinion

2023-07-11T12:59:37.000Z

Osita Nwanevu

Why are so many Republican candidates jumping into the presidential race? | Osita Nwanevu

Already in this early stretch of the Republican presidential primary campaign, there are nearly as many candidates in the field as there were in 2016, when Donald Trump bested a slew of the Republican party’s most prominent figures on his way to the White House. But unlike 2016, of course, Trump has been the race’s perhaps prohibitive favorite from the jump ⁠– over the last three months, Trump has moved from plurality to outright majority support from the Republican electorate in the polls. If Trump wins, he’ll turn the justice department into a vendetta machine Robert Reich Read more Far from damaging his candidacy, his two indictments have, if anything, encouraged more and more Republican voters to rally to his side. And, unfortunately for those hoping he loses the nomination, the sheer size of the field will make it difficult for any one of his rivals to consolidate enough of the non-Trump vote to mount a real challenge to his candidacy. Each of his long-shot competitors had to have known that their entry into the race would only make his renomination likelier. Yet they jumped in anyway. Why? Charitably, we might want to set aside the numerous financial and professional incentives candidates have to run even losing campaigns for the presidency these days and choose to assume that the candidates in the field are offering policy agendas so robust and compelling ⁠– are so on fire about what they actually want to do as president ⁠– that they couldn’t help but throw their hats into the ring. Ron DeSantis, for his part, has shoved rightwing paranoia about education and the rollback of LGBTQ+ rights onto the party’s center stage; Florida has become the crucible for a cultural agenda social conservatives are plainly eager to advance from Congress and the White House once they get the chance. But nearly everyone else in the race seems intent on making it a pure referendum on Donald Trump. Chris Christie, for instance, now up for his second try against Trump for the nomination and currently averaging less than 3% in the primary polls, spent the bulk of his announcement speech last month disparaging Trump’s character; his slogan, a rather audacious one for someone who left office mired in legal controversy and scandal, is “because the truth matters”. At the opposite end of the field, Francis Suarez, the mayor of Miami ⁠– a mostly ceremonial office ⁠– has suggested he might pardon Trump if elected; he’s also about as attentive as Trump to matters of policy substance. When asked by the conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt about the persecution of the Uyghur people in China recently, Suarez confessed ignorance. “I will search Uyghurs,” he said. “I’m a good learner. I’m a fast learner.” In fairness, Trump ⁠– or at least his team ⁠– has been notably more thoroughgoing in advancing a policy agenda this time around than his rivals. He made headlines earlier this year with proposals to invest in the development of flying cars and to construct up to ten new “Freedom Cities” ⁠– state-of-the-art megalopolises of the future ⁠– from scratch on federal land. All this was good for a few laughs, but the bulk of the Trump campaign’s public platform on the issues at the heart of Republican politics are both more plausible and more alarming, though nearly all of them would be very heavy lifts legislatively. On crime, the next Trump administration will pursue tighter penalties for violent offenders, more funding for police departments and a strengthening of qualified immunity. On education, Trump promises to “cut federal funding for any school or program pushing critical race theory or gender ideology on our children” and give states incentives not only to achieve longstanding conservative priorities like abolishing teacher tenure and implementing merit pay, but introducing parental bills of rights and measures like the direct election of school principals. On LGBTQ+ rights, Trump wants to ban gender-affirming care for minors and prohibit the federal recognition of transgender identity. And on immigration, the next Trump administration will revive the “Remain in Mexico” policy and other measures aimed at frustrating asylum seekers and continue the militarization of the border. The absence of fleshed out platforms from the other candidates as yet means that Trump remains not only the tonal but the substantive center of the Republican race thus far. And even those running the campaigns most explicitly aimed at resuscitating the pre-Trump GOP establishment have shown a willingness to follow Trump to the extremes. It might surprise many American voters for instance ⁠– though neither President Biden nor most of the political press has made much of it ⁠– that there’s a consensus among Republican candidates, as Reason’s Matt Welch has noted, that the next administration should launch a new war in Mexico, with American troops on the ground if need be, against the drug cartels. This was an idea Trump first put forward four years ago; in his current platform, it survives as a pledge to order the Department of Defense to “inflict maximum damage” on the cartels and to take them down “just as he took down Isis”. The majority of the major candidates in the field are on board with this, including South Carolina’s Tim Scott and Nikki Haley, who are still routinely framed as comparatively moderate figures by much of the political press. In his very announcement speech, in fact, Scott went as far as to call cartels terrorists and promised to “allow the world’s greatest military to fight” them. Haley has also echoed Trump directly – the cartels, she said in the spring, are to be dealt with “just like we dealt with Isis”. This is the same Nikki Haley who noted correctly and with some candor in her campaign announcement video that the Republicans have lost the popular vote in “seven out of the last eight presidential elections”. That’s an insight that can cut two ways. On the one hand, it should be plain to all running that neither Trumpism nor a mere return to the unpopular Republican platforms of old will broaden the Republican base ⁠– a conservatism that can reliably win popular majorities in 2024 and beyond has yet to be discovered or forged and none of the candidates in the running seem especially interested in paving novel ground. On the other hand, it should similarly be plain that next Republican nominee will not actually need a popular majority to win the White House in 2024 ⁠– dusting off Trumpism and missteps and malaise within the Democratic party may well be enough to deliver victory again, no platform innovations necessary. As it stands, Trump himself seems likeliest to carry the party’s mantle again next year ⁠– his rivals remain too numerous; his gravitational pull on the party’s discourse and agenda remains too strong. Osita Nwanevu is a Guardian US columnist

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/may/22/jay-rayner-restaurant-review-les-2-garcons-london-designed-for-your-comfort-zone

Food

2022-05-22T05:00:39.000Z

Jay Rayner

Les 2 Garçons, London: ‘Designed specifically to be your comfort zone’ – restaurant review

Les 2 Garçons, 143b Crouch Hill, London N8 9QH (0208 347 9834). Starters £8.95-£12.50, mains £16-£30, desserts £8, wine from £25 a bottle All restaurants attract tribes, and here at Les 2 Garçons a very particular tribe has come out to play. We can reach for obtuse euphemisms if we like, mangle the language in search of originality, but “the chattering middle classes” pretty much covers it. Perhaps they have a subscription to the LRB that they worry they don’t read enough of, or a membership to the Royal Academy that they fear they don’t use as regularly as they should. They adore BBC Radio 4, apart from the 6.30pm comedy shows, which they never laugh at. They love good coffee and well-made sourdough. They despair of the government, hope Keir Starmer is the real thing and fantasise about going on holiday to France. Frankly, they’d go there more regularly if such behaviour didn’t make them fear that, with age, had come entrenched habits. They might well be down to only one of their own hips. They are this newspaper’s readers. Oh, sod it. They are me. ‘Garlic butter made with fields of fresh herbs’: escargot. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer This tiny French bistro, tucked in at the bottom of north London’s Crouch Hill, has just 22 seats. There are bare floorboards, net curtains halfway up the windows and a lot of blackboards for the scribbling up of beguiling specials. It could have been designed with both them and me in mind. It is a perfect expression of our love for a certain kind of classic, unfussy but luscious French cookery, lubricated by good butter, powered by chopped garlic and fistfuls of fresh green herbs. Every menu description conjures up an image of how happy you will be eating it. Not a single one lets you down. The dishes here could have been served at any time over the previous nine decades. They just might not always have been quite so good. It’s what you would expect of these two particular garçons. Chef Robert Reid has classical French chops forged in the greatest of French kitchens: he cooked at Roger Verge’s Moulins de Mougins on the Riviera, at au Crocodile in Strasbourg and Joel Robuchon’s Jamin in Paris, before returning to London. There, he became head chef at Marco Pierre White’s Oak Room when it held three Michelin stars. At the Oak Room he met Jean-Christophe Slowik, a front-of-house veteran who had worked at Le Manoir and at Harvey’s, Pierre-White’s original launch pad, before opening his own neighbourhood restaurant, L’Absinthe, in Primrose Hill. These careers are akin to those of veteran guitarists and bassists who, between them, have played with Yes and Soft Machine, Pink Floyd, Jethro Tull, King Crimson and Genesis: less monsters of rock than monsters of stock. ‘In its prime’: asparagus. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer This evening the room is full, even though it is only a little after six. The diners seem delighted to be the first sitting, certain in the knowledge they can do the full restaurant thing and still be back home by 8.30pm, digesting dinner while slumped in front of BBC4. Slowik, customary scarf tied at his neck, works the tables with almost comic Gallic charm, depositing glasses of kir with just a blush of cassis, and talking up the blackboard specials. Reid is also out here, playing rush goalie, blue and white striped apron over his whites, Marco style. He takes orders and delivers dishes from the kitchen at the back, where there are a couple of other cooks. It is a tight operation, as it needs to be with so few tables. It turns out that other newspapers also have restaurant critics. Who knew? One of them had just stumbled upon the place. I ask Slowik if that’s why it’s so full so early. No, he says. It’s been like this since they opened in the autumn last year. It just fills up a little quicker now. So what did we eat? Oh, you know. All the good stuff. Snails are served out of the shell, in a fearsomely hot dimpled cast-iron tray, with garlic butter made with fields of fresh herbs, more torn than chopped. We are given a brown paper bag of sliced warm baguette that quickly becomes a vehicle for all the herby butter. From the specials board comes asparagus in its prime, with a salad of freshly podded peas in a dressing of lemon and truffle. Do I need tell you there are also duck rillettes and steak tartare and an onion soup gratinated with maximum intent? Nah, you would have worked that out. ‘Impeccable pedigree’: chicken breast. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer A properly crisped leg of duck confit slumps into a bed of white beans and lardons, with a little salad to help you soak up all the lovingly saturated animal fats and make you feel that your diet is balanced. A chicken breast of impeccable pedigree is presented in a limpid broth of vegetables with, to help it all along, a ramekin of sauce gribiche, that brilliant eggy sauce with mustard and cornichons and so on, which improves most things. We could have had steak frites with béarnaise sauce or roast seabass with new potatoes, or shared a roast leg of Pyrenean lamb with a gratin dauphinoise and wild mushrooms. We could have done all of that, but we didn’t. After the disappointment of the clumsily made rum baba at the LaLee a few weeks back, it is a joy to have the real thing, made by a man who has been making them for his entire working life. The tall muffin of a savarin has exactly the right, light texture. It has been soaked enthusiastically in syrup and split vertically down the middle so it lies now on its back, surrendered. Rum has been added and then ignited so that the dish sits before me with guttering blue flames. The scoop of crème Chantilly melts gently in the heat. A milk chocolate mousse, dotted sweetly with a ring of buttons, is a reminder that a chocolate pot does not always have to be a dark, dense thing that sucks the very light from the universe. ‘Exactly the right, light texture’: rum baba. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer The wine list is a parade of bottles from Burgundy and Alsace, the Languedoc and the Rhone. It is an entirely unsurprising collection. Which is the point of a restaurant like this; indeed, of the entire tradition of which it is a part. A true bistro is not there to surprise or dazzle. It is not meant to place you outside your comfort zone. It is designed specifically to be your comfort zone. Les 2 Garçons is about as complete and delightful an expression of that as I have come across in a very long time. News bites Jon Parry, who made his name at the Mash Inn at Radnage, Buckinghamshire, with his brand of home-grown produce cooked over fire, has moved on. He has joined the White Hart at Wytham, just outside Oxford. His opening menu, while he finds his feet, includes roast mackerel with fresh horseradish, turbot with a herb butter sauce, rhubarb Bakewell tart and pouring cream, and a lemon posset with a suet sable (whitehartwytham.com). Dinner by Heston Blumenthal at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in London’s Knightsbridge, has introduced a highly illustrated card system to enable diners to manage how much interruption they get from the waiters. Customers are invited to place the card of their choice in a holder. They range from the Adventurer – “I’d like the food to do the talking” – through the Guide, to the Maverick. The latter invites you to enjoy ‘a trip down the rabbit hole of Heston’s imagination’. The language may be somewhat grandiose, but the principle behind the idea could be welcome in many restaurants (dinnerbyheston.co.uk). South African born Hylton Espey, formerly the head chef of Rastella in Falmouth, Cornwall, is to open his first independent restaurant in the town next month. Culture will spotlight Cornish produce and will feature an ever-changing multi-course “Journey Menu”. Dishes will include local lamb with hedgerow herbs and sea vegetables, and Cornish crab with a burnt onion and fermented garlic aioli (culturerestaurant.co.uk). Email Jay at jay.rayner@observer.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/feb/04/quiz-how-much-do-you-really-know-about-the-oscars

Film

2020-02-04T12:00:40.000Z

Stuart Heritage

Quiz: how much do you really know about the Oscars?

1.What is the joke that Joker tells at the end of Joker? “What do you get when you cross a mentally ill loner with a society that abandons him and treats him like trash? You get what you fucking deserve.” “What do you get when you cross a backstreet clown with an industry determined to undermine him? You get shot.” “What do you get when you cross a road with a safari park? Double yellow lions.” Reveal 2.Which woman, by height, is the littlest woman in Little Women? Saoirse Ronan Florence Pugh Emma Watson Reveal 3.What song does Adam Driver sing at the end of Marriage Story? Being Alive Staying Alive Wanted Dead or Alive Reveal 4.Which nominated film contains the line: “Anybody order fried sauerkraut?” Little Women Jojo Rabbit Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood Reveal 5.Traffic issues notwithstanding, how far could you legally drive on a British motorway in the time it would take to watch The Irishman in full? 173.6 miles 205.2 miles 245 miles Reveal 6.Which best actor nominee starred in Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever? Jonathan Pryce Antonio Banderas Adam Driver Reveal 7.Which best supporting actress nominee starred in Home Alone 3 alongside Alex D Linz (pictured)? Scarlett Johansson Kathy Bates Laura Dern Reveal 8.Which best supporting actor nominee once recorded a song called Take Your Love and Shove It? Tom Hanks Joe Pesci Al Pacino Reveal 9.Which best actress nominee also has a Spike Video Game award? Renée Zellweger Charlize Theron Cynthia Erivo Reveal 10.Which best supporting actress nominee used to post acoustic pop covers to YouTube under the name Flossie Rose? Margot Robbie Scarlett Johansson Florence Pugh Reveal 11.Which host did a giant selfie with the guests? Jon Stewart Ellen DeGeneres Neil Patrick Harris Reveal 12.Which host insulted Jude Law so much that Sean Penn had to intervene? Chris Rock Steve Martin Seth MacFarlane Reveal 13.Which host did Time magazine call “strangely aggressive” following the ceremony? Hugh Jackman Jimmy Kimmel Anne Hathaway Reveal 14.Which host repeatedly stopped the ceremony to introduce Uma Thurman to Oprah Winfrey? David Letterman Alec Baldwin Billy Crystal Reveal 15.Which host decided that doing magic tricks was good way to spend the Oscars? Chevy Chase Neil Patrick Harris Hugh Jackman Reveal 16.Picture round: pick out the Oscar-winning final shot The Shape of Water Spotlight Birdman Reveal 17.Pick out the Oscar-winning final shot The Departed A Beautiful Mind American Beauty Reveal 18.Pick out the Oscar-winning final shot The Godfather The Godfather Part II The Sting Reveal 19.Pick out the Oscar-winning final shot The Deer Hunter Unforgiven Platoon Reveal 20.Pick out the Oscar-winning final shot On the Waterfront All About Eve From Here to Eternity Reveal 21.Awards speeches. Who said it? ‘I am so in love with my brother right now’ Jennifer Hudson Jennifer Connelly Angelina Jolie Reveal 22.Who said: ‘Billy Crystal. I crap bigger than him’ Jack Palance Gene Hackman Jim Broadbent Reveal 23.Who said: [Gets on stage] ‘It’s my privilege, thank you’ [Exits stage] Joe Pesci Tommy Lee Jones Michael Caine Reveal 24.Who said: ‘Did I really earn this or did I just wear you all down?’ Kate Winslet Sandra Bullock Reese Witherspoon Reveal 25.Who said [to the Oscar]: ‘It came true’ Charlize Theron Sally Field Anne Hathaway Reveal 26.Who did Snow White perform Proud Mary with in 1989? Patrick Swayze Tom Hanks Rob Lowe Reveal 27.What did John Travolta accidentally call Idina Menzel during the 2014 ceremony? Adele Dazeem Irene Meinchop Blooky Kalookapoop Reveal 28.Which original song did Seth MacFarlane perform during his opening number in 2013? I Can See Up Your Skirt We Saw Your Boobs I Jerked Off To You Reveal 29.What was unusual about Jan Chapman’s inclusion in the 2017 In Memoriam slideshow? She had died 10 years before She was represented by a photo of a cat She was still alive Reveal 30.What was weird about Nicole Kidman’s applause in 2017? She curled her fingers out like a pair of bananas She wore padded gloves She licked her hands between claps Reveal 31.Picture round: who wore this frock? Barbra Streisand, 1969 Meryl Streep, 1979 Elizabeth Taylor, 1967 Reveal 32.Who wore this frock? Sharon Stone, 1991 Geena Davis, 1992 Daryl Hannah, 1988 Reveal 33.Who wore this frock? Anne Hathaway, 2008 Rachel Weisz, 2006 Marion Cotillard, 2008 Reveal 34.Who wore this frock? Billy Porter, 2019 Natalie Portman, 2011 Portia De Rossi, 2014 Reveal 35.Who wore this frock? Björk, 2001 Edy Williams, 1974 Demi Moore, 1989 Reveal 36.Who did Meryl Streep (Adaptation, 2002) lose the best supporting actress Oscar to? Queen Latifah (Chicago) Catherine Zeta-Jones (Chicago) Julianne Moore (The Hours) Reveal 37.Which film did Raging Bull (1980) lose to? The Elephant Man Ordinary People Coal Miner’s Daughter Reveal 38.What did Brokeback Mountain (2005) lose to? Capote Munich Crash Reveal 39.Which film did Citizen Kane (1941) lose to? Blossoms in the Dust How Green Was My Valley The Little Foxes Reveal 40.Who beat Al Pacino (The Godfather Part II, 1974) to the best actor Oscar? Art Carney (Harry and Tonto) Albert Finney (Murder on the Orient Express) Dustin Hoffman (Lenny) Reveal 41.Who is the only person named Oscar to win an Oscar? Oscar Wilde Oscar Hammerstein II Oscar the Grouch Reveal 42.Who are the only brother and sister to both win Oscars for acting? Ethel and Lionel Barrymore Maggie and Jake Gyllenhaal Shirley MacLaine and Warren Beatty Reveal 43.What was the name of the Native American woman who Marlon Brando sent to collect his Oscar in 1972? Sofia Windflower Sacheen Littlefeather Sishenza Moonblood Reveal 44.How did the Oscars support the war effort during the second world war? By giving the trophies tin helmets By holding the ceremonies underground By making the trophies out of plaster Reveal 45.Which is the only X-rated film ever to win an Oscar? Midnight Cowboy A Clockwork Orange Fritz the Cat Reveal 46.Guess the film from the tagline: ‘The most magnificent picture ever!’ Mutiny on the Bounty Gone With the Wind The Hurt Locker Reveal 47.Guess the film from the tagline: ‘You’ll simply fall apart with laughter!’ My Fair Lady The Greatest Show on Earth The Apartment Reveal 48.Guess the film from the tagline: ‘A journey through understanding and fellowship’ Rain Man Driving Miss Daisy Silence of the Lambs Reveal 49.Guess the film from the tagline: ‘Beyond his silence, there is a past. Beyond her dreams, there is a feeling. Beyond hope, there is a memory’ In the Heat of the Night Million Dollar Baby The English Patient Reveal 50.Guess the film from the tagline: ‘A mighty motion picture of action and adventure!’ Dances With Wolves Lawrence of Arabia Spotlight Reveal

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/may/03/genderpolitics

Opinion

2007-05-03T13:40:00.000Z

Madeleine Bunting

Gender politics

Sarko and Ségo head to head in a public debate for two and a half hours, watched by 20 million viewers, was a riveting piece of political theatre. And the flash point which encapsulated the entire debate was a fierce disagreement about Nicolas Sarkozy's policy on special needs education. But what made the exchange so intriguing was its blatant display of Gallic machismo: Sarkozy used, several times, the classic patronising put-down routinely fired at any woman when she is forceful: "Calm down! Calm down!" It's a reference back to an era when women who had opinions or were assertive with their views were dismissed as "irrational" or "hysterical". A woman was expected to be seen not heard. Now, the phrase is a clever tactic to use in a heated discussion with a woman (men very rarely say it to each other) to infuriate and disorientate - and thus throw a woman off her argument. "Calm down" is a very effective wind up. The woman is then not just defending her position in the argument, she is also having to defend her emotional stability. It's just one of many ways in which women get outmanoeuvred in debate, not because of the weakness of their argument, but because of the techniques of claiming and asserting authority are so culturally unfamiliar to women; they are bred into men from an early age, they are rooted out of women from an early age. Because of this cultural unfamiliarity, men frequently find assertive women threatening. Watch the body language of this exchange: as Ségolène Royal lays out her case with fierce passion, her eyes blazing, her finger pointing, Sarkozy studiously begins shuffling papers, his head bowed, denying her eye contact. But these old tricks of undermining an opponent didn't work so Sarkozy got irritated, under pressure, he snapped and resorted to the put-down. The person who, at that point in the exchange, needed to calm down was, of course, the irritated Sarkozy. But a battle-hardened Royal dealt with it brilliantly. She didn't alter her stride for a moment, and turned the put-down to her advantage. Yes, she was angry, she conceded but it was a righteous anger triggered by his policy on special needs, which had deprived children with disabilities of educational opportunities. She didn't "calm down" but sailed on as fiercely angry as ever. She used the opportunity to present herself as passionate, driven by real political ideals compared with his cold detached rationalism. Sarkozy's old-fashioned bid to fall back on political stereotypes of the past, the conventions of male-dominated political debate, failed. Emotions are no longer a liability in politics, indeed they are an asset when voters want their politicians to come across like real human beings - above all, they want authenticity. The only sad part is that, while Royal may have helped shift the conventions of French politics and challenged the endemic machismo of so much public debate, it was a small victory in a bigger battle she still seems likely to lose on Sunday. Read more about the French elections here.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/mar/09/holly-macve-golden-eagle-review-delta-blues-bella-union

Music

2017-03-09T22:15:08.000Z

Jon Dennis

Holly Macve: Golden Eagle review – hard-luck songs make like the delta blues

Singer and songwriter Holly Macve was raised in Galway and Yorkshire, but you could be forgiven for assuming the 21-year-old is from the Mississippi delta or the Appalachian mountains. The shimmering guitar on Heartbreak Blues and the doom-laden piano chords and faraway backing vocals on The Corner of My Mind sound like they’ve been beamed from Sun Studios in Memphis, circa 1957. Golden Eagle, her debut album, has a strong country or bluegrass flavour – though some songs, such as Fear, deploy more unpredictable chord sequences. Her lyrics, with their themes of heartbreak (All of Its Glory) and hard luck (No One Has the Answers), are a good fit. Thanks to the sparse instrumentation and producer Paul Gregory’s deft use of reverb, there’s a timeless feel to Golden Eagle. And it’s pretty convincing. Macve sings with real power as she glides from note to note in a dreamy glissando – although the Tammy Wynette-style catch in her voice is a quirk that is perhaps overemployed. Holly Macve: The Corner of My Mind – official video

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/feb/05/hannah-gadsby-announces-nanette-follow-up-the-humour-will-be-back-in

Stage

2019-02-05T00:03:32.000Z

Steph Harmon

Hannah Gadsby announces Nanette follow-up: ‘The humour will be back in’

Australian comedian Hannah Gadsby has announced she will be embarking on her first US tour with a brand new standup show named after her dog, Douglas. Douglas will be a highly anticipated follow-up to global sensation Nanette, which premiered in Australia in 2017 and was picked up by Netflix in June 2018, following an 18-month tour. Nanette was widely praised for deconstructing the genre of standup. In it, Gadsby reckoned with the ways self-deprecating humour compounded trauma inflicted upon her, and encouraged the audience to confront the realities of marginalisation and their complicity in it. Hannah Gadsby meets Roxane Gay: ‘Trolls get incensed by a woman daring to think she's funny. I'm very funny’ Read more The show launched a thousand thinkpieces, with the New York Times calling it “comedy-destroying, soul-affirming” and the Atlantic praising it as a “radical, transformative work”. Roxane Gay, Ellen Page and Lily Allen all publicly praised it, and Gadsby landed a publishing deal for a memoir, Ten Steps to Nanette, which is due out later this year. Allow Instagram content? This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Allow and continue Douglas, which is Gadsby’s 11th standup show, will feature new material that in part deals with the success of her last. “How does one who is well-practised in the art of negative attention deal with a sudden influx of positive attention?” she said in an interview with the Hollywood Reporter. “[Douglas] is [based] around my inability to wrangle positive attention.” Gadsby made headlines again in December when she criticised so-called “good men” during her speech at the Women in Entertainment gala: “The last thing I need right now, in this moment in history, is having to listen to men monologue about misogyny, and how other men should just stop being creepy,” she said. 3:47 Nanette star Hannah Gadsby's speech about 'Jimmys' and misogyny – video On Monday Gadsby told the Hollywood Reporter that while Douglas will tackle big and topical issues, “the humour will be back in” this time. “Nanette was the only way that people [in the US] know me and so that’s the only prism that they view my work,” she said. “It’s pretty much [a view that], I’m a comedian that’s not funny … I don’t have any intention of workshopping any of my traumas on stage again. That took a toll. And also, I kinda did that.” Gadsby said she’s currently whittling down “four hours of show”, but hinted it will be “interested in the dynamics of power and privilege”. ‘I broke the contract’: how Hannah Gadsby's trauma transformed comedy Read more She also explained why she changed her mind about quitting comedy – an intention that was at the heart of Nanette, which she has since pulled back from. “I feel like I had every opportunity thrown at me at once [after Nanette]. Everyone wanted a piece of this pie, so to speak,” she said. “And I thought after some time that perhaps my best next move would be to do something that is what I’m really good … instead of trying to learn a whole new skill set. “My whole life and world has changed, so there’s no real reason to change absolutely everything.” oh hi there LOS ANGELES ... I am working on a new little something something on stage at dynasty Typewriter. @JoinTheDynasty Work in progress... Get amongst it. https://t.co/AWpKhglPEF pic.twitter.com/KaL5ddodLm — Hannah Gadsby (@Hannahgadsby) January 23, 2019 New material for the show is being aired as part of a “work in progress” residency through February and March in Los Angeles, before the show makes its premiere in Melbourne on 27 March and then tours the US. Gadsby, who has been open about the toll that 18 months of touring Nanette took on her, said she is being more cautious with live dates this time around. “I’ve got to be careful because I really exhausted myself with Nanette and touring is a gruelling thing,” she said. “I’ll see how the market responds.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/feb/08/selma-observer-film-review

Film

2015-02-08T09:00:11.000Z

Mark Kermode

Selma review – heartbreaking and inspiring

However one chooses to read it, the absence of David Oyelowo from the Bafta and Oscar best actor roll-calls strikes a jarring note. A rising British star who has won international acclaim for supporting roles in movies as diverse as Middle of Nowhere, Lincoln, and 2013’s The Butler (director Lee Daniels was originally slated to direct Selma back in 2008), Oyelowo can currently be seen giving Oscar Isaac a run for his money in A Most Violent Year. Yet he really hits his stride with this account of Martin Luther King’s battle for black voting rights, and the historic 1965 marches from Selma to Montgomery. Charismatic, commanding, complicated and utterly credible, his portrayal of Dr King is surely the stuff of which awards are made. The film may not be flawless (it’s a touch textbooky at times) but Oyelowo is note-perfect. We first meet Oyelowo’s King in December 1964 as he fumbles with a necktie in Oslo, preparing to receive the Nobel peace prize, worrying to his gently reassuring wife about his “high on the hog” appearance. As we hear Dr King speaking of the “lost ones whose deaths pave our path”, director Ava DuVernay cuts to a heartbreakingly poignant evocation of the 16th St Baptist Church bombing (which took place a year earlier, in 1963) which killed four little girls; and thence to a scene of Selma resident Annie Lee Cooper (Oprah Winfrey) being sneeringly denied the right to register to vote by a supercilious supremacist registrar. In compact, economical form, DuVernay sets out her table: the juxtaposition of domestic intimacy and institutional violence; the tension between the personal and political; the vivid interplay between the historical and the contemporary. See the trailer for Selma Guardian The next time we see King, he’s at the White House, demanding that Lyndon B Johnson legislate to outlaw discriminatory voting practices. As Johnson, Tom Wilkinson is testy, arguing that the right to vote is already ‘technically’ enshrined in the Civil Rights Act (“my proudest moment”), and eager for the good doctor to get off his back (critics have argued that this is a “mischaracterisation” of LBJ’s position). With no promise of support from the corridors of power, King has little alternative but to take his fight to the streets of Selma. What follows is a battle between the will of the people and the billy-clubs of the authorities. After King is punched in the mouth upon arrival in Selma, we see women beaten and arrested (Cooper was famously photographed being “restrained” by four lawmen), young men shot at point-blank range by state troopers (Jimmie Lee Jackson’s death is horrifyingly restaged), and horseback baton-charges on the Edmund Pettus bridge, news footage of which provides inspiration for deft cinematographer Bradford Young. What you don’t get are any of King’s celebrated speeches; owned by the MLK estate, those words were licensed to a potential Spielberg-produced biopic in 2009, meaning that DuVernay has had to pepper Paul Webb’s original script with paraphrase and reinterpretation. Considering how iconic King’s public pronouncements have become, it’s remarkable that we don’t spend much of Selma wincing at apparent misquotation. Yet so compelling is Oyelowo’s performance that we forget the strange linguistic constraints around which the film is dancing, the delivery convincing and heartfelt enough to make us believe that we are hearing an authentic voice rallying the crowds in the churches, the streets, and (thanks to television) the living rooms of America. David Oyelowo with Carmen Ejogo as Martin Luther King and Coretta Scott King in Selma. Photograph: Allstar/Pathe The supporting cast are strong, too, with Carmen Ejogo lending warmth and courage to the key role of Coretta Scott King (the strain on their marriage is a central theme), while co-producer Oprah Winfrey combines both strength and pathos in her portrayal of the indomitable Annie Lee Cooper. Meanwhile, Tim Roth brings arrogant menace to his portrayal of Alabama governor George Wallace, Stan Houston is assured as the embittered, trigger-happy sheriff Jim Clark, and Dylan Baker fleetingly creepy as J Edgar Hoover, whose FBI wire taps and intercepts provide paranoia-inducing onscreen punctuation. Special mention too to Henry G Sanders as Cager Lee (grandfather of the slain Jimmie Lee Jackson) whose few scenes are among the film’s most moving. But it’s Oyelowo who really holds it all together, raising what could have become a drama of workaday worthiness into something genuinely inspiring. By portraying King as a man troubled by fear and doubt (not least in his reaction to news of his wife’s meeting with Malcolm X), Oyelowo and DuVernay give us something that goes beyond hagiography. The history may be a little skewed, and the speeches necessarily circumlocutionary, but Oyelowo keeps our attention focused on the real story in triumphant fashion. Whatever the iniquities of awards ceremonies, he certainly gets my vote. This article was amended on 8 February 2015 to remove a segment of text which had been inadvertently repeated.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/oct/04/martin-scorsese-says-marvel-movies-are-not-cinema

Film

2019-10-04T12:56:41.000Z

Catherine Shoard

Martin Scorsese says Marvel movies are 'not cinema'

Martin Scorsese, one of cinema’s most venerated current directors, has decried superhero movies – the dominant force in today’s industry. The director of films such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas told Empire magazine that his attempts to get up to speed with contemporary superhero films had failed. “I tried, you know?” the director said when asked if he had seen Marvel’s movies. “But that’s not cinema.” He continued: “Honestly, the closest I can think of them, as well made as they are, with actors doing the best they can under the circumstances, is theme parks. It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being.” Earlier this year, Avengers: Endgame became the highest grossing film in history after topping $2.8bn at the global box office (fifth highest after adjusting for inflation). Eight other titles from the same studio feature in the Top 30 (when factored without inflation). Marvel head Kevin Feige last year defended his films against the kind of criticism levelled by Scorsese, saying that the series’s lack of major awards was no indication of a lack of quality or ambition. “Maybe it’s easy to dismiss VFX or flying people or spaceships or billion dollar grosses,” Feige said. “I think it is easy to say that you have already been awarded in a certain way. [Alfred] Hitchcock never won best director, so it’s very nice, but it doesn’t mean everything. I would much rather be in a room full of engaged fans.” Scorsese’s latest film, The Irishman, won rave reviews from its premiere at the New York film festival last weekend, with critics praising the use of “de-ageing” technology. Out today is Joker, Todd Phillip’s revisionist take on the DC villain, which borrows much from the films of Scorsese, notably 1983’s The King of Comedy.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/02/gladys-knight-review-a-masterclass-in-enduring-talent

Music

2015-07-02T15:39:53.000Z

Betty Clarke

Gladys Knight review – a masterclass in enduring talent

Six years after a farewell tour of the UK, Gladys Knight is met with a standing ovation. Dressed in sparkling white, the 71-year-old hides her face with her hands and gives a gracious curtsey. “The young ones say: ‘What you doing out here?’ she says, gesturing to the stage. I tell them: ‘I guess they aren’t through with me yet.’’’ But the “empress of soul”, whose talent carried her from a 1950s TV contest to R&B’s Chitlin Circuit in the segregated south of 1960s America, and on through Motown, 70s disco and 80s pop, isn’t here for devotion. She’s on a mission, dipings into her seven-decade career, imparting positivity and sharing homilies. “We can share our spirits, we can share our love,” she says. Never a diva, Knight sounds more like a concerned parent than a lay preacher, and she sings every word with sincerity. Midnight Train to Georgia, Baby Don’t Change Your Mind and Licence to Kill are masterclasses in effortless control, but Knight is even more impressive on the funky, Curtis Mayfield-penned Hold On and I Heard It Through the Grapevine, which starts in simmering, Marvin Gaye-style before Knight returns it to its aggressive, R&B roots. She’s just as at home with contemporary songs. Bruno Mars’s If I Was Your Man seamlessly blends into Knight’s sultry If I Were Your Woman, while Sam Smith’s Stay With Me proves a popular choice. Her brother – and Pip – Merald “Bubba” Knight joins her on stage for the Beatles’ Something and a joyful version of Pharrell’s Happy. Despite having performed Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me “at least 1,500 times”, the veteran sings with fresh emotion. And this time round, there’s no hint of retirement. “When you leave here, please drive carefully,” Knight says. “I need to see you next time I come.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/04/vatican-bishop-investigates-sexual-allegations-cardinal-keith-obrien

World news

2014-04-04T20:53:56.000Z

Lizzy Davies

Vatican to investigate sexual allegations against Cardinal Keith O'Brien

A Vatican-appointed bishop will fly into Scotland next week to investigate allegations of sexual misconduct surrounding Cardinal Keith O'Brien, it has emerged. O'Brien's successor as archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh, Leo Cushley, announced the unusual step in letters sent to his clergy this week, according to the National Catholic Reporter (NCR). The Pope's spokesman, Federico Lombardi, told the Guardian he had "nothing to add" to the report, which said that, following a request from Pope Francis, the Maltese auxiliary bishop Charles Scicluna would visit the archdiocese from 8-10 April. According to the NCR, Cushley's two letters said Scicluna, the Vatican's former sex crimes prosecutor, would "listen to and report the testimony offered by past and present members of the clergy … concerning any incidents of sexual misconduct committed against them by other members of the clergy whomsoever." The bishop – who co-represented the Holy See at a fierce public grilling by a United Nations panel of experts in January – has asked those wishing to speak to him to "prepare their narrative in writing", Cushley reportedly added. The letters reportedly do not mention O'Brien by name. The move comes more than a year after O'Brien resigned amid allegations published in the Observer of sexual misconduct from three priests and one former priest. The Vatican subsequently ordered him to spend a period of time in "prayer and penance". Last month, one of the men appealed directly to Pope Francis to intervene, describing the church as a "formidable machine" and accusing officials of having "passed the buck, misrepresented the truth, engaged in cover-up and … shamelessly procrastinated". "I want to ask Pope Francis can you sort this out?" the man told the Observer. As the Argentinian pontiff marked his first year on the papal throne last month, his response to the sexual abuse scandal was singled out by many observers as a blind spot in an otherwise impressive record. In a statement, Cushley reportedly said Scicluna's visit was "a positive step towards truth and eventual reconciliation". "This may not be an easy thing to do, but it is the right thing to do," he added. A spokesman for the archdiocese did not return requests for comment.

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/dec/04/black-and-blue-racial-dynamics-police-officers-freddie-gray-trial-baltimore

US news

2015-12-04T15:09:28.000Z

Baynard Woods

Both black and blue: racial dynamics are thorny for officers on trial in Baltimore

Witnesses began delivering testimony this week in what is the start of a months-long set of trials of six Baltimore officers for the death of Freddie Gray, who incurred fatal injuries while in police custody in April. The trials are being watched as a rare opportunity for accountability in police brutality, disproportionately against unarmed African Americans. But in Baltimore, the racial dynamics are not as stark as in some other prominent cases of death at police hands. On the jury, eight out of 12 members are black, and more than half of those who made up the pool reported that they or immediate members of their family have been victims or suspects in crimes. The city’s leadership – including the mayor, the president of the city council, the chief prosecutor, and, at the time of Gray’s death, the police commissioner – are black. And three of the officers charged in Gray’s death, including the defendant now on trial, William Porter, are black. Porter, the first defendant, is a 26-year-old African American man who grew up, like Freddie Gray, in West Baltimore. But in the fifth grade, his mother moved the family across town, where he did well and eventually started college. According to the Washington Post, he left due to debt and graduated from the police academy in 2013. The job eventually brought him back to West Baltimore, where he encountered Freddie Gray on the morning of 12 April. During an incident involving Porter and five other officers, Gray suffered a severed spinal cord after being dragged on the ground and transported in the back of a police van in restraints without a seatbelt. Police in the Western District were for many symbolized by the rough-and-ready head-busting cops always ready to clear corners on the television show The Wire, Ellis Carver and Thomas “Herc” Hauk. Years of zero tolerance in the neighborhood, most of which was designated a “high crime area”, ensured that officers weren’t popular in the neighborhood, where residents – and not just young ones – felt they were treated unfairly, harassed, and left unprotected from criminals. “I live right there,” a middle aged woman named Reesa Burton said on 25 April, barely a block from the Western District police station where Porter was based. “If I call the police, it’s half an hour coming. It’s terrible.” Domenick Lombardozzi as Thomas ‘Herc’ Hauk and Seth Gilliam as Ellis Carver on The Wire. Photograph: HBO “They’ll arrest you for anything,” her sister Margaret added. “They’re terrible,” Reesa said. But defense lawyers in Porter’s trial are depicting Porter as a good cop in an incredibly difficult environment, where the rules are learned from other officers on the streets and not in the academy or from a rulebook. Porter never fired his gun during his three years in office and his worst offense involved leaving his post to assist another officer “because that’s the kind of cop he was”, said Gary Proctor, one of Porter’s attorneys. “I can imagine for Porter it’s difficult,” said Leon Taylor, an African American who served as a Baltimore City police officer for over a decade. “It’s more difficult when you feel that you’re part of the community and the community is willing to negate all of the positive things that you’ve done and all the greater things you could have accomplished because of this incident.” Taylor, who said he is “from the hood”, also served as a peacekeeper in Sarajevo before joining the police force. He elaborated on the difficulty of navigating different communities. “I myself have locked up relatives, so it’s just something that happens. I’ve met relatives for the first time answering a call,” he said. “Police are part of the community and the situation with Porter. Porter is part of the community, he came from the community, he had relatives there.” Porter’s dilemma Even though Porter is black, he is also blue and that may test his loyalties in different ways. In his new book, The Beast Side: Living and Dying While Black in America, East Baltimore author D Watkins recounts a conversation about an acquaintance who had become a cop: “He ain’t black no more, he’s white! Better yet, he’s blue, he’s with the biggest gang in the city.” The prosecution has asked that Porter be tried first so that he may be used as a material witness in the other cases, especially those against Caesar Goodson, who is facing the most serious charges, including second-degree murder, and is the only officer not to give a statement to the police and Alicia White, who allegedly spoke to the back of Gray’s head and found him unresponsive and is, like Porter, being charged with involuntary manslaughter, second degree assault and reckless endangerment. Like Porter, both White and Goodson are black. Lt Kenneth Butler, the president of Vanguard Justice Society, an organization for Black police officers, acknowledged the difficult position Porter finds himself in, but said it’s not all that unusual outside of the “magnitude of the incident”. “I think Porter is in a very unfortunate situation,” he said. “I guess maybe he is a material witness. I don’t know how it is going to go. But trying to police in Baltimore being an African American police officer, it may be difficult. But I think it’s difficult around the nation just to be a police now, no matter what color you are.” That difficulty has, in some cases, helped to strengthen the bond between officers, which can extend into the courtroom. The Baltimore police van Freddie Gray was transported in the day of his arrest and injury was shown to jurors on Thursday. Photograph: Ian Duncan/AP “There’s a very strong police culture that values and enforces a code of silence,” said Doug Colbert, a professor of law at the University of Maryland. The case of former Baltimore police officer Joe Crystal shows how deeply entrenched that culture is. Crystal, who is white, testified against fellow officers for beating a suspect and eventually had to quit the department after intense harassment which included threats, a rat beneath his windshield wipers and ultimately physical danger when his colleagues failed to respond when he called for backup. Even after all of that, Crystal has said that the night before he testified was one of the most difficult in his life. So far, even though they are being tried separately, the group, called “the Baltimore six” by the police union, which is contributing to their individual defenses, has maintained a unified front. But that may all change as a result of the trial. “If he’s convicted then his lawyer is under an ethical duty to present Porter with other alternatives to being sentenced for the crime or crimes for which he was convicted,” Colbert said. “That’s where he’ll be faced with being offered a negotiation that would likely require his testimony against other officers in exchange for leniency in his ultimate sentence.” Peter Moskos, a former member of the Baltimore police department who is now an author and professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, acknowledged that there is a blue wall but said it only goes so far. “The general rule of thumb is: No, cops will not go out of their way to say bad things about another cop certainly,” he said. “But cops also aren’t willing to go to jail for the misdeeds of another cop. ‘Why am I going to risk my pension and my job for your fuck up’ is the general attitude … To some extent, when the shit hits the fan, all bets are off. You do have to cover your ass first.” “It seems like they’ve adopted a divide and conquer strategy to get the desired outcome of the case,” Taylor said of the prosecution, but noted that ultimately it depends on the outcome. Moskos was a bit more fatalistic. “I mean the problem is, even in the best case scenario for cops, they’re still fucked because Freddie Gray went into the van alive and came out dead,” he said. “That can’t happen.” This article was amended on 5 December 2015. An earlier version said Peter Moskos was a retired member of the Baltimore police department. He is a former member.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/mar/13/the-witch-film-review-robert-eggers

Film

2016-03-13T09:00:43.000Z

Mark Kermode

The Witch review - original sin and folkloric terror

“W hat went we out into this wilderness to find?” Subtitled A New England Folktale, writer-director Robert Eggers’s Sundance prize-winning feature debut is an atmospheric chiller rooted in the fertile soil of religious zealotry, social isolation and original sin. On the surface, it is the story of a puritanical 17th-century English family enduring an American nightmare, tormented by a wicked witch who steals their children and their souls. But beneath that surface lurks something more disturbing – a tale of God-fearing folk whose terrified belief in the twisted fantasies of folklore hides their own darker secrets. We open with the beleaguered family leaving their New World community to live alone on the very edges of civilisation. As they depart, singing “I will confess…”, cinematographer Jarin Blaschke’s archaic framing – the taller, narrower 1.66:1 ratio – captures these lonely souls receding inexorably into alien lands (the film could equally well be entitled A Field Not in England). The discordant strains of Mark Korven’s score, a superbly evocative symphony of nyckelharpa strings and eerie scrapes, give way to an image of prostrate prayer, as father William (Ralph Ineson) leads his brood in face-down worship on the outskirts of an imposing wood. It is into these woods that their youngest child will vanish, snatched by a spectral presence into a fairytale nightmare – an abyss of trees accompanied by a Ligeti-like wall of sound; a choir of (in)human horror. Eggers suggests that the family’s anxieties about the concept of sin perversely invite horror into the home What follows is a thematic mash-up of the European folk tales of the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault (the figures of Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood and Sleeping Beauty loom large), the paranoid finger-pointing of Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, the religious devotion of Dreyer’s Ordet and the historical detail of Aldous Huxley’s book The Devils of Loudun. “We will conquer this wilderness, it will not consume us!” insists William as the camera creeps repetitively toward the Twin Peaks-like woods, but the film tells another story – the story of a demonic goat named Black Phillip that whispers to the children, and of shape-shifting hares (one of several inevitable echoes of The Wicker Man) that call this fracturing family to damnation. At first, Eggers favours the physical depiction of the family’s fear, a nightmarish early sequence of their child in the clutches of a haggard, ghoulish figure seeming to dispel any sense of ambiguity about the archetypal nature of this “evil”. Or does it? Despite this monstrous vision, it is still possible (and indeed preferable) to read The Witch as a story whose demons lurk largely within the mind. Just as the family are obsessed with the concept of sin (poor Caleb recounts his putrefaction by rote and anguishes about his lustfully hell-bound heart), so Eggers not so slyly suggests that such anxieties perversely invite horror into the home, where shadowy faces flicker in the firelight. While the sounds of livestock and creaking gates blend with the wind to form Penderecki-esque night music, Kate Dickie’s bereaved, homesick mother Katherine personifies the down-to-earth derangement that feeds upon hunger, worry and loss. A dreamy sequence in which a raven pecks at her bloodied breast straddles the line between fantasy and reality, just as Caleb (Harvey Scrimshaw) emerges from his own guilty traumas with a poisoned apple in his mouth – extraordinary but not quite conclusive. Even when the narrative drifts into literal flights of folklorish fantasy, we should remember that what we see on the screen is by its very nature a trick of the light, a magic lantern display (or communal hallucination) rooted in the apparitions of the fairground seance. I would have preferred the omission of a coda that many will take (too?) literally, but even this is prefigured by a dramatic hiatus that causes us to question its “reality”. Or, at least, that’s how I chose to read it. The Witch director Robert Eggers: ‘This film attempts to get into the darkness in humanity’ - video interview. Guardian In the end, that is the greatest strength of The Witch – that the audience will see in it what they want to see, or believe. New England native Eggers has clearly researched his history in depth (for him, the devil is in the period detail) and lifts dialogue directly from contemporaneous diaries, letters and religious documents. From such research, startling images emerge: of William chopping wood like a man possessed; Katherine laying down in an open grave, Caleb convulsing in rapturous torment and youngsters Mercy and Jonas howling in synchronised hysteria. At the centre of it all is Anya Taylor-Joy’s brilliantly rendered Thomasin, the family’s eldest child within whose coming-of-age transformation (“She hath begat the sign of her womanhood”) the heart of the narrative resides. Perhaps this is all a fevered dream, an ergot-induced hallucination for which those rotting crops provide a deliberately ripe explanation. But through Thomasin’s eyes it takes on its own reality, a reality we experience through her devotion, her disavowal and, ultimately, her defiance. While the poster for The Witch may conjure up memories of William Friedkin’s The Guardian, this owes nothing to that film’s hokey horrors.Eggers has cited Kubrick’s The Shining as influential, alongside Benjamin Christensen’s silent classic Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages and Ingmar Bergman’s Cries and Whispers. Others have compared The Witch to Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook and Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In, although I found myself thinking more of Hans-Christian Schmid’s Requiem as a thematic companion piece. Apparently, a long-planned Nosferatu remake is in the pipeline for Eggers, which we eagerly await. For the moment, in an age of cattle-prod scares, The Witch plants its pitchfork proudly in the more unsettling landscape of evocative, intelligent modern horror.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/jan/09/ailey-review-alvin-ailey-choreographer-documentary-jamila-wignot

Stage

2022-01-09T11:30:19.000Z

Simran Hans

Ailey review – illuminating film about the choreographer Alvin Ailey

“A lvin Ailey is black and universal,” says the actor Cicely Tyson as she presents him with a lifetime achievement award in a clip from 1988 that opens this thoughtful documentary about the African American dancer and choreographer. Film-maker Jamila Wignot pays particular attention to the specificity of Ailey’s black influences: the church, blues music and his southern upbringing, all of which informed his best-known work, Revelations (1960). Though Ailey was widely acclaimed, interviews with his former dancers, including Judith Jamison and George Faison, reveal the extent of his personal alienation. Being “the only one” in the predominantly white field of modern dance was only one aspect of his plight. Wignot subtly teases out the fact that despite having relationships with men, Ailey was not integrated into the queer community. He died from Aids-related complications, aged 58, in 1989. Ailey’s story is interspersed with rehearsal scenes of a new work celebrating the 50th anniversary of the company he founded. Yet behind-the-scenes images of the dancers preparing for Lazarus are never as interesting or as graceful as the archive footage of Ailey himself. In cinemas and on demand Watch a trailer for Ailey.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/aug/16/share-your-tributes-and-memories-of-aretha-franklin

Music

2018-08-16T14:36:33.000Z

Eloise Millard

Share your tributes and memories of Aretha Franklin

Tributes have been flooding in for “the queen of soul”, Aretha Franklin, who has died from advanced pancreatic cancer at the age of 76. 'She sat at the piano and let it stream out like gold': readers remember Aretha Read more She announced her retirement from touring in February 2017 and was forced to cancel appearances, including at the New Orleans Jazz Festival, on the advice on doctors early this year. Franklin’s career spans six decades, with the popularity of her hits such as Respect and (You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman enduring today. In 1987, she became the first woman to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and won 18 Grammy awards across half a century. Share your tributes and memories We’d like you to tell us what Aretha Franklin meant to you. You can share your memories and tributes with us using the encrypted form below – please include as much detail as possible – and we’ll feature a selection of responses in our coverage. If you’re having trouble using the form, click here. Read terms of service here.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/dec/31/james-bond-sees-off-spider-man-as-uk-box-office-earnings-almost-double

Film

2021-12-31T11:53:45.000Z

Mark Sweney

James Bond sees off Spider-Man as UK box office earnings almost double

James Bond has seen off a late challenge from Spider-Man to emerge as the biggest cinema hit of the year, as UK box office earnings almost double from the record lows of 2020 – but the overall popularity of cinema-going still remains well down on pre-pandemic levels. When the final ticket stubs are officially counted, it is forecast that the UK box office will reach £557m this year, almost double the £297m recorded last year, which was the lowest take since 1992. James Bond: No Time To Die provided cinema owners with the pandemic-busting blockbuster they have been waiting for as Bondmania brought film fans back to venues in numbers not seen since before the coronavirus pandemic. Spider-Man: No Way Home breaks UK record for advance ticket sales Read more Daniel Craig’s final outing as the superspy 007 has made more than £96m at the UK box office this year, making it the third highest grossing film of all-time, after the franchise stablemate Skyfall, and Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The top earner at the UK box office is also the fourth biggest film of the year globally, taking $774m (£575m) to date. The emergence and rapid spread of the Omicron variant has failed to dent the popularity of the latest Hollywood blockbuster, Spider-Man: No Way Home, which has raced to more than £64m at the UK box office in its first two weeks in cinemas. Already the second biggest film in the UK this year, Spider-Man is the first movie to break $1bn at the global box office since 2019, giving cinema chain owners hope that film-going can permanently return to pre-pandemic levels. “While cinema-going levels are moving upwards, a ‘draw’ movie will push attendance up to previous levels and beyond,” said David Hancock, a film analyst at Omdia. “Most screens are now able to open but some engrained customer hesitancy is affecting overall grosses. Bond brought back the older demographic to cinemas, and also brought back the more hesitant.” Bond, and now Spider-Man, have provided tangible proof to financially stretched cinema owners that the enduring popularity of movie-going has not seen a permanent shift to home streaming during extended periods of closure throughout the pandemic. “Streaming can’t kill cinema,” Hancock said. “Only cinema can kill cinema by not continually investing in its environment to stay ahead of other leisure and film-watching options.” The latest Bond film provided the best October for UK admissions in a decade, with attendance up 130% compared with the same month in 2019. Overall admissions for the year are forecast to top 78 million, well above the 44 million seen in 2020, the lowest level since records began in 1928. Despite the promising signs of a revival, there is a long way to go to reach pre-pandemic levels. In 2019 the UK box office hit £1.25bn and cinema attendance reached 176 million. Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk Omdia is forecasting that in 2023 the UK box office will return to 99% of that level, with attendance at 97% of pre-pandemic popularity. However, the long and financially uncertain road to reach that point, as well as the urban-to-rural shift in living the pandemic-fuelled move to flexible working has created, will result in cinema owners staging a strategic rethink of the viability of locations of sites. “Under-pressure exhibitors will seek to keep alive their most profitable venues, trimming their less-profitable sites or closing down individual screens within sites,” Hancock said. “The move to working from home and the rush for extra space into rural, coastal, and suburban areas will create opportunities for new sites in historically low–cinema-provision areas.” Top grossing films of 2021 (UK & Ireland) 1) James Bond: No Time To Die – £96.5m 2) Spider-Man: No Way Home – £63.7m 3) Dune – £21.8m 4) Shang-Chi And the Legend Of the Ten Rings – £21.3m 5) Peter Rabbit 2 – £20.5m Source: Comscore

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/feb/11/dvdreviews.culture

Film

2000-02-11T01:36:32.000Z

Rob Mackie

Video releases

RushmoreRental and DVD £15.99 Buena Vista Cert 15 **** An absorbing, wildly unpredictable and superbly acted comedy with a skewed sensibility. Rushmore is a school, the elite alma mater of precocious pupil Max, a 15-year-old playwright who is facing expulsion despite his perfect attendance and punctuality awards, since he's so busy being a teen entrepreneur that his grades are suffering. Max (Jason Schwartzman) falls in love with a teacher (Olivia Williams) who is also being courted by Max's friend, the school's millionaire benefactor (Bill Murray). Since Williams is 30ish and Murray 50ish, Rushmore takes the most cavalier attitude to age and romance since Harold and Maude, but somehow, with immaculate playing by all three principals, it manages to be touching as well as very funny. I especially loved Max's school production of Serpico. It's unusual too in its mix of accents: Williams, a Cambridge graduate, gets to remain English and there's an extremely Scottish Scot (Stephen McCole) as the pupil who is the bane of Max's life. Director and co-writer Wes Anderson is a Texan and clearly a Britophile (the soundtrack includes Donovan, The Who and, most relevantly, the Faces' Ooh La La). Everything about Rushmore is fresh and original, including Anderson's direction, which features a bravura shot right across the audience at Max's production that forms the film's denouement. Schwartzman is the son of Talia Shire, and related to both Francis Coppola and Nic Cage. His performance of manic intensity contrasts with Murray's underplayed air of bafflement. It's hard to think of a less starry star turn. Among GIants Rental Fox Pathé Cert 15 ** The Yorkshire moors are the real stars of Among Giants. The "giants" are a series of electricity pylons which a team of very laddish lads are commissioned to paint. Cue dizzying vertigo and long-distance views from a job more like mountaineering than painting and decorating. Pete Postlethwaite is the foreman who finds a surprise addition to the team when an Australian hitchhiking climber (Rachel Griffiths) asks for a job. Postlethwaite and Griffiths (especially in Hilary and Jackie) have been reliably watchable but before long they're climbing over each other too in an unlikely relationship (firmly-rooted bloke, rootless woman). Simon Beaufoy's script doesn't provide much to make this believable and, increasingly, the characters' sudden changes of mood seem to rely on script whim rather than character development. Directed by Sam Miller, from This Life, the film's philosophy seems to be that pleasures are fleeting. The same goes for the film: there's a pleasing feeling of campfire camaraderie at times but a more interesting story, including the political aspects to this non-union operation, slip by unnoticed. A Cool, Dry Place Rental Fox Pathé Cert 15 ** Vince Vaughn is trapped amid multiple plots in this straight-to-video slice-of-life drama. There's the barmy lawsuit his firm has put him on to; the promising new girlfriend he's begun to date; the son he's bringing up as a single parent; the basketball team he's coaching; and the long-absent ex-wife who has suddenly turned up again. It's a bit too much to pack in and the most promising element - the lawsuit - is mysteriously dropped once it's been nicely set up dramatically. It's there just to point up the sacrifice our hero has made, leaving a smart Chicago practice for no-hope cases in the sticks for the sake of getting time to be a Dad. Women tend to complain that Hollywood drama treats a man juggling job and family as wildly heroic while a woman doing the same is shown as normal life, and I think they have a point. Before long, the film gives Vaughn some more moral dilemmas to mull over but neither girlfriend (Joey Lauren Adams) nor wife (Monica Potter) strike many sparks with the actor, who was far more convincing as a party animal in Swingers.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/mar/07/this-weeks-new-theatre

Stage

2014-03-07T12:00:00.000Z

Mark Cook

This week's new theatre

Fatal Attraction, London Fatal Attraction was a monster film thriller in 1987 and gave us the term "bunny boiler" to describe an obsessive woman scorned. Trevor Nunn directs this version by James Dearden at the Haymarket, where Hollywood star Natascha McElhone plays Alex Forrest, the rabbit-hating woman who refuses to be dumped after a quickie affair with a New York lawyer (Mark Bazeley) and plagues his family, including wife Beth (played by Sex And The City's Kristin Davis). At the Savoy from Monday, an equally impressive cast – Rufus Hound, Robert Lindsay, Samantha Bond and Katherine Kingsley – line up for the musical of 1988 film comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels. Theatre Royal Haymarket, SW1, Sat to 21 Jun MC Twelfth Night, Liverpool Liverpool's Everyman Theatre has launched the careers of hundreds of actors, directors and playwrights, and is held in great affection by those who work in theatre. By audiences too, for whom it's been a social hub and a place of creative energy in the north-west for many decades. It has been closed since July 2011 for rebuilding and refurbishment but now returns to proudly retake its place at the heart of Liverpool's cultural life. First off is a revival of Shakespeare's wonderful melancholy comedy of fresh starts, mistaken identities and, of course, love in a production by Gemma Bodinetz, which includes a terrific cast boasting Jodie McNee, Nicholas Woodeson and Matthew Kelly. Let's hope that the Everyman plays on for many years to come. Everyman Playhouse, Sat to 5 Apr LG Flying Solo, Manchester Flying Solo The old-style one-person show has largely fallen out of favour but with its demise has come a different kind of one-on-one work that treats its audience as a collaborator. Some fine examples can be seen at Contact over the next couple of weeks as the theatre hosts this season of work, which includes performance and one-on-one encounters. Shows this week include Jo Bannon's wonderful Exposure (Wed & Thu), which examines how we look at each other, and Kindle's love story about the miraculous human brain, A Journey Round My Skull (Wed). The following week sees Iron-Oxide's superb HeLa (18 Mar), the story of Henrietta Lacks, her stolen cell sample and its vital contribution to genetics. Contact, Wed to 22 Mar LG Other Desert Cities, London US writer Jon Robin Baitz knows a thing or two about family-themed drama: he penned the hit American TV soap drama Brothers & Sisters. He trod similar ground with his 2010 play Other Desert Cities, though the play, which has its UK premiere at the Old Vic under director Lindsay Posner, is a rather more political affair. Leftwing daughter Brooke (Martha Plimpton of The Good Wife and Raising Hope) returns to the home of her Republican parents (Peter Egan and Sinéad Cusack) in Palm Springs to drop the bombshell of a memoir that will reveal a crucial family secret. For the production, the Old Vic will revert to an in-the-round configuration. The Old Vic, SE1, Thu to 24 May MC Spring Awakening, Leeds Photograph: Tristram Kenton Headlong's touring initiative, giving directors a chance to work in different spaces, has delivered some excellent productions, including Blanche McIntyre's startlingly modern The Seagull. Now, Ben Kidd gets his chance with a new version of Wedekind's Spring Awakening written by Anya Reiss, who was still a teenager when her first play was premiered at the Royal Court. Wedekind's drama premiered in 1906 but Reiss's version brings the story up to date, discovering that even in an age when children are bombarded with overtly sexual images from childhood, confusion and uncertainty can still be an issue. West Yorkshire Playhouse, Sat to 22 Mar LG Betty Blue Eyes, Colchester George Stiles and Anthony Drewe's musical inspired by the movie A Private Function did not have an especially long West End run. But it attracted high praise from the critics and lots of affection from those who saw it. So it's good to see it getting another go in a touring production directed by Daniel Buckroyd. Set just after the second world war – when rationing was still very much in place – it's the story of smalltown chiropodist Gilbert and his wife Joyce, who are looking forward to a celebration of the forthcoming nuptials of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip (which will feature an illegal hog roast). But when no invitation is forthcoming they decide to act to get their share of the crackling. Mercury Theatre, Fri to 5 Apr; touring to 2 Aug LG

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/29/venice-film-festival-guillermo-del-toro-gender-disparity

Film

2018-08-29T13:51:25.000Z

Catherine Shoard

Venice film festival: Guillermo del Toro says gender disparity is 'a real problem'

The jury president of the Venice film festival has condemned the gender disparity in the film industry and demanded urgent reform. Speaking on the opening day of the 75th film festival, Guillermo del Toro said equality must be achieved by the end of the decade. Only one of the 21 films in competition this year has a female director. Cannes of worms: true gender equality in film will take more than 'just add women' Read more Asked about the responsibility of film festivals to promote diversity, the Mexican director of Pan’s Labyrinth and The Shape of Water said inclusion goals were essential. “I think the goal has to be clear and has to remain 50:50 by 2020,” said del Toro, referring to an equality charter launched at Cannes this year. “I think if it’s 50:50 by 2019, [it would be] better. It’s a real problem we have in the culture in general. Many of the voices that should be heard, need to be heard. I believe it’s important that it’s not a matter of establishing a quota … Precisely in this time of the conversation, it’s extremely important to call it out and to question it, and to name it and to make it known. “I think it’s necessary because for many decades, if not centuries, [gender disparity] has not been called [out]. It’s not a controversy – it’s a real problem. It needs to be solved in every one of our pertinent departments with strength and resolve.” Venice’s artistic director, Alberto Barbera, has come under fire for the dearth of female film-makers in the competition lineup for the second year running. This year, only one director is female: Jennifer Kent, whose period thriller The Nightingale is her first since The Babadook in 2014. The Venice Biennale president, Paolo Baratta, confirmed that just 21% of submissions were by women. The pledge for parity and inclusion in cinema festivals has been signed by the Locarno and Cannes film festivals. It promises greater transparency in submissions, curatorial boards, and to reach equality in executive leadership as soon as possible. Venice had refused to sign the pledge, but isexpected to agree to it this month. Del Toro said he was also tackling gender disparity on a personal level. “I’m producing five movies: three of them from female directors; two of them from first time directors,” he said. “It’s beyond a gesture. It’s a need.” This article was amended on 31 August 2018 because an earlier version said that Guillermo del Toro directed the Hobbit trilogy. Peter Jackson had that role, after del Toro quit as the films’ director. This has been corrected to refer to The Shape of Water.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/22/manchester-arena-police-explosion-ariana-grande-concert-england

UK news

2017-05-23T17:44:00.000Z

Vikram Dodd

At least 22 killed, 59 injured in suicide attack at Manchester Arena

At least 22 people, including children, have been killed and 59 injured in a suicide bombing at a crowded pop concert in Manchester, the most deadly attack in Britain in a decade. Soldiers on British streets as threat level raised to critical – as it happened Read more The horror unfolded at about 10.30pm on Monday at the end of a concert by the American singer Ariana Grande, whose music is popular with children and teenagers. The attack, which took place in the foyer, caused hundreds of people to flee in terror, with young people at the concert separated from their parents in the chaos. It left a scene of carnage inside the concert venue, where medics described treating wounds consistent with shrapnel injury. 0:22 Footage from inside Manchester Arena at moment of explosion – video One witness said he could see nuts and bolts strewn on the floor of the foyer after the attack, which suggests a nail bomb may have been involved. Families of those injured later said nuts and bolts were removed in life-saving surgeries. EXPLOSION AT MANCHESTER ARENA AND EVERYONE RAN OUT SO SCARY😭 pic.twitter.com/pJbUBoELtE — ♡♡ (@hannawwh) May 22, 2017 Theresa May said: “We are working to establish the full details of what is being treated by the police as an appalling terrorist attack. All our thoughts are with the victims and the families of those who have been affected.” The attack came less than three weeks before Britain’s general election on 8 June and on the anniversary of the murder of Fusilier Lee Rigby. In response, all parties have suspended campaigning. Flags outside Downing Street flew at half-mast. The prime minister chaired an emergency meeting of the government’s crisis committee, Cobra, on Tuesday morning and later travelled to Manchester to meet with local law enforcement and survivors. She was scheduled to chair a second Cobra meeting on Tuesday afternoon. The home secretary, Amber Rudd, paid tribute to emergency services, saying: “This was a barbaric attack, deliberately targeting some of the most vulnerable in our society – young people and children out at a pop concert. My thoughts and prayers go out to the families and victims who have been affected.” Greater Manchester police have confirmed that they believe the bombing was the responsibility of one man armed with an improvised explosive device. The man, named as 22-year-old Salman Abedi, is among the dead. Police raided a number of properties in south Manchester in the wake of the attack, including one address in Fallowfield where a controlled explosion was used to gain entry. The chief constable, Ian Hopkins, said: “We have been treating this as a terrorist incident and we believe that while the attack last night was conducted by one man, the priority is to establish whether he was acting alone or as part of a network.” The investigation into the attack involves the police counter-terrorism network and Britain’s domestic security service, MI5. The death toll would make it the worst event of its kind in Britain since the 7/7 bombing in 2005, which hit London’s transport network, killing 52 people. Dashcam footage apparently shows Manchester explosion Guardian Witnesses in Manchester described how, after the concert had finished, the house lights came up and then a loud bang was heard. Majid Khan, 22, said: “A huge bomb-like bang went off that hugely panicked everyone and we were all trying to flee the arena. “It was one bang and essentially everyone from the other side of the arena where the bang was heard from suddenly came running towards us as they were trying to exit.” Emergency services react to the Manchester Arena explosion – in pictures Read more Oliver Jones, 17, who attended with his 19-year-old sister, said: “The bang echoed around the foyer of the arena and people started to run.” People outside the concert hall were visibly upset as a cacophony of sirens was heard and police and ambulance vehicles arrived at the scene. Erin McDougle, 20, from Newcastle, said: “There was a loud bang at the end of the concert. The lights were already on so we knew it wasn’t part of the show. At first we thought it was a bomb. There was a lot of smoke. People started running out. When we got outside the arena there were dozens of police vans and quite a few ambulances.” A group of young men from Sheffield said they had seen at least five people covered in blood and others being carried out by bouncers. A mother, at the concert with her two daughters, described seeing a man she believes to have been the suicide bomber. Emma Johnson told BBC Radio 5 Live: “I turned and saw [a] bright red top in the crowd with a grey panel down the front with risen bits all over it. It was that which stood out because it was so intense among the crowds of people. As quick as I saw it the explosion happened.” She said she was 15ft (4.5 metres) away. “It happened near where they sell the merchandise,” said Johnson. “There were dead bodies everywhere. I saw the remains of the torso and the remains of the body.” Charlotte Campbell said she last heard from her 15-year-old daughter Olivia at 8.30pm on Monday, shortly before Grande went on stage, and was frantically trying to find her. “Her dad is actually in Manchester looking for her,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “I’ve got friends out looking for her, I’ve got people I don’t even know out looking for her. “I’ve got people messaging me saying: ‘Look, we’ve got her photo and we’re out looking for her – we’ll get in contact with you if we see her’. I’m just hearing nothing – her phone’s dead.” We have still not found OLIVIA CAMPBELL. If you see her please contact me ASAP. pic.twitter.com/8LboKg0B2n — Aleshia Anne (@Hello_Leesha) May 23, 2017 People in Manchester rallied round to help people caught up in the attack. Sikh temples and hotels offered refuge and some locals opened up their homes. Some taxi drivers waived their fares. The attack happened despite years of warnings and tightening of security, especially around crowded paces. Investigators will want to find out the reason for the attack, where the material for the suspected device was bought and how it was designed. Since the attack on London in 2005, measures have been put in place to restrict the purchase of materials that can be used to make homemade explosives. The Manchester attack came after weeks of heightened activity and disrupted plots by police and MI5. In March, four people and the attacker died after an attack in Westminster, central London, which targeted the Houses of Parliament. The terrorist threat level for Britain is at severe, meaning an attack is highly likely. The government is not planning to increase the threat level to critical. However, security is expected to be reviewed for major venues in Britain and elsewhere. London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, said there would be more police on the streets of the capital on Tuesday after the “barbaric and sickening attack”. The Metropolitan police commissioner, Cressida Dick, said the extra presence, including armed officers, would continue for as long as needed. She also said the force was working with all those planning events this weekend to ensure all necessary steps had been taken. Security was also stepped up in Scotland, where the chief constable deployed armed police on high visibility patrols in crowded areas, airports and railway stations. In the US, the Department of Homeland Security warned of extra security measures. Ariana Grande feels 'broken' by Manchester arena terror attack Read more World leaders expressed solidarity with the UK in the fight against terrorists. Donald Trump expressed his “deepest condolences” to the victims, condemning the attackers as “evil losers”. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, offered the British people “all the compassion and care of France which is at their side in mourning, with a particular thought for the victims and their families”. The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, on Monday expressed her “sorrow and horror”. In a statement just before 3am, Hopkins said the police had received reports of an explosion at 10.33pm at the conclusion of the Ariana Grande concert. He said: “This is clearly a very concerning time for everyone. We are doing all that we can, working with local and national agencies to support those affected as we gather information about what happened last night.” Hopkins urged people to remain vigilant and to stay away from the area of the attack so emergency services could continue their work. Confirmed deaths at the Manchester arena. Feel sick to think that people have lost their lives at a gig attended by so many young people. — Steve Rotheram (@Steve4LCRmayor) May 22, 2017 Leaders representing different faiths condemned the attack. Harun Khan, secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said: “This is horrific, this is criminal. May the perpetrators face the full weight of justice both in this life and the next.” The bishop of Manchester, David Walker, said faith leaders in the city were united. “The guilt for last night belongs to the perpetrators and the perpetrators alone – it doesn’t go beyond them,” he told the Today programme. He said the Muslim community was “one with us”, adding: “You will be part of how we together respond to last night.” The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, tweeted his sympathy for the victims: “Terrible incident in Manchester. My thoughts are with all those affected and our brilliant emergency services.” The Liberal Democrat leader, Tim Farron, said: “This is a shocking and horrific attack targeting children and young people who were simply enjoying a concert,” and paid tribute to the emergency services. Sir Richard Leese, leader of Manchester city council, said the incident was “horrifying”, adding: “If it is confirmed this was a terrorist attack it is a monstrous act but also a deeply futile one. Manchester is a proud and strong city and we will not allow those who seek to sow fear and division to achieve their aims. “We give heartfelt thanks to our emergency services for their response and council staff are doing all they can to support.” What happened in Manchester? What we know so far about the attack Read more The metro mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, said: “My heart goes out to families who have lost loved ones, my admiration to our brave emergency services. A terrible night for our great city.” The Manchester Arena has a 21,000 capacity and is one of the largest music venues in Europe. The ambulance service covering Manchester, which is dealing with a significant toll of wounded people, asked people to contact them only if they were in a life-threatening situation because of the “large number of resources” at the incident. Police have released this emergency number for people concerned about loved ones caught up in the incident in Manchester: +44 (0)161 856 9400

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2017/mar/10/older-actors-roles

Stage

2017-03-10T14:24:06.000Z

Lyn Gardner

It's boom time for older actors but how realistic are their roles?

In Sandi Toksvig’s Silver Lining, set in an old people’s home, a woman suffering from dementia sits clutching a box of dildos. They may serve to hint at this character’s past profession, but their real purpose is to raise an easy laugh, playing to the stereotype that old people and sex simply don’t go together. But as shown by a recent report from the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing, those who do continue to be sexually active into their 80s often have greater satisfaction with their sex lives than those in middle age. If Silver Lining unwittingly confirms, rather than subverts, expectations about how older people – particularly women – are seen, then writer Sonja Linden is attempting to make us see them as active sexual beings in Roundelay at Southwark Playhouse. Seventeen going on 70: the play that connects the generations Read more Roundelay is a new version of La Ronde, produced by Linden’s company Visible, whose name makes a pointed statement about older people in society and on our stages. In the evening’s most charged and tender scene, a younger man brings an elderly woman to orgasm. It reminded me of an exquisite moment in Naomi Wallace’s extraordinary One Flea Spare in which a woman, whose disfigured body has been untouched for 35 years by her husband, is brought alive by another man’s fingers. In many ways, Roundelay – which comes wrapped in an awkward circus motif – doesn’t go far enough. Its milieu is resolutely in the polite niceties of the monied middle classes, and apart from that one scene (and a nice moment when a young woman is appalled to discover that her elderly dad has met his new partner on Tinder), it remains quite coy and tasteful about older people and sex. If you want to see something more challenging and outrageous, then Liz Aggiss’s Slap and Tickle, staged in Manchester and Brighton as part of the Sick! festival, is a far more pointed and bawdily funny exploration of what it means to refuse to act your age. Linden says that when she founded Visible at the end of 2012, with the specific aim of making work with older actors, there was very little sign of them taking centre stage. Suddenly there’s a spike. The Lyric Hammersmith, London, is hosting the European premiere of Seventeen, Matthew Whittet’s play – first seen at the Belvoir theatre in Sydney – in which its teenage characters look forward to their lives stretching ahead of them. The trick is that the characters are played by veteran actors in their 70s, adding a layer of poignancy as youth and age fold into one. Their whole life ahead of them … older actors play teenage characters in Seventeen. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian At the National Theatre, Improbable are producing Lost Without Words. It’s inspired by the fact that while older actors may have spent a lifetime playing characters in plays, as they move into their 70s and 80s, it sometimes becomes harder to remember the lines. Lost Without Words allows them to go off script and learn new skills in an evening that will be improvised at every performance. With theatre audiences often containing a significant proportion of retired people, there could be box-office appeal in shows that offer them the chance to see themselves portrayed on stage. But does this current trend represent a move towards greater representation of older people in theatre? It will take far more to bring about lasting change. At a time when theatre is becoming far more aware of its lack of inclusiveness in relation to gender, race and economic and social privilege, ageism is often left out of the diversity conversation. But, as Linden says: “It is undoubtedly a diversity issue. Why squander all that talent and experience when we can use it to offer a different view of older people than the one we so often see?”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/01/young-people-jobless-future-labour-employment-schemes

Opinion

2020-05-01T06:00:16.000Z

Polly Toynbee

Young people face a jobless future – unless ministers learn from the past | Polly Toynbee

This summer, new cohorts of young people will tumble out of their closed-down schools and colleges into a shut-down world of no work. Some half a million will be leaving university, as many more may be leaving school or ending training and further education to emerge into nothingness. If they have lost their entire summer term, they will have had precious little careers advice, most of which was an early victim of austerity cuts anyway. The wealth of research from previous recessions shows that a long spell of early unemployment risks people being scarred for life. Before the virus struck, they might have found jobs that didn’t match their qualifications in pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes – almost all are now closed. On the dole they will join millions of others, many of them young, along with the 1.4 million people newly thrown on to universal credit. The Institute for Fiscal Studies warns that young people are already hardest hit, as under-25s were two and half times more likely to have been working in shut-down sectors: just 5% of those in the top decile of earners have lost jobs. 'Meeting my youth worker is the only time I eat a meal with another person' Read more Here’s a shocking fact hidden by the steep fall in unemployment figures in recent years: there were always at least 800,000 unemployed under-25s adrift – not in education, employment or training (Neets). Many have physical disabilities, illnesses and mental health problems that have been ignored. Many are part of that long tail of lost youth from addicted or violent families; they are care leavers, people with no qualifications pulled into gangs and drugs, and failed by schools and underfunded social services that are unable to pick them up in time. As one employment expert said, “These were the ones we didn’t fix when the sun shone.” Instead of help, they were chased away from claiming benefits by Iain Duncan Smith’s exceptionally punitive Jobcentre-sanctioning regimes demanding they sign in every day. This week the alarm was raised by the Youth Employment Group, a new consortium including the Institute for Employment Studies (IES), the Prince’s Trust and others determined to prevent another lost generation of long-term unemployed people. Tony Wilson, director of the IES, and a former senior DWP researcher, has been watching the weekly vanishing of vacancies in horror: “They are the lowest ever, three times worse than ever before and each week it gets worse.” All sorts of jobs have gone, he says – in accountancy, finance and IT, along with the rest. In a recession, “what kills is not people losing jobs, but the lack of anyone hiring,” says Wilson. It will take a phenomenal government effort to fire up good work programmes. Already Rishi Sunak, the chancellor, has talked this week of winding down the government’s furlough scheme. But what happens next to all the millions of employees who will be cast off? Young people are always at the back of the queue. Ministers have no memory: they deliberately forget anything some other government did. They prefer to reinvent wheels, marking their own thumbprint on schemes, regardless of voluminous evidence on what works. But this time, if they want to prevent unemployment armageddon, they should look back to what Labour did, both with 1997’s new deal for young people and its post-2008 crash rescue programmes. What worked was job guarantees and high-quality training, experienced advisers and subsidies to employers to hire those who were unemployed. One of the most successful was the post-crash Future Jobs Fund, a generous-spirited and popular plan. I followed its progress in detail, interviewing its beneficiaries and employers who took people on. After six months’ intensive help to find work with a personal adviser, people were offered expensive training in almost anything. If still out of work after nine months, any employer taking them on was given a subsidy of £6,500. There were strict conditions, drawn up with the CBI and TUC: no job substitution, no displacing other workers, but the creation of an extra job doing something of benefit to the community. All these Labour-era work programmes were intensively researched. Coronavirus is teaching the UK it's wrong to deride the practical professions Liz Lightfoot Read more The Future Jobs Fund ran for little more than a year before the Tories turned it into a 2010 election weapon. David Cameron abolished it with a flourish; he said it was “expensive, badly targeted and did not work”, an example of Labour over-spending. Not so. Instead his action was an example of his government’s taste for policy-based evidence-making – pick your political policy first and invent the evidence later. Cameron didn’t bother to wait for actual results. The academic evidence supporting the programme – which involved following up all cases and control groups, tracing what became of recipients – emerged a year too late. But it showed this had been an unprecedented success that produced a net gain to the UK: compared with control groups “it had raised the number of unemployed who went into permanent work by a quarter – a phenomenal success”, says Wilson. It saved £7,750 for each participant in extra tax receipts and reduced benefit bills. There is plentiful research on other schemes, too: the successful German Kurzarbeit (“short-time work”) scheme offers a way to turn furloughing into a part-time work subsidy. Look back, too, at Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal for how governments can invest to employ: there was no lack of urgent public works after a decade of neglect. But above all learn from the best of Labour’s programmes. Rebrand them as Boris bonuses or whatever, deny their Labour origins, but use the high-grade evidence for what works to help save another generation from the lifelong damage of extensive unemployment. Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/10/mean-girls-gifs-international-relations

Media

2018-06-10T12:00:03.000Z

Sam Wolfson

You can't sit with us': how Mean Girls and gifs became part of global diplomacy

This week, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ordered preparations to be made to begin enriching uranium if the 2015 nuclear deal collapses completely. It’s a move that could further destabilise relations between Iran and the west and begin a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. The ayatollah followed up with tweets saying Israel was a “cancerous tumour” that must be “removed and eradicated”. How did the Israeli embassy in the United States respond to this potential doomsday scenario? With a Regina George gif from Mean Girls: pic.twitter.com/1dRRE7Nv1s — Embassy of Israel (@IsraelinUSA) June 4, 2018 It’s the latest case of countries acting like warring reality TV stars, using gifs and memes to send “shade” across borders. I’m a sucker for a good meme, but are they degrading our politics? Rhik Samadder Read more Take the Crimean peninsula, where armed conflict has been simmering between Ukrainian and Russian forces since 2014. The war has often been bloody, but online, the countries have been sparring in more jovial terms. Last month, the official national Twitter accounts of the respective countries were arguing over who could lay claim to the 11th-century French monarch Anne de Kiev. Annoyed that @Russia was claiming that a monarch born in Kiev was Russian, @Ukraine posted a gif taken from an episode of The Simpsons in which the Russian ambassador to the UN flicks around a “Russia” nameplate to read “Soviet Union”. You really don't change, do you? pic.twitter.com/HDfS9A8jWZ — Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) May 30, 2017 It’s not the first time Ukraine has used TV gifs to wind up Russia. When the country expelled 13 Russian diplomats following the Salisbury attack in the UK, in which a former KGB agent and his daughter were poisoned, Ukraine enlisted the support of The Master from Doctor Who to wave them on their way. Ukraine expels 13 @Russia diplomats in coordinated effort with 14 EU member states and U.S. condemning #Salisbury attack and poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia pic.twitter.com/VSvaAchaNO — Ukraine / Україна (@Ukraine) March 26, 2018 The Russian embassy in London is perhaps the most ruthless when it comes to the weaponising of memes. Not only does it mock the British government with gags about how frosty relations are, but it also has a “diplomatic club” – a fan club of sorts whose members are asked to retweet the account’s posts. In return, they can win prizes and potential receptions at the embassy. Essentially, the embassy uses fans to promote its cheap jokes so they reach a wider audience. The temperature of 🇷🇺 🇬🇧 relations drops to ➖2️⃣3️⃣, but we are not afraid of cold weather. pic.twitter.com/mand9YyoaE — Russian Embassy, UK (@RussianEmbassy) March 14, 2018 These tweets are obviously silly, but does that mean they shouldn’t be taken seriously? Are they just outbursts from low-level government employees blowing off steam – or do we have to see them as serious public statements? These are questions the US has had to grapple with every time Donald Trump picks up his phone, and some have argued that it’s better to ignore the president’s tweets and focus on his actions. But Constance Duncombe, a lecturer in international relations at Monash University who has written papers on the role of social media in modern diplomacy, says we can’t ignore what happens online. “We should take Twitter outbursts seriously, either as considered diplomatic signalling or as a personal response to feeling the image of one’s state has been tarnished or undermined,” she says. “Diplomacy is not always about maintaining a polite demeanour, and diplomats will deploy subtle insults or snubs to bolster their national image or to manage the behaviour of their counterparts.” What’s changed, she argues, is how public these outbursts have become. Settling scores in an accessible, cultural language, viewable to all, sends a clear message that might otherwise be difficult to project. “Using pop culture images, memes and gifs frames insults through humour or sarcasm, making the diplomat or state leader’s views instantly accessible and allowing its meaning to travel beyond the immediate interpersonal or institutional interaction.” Not everyone is a natural at such exchanges. After Trump repeatedly tweeted about how awful the Paris climate accord was and even suggested the cold east coast could “use a little global warming”, the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, couldn’t quite match his bombast. .@realDonaldTrump please don't change the (political) climate for the worse. — Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) June 1, 2017 Perhaps Tusk should be applauded for maintaining a semblance of political demeanour. Or perhaps the only way to win in this new world is to fight fire with fire and he should have repurposed another Mean Girls quote: “The world is getting hot. It might even be hotter than Regina George.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/oct/07/event-mainstreaming-new-economic-models-alternatives-capitalism-new-york

Guardian Sustainable Business

2015-10-07T11:08:04.000Z

Tess Riley

Mainstreaming new economic models - New York event

A growing number of individuals and organisations are questioning an economy based on limitless growth. There are two broad reasons, they argue, why such an economy is doomed to fail: firstly it exploits the people and depletes the resources it relies on to survive; secondly it is accompanied by unacceptable – even unworkable – levels of inequality, financial instability and social unrest. From China’s stumbling stock markets to European austerity, global disruptions are leading to the emergence of new economic movements. The rise of anti-austerity parties such as Podemos in Spain and Syriza in Greece is just one example. While particular communities, political groups and businesses may have adopted economic models that prioritise people, the environment and greater social justice, a key issue is how these models might be scaled up. Our panel: Chair - Marc Gunther, editor at large, Guardian Sustainable Business US Saskia Sassen, Robert S. Lynd professor of sociology and co-chair of The Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University Hunter Lovins, president, Natural Capitalism Solutions Vincent Stanley, director of philosophy, Patagonia Ann Herpel, general coordinator, Park Slope Food Coop We’ll discuss: What alternative economic models are out there? Who is putting them into practice? What are their risks and opportunities? What is the potential of grassroots activity to create meaningful change Do these models have the potential to scale? Where next? Event information: Thursday 12 November 2015, 2.30pm-5pm The Conrad New York, 102 North End Avenue, New York, NY 10282 This is a free event. Please be aware that the Guardian will not cover travel or accommodation expenses for attendees. Registration for this event is now closed. Many thanks to everyone who has shown interest and we look forward to meeting those we have sent confirmation emails to.

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/29/brexit-meltdown-50p-coins-with-31-october-date-to-be-recycled

Politics

2019-10-29T15:38:55.000Z

Phillip Inman

Brexit meltdown: 50p coins with 31 October date to be recycled

The 50p coins minted to commemorate Brexit on 31 October are to be “recycled”, the Treasury has confirmed. The decision comes after ministers agreed last week to “pause” production of the special-edition coin by the Royal Mint because of concerns that plans to leave the EU at the end of the month were unlikely to be fulfilled. It is understood that thousands of coins with Thursday’s date on them will be melted down and the metal kept aside until the next Brexit date is agreed. A Treasury spokesman said: “We will still produce a coin to mark our departure from the EU.” The coins were supposed to mark Britain’s departure at the end of the month but the Treasury told the Royal Mint to begin stockpiling last week. Officials waited before making a final decision about the coins until the EU heads of state agreed an extension to the Brexit deadline and it was clear that parliament would prevent the UK from crashing out without a deal on 31 October. Once an extension was agreed on Monday and No 10 had made it clear its preference was to have a general election, officials were given the all clear to prepare for a future Brexit date. About 3m coins were due to be ready to go into circulation under plans put in place by the chancellor, Sajid Javid. The coins bore the inscription “Peace, prosperity and friendship with all nations”, above the leave date: 31 October 2019. Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk The cost of designing and producing commemorative coins was met by the Mint out of its own revenues, the Treasury said, and the costs of recycling would also be met by the Mint. There was speculation that the thousands of coins minted so far could fetch a premium on the 50p cover price, possibly selling for as much as £800 each. However, Brexit coins bearing the October date “will now be recycled”, the Treasury said. Javid’s predecessor, Philip Hammond, had planned a limited edition of about 10,000 commemorative coins to be sold to collectors for £10 each in time for the first deadline on 29 March.

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https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2018/feb/23/bawa-garba-case-stronger-nhs-safety-culture

Healthcare Professionals Network

2018-02-23T14:26:43.000Z

Richard Vize

Can the Bawa-Garba case result in a stronger NHS safety culture?

The manslaughter conviction and subsequent erasure from the medical register of paediatrician Hadiza Bawa-Garba has opened up a schism over healthcare safety that will harm patients if it is not resolved quickly. On one side is the jury, which gave a 10:2 majority verdict for gross negligence manslaughter over the death of six-year-old Jack Adcock in 2011; the General Medical Council (GMC), which wanted Bawa-Garba struck off; and the high court, which backed the GMC. On the other side is the Medical Practitioners Tribunal, which suspended her for a year, arguing that erasure would be disproportionate; the GMC’s own regulator, which found serious flaws in its arguments; the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who has expressed deep unease about the case; and most – but not all – grassroots medical opinion, which is appalled by the implications of her conviction and striking off. Bawa-Garba was found guilty after the jury deliberated for five days. Nurse Isabel Amaro was also found guilty. The medical tribunal subsequently suspended the doctor rather than strike her off, pointing to “multiple systemic failures” that contributed to mistakes in the child’s care and noting her good record before and since. The GMC then went to the high court to overturn the tribunal’s decision, arguing it was insufficient to protect the public. The high court agreed. Bawa-Garba is appealing, backed by a crowdfunding campaign, which has raised more than £300,000. We are all Hadiza Bawa-Garba. Any doctor could make the same mistake Read more In a document released to HSJ, the Professional Standards Authority – the regulators’ regulator – attacked key elements of the GMC’s rationale for pursuing erasure. Crucially, it concluded that the GMC’s claim it had no choice but to appeal because the tribunal was effectively unpicking the criminal court’s conviction was “without merit given the established case law”. It cited a supreme court ruling that said a court should treat the decisions of a professional disciplinary committee with “diffidence”. The GMC has come a long way from being dominated by doctors and seeing its role as overseeing the rules of the medical club to being a body with strong lay representation dedicated to protecting the interests of patients. But its aggressive and confrontational approach to the complex safety issues laid bare in this tragedy risks undermining the public confidence in healthcare it believes it is protecting. There are two key reasons this case has stirred such apprehension and anger among doctors. The first is that the circumstances in which Bawa-Garba was working are, for many, a typical day in the NHS: the IT system was down, there were staff shortages, she was covering multiple wards, she worked a 13-hour shift, the usual consultant was away, the covering consultant had other duties. Second is the perception that Bawa-Garba’s willingness to reflect on how she had handled Jack Adcock’s care provided ammunition that was used against her, notwithstanding that her reflective diary was not a formal part of the evidence in her trial. That perception risks annihilating years of work to create a culture of openness and transparency among clinicians to enable the NHS to learn from mistakes. Liverpool NHS scandal shows how culture of denial harms patients Read more There is now a frantic scramble to try to minimise the damage and form a coherent response that maintains the confidence of the medical profession and the public. Hunt and the GMC have launched separate reviews into how gross negligence manslaughter is applied to the NHS. Under pressure from the BMA and following extensive coverage in the BMJ, the GMC has pledged that it will never ask doctors under investigation to provide their reflective statements and is pushing for NHS organisations to put more robust systems in place through which staff can report safety concerns. Managers have been reassuring staff that candour about mistakes will not invite punishment. It is possible that this mess will result in a stronger safety culture and a more proportionate use of sanctions. The use of gross negligence manslaughter against a clinician should be reserved for only the most extreme cases. The GMC should base decisions on the facts of a case rather than how it thinks it will play with the public. The values and actions of NHS leaders at every level need to promote a culture of speaking up safely. But above all, of course, clinicians, managers and politicians need to confront the system, culture and resourcing shortcomings that create the conditions for catastrophic avoidable errors. Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views If you’re looking for a healthcare job or need to recruit staff, visit Guardian Jobs

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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2008/mar/20/2

Film

2008-03-20T11:58:00.000Z

Lyn Gardner

Obituary: Paul Scofield

On stage, the actor Paul Scofield, who has died aged 86, was braver than a lion. Off stage this genial man kept his private life quiet as a mouse. This might have made him a frustrating and disappointing subject for interviewers and biographers, but it ensured he was always celebrated for his talent never just as a celebrity. It is almost impossible to think of an actor for whom the term "luvvie" would be more inappropriate. As Richard Eyre, the former artistic director of the National Theatre, who tempted Scofield back to the theatre to play John Gabriel Borkman at the NT in 1996, observed: "It is hard not to be Pollyannaish about Paul because he is such a manifestly good man, so humane and decent, and curiously void of ego - all the pride he has is channelled through the thing he does brilliantly. He has a very powerful personality, but it is not there as a parallel idiosyncrasy." He was born in Sussex to the wife of the headmaster of the Hurstpierpoint village school. He was 13 when he discovered acting at the Vardean school for boys in Brighton, where he was considered an academic no-hoper. He donned a blonde wig for his first role as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet and his natural talent and easy manner on stage won him further starring roles, including Rosalind in As You Like It. There was never any doubt that he was bound for a career in the theatre and in 1939, aged 17, he left school to begin his training at Croydon repertory theatre. The war intervened, but Scofield was declared unfit for service due to a toe defect that prevented him from wearing military boots. With the Croydon school closed, Scofield moved to the London mask theatre and when two of the teachers, Eileen Thorndike (sister of the famous actor Sybil) and Herbert Scott, decided to evacuate the school to Devon and run it as a repertory theatre, Scofield went with them. Here he began his training in earnest playing a succession of roles many of which would not have come his way so early but for the war. Although not yet 20, his performances got him noticed. A local critic was impressed, declaring: "One would hesitate to put any limits to what this actor is going to be able to do as he grows older." There were indeed no limits, except perhaps those he set on himself in the later part of his career, which meant that there were fewer stage appearances than one might have wished. In an interview Scofield himself once declared: "As an actor I don't admit to any limitations. In rehearsal one comes up against apparently insuperable barriers, but if one can imaginatively get past them, overreach one's natural reach, it is astonishing how elastic one can become. I've got to go not so far as I can, but as far as is needed. It's up to somebody else to say if I've made a fool of myself." Scofield, more craggily noble in appearance than handsome, always looked more mature than he was (he once said that he had bags under his eyes by the age of 17) and even at this tender age his features had a timeless rather than matinee idol appearance that allowed him to play parts intended for actors much older. But it was his voice that marked him out. It already had the sonority and "iron sweetness" that the film director Fred Zinnemann, who directed Scofield in his Oscar-winning performance as Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons (1966), called "a Rolls Royce being started up." The critic JC Trewin once described Scofield's voice as "sunlight on a broken column". This was not to say that a man who became one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of all time always found speaking verse easy. Later in life he was to admit that in his early career he had thought finding the sense of the verse was enough, and that it was only later he realised the crucial importance of rhythm. Touring the country giving performances in munitions factories and other venues lead to him coming to rest briefly, in 1942, at Birmingham Rep, a theatre that was to play a major part in career. Here he was an exceptional Horatio in Hamlet and also met his future wife, the actor Joy Parker, who was cast as Ophelia. The two married in 1943, and it was his contentment with married and family life that soon followed that gave Scofield the grounding that ensured that he never became too full of himself or saw acting as too glamorous. Acting, he once opined, was just "my job". It was through family, not career, that Scofield defined himself. Once when asked how he would like to be remembered, he replied: "If you have a family, that is to be remembered." After the war he returned to Birmingham Rep, one of the most vibrant theatres in the country under the guidance of the renowned Barry Jackson. Again, a huge number of roles followed quickly from Konstantin in The Seagull to a memorably bombastic Mr Toad in Toad of Toad Hall. It was at Birmingham that Scofield also met a young 20-year-old director called Peter Brook. who was just starting out on his career. In subsequent years the two men were to be crucial to each other's futures and reputations. Brook was the first modern director and in Scofield, whose still presence on stage eschewed the flamboyance of an earlier generation, he found the first great modern actor. As Peter Hall was to observe, Scofield's talent was "a sulphurous passion" and his acting offered the post-war British theatre "an entirely new note" that set him apart from the Oliviers, Gielguds and Richardsons who came before. Brook's Hamlet (1955), which became known as the Moscow Hamlet because of its run in the USSR where Scofield was the first English-speaking actor to play the role since 1917, was truly a Hamlet for a generation; although Scofield had already played the role to considerable acclaim in 1948 for director Michael Benthall at Stratford. Harold Hobson declared that he had "never seen a Hamlet more shot through with the pale agony of irresolution." (In 1990, Scofield came full circle and played the Ghost in Zefferelli's film of Hamlet, starring Mel Gibson in the title role.) Scofield had been enticed to Stratford with Jackson and Brook in 1946 and began a long association with the RSC. It was around this time that he also began working in radio, a medium that he adored and which was the perfect vehicle for his beautiful voice. Even in later life when he deserted the theatre for long periods he continued to appear in BBC radio plays and do many readings, attracted by both the quality and the anonymity that the medium offered. It was where he did some of his very greatest work. Film never had the same appeal for him. Hollywood frequently beckoned from as early as the late 1940s and Darryl Zanuck on seeing a Scofield screen test declared: "That actor! The best I've seen since John Barrymore." In the early years and with a young family, Scofield had no intention of decamping to Los Angeles and by the time he was an established star in the British theatre he had seen what Hollywood had done to some of his contemporaries including Richard Burton, a young actor with a classical talent that Scofield recognised when he admitted that he worried that "he'd get to King Lear before me". In the end it was no contest. Scofield first tackled the role aged just 40 at Stratford in 1962 in a Peter Brook production described by Kenneth Tynan as "a mighty philosophical farce" enacted "in a world without gods, with no possibility of hopeful resolution." Of Scofield's Lear he declared: "You will never see such another." The production toured to ecstatic notices around the world, and a film version was made in 1969. Thirty-three years later Scofield returned to the role of Lear in a superb production for Radio Three. In the end Scofield's entire work on film amounted to less than 20 roles, and although it was clearly not his natural milieu - he told his biographer Garry O'Connor that he disliked the intrusiveness of the camera - his best performances were magnificent. He deservedly won the Oscar for Sir Thomas More in A Man For All Seasons, a role in which he had already triumphed onstage. He didn't turn up to collect the Oscar and it was posted to him from Hollywood and got broken in transit which didn't worry the actor in the slightest. Twenty years later he got another Oscar nomination for his role as the upstanding Mark Van Doren in Robert Redford's Quiz Show, a film that brought him to the attention of a younger generation who had never had the opportunity to see him on stage. Two years later he played Judge Danforth in Nicholas Hytner's screen version of Arthur Miller's The Crucible and was quite the best thing in it. The stage, however, was his home for the 1950s to the 1970s, although as that decade progressed his appearances became more infrequent. His choices were always eclectic, ranging from the great classical roles to the musical Expresso Bongo (1958) and even a Jeffrey Archer play Exclusive in 1989. Away from the classical repertoire his greatest successes were as the whiskey-soaked priest in a stage adaptation of Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory, a part that he had to dig hard inside himself to find, and which Laurence Olivier, never one to be generous to other actors and potential rivals, declared: "the best performance I can remember seeing." Other notable roles were as Alan West in Christopher Hampton's Savages (1973) and as the envious Salieri, in Peter Shaffer's Amadeus directed by Peter Hall at the National Theatre in 1979. The latter was a triumph and Scofield could have gone with it to New York. Instead, he chose to stay at the National and play Othello, a role he had already made his own on radio in a 1972 production by John Tydeman who directed much of the actor's best radio work. It was from around the time of Othello at the National that Scofield's stage appearances began to become more infrequent. Although some TV appearances, most particularly the title role in a serial adaptation of Martin Chuzzlewit on BBC TV in 1994, brought him to wid er attention, his stage appearances were few and far between. When he did appear on stage he dazzled even in old age. In 1992 he played Captain Shotover in Trevor Nunn's production of Heartbreak House in the West End, and he played John Gabriel Borkman, the dishonoured banker, in Ibsen's play at the National in 1996. It was, declared the Guardian's Michael Billington, "his finest performance since King Lear" adding that "Scofield's greatness lies in the way he reveals the private turmoil behind the posturing facade." His final stage appearance was at the Almeida in 2001 when he read the love letters that Anton Chekhov wrote to the actor Olga Knipper, who later became his wife. It was full circle for Scofield who had met the then frail 86-year-old Knipper when he had played Hamlet in Moscow all those years previously. It was theatre's loss that Scofield performed so infrequently on stage during the last 30 years of his life, but perhaps he would not have been such a great actor if he had had more of a need to perform. For many actors, it is a flaw in their characters or some damage to their personality that makes them actors in the first place. This was patently not the case with Scofield who did not take his acting home with him and clearly found as much contentment with his family and pottering in his Sussex garden in Balcombe as he did playing the great roles. This did not demean either, but only added to the sense of an actor whose still quiet centre was not a posture, but the real thing. He was made a CBE in 1956, rejected a knighthood but accepted being made a Companion of Honour in 2001. His greatest honour, however, was in giving a great deal of pleasure to the theatre-going public. His wife, a son and a daughter survive him. Brian Baxter writes: With uncharacteristic prescience, Bafta crowned Paul Scofield as best newcomer for his screen debut in That Lady. It was 1955, Scofield was 33 and his role as the elderly King Philip II of Spain had been expanded at the instigation of producer Darryl F Zanuck. Three years later came Carve Her Name With Pride, playing the colleague who loves Violette Szabo, in a clichéd but decent biopic of the second world war heroine. Despite a preference for theatre, he worked steadily on screen and, excepting Michael Winner's zoom-laden Scorpio (1973), showed a commitment beyond a desire to pay school fees. Another war story initiated Scofield into the ways of big budget megalomania. He claimed that he was unsure what movie directors wanted of a classical actor, but John Frankenheimer, who had taken over The Train (1964) from Arthur Penn, saw him as the perfect foil to the athletic Burt Lancaster. Scofield played a fanatical German officer intent on stealing a train load of art treasures; Lancaster a French railway worker out to defeat the Nazi's plan. It was a logistically ambitious movie and a contrast to Scofield's next - most famous - film, in which he recreated his triumph as Sir Thomas More. In A Man For All Seasons (1966), his genius was in redefining More in a perfectly nuanced screen performance. Resisting other offers, he played a cameo in Peter Brook's anti Vietnam-war movie Tell Me Lies (1968), then took the intriguing role of the thwarted employer in Bartleby (1971). An adaptation of a Herman Melville story about a clerk who proves obstinate and unyielding, it provided a memorable two-hander for Scofield and John McEnery. For Brook, he reprised his Aldwych theatre success in King Lear (1969). But the movie, shot in Denmark, proved glum and misguidedly busy, redeemed only by Scofield. Scorpio followed it, when, playing a Russian agent, he was reunited with Lancaster. Also in 1973, he co-starred with Katharine Hepburn in Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance, directed with theatrical reverence by Tony Richardson. Scofield was off the screen for more than a decade - returning with Summer Lightning (1984). On television he enjoyed greater success, playing Karenin in a sturdy Anna Karenina and Otto Frank in The Attic: The Hiding of Anne Frank (1988). He was attracted to the ecological drama, When the Whales Came (1989), playing an elderly eccentric, then on familiar ground as the French king in Kenneth Branagh's rousing Henry V. He stayed with Shakespeare for Franco Zeffirelli's underrated Hamlet (1990), where Scofield's mannered and intriguing voice suited The Ghost to perfection. That spirited work ushered in a busy period, including Utz, from Bruce Chatwin's novel and the prestige mini-series Martin Chuzzlewit. More interestingly he narrated the first of two docu-dramas by Patrick Keiller. In London (1994), he wryly commented on the state of the capital, as observed by a group exploring the city. Three years later Keiller made Robinson in Space, another jaundiced view of present-day Britain where Scofield's voice, memorably described as rusty, provided another tellingly oblique commentary. In contrast, he returned to the mainstream in Robert Redford's factually based Quiz Show (1994), as the acerbic father to a fraudulent game-show contestant. It gained him an Oscar nomination as best supporting actor. Scofield was memorably cast as Judge Danforth in Nicholas Hytner's treatment of The Crucible (1996), Arthur Miller's play about the 17th-century Salem trials. The actor's slightly imperious manner and timeless face suited period roles. Equally, his distinctive voice added lustre to the TV version of Animal Farm (1999), as Boxer. · David Paul Scofield, actor, born January 21 1922; died March 19 2008

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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/27/us-vaccine-effort-derailed

US news

2021-09-27T06:00:33.000Z

Jessica Glenza

How the US vaccine effort derailed and why we shouldn’t be surprised

Dr Claudia Fegan’s patient was a congenial, articulate and unvaccinated 27-year-old deli worker who contracted Covid-19 and became so ill he required at-home oxygen treatments. Now recuperating, he told his doctor his 64-year-old boss had been vaccinated, and she too was sickened with a “breakthrough” case. However, she only had mild symptoms. “He said, ‘Wow, I really should have done that,’” said Fegan, about getting vaccinated. Instead, he was sickened in the Delta-driven fourth wave of the pandemic, as he waited to see “how it played out”. The story is one example of how the United States purchased enough vaccines to inoculate its entire population, and even potentially embark on a round of booster shots, but health professionals found lacking another essential element essential to a successful vaccination campaign: trust. That lack of confidence garnered the United States an unenviable distinction – in mid-September it became the least vaccinated member of the world’s seven most populous and wealthy democracies, or “G7,” which includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan. Now, a surge of the Delta Covid-19 variant has killed on average more than 2,000 Americans per day and forced the US death toll past the symbolic milestone of 675,000 deaths, the estimated number of Americans who perished in the 1918 influenza pandemic, even as hospitalization and death from Covid-19 are largely preventable. A protester holds a placard during the anti-vaccine, anti-mask mandate Rally for Freedom on the steps of Pennsylvania state capitol in Harrisburg on 29 August. Photograph: Paul Weaver/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock The cause of flagging vaccine uptake in the United States has flummoxed national health authorities, who in May loosened mask guidance in hopes it would encourage more people to get vaccinated, in July again recommended masks because of the Delta variant, and hoped August’s full FDA approval of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine would increase vaccine mandates. In a September speech, just days before the US slipped behind Japan, Joe Biden channeled national exasperation: “Many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated even though the vaccine is safe, effective and free.” He called for vaccine mandates affecting 100 million Americans, two-thirds of US workers. However, all these strategies have failed to encourage more than 900,000 Americans per day to get vaccinated in recent weeks, far lower than nearly 3m doses administered per day in April, the height of the vaccination drive. Finally, in mid-September, the country’s slow progress allowed Japan to surpass the US both in terms of vaccination rate per 100,000 people and percentage of the total population with one or both shots. There are very specific, well-documented reasons that Americans are hesitant to take vaccines. They vary from the troubling way the medical system treats people of color, to vaccine misinformation campaigns overwhelmingly popular in conservative circles, to logistical challenges. But population health researchers, whose work considers how society as a whole is faring, said low vaccine uptake may be looked at another way: as the predictable outcome of a campaign subject to entrenched social forces that have diminished American health and life expectancy since the 1980s. “When I look at this I do see a very familiar pattern,” said Dr Steven Woolf, a prominent population health researcher at Virginia Commonwealth University. “When Operation Warp Speed came out I thought I was just seeing a modern example of this old problem where the scientific community developed the vaccine at ‘warp speed,’ but the implementation system for getting it out into the community was inadequate.” Woolf calls this “breakthrough without follow-through”. In that light, the plodding vaccination campaign could be seen as one more aspect of the American “health disadvantage”. The phrase describes a paradox: the US houses among the most advanced medical and research centers in the world, but performs poorly in basic health metrics such as maternal mortality and infant mortality; accidental injury, death and disability; and chronic and infectious disease. “So much of the whole issue of social determinants of health and the US ‘health disadvantage’ is rooted in a lack of trust and a lack of trustworthiness in many parts of our society,” said Laudan Y Aron, a senior fellow at the Urban Institute’s health policy center. A yellow flag with a snake at a protest against a recently imposed Covid vaccine mandate for some public employees in the state of Washington on 28 August. Photograph: Toby Scott/SOPA Images/REX/Shutterstock An important piece of research in this area is a 2013 report by a panel chaired by Woolf, directed by Aron, and funded by the National Institutes of Health. Called US Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health, the report describes how Americans spend more than double per person on healthcare compared with 17 peer nations, but rank near the bottom in health outcomes. The phenomenon is described as “pervasive”, affecting all age groups up to 75, with life expectancy declining especially for women. In just a few examples, Americans have the highest infant mortality, children are less likely to live to age five, and the US has the worst rates of Aids among peer nations. The US also has the highest or among the highest rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity, chronic lung disease and disability. Together, these risk factors culminate in Americans having the worst or second worst probability of living to age 50. Americans know intuitively that their healthcare is expensive, frustrating and often unfair. Remarkably, even amid the pandemic, roughly 30 million Americans went without health insurance, exposing them to potentially ruinous medical debt. “It’s also really interesting how often the messaging is: talk to your doctor, talk to someone you trust,” said Aron. “Yet, we don’t really acknowledge how many people don’t have a doctor, or a doctor they have a trust-based relationship with.” “Even the term ‘vaccine hesitancy’ kind of rubs me the wrong way,” she said. “It’s a term that really puts the onus on the individual and the choices he or she is making,” as opposed to focusing on the systemic problems driving poor vaccine uptake. But researchers such as Woolf have found healthcare alone is not to blame for Americans’ poorer health relative to peer nations. Rather, as with the vaccination drive, disparities are driven by a diverse range of forces, from the built environment to a faltering education system to racism and inequality. Even people relatively well insulated from societal ills live shorter, sicker lives than their counterparts in Europe. People want to have the freedom not only to allow themselves to die from a disease, but increase the risk of their relatives and friends to die from the disease Dr Steven Woolf “That is, Americans with healthy behaviors or those who are white, insured, college-educated, or in upper-income groups appear to be in worse health than similar groups in comparison countries,” the 2013 report found. Research since this report was published has elaborated on these findings, notably recent research showing that American life expectancy has declined while peer nations saw continued gains. “To some extent, we feel that reflects the tendency of Americans to reject the role of government, and insist on their freedoms,” said Woolf. However, it is an attitude that can be taken to extremes, “and there’s no better example than Covid-19”. These societal forces transcend vaccine messaging, resulting in lower overall vaccination rates in the US, and a population whose resistence appears to have hardened. “People want to have the freedom not only to allow themselves to die from a disease, but increase the risk of their relatives and friends to die from the disease,” he concluded. Nevertheless, public health workers across the country are not giving up. Fegan and counterparts at Cook County Health are involved in time-consuming outreach, going door-to-door to vaccinate people and having “kitchen table conversations” where there is space to ask, What are you afraid of? “The way you build trust comes over time,” said Fegan, who is national coordinator for Physicians for a National Health Program, which advocates for a single-payer healthcare system as in other developed countries. “The people who want to get vaccinated are vaccinated,” said Fegan. Now, the long campaign ahead “is, again, meeting patients where they are”.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2008/jan/17/match.liverpool

Football

2008-01-17T00:20:06.000Z

Sachin Nakrani

Football: FA Cup, third-round replay: Havant & Waterlooville 4-2 Swansea

An extraordinary match has led to an extraordinary outcome for Havant & Waterlooville. The Conference South side eliminated Swansea City, the leaders of League One, on a fervent night in Hampshire, scoring four and making a mockery of the 83 league places that separate the two sides. The reward for the only semi-professional club left in the competition is a fourth-round tie at Liverpool. Victory against the five-times European champions would stretch the most excitable imagination, but this Cup run is already testing reason - Swansea were their second league scalp in the competition, after victory at Notts County in the second round - and, with Liverpool wobbling, even a draw would make legends out of players whose day jobs range from teacher to taxi driver. "A dream had been achieved. I'm so proud to be manager of this team tonight," said Havant's Shaun Gale. "We were brilliant throughout. Great opportunities like playing at Anfield in the FA Cup only come once in a lifetime and I told the players that you've got to grab them when they come. That's what they have done." Havant had promised in the build-up that they would not allow Swansea to play the passing game which would have almost certainly seen them hammered out of sight, and they stuck to their word. They charged at their more illustrious visitors from the outset, tactics which had earned them a replay at the Liberty Stadium 12 days ago, a match which also saw two men sent off and 15 become involved in an on-pitch brawl. After four minutes Havant took the lead. Swansea's defence failed to clear a corner and when the ball was crossed back in Gary Monk, the Swansea captain, under pressure from Richard Pacquette, headed into his own goal. Swansea would have been further agitated by the fact that both the corner and the cross for the goal were put in by Brett Poate, who had been sent off in the first tie for a lunge on Andrea Orlandi. Poate's suspension had not been dealt with in time for this match even though Swansea's usual captain, Alan Tate, was banned after being sent off in the original match for his part in the subsequent brawl. Swansea looked shellshocked by the goal and their passing became more erratic. In contrast Havant's confidence grew stronger. The second arrived on 25 minutes and once again Poate was involved. His corner was cleared to the edge of the box, where Jamie Collins was waiting. He appeared to control the ball with an arm before striking a shot low through a crowd of defenders and past Dorus de Vries in the Swansea goal. The 4,000 fans packed into the ground were in raptures and it only got better for them when, on 37 minutes, their team made it 3-0. Rocky Baptiste, the top scorer, tapped in from close range after Swansea had failed to deal with Pacquette's mishit shot from the right. Swansea got a lifeline a minute later when Guillem Bauza scored from long range and could have reduced the lead further when, after 41 minutes, they were awarded a penalty for a foul on the Spaniard by Jay Smith. However, Leon Britton's shot was well saved by Kevin Scriven. Three minutes into the second half Jason Scotland tapped in from close range for the Swans after Havant had failed to clear Andy Robinson's cross from the left, but Havant re-established their two-goal lead on 65 minutes when the substitute Tom Jordan headed in from close range. Once again it was Poate who crossed the ball. Swansea came forward in a desperate search for a goal but it never materialised and Havant hung on for the greatest result in their 10-year history. "If they had scored the penalty that could have been the turning point," Gale added. "I had to give the hardest team talk of my life at half-time because at 3-1 you don't know what will happen." The Anfield match will mean much for Havant, 12th in their table and 123 places below Liverpool: £200,000 in TV rights and gate receipts for starters. "If somebody offered me a million pounds not to lead the side out at Anfield I'd seriously turn them down," Collins said. "To play against Steven Gerrard and in front of the Kop is something money cannot buy."

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2020/apr/01/the-guardian-view-on-art-in-the-time-of-coronavirus-labours-of-love

Global

2020-04-01T18:45:32.000Z

Editorial

The Guardian view on art in the time of coronavirus: labours of love

As Britain went into lockdown last week, it did so in dazzling sunshine. Spring was announcing its arrival as an entire nation headed indoors. This sad, unseasonal hibernation seems against nature, but already it is generating its own intense kind of artistic energy. As we sit separated, windows have become sites of reflection and, in a way, release. Tracy Emin, who made her name through minute and unsparing scrutiny of her private landscape, has published a daily diary. It features an image of the artist submerged beneath suds in the bath, knees pointing to the brilliant blue sky framed in the glass before her. “I’m going to climb out of my horrible little hole,” reads part of the accompanying entry, “and I’m going straight towards the sun.” A collection of art in the time of coronavirus, highlighted by Politico, a website usually devoted to drier fare, includes a painting of a block of flats in Pamplona, Spain. Through one open window, we see a home worker gazing at a screen. In front of another, a neighbour is immersed in a novel. From the sill of a third, a handsome black cat with white whiskers stares out. In Brooklyn, a woman has sketched herself looking out on the New York night. Underneath she writes: “Disconnected from friends, family and the outside world, I feel like I’m nowhere even when I’m right here in my apartment, looking out my window.” Windows are liminal spaces; thresholds connecting inside to outside, and public to private. They offer glimpses of other lives and help place our own in some kind of perspective. At a time when the parameters and scope of each day have shrunk so dramatically, it’s not hard to see why artists are looking at them, as well as through them – particularly when the sights we see at this time of year are so poignant. David Hockney, currently in lockdown in France, has just published, at the request of his friends, 10 portraits of spring in Normandy, having moved there two years ago. Mr Hockney relocated in his 80s specifically to capture the rich display of apple, pear and cherry blossoms that colour the Norman landscape in March and April. This chronicling of rebirth and renewal is another kind of threshold art, celebrating the new, the burgeoning and the yet-to-come. One work devoted to spring daffodils carries the enjoyably belligerent title Do Remember They Can’t Cancel The Spring. Characteristically succinct, Mr Hockney says that the lesson he takes from this extraordinary time is that in life, only food and love truly matter. The source of art, he adds, is love. Ms Emin, in her diary, says something similar in her own style: “I’m going to feel warmth and safety and kindness and all that … AND I WILL BE LOVED BY YOU”. Love, transcending the boundaries of the self, is the ultimate liminal experience. Through our windows, and in our imaginations, its future fulfilment is already being anticipated. Perhaps this awful, eerie spring of 2020 can still be touched by moments of the sublime.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/mar/19/uk-records-warmest-day-of-year-as-mercury-hits-20c-in-scotland

UK news

2022-03-19T20:37:54.000Z

Nadeem Badshah

UK records warmest day of year as mercury hits 20C in Scotland

Saturday was the warmest day of the year yet after parts of the UK saw highs of 20C. The Met Office said the mercury reached 20C in Kinlochewe in north-west Scotland, about 10C above average for this time of year in the area, which surpassed Friday’s high of 17.5C recorded in the West Sussex village of Wiggonholt. It was the first time the mercury had risen to highs of 20C since October, according to forecasters. All four home nations also basked in temperatures well above the average for March. Elsewhere, temperatures reached highs of 15.3C in Castlederg, Northern Ireland; 17.3C in Bridgefoot, Cumbria; and 18C in Valley, Wales. However, the temperatures are forecast to drop on Sunday with highs of 13C expected in Wales, 11C in Scotland and England and 10C in Northern Ireland. Met Office meteorologist Annie Shuttleworth said: “It will be a much cooler day [on Sunday]. It’s still going to be sunny for a lot of people and the winds will be a bit lighter as well, but we’ve got colder air over the UK, so that just means the temperatures won’t get as high. Monday will see slightly cooler and cloudier conditions with some showers possible in south-east England. However, dry weather should prevail everywhere else with sunshine particularly in western areas. Temperatures are forecast to rise on Tuesday and Wednesday, reaching the mid to high teens along with more sunshine and dry conditions. The UK’s highest temperature of the year in 2021 was 32.2C (89.96F) at Heathrow in July.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/feb/14/humza-yousaf-sir-brian-souter-lgbtq-rights

UK news

2024-02-14T15:27:56.000Z

Severin Carrell

Humza Yousaf ‘naive’ about links to evangelical Christian donor, say rights groups

Civil rights groups have accused Humza Yousaf of being “naive” about his links to Sir Brian Souter, the millionaire who funds a network of conservative Christian groups that campaign against gay and women’s rights. The Humanist Society of Scotland (HSS) said Scotland’s first minister faced “serious questions” after it emerged he courted Souter despite his longstanding hostility to equal marriage, abortion rights and trans rights. Souter, formerly a regular donor to the Scottish National party, helped arrange a private business dinner at a boutique hotel in Edinburgh at Yousaf’s request last year, after inviting the first minister to attend a “prayer breakfast” soon after Yousaf won the SNP leadership contest. The co-founder of the Stagecoach transport empire, Souter spent at least £1m unsuccessfully fighting in the early 2000s to keep the rules, known as section 28, that banned teachers from “promoting” gay rights in schools. Over the past three years, Souter has given at least £650,000 to evangelical groups that oppose policies championed by Nicola Sturgeon such as barring protests outside abortion clinics, outlawing conversion practices and protecting trans people in Scotland. These groups also oppose proposals to legalise assisted dying in Scotland that have won all-party backing at Holyrood, including one group with strong evangelical links called Care Not Killing, funded by Souter. Ally Thomson, Scottish director of the pro-assisted dying group Dignity in Dying, said these groups represented a vocal minority with “a track record of opposing personal freedoms such as reproductive rights and equal marriage”. The Guardian has found that Souter has funded two US-based evangelical organisations alleged in the US to have coveredup sexual assaults, discriminated against gay and lesbian members and forced unmarried mothers to give their babies for adoption. The Souter Charitable Trust, which gives away £9m a year on his behalf, bought a chalet resort in the Highlands for the US evangelical group Young Life to hold Christian summer camps and to let out to holidaymakers. Young Life is under investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a US federal agency, after four women alleged it sexually discriminated against them after they reported sexual assaults or harassment by male Young Life members. Young Life declined to comment to US media, citing the EEOC investigation. Young Life has also faced multiple discrimination allegations from LGBTQ+ members for allegedly banning gay couples from its camps, banning lesbians from volunteering, and attacking critics of its conservative stances on marriage and sexuality. There are no suggestions similar allegations about Young Life have emerged in the UK. Young Life has said some people left the organisation “over disagreements with our beliefs and policies” and it welcomes same-sex attracted members if they remain celibate. Souter has also given nearly £100,000 to the UK arm of Teen Challenge, an evangelical group accused of highly coercive conduct with pregnant and gay teenage girls at its residential schools in the US, including forced adoptions, and faced lawsuits there. Teen Challenge has denied these allegations. In 2004, the Welsh government withdrew funding from Teen Challenge’s anti-addiction residential centres because officials believed public money was being used to promote its evangelical Christianity – an allegation Teen Challenge denied. Fraser Sutherland, the chief executive of HSS, said Souter had refused to support the SNP while Sturgeon was leader. Sign up to First Edition Free daily newsletter Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “Voters have a right to know if there is even the smallest chance that Souter’s return could signal a shift towards more regressive, religiously influenced policy positions, as they have never backed or voted for such policies in recent elections,” Sutherland said. Yousaf’s official spokesperson said the first minister was unequivocal in his defence of the SNP’s socially progressive policies such as the trans rights and abortion clinic buffer zones that Souter opposed; he had made it clear he disagreed with Souter on those issues. However, Souter had a “formidable” record as a businessman that the Scottish government was determined to harness to create jobs “regardless of whether or not they share the same views on politics, the constitution, or social policy and equalities issues”. A spokesperson for Souter said he was “unashamedly Christian and contributes to a wide range of secular and faith-based causes, which form the bedrock of a strong, free and civilised society for the good of all”. The spokesperson said Souter had donated more than £100m to more than 13,000 organisations worldwide. Those included “groups that fight malaria, supply daily meals to hungry schoolchildren in Africa, or deliver humanitarian aid to Ukraine and Gaza. He sees this work as part of his Christian duty and has no plans to stop.” Speaking on behalf of Care Not Killing, Prof Kevin Yuill, founder of the recently formed group Humanists Against Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, said Care Not Killing was a secular group, including humanists. “We are delighted to benefit from the funding provided by the Souter Charitable Trust to assist in our central aim of preventing the implementation of legislation which would result in state-sponsored killing through assisted suicide and euthanasia,” he said.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/feb/11/louise-bagshawe-parliament-romantic-novel

Books

2010-02-11T11:37:05.000Z

Alison Flood

Louise Bagshawe running for parliament – and Romantic novel of the year

A romantic thriller by author turned aspiring Conservative MP Louise Bagshawe is in the running to win the Romantic Novel of the Year award. Bagshawe's Passion, about a woman on the run from a kidnap plot, protected by her former husband, has been shortlisted for the UK's only literary prize to reward specifically romantic writing. Bagshawe, who as well as being a bestselling author is also Tory parliamentary candidate for Corby and East Northants, is up against five other titles voted onto the shortlist by a reader panel. "What I particularly like about this year's shortlist is that it covers all the range of romantic fiction," said Katie Fforde, bestselling author and chair of the Romantic Novelists' Association, which runs the award. "It gives you a taste of the broader church of what romantic fiction is." Bagshawe's book provides the thriller element to this year's line-up, Fforde said, "taking you back to the woman-in-jeopardy type novel, which everyone loves but isn't seen as fashionable any more – she's given it a new twist." Rachel Hore's The Glass Painter's Daughter shows romantic fiction's "more literary" edge, Jean Fullerton's A Glimpse at Happiness "is a lovely saga", Santa Montefiore's The Italian Matchmaker "is wonderful foreign travel" and Miranda Dickinson's Fairytale of New York provides the chick lit. "And how can you resist romance and animals?" Fforde added, pointing to Lucy Dillon's tale of the romances which ensue when owners are matched with the abandoned strays from a local dogs' home, Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts. The only male to have been longlisted for the award, Nicholas Sparks, failed to make the shortlist. "Women are better [at romance] on the whole," said Fforde. "Romantic novels don't have to have happy endings, they just have to follow the story of a romance. When I write, they have to have a happy ending, but it isn't by any means necessary. The books can encompass anything – although we haven't got any vampires this year." The winner will now be selected by three independent judges and announced on 16 March, along with the winners of three new prizes that are being introduced to mark the Romantic Novelists' Association's 50th anniversary. These include the People's Choice award, which will see readers voting for their favourite novel from a shortlist of six, and the Rom Com award. "In the past although people have enjoyed romantic comedies they've tended not to win [the best novel prize]. People like a bit of angst in the main award, so we decided to launch an award honouring romantic comedies," said Fforde. Previous winners of the Romantic Novel of the Year prize include Philippa Gregory, Freya North and Jojo Moyes. The shortlist Passion by Louise Bagshawe Fairytale of New York by Miranda Dickinson Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts by Lucy Dillon A Glimpse at Happiness by Jean Fullerton The Glass Painter's Daughter by Rachel Hore The Italian Matchmaker by Santa Montefiore

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2003/oct/30/whatsnew.onlinesupplement

Technology

2003-10-30T03:05:48.000Z

Ashley Norris

What's new, Oct 30

BroadbandSky TV on your PC Sky is offering broadband internet users a taste of satellite TV on their PC with the launch of its SkyScape video portal. The service brings together content such as Sky News clips, which Sky has been streaming freely for a while, alongside premium footage such as Champions League and Premiership football highlights. Other paid-for content includes comedy clips from Paramount and short films from British directors. Sky is offering subscribers free access for a month, after which they'll pay £4 per month or £30 a year to access the service. Non-Sky subscribers pay £5 per month or £40 per year. More details from www.sky.com/skyscape. Double for quids BT will provide a 1 megabit per second (Mbps) ADSL broadband service from November 20, twice the speed of its current broadband service, for any BT phone-line user within 2.5 miles (4 km) of an ADSL-enabled exchange. This is less than the 3.4 mile (5.5 km) range of the 512 kilobit per second (kbps) service. BT Wholesale will charge internet service providers £23 a month per customer, £10 more than for 512 kbps, with £50 for a new connection and £35 for an upgrade. This follows trials which started on October 6. AOL, which took part in BT's trials, will start offering 1Mbps across the country for £39.99 on November 20, but has not decided whether to charge for upgrades. BT's Openworld and broadband services will both offer 1Mbps. Freeserve says it is likely to offer a service, but will run tests until Christmas. BT ADSL availability: www.bt.com/broadband Hardware Sony slims down Sony is set to take on Casio and its best-selling super-slim Exilim digital camera with what it is billing as the thinnest five megapixel snapper. Expected to arrive in the UK in late spring, the CyberShot DSC-T1 packs a 2.5in LCD viewfinder and a Carl Zeiss lens with a 3x optical zoom into a frame just 0.8in thin and 2.4in tall. The camera also shoots moving images, can capture four high-speed burst shots in less than two seconds and saves images on to a Memory Stick Duo card. It is expected to retail for around £450. Also likely to arrive in spring is the replacement for the DSC-U20 and U30 mini budget digital cameras. The DSC-40 has a resolution of two megapixels, but is slightly smaller than predecessors. www.sony.co.uk Media to book Toshiba is to become the first manufacturer to offer a notebook PC running Microsoft's Media Center PC-operating system. Applications, which include TV tuner, personal video recorder with electronic programming guide, Windows Media audio and video playback, can be controlled via a remote control handset. The Satellite P20-504 features a 17in widescreen display, 3.2GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, 512MB of DDR memory and an 80GB hard disk. It goes on sale next week for around £2,300. www.toshiba.co.uk Toughbooks Panasonic has unveiled the latest in its range of Toughbook range of computers - notebook PCs designed to withstand a knock. Both the CF-W2 and CF-T2 feature a semi-ruggedised construction including a high-impact absorbing outer frame and robust magnesium alloy finish. The hard drive is protected by a shock absorber, while the keyboard and touchpad are waterproof. The pair can apparently withstand a drop of around 30 metres. The W2 features a 900Mhz Intel Centrino processor with integrated Wi-Fi facilities, a 12.1in TFT screen, a 40GB hard disk and a battery life of up to seven hours. The T2 has a similar specification in a smaller and lighter frame. Both are on sale for around £1,500. www.panasonic.co.uk Mobile Phones Clamshell to 3 Following the arrival of the Motorola A835 last week, 3 is continuing to expand its handset range with the launch of the NEC e616, due later next month. The e616 is a clamshell phone set to replace 3's original handset, the NEC e606. The new model is slightly smaller and lighter than its predecessor. It features two cameras to enable 3's signature video calling, GPS for location- based services and Java for downloading games and other content. Its 2.2in LCD screen sports 64K colours - the standard for high-end camera phones. It is the first NEC 3G phone with GPRS to enable users to access data content while outside 3's 3G network. www.three.co.uk The X factor Sendo's long-promised smartphone, first mooted in summer 2001, will finally go on sale by the end of the year. The Sendo X was to become the first handset to use Microsoft's Smartphone operating system for mobiles (now known as Windows Mobile 2003). However, disagreements that have ended up in legal battles between Microsoft and Sendo now means it uses the rival Symbian 7 operating system. At 120g, it is a comparatively light, candy bar-style phone. Features include integrated video and still cameras, a RealOne audio player, Bluetooth, POP3 email and full internet access. Its TFT screen, which has a resolution of 176x220 and up to 64K colours, can be customised to give users access to favourite applications or websites. www.sendo.co.uk Mobile gaming Cannon fodder Last year, mobile developer Macrospace released a great turn-based title named Cannons, which took the gameplay of Worms but swapped invertebrates for tanks. Now, it has a multi- player version, Cannons Tournament, allowing up to four players to battle it out over 2.5G or 3G networks. Participants move their vehicles over a mountainous 2D landscape, using height and power controls to aim missiles at opponents. Simple but devilishly addictive - especially when up against opponents as far afield as Singapore and Israel. If you own a Nokia Java phone, download from www.macrospace.com. It's €4.95 a month to play over the air, but you get a complete single player version with your first instalment. Other handsets will be supported soon. Stat of the week: Women and the net 52% of net users in the US are women. But in Europe the net is still male dominated. Sweden and the UK lead the way, with women forming 46 and 44% of the net population. But parity across Europe is not expected until 2010.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/jun/28/muppet-power-rsc-puppet-legends-my-neighbour-totoro-staging-studio-ghibli-fluffy-monsters

Stage

2022-06-28T13:39:09.000Z

Chris Wiegand

Muppet power! RSC uses puppet legends for My Neighbour Totoro staging

Step into the Jim Henson Company’s Los Angeles office and a gang of doozers from Fraggle Rock greets you at the front desk. Fozzie Bear peers out from a filing cabinet, Sesame Street’s Big Bird poses in a giant rococo frame, and one of Maurice Sendak’s wild things squats on a corner cabinet, hairs sprouting from his nose. But among these American puppet idols hanging around the workshop of Henson’s company is an ornament that will delight fans of Japan’s Studio Ghibli. It is the prowling catbus from its 1988 animated film fantasy My Neighbour Totoro. For the uninitiated, that’s exactly what it sounds like: a bus with fluffed-up tail, furry seats and headlight eyes that speeds on to the screen, breaking into a Cheshire grin and giving a wild miaow. That must be one of the most anticipated moments in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s upcoming London stage adaptation, which last month broke the Barbican’s box-office record for sales in one day. Tickets got even hotter when it was announced that Jim Henson’s Creature Shop would be making the puppets. The show’s goateed American puppet master, Basil Twist, relishes the challenge. “I’m glad people call on me to say, ‘How are we going to do this?’” He laughs before jokily inserting his fist into his mouth. Making eyes … work under way in Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. Photograph: Jay P Morgan © RSC I’m here to meet some of the Totoro team but, this being the new normal of theatre-making, Twist has Covid so joins us via laptop. The Creature Shop’s creative supervisor, Peter Brooke, and fabrication supervisor, Scott Johnson, let me rummage through the space where catbus and co will be realised for the stage. There’s one room for mould-making, sculpting and mechanics; another for foam and fabric – the basic materials that made Henson’s superstar Muppets. All around are animatronic contraptions – Brooke and I work the handles of one device to bring a puppet tentacle to startling life. Cables, laptops and a 3D printer are cheek by jowl with glue pots, scissors and brushes, echoing the mix of handmade and digital production techniques used at Ghibli HQ. Although best known for TV and film projects, the Creature Shop has long collaborated on stage productions and will next year bring Henson’s The Dark Crystal to the Royal Opera House, choreographed by Wayne McGregor. Totoro’s puppets are still shrouded in secrecy but Twist feels it’s important to present the magical scenes from a child’s perspective. In the film, sisters Mei and Satsuki move to the countryside with their father while their mother is convalescing. There they discover a world of soot sprites and the whiskered, cuddly forest spirit Totoro, who we first see through Mei’s eyes. The play’s puppetry won’t be confined to the creatures but will inform the whole set design: even the family’s ramshackle house is a puppet. Cuddly … the wood spirit Totoro. Photograph: Walt Disney Pictures/Allstar Joe Hisaishi – who composed the wistful and bewitching music for the movie, which includes an irresistibly upbeat opener (“Hey, let’s go! Hey, let’s go!”) – has been given the blessing of the film’s director Hayao Miyazaki to take the reins of this international collaboration. His music will be played by a band on stage, not hidden in a pit. Totoro’s stage director, Phelim McDermott, says that when he first asked Hisaishi who he had in mind for the puppetry, he expected him to suggest a veteran Japanese master of the bunraku artform. But Hisaishi nominated Twist, an old friend of McDermott’s. Early on, Twist made some Totoro prototypes “out of very humble materials” to show the production’s Japanese partners. “And they got it – not in spite of the humbleness of the materials but because of it,” says Twist. Twist, who studied puppetry traditions in Japan, stresses the tranquil and elliptical nature of Totoro’s storytelling, which contrasts with the more plot-driven western animation style for young audiences. “The first scene where we see Totoro, he’s basically asleep,” says Twist. “He doesn’t even do very much.” There’s a challenge in bringing the film’s meditative pace to the huge Barbican theatre. “It has this mysterious stillness so, for a stage show, it’s like, hmm” – Twist scratches his head like Stan Laurel – “how is that going to work?” ‘Totally into Miss Piggy’ … master puppeteer Basil Twist. Puppetry, Twist suggests, is about “something mysteriously coming to life” so is intrinsically connected to Japan’s Shinto tradition, which recognises the spirits that exist in nature and infuse Totoro’s tale. Mei and Satsuki’s dad talks of a time when trees and people were once friends. It is only the children who can see Totoro and have that special connection to nature. That’s a resonant message amid our climate crisis, although McDermott stresses that the film is never didactic. Twist is known for productions that employ natural elements for their effects. In Symphonie Fantastique, set to Berlioz, fabrics swirled and shimmered in a water tank as if they were sea creatures. Put a piece of fabric in water, he says, “and you really don’t need to do very much and it becomes totally alive. Play a piece of music and it will find itself in the music.” His staging of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring was done with billowing silks and smoke. When Alfonso Cuarón brought him in to work on the look of the Dementors in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Twist created them with fabrics for a flowing effect. “Ultimately they did it all with computers,” he explains, but the happiness-munching monsters’ style came from “screen tests we did with the water and the wind”. As a child, Twist was obsessed with the Muppets and “totally into Miss Piggy”. A shy student, he would do book reports at school with the assistance of his puppets. People assume he has a stage name – after all it captures the eccentric wonder of his shows – but he really is Basil Twist III, a third-generation puppeteer. His grandfather was a big band leader whose act used marionettes of musical stars including Cab Calloway. When Twist was 10, his grandmother gave him those puppets and it “sealed the deal”. Growing up in San Francisco, he had watched puppet shows put on by his mother and her friends at hospitals and birthday parties. Before long he was making his own shows, casting his younger siblings in roles: “I was always the impresario.” Exit, pursued by a bear … Twist’s silken solution for the Royal Ballet production of The Winter’s Tale. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian When Christopher Wheeldon recruited him for his Royal Ballet version of The Winter’s Tale, Twist was tasked with Shakespeare’s famously fiendish stage direction: “Exit, pursued by a bear.” His solution was to have the animal painted on a huge piece of silk whose movement was choreographed with as much care and impact as the dancing. While in London, Twist collaborated with Kate Bush on her Before the Dawn gigs. “It was a big, ambitious project outside of the normal box of how rock concerts or stage productions are performed,” he remembers. His work was entwined with that of magician Paul Kieve. “We ended up being a sort of barometer for how the project might or might not succeed because of the sensitivity of the way magic tricks or puppetry helped guide the entire project.” The Henson company has similarly built stage puppets for musicians including Lady Gaga and Kanye West. Today’s music acts use sophisticated digital visuals, acknowledges Brooke, but the physical space that puppets take up on a stage is “an effect that digital couldn’t compete with”. What did Kanye’s monster look like? “A big sand-worm dragon,” says Brooke. Is it in their workshop or Kanye’s mansion? Johnson laughs: “He’s got it in his compound out in the desert.” Ye gods … Henson’s sand-worm dragon creation for Kanye West, which now lives in the singer’s desert compound. Photograph: YouTube Mainstream theatre has embraced puppetry in a big way. The Lion King and War Horse helped pave the way, and the RSC’s last Christmas family show, The Magician’s Elephant, had an ear-flapping, trunk-swinging delight of a main attraction, controlled by a trio of puppeteers. Earlier this year, however, some eyebrows were raised when the Olivier award for best supporting actor was shared by the team who control the puppet tiger in Life of Pi: one gives the creature a voice, and three pairs of performers each represent its head, heart and hind. Is that acting or puppeteering? “It’s performance at the end of the day,” says Brooke. “There’s no reason why a horse or a tiger isn’t a member of the cast.” Johnson thinks the award shows that people are finally seeing beyond the technical side of puppetry to appreciate the acting inherent in the art form: “In the past, when you got hired for a film, producers would often be confused about whether they’re hiring acting performers or behind-the-scenes technicians.” Brooke says puppetry in Britain, where he grew up, was always limited to children’s theatre and TV whereas in other parts of the world it is recognised as a sophisticated form of adult storytelling. A really well-made puppet, Twist believes, has performance already built into it – whether it is wooden, sewn or sculpted. A good puppeteer teases those qualities out rather than forcing the object into particular movements. “Frequently in puppetry, we say we are manipulating a puppet,” he says, “but I prefer the sense ‘to animate’. You’re bringing something to life.” Working with the Henson company, he knows the puppets will have that magic built into them. “Then,” he says, giving a catbus grin, “we can let them do their own thing.” My Neighbour Totoro is at the Barbican, London, 8 October-21 January. Chris Wiegand’s flight to LA was paid for by the production.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/nov/18/rare-1926-macallan-whisky-becomes-worlds-most-expensive-bottle-at-21m

Food

2023-11-18T22:35:07.000Z

Nadeem Badshah

Rare 1926 Macallan whisky becomes world’s most expensive bottle at £2.1m

The record for the world’s most expensive bottle of whisky has been broken after a bottle of Macallan 1926 went for £2.1m at a Sotheby’s auction in London. The sale set a new record for any bottle of spirit or wine sold at auction, the auction house told the AFP news agency. The rare bottle had been expected to raise between £750,000 and £1.2m but surpassed estimates to fetch £2,187,500 on Saturday. One of the Macallan 1926 bottles had set a previous record for the most expensive bottle ever sold in 2019, when it fetched £1.5m at Sotheby’s. Sotheby’s head of whisky, Jonny Fowle, told AFP that he had been allowed to sample the valuable dram before the sale. Fowle said: “I tasted a tiny drop – a tiny drop – of this. It’s very rich, it’s got a lot of dried fruit as you would expect, a lot of spice, a lot of wood.” He added it had spent 60 years in dark European oak, which was reflected in the colour. “It’s not a whisky to take lightly. It’s a rich, rich dram, but it is incredible,” Fowle said. The Adami 1926 is the oldest Macallan vintage ever produced. The bottles are among only 40 that Macallan, based in Moray, northern Scotland, has confirmed were bottled from Cask 263 in 1986. However, these were not made available for purchase and were instead offered to Macallan’s top clients. Records are broken each time one appears at auction: between 2018 and 2019, the record was broken three times by three of the different variations: Sir Peter Blake, Michael Dillon, and Fine and Rare. The record-breaking bottle is one of the 12 Macallan 1926 bottles that in 1993 had their labels designed by the Italian painter Valerio Adami.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/21/ryanair-money-airline-morals

Opinion

2017-09-21T19:13:54.000Z

Anne Perkins

Ryanair isn’t just an airline; it’s a parable for our greedy times Anne Perkins

It was Ryanair’s AGM on Thursday and investors at the Dublin get-together seem to have been unusually grumpy. One bolshie shareholder, retired mechanic Brian Graham, even called for “heads to roll”. Two big US pension funds refused to endorse the proposals for senior pay. Others muttered anxiously about “poor disclosure” and executive bonuses. But the bottom line is, well, the bottom line. Once it was all over and the smoke had cleared, the share price sat pretty well where it had been at breakfast time. Michael O’Leary, the man who brings to his airline the kind of embodiment of values that Sports Direct’s Mike Ashley gives to sports clothing sales, claimed he was wearing sackcloth in mortification for the “boo-boo” of running out of pilots. This has led to the cancellation of more than 2,000 flights, inconveniencing 300,000 passengers, news initially announced without letting anyone know which 300,000 passengers’ plans had just been shredded. It was a “fuck-up” with the pilot rotas, O’Leary explained, with that guileless charm that typifies his airline’s relationship with its customers. Yet although Graham may have wanted O’Leary’s resignation, most investors prefer his way with a business. Ryanair’s share price has doubled since 2013. O’Leary and his business are the dark side of Europe’s psyche: in a kind of medieval morality tale, we love what they do even as we acknowledge the dislikable way in which they do it. We moan about stagnant pay and then go online to buy cheap flights to the sun subsidised by other people’s stagnant pay. We are eagerly complicit in conduct we deplore. We sustain a system that only works to our benefit in the immediate present. We have sold our soul, or at least other people’s secure jobs and decent wages, for serial holidays abroad. Like Mephistopheles, O’Leary’s genius is that he knows our weaknesses. He flaunts his knowledge and we laughingly buy into his brilliant strategy. He has made it part of the Ryanair style to taunt passengers’ appetite for the 50p flight with what are amusingly called ancillary charges. That is, anything that isn’t the seat on the plane. These generate 20% or more of the airline’s multibillion-pound profits. He shamelessly tests his passengers’ tolerance with novelties such as charging for airport check-in, or for printing a boarding pass, or for calling to find out where your plane is – and we sign up for more. Many of the people you meet in the course of being flown around Europe on Ryanair are not employed by Ryanair. Like some of the pilots who have just been told they have to delay a week of their holiday in order to make up for management mess-ups, they are subcontractors, or sometimes subcontractors of subcontractors. Obviously, no union enjoys any recognition. O’Leary has tried to insist that any case involving Ryanair and its workers can only be heard in the Irish courts (the European court of justice intervened to stop him). The company sues workers such as striking Spanish baggage handlers while taking a minimalist approach to the airline’s own legal obligation to, say, compensate passengers whose flights have been delayed. It can do anything it likes, because we go on flying Ryanair. Through our eager support, he has made his airline into the biggest carrier in Europe, and it seems poised to grow even bigger by taking over the failing Italian flagship carrier Alitalia. This is the monstrous offspring in the marriage between deregulation and consumerism. Ryanair was founded in 1984, the outrider of the Irish economic boom of the 1990s. It has become a perfect reflection of our greedy refusal to look an implausibly cheap horse in the mouth, let alone examine its back teeth. It is a parable of our times. Ryanair delights in reminding us of our part in the process of making it one of the world’s most successful airlines. It makes no secret of the fact that planes only make a profit when they are in the air, flying, full. The humdrum business of loading baggage on and off is not a convenience for the paying customer, but a costly delay that hits the bottom line. It is the Walmart of the air, piling us in, selling us cheap. Yet remember this: from time to time, in the interests of market advantage, management makes a finely calibrated concession. It changed the rules, for example, on cabin luggage. It then changed them again: there is never any compunction about berating the passenger who has the temerity to game the concession. Are passengers taking the piss, a Ryanair executive was asked recently, as he moaned about people using the Ryanair concession of toddler luggage allowance to pack, well, toddler luggage. Of course they were. So the cabin luggage allowance was cut back: now it’s a fiver for priority boarding if you want to bring a wheelie bag onboard. What next? The thing about exploitative relationships is that it is easy to forget that it takes two to play. That means that Ryanair’s very transparency, its extreme sensitivity to market pressures, makes negotiation possible in contrast to how challenging an online giant like Amazon feels impossible. Ryanair has planes, check-in desks, people. It also has investors. Six months ago, seven pension funds pulled €300m worth of assets because of concerns about labour disputes. The airline may be the creation of a consumerism untrammelled by anything but air safety regulations, but it is still selling something, and we are the buyers. This article was amended on 22 September 2017, to make it clear that the charge of £5 is for priority boarding, not for a wheelie bag

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/apr/03/hungary-ignorant-nonsense

Opinion

2013-04-03T14:20:02.000Z

Tibor Fischer

What on earth is this ignorant nonsense being spread about Hungary? | Tibor Fischer

What, I wonder, would be the reaction if a Hungarian who had no English, who had never visited the country, were to write an editorial savaging the United Kingdom for not being a real democracy as it has no proper constitution, decrying that the head of state is the result of a coitus, not an election, and the little freedom of speech left is being destroyed by David Cameron through a royal charter (a royal charter, not even the fig leaf of a law, I mean how fascistic and anachronistic can you get?) This editorial would probably go viral to universal hilarity. Yet it is precisely this level of ignorant nonsense and condescension that has been directed at Hungary over the past year. The word hysteria is much abused, but I can't come up with a more apt term to describe most of the media coverage regarding Hungary, particularly in Germany and France. The focus of this turbulence is the current prime minister, Viktor Orbán. He won the last election with a landslide almost impossible in a democracy. The left (in Hungary the left really isn't the left, but the former communists who were as Marxist as Al Capone) were completely broken and so they have gone abroad to create an utterly distorted picture of the country. There's been a lot of noise about antisemitism and anti-Roma sentiment in Hungary. Yes, there's prejudice and poverty in Hungary as there is in every country. It's funny how no one outside of Hungary was concerned about these matters three years ago, when the former communists were in power, and there was just as many hook-nosed caricatures knocking about and Roma being stabbed. Orbán, on the other hand, introduced a Holocaust memorial day, compulsory Holocaust education in schools and made Holocaust denial illegal (something I disagree with as I have this romantic attachment to freedom of speech). His party, Fidesz, has three Roma MPs, which is three more than the former communists had, and Lívia Járóka, the first Roma woman to serve as an MEP. The attacks aren't about principles, but politics. Orbán's chief foes in the EU are all from the left (if Daniel Cohn-Bendit and some Belgians are against you, surely you're doing something right) which is ironic as one of the measures the left have been clamouring for in these times of austerity, a Robin Hood tax, is exactly what Orbán did, fleecing big business. Changes to the constitution have provoked a furore. Are they good changes? Ask two constitutional lawyers in a room a question, you'll get three different opinions. Hungary has a system of parliamentary sovereignty, just like ours here in Britain, and if citizens don't like the changes, well, they can vote for the opposition and change things back. Some in the Hungarian opposition have behaved shamefully. They have promoted a grotesque image of Hungary abroad. The writer György Konrád, one of the founders of the Free Democrats (SZDSZ), the party that was definitively wiped out in the last election, has thrown his toys out of the pram by talking of the end of democracy, when all he means is the end of his friends enjoying the excellent patisseries from the Hungarian parliament's buffet. If there's one person who's earned the title of democrat it's Orbán. Just as democracy doesn't guarantee justice, happiness, peace or affluence, having a democrat in charge doesn't guarantee efficiency or good sense (even Orbán's supporters are bewildered by some of his actions and appointments). Orbán felt he wasn't dynamic enough in his first term in office in 1998, and his desire to smash the remnants of the communist system is now perhaps too precipitous. But he was voted into office and has the right to get things wrong. My friends and relatives in Budapest (many of whom can't stand Orbán) are appalled by these smears and anti-Hungarian fury. Orbán's enemies are doing him a favour, I suspect. By pushing a line that is so absurdly removed from reality they will convince voters who might not have given Orbán a second chance (because economically things aren't so great) to do so. A year or so down the road – when there aren't Jews hanging from lampposts or packs of journalists in dungeons – some on the left might feel a little awkward. Most Hungarians know what it was to live in a dictatorship, some are old enough to have known both fascism and communism. No one wants to go back to that. No one. To suggest that some contentious or poorly considered legislation is the death of democracy is simply ridiculous and an insult to the nation.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/jan/14/donald-trump-inauguration-us-sports-activism

Sport

2017-01-14T21:59:06.000Z

Bryan Armen Graham

Will the ascent of Donald Trump make American athletes irate again? | Bryan Armen Graham

The noise cascaded down from the west end of Madison Square Garden. It started in low. Then it started to grow. Donald Trump had just emerged from a tunnel on to the arena floor during the undercard of the middleweight title fight between Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux, prompting a crescendo of boos from the crowd of more than 20,000 spectators that stuffed the midtown Manhattan arena to capacity. It was October 2015, four months after the real-estate mogul and reality TV star had announced his presidential bid with a speech that established his nativist bona fides by branding Mexicans as rapists and criminals. Now he had turned up to watch a sport largely populated and supported by the minorities his candidacy would seem to marginalise. Trump made a half-circuit of the arena floor as the din grew to earsplitting volumes and turned into another tunnel almost immediately. As he made his way to the locker room of Golovkin, a Kazakh whose career has soared to new heights since coming to America and settling in Los Angeles, an aide straight-facedly reassured him the reaction from the crowd was “50-50”. Sport has always served as a mirror of American society, from the way Jackie Robinson’s penetration of Major League Baseball’s colour barrier pushed forward integration to how Muhammad Ali’s conscientious objection swayed national perceptions of the Vietnam war. That’s no different today as the reactions within US sport to Trump’s ascent to the presidency, with his inauguration on Friday, reflect the deep political and cultural divides of the nation itself. What it means for the games we watch remains as uncertain as what a Trump presidency will mean for the nation at large, but it has become clear that athletes on either side of the aisle are less inclined to “stick to sports” than any time in the past few decades. As the money flowing into professional sports has ballooned to stupefying heights in recent decades, athletes have been drilled into eschewing political discourse. Michael Jordan’s infamous assertion that “Republicans buy sneakers, too” – a quote of dubious authenticity but undeniable influence – prompted a generation of athletes to keep their heads down when it came to thorny issues lest they alienate the consumerbase. But a contentious election and the proliferation of social media have led athletes to speak out on politics with a frequency and ardour not seen since the high water mark of athlete activism of the 1960s, when champions such as Ali, Jim Brown and Kareem Abdul‑Jabbar risked it all to stand on the front line of the civil rights movement. LeBron James, who stumped for Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, has said he would not stay at the Trump SoHo when the Cleveland Cavaliers made road trips to New York. When asked whether he would make the traditional visit to the White House were his team to repeat as NBA champions this summer, James was noncommittal: “We’ll have to cross that road, I guess.” But for every sportsperson that’s spoken out against Trump, there have been just as many celebrating his victory: the Chicago Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta, the Buffalo Bills lineman Richie Incognito, the Cleveland Indians pitcher Trevor Bauer and the LPGA golfer Natalie Gulbis. Perhaps more revealing are those in sports who have shown a silent allegiance to the president-elect while stopping short of outspoken support, a trend that serves to illustrate the disconnect between the polls that spelled Trump’s doom and election results that sealed his coronation. ‘NBA teams should honour White House tradition and visit Donald Trump’ Read more Consider Trump’s fascinatingly opaque relationship with the New England Patriots, the most successful NFL team of their generation. The four-times Super Bowl champions hail from the only state in the union where every county went for Clinton, yet the three figures most responsible for the Patriots’ runaway dominance – the owner, Robert Kraft; the head coach, Bill Belichick; and the quarterback Tom Brady – have all shown a quiet allegiance to Trump while stopping short of public endorsement. Kraft held a meeting with the president‑elect in New York shortly after his victory, while Trump made no secret of the “most beautiful letter” he received from Belichick. When Brady was spotted with a “Make America Great Again” hat in his locker at Gillette Stadium shortly after Trump announced his candidacy, the two-times NFL most valuable player said “it would be great” if his friend and golfing buddy won the presidency. “I support all my friends in everything they do,” said Brady. “I think it’s pretty remarkable what he’s achieved in his life.” Trump has always valued sports as an inextricable stripe of American life. He owned a team in the upstart United States Football League in the early 1980s and hosted a series of major fights at his casino in Atlantic City before it went bankrupt, most notably the 1988 blockbuster between Mike Tyson and Michael Spinks, for which he paid a then-record $11m site fee. He has actively courted athlete endorsements throughout his political rise, keenly aware of the power of sportsperson as influencer. It’s only fitting his election has awakened that potential in ways not seen for years. It’s too soon to say whether the Trump presidency will usher in a renaissance of athlete activism. That may be unwelcome news for those who turn to sports as escapist entertainment. But if it can promote engagement in a democracy that’s seen voter turnout fall to perilously low levels, then surely it’s a small price to pay.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/apr/15/mic-camera-action-how-to-make-a-video-presentation-people-will-actually-like

Life and style

2020-04-14T17:30:22.000Z

Meg Watson

Mic, camera, action: how to make a video presentation people will actually like

The world has never been more online. That statement used to be thrown around with wide-eyed optimism. Now, in the midst of a pandemic, it’s an uncomfortable fact of life. Office workers are spending endless hours on Zoom, artists are streaming work on Facebook Live, and formerly real-world service industry providers such as trainers and hairdressers are uploading their skills to YouTube and Instagram. But online video doesn’t come naturally to everybody. We asked three pros for advice to anyone getting started. Keep it snappy Derek Laney, head of solutions and product marketing at Salesforce, says that “whenever you’re doing something online, you need to be thinking in a different way”. Laney runs webinars and other online events for the customer-relationship management business. His main tips for what works for online: get straight to the point, keep it short and shake things up where possible. “The standard for online is 20 minutes or less,” he says. “Ten minutes is better. If you can do it in a two-minute explainer, that’s even better.” Five video conference grooming tips: 'It's really what's above the desk that counts' Read more If you simply need more time, think about cutting it up into chunks. “You could do a 10-minute presentation, then a 10-minute workshop, then a 10-minute Q&A … It’s like a teacher in a classroom. A good teacher doesn’t talk at their students for an hour.” You don’t need a fancy camera The good news is it’s easy to get started. YouTube star Josiah “Jazza” Brooks, whose art tutorials have amassed 5m subscribers, says “your phone is absolutely enough!” “The great thing about your phone is … if you’re in a poorly lit environment, it will detect where your face is and bring you out. A DSLR can’t do that. They rely on you setting it up.” You’ve also got to make some basic decisions about where the video is going. Comedian and YouTuber Natalie Tran says: “If you’re uploading on a site [like Facebook or YouTube, rather than posting live stories] it’s probably best to film in 16x9 [landscape], otherwise you end up with blank space around the video.” Sound is everything (but lighting helps) “People hate bad audio a lot more than they hate bad visuals,” Brooks says. “Get yourself a decent microphone – you can get something great for $20 – then test it and fine-tune it.” Trial which room of your house creates the best sound and how far away the mic should be. If you have to move around a lot for the video, wireless earbuds are also a good alternative. “As long as your sound is good, you can at least get your message across,” says Tran. “If you can see what’s happening on screen because of good lighting, even better. You’ve nailed it. Five stars.” The trick with lighting is to put the camera in front of a light source – like a window or a lamp. “When you have light behind you, it tends to silhouette your face. You can, however, look like an angel when light is behind you so you win some, you lose some.” Look right down the lens “There’s nothing worse than watching a presentation where someone’s looking at their slides and you have to watch their bald spot,” says Laney. Also bad: checking yourself out the whole time in the camera. “You really need to look right down the lens … You need to reach through the lens, to make a real personal connection with someone on the other side.” If you’re having way too much trouble with this, an alternative is a “fireside chat”, where you have a couple of people in frame talking and occasionally turning to the camera to address the viewer. “Then the audience feels like the third person in the conversation,” Laney says. Don’t be so hard on yourself Being on camera is hard for everyone at first. “Try not to be too critical of yourself while filming or watching back what you’ve filmed,” Tran says. “It can be hard and uncomfortable, I know. But be nice to yourself.” Natalie Tran’s Awkward Photo Hands video, on what to do with your hands in pictures. “If you do it and do it and do it, it becomes comfortable,” Brooks adds. “[You have to] get comfortable making mistakes”. Remember: the videos you’re comparing yourself to are someone else’s final cut – it’s probably only 10% of what they originally recorded. “I stuff up all the bloody time, I’m just used to it!” Consistency is key If you’re trying to build an audience from scratch, it’s going to be tough. “You’ve got to be ready to make content for years and years with no audience. You have to prove yourself through the fires of the internet.” Ace FaceTime: how to impress in a webcam interview Read more The key is consistency, Brooks says. “I’m going to pass a billion views this year and I’ve never had a viral video. I’ve done over 11,000 videos over eight years … It’s all about providing content people want, doing it because it’s something you’re passionate about and making sure that carries through – and being really bloody persistent.” Practise being authentic It sounds counterintuitive, but it takes practice to be yourself on camera. So many people snap into “presenter” mode or cramp up. “You’re not practising for King Lear,” Laney says. “You’re trying to make it approachable: it’s you on a good day. That’s what you’re after.” A handy way of practising is to first do more video calls with family and friends. Think of a video as a conversation with a friend, Brooks says. “People tune in to people online because they feel a connection. It’s just about being honest.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/apr/15/niki-nakayama-nnaka-restaurant-my-last-supper

Food

2016-04-15T11:00:21.000Z

Dale Berning Sawa

Minimal fuss: Niki Nakayama’s final meal | My last meal

My partner, Carole, and I are just about to move into a new house. For the first time as an adult, I’ll have a place that actually feels like home. So, that’s where I’d want to be. It is a very comfortable space and I imagine having friends and family over all the time. I love entertaining. The restaurant at the beginning felt like a dinner party with people I didn’t know – intimate and fun. It still feels like that, especially when I’m cooking and plating – I forget that it’s work. Stylewise, it’s minimalistic, not decorative – a “library meets spa” kind of vibe … The colours are very light, with tones of white and grey and beige all over. We have wood flooring and the whole living-dining-kitchen area is one big space. It feels like an open loft. My siblings, our mothers, my niece and nephews, and my really close friends would all be with us. I’m very fortunate to have very close friends from junior high school – we hang out once a month and regress to our 14-year-old selves. My favourite season is end of summer, beginning of autumn. For feasts, the best time of day is just before sundown – everything is winding down, you get into this relaxing mode as the sun clocks out from work. There’d be no congruence to the menu, which is exactly how I like to eat – no particular thought behind it. It’d just be my feast of favourites. I’ll definitely have sushi – nigiri style – I have a particular love for a roll of avocado and tuna. I also love hikarimono – sardine, mackerel, that type of silver fish. And an onsen tamago – Japanese soft-boiled egg – on its own. I love the flavour combo of dashi with egg. Home is where I want to be: Josiah Citrin’s final meal Read more I’d want miso soup, made just with vegetables, and karaage. Some sort of pasta and tacos too. Carol and I often pick tacos up after work. Always with green sauce (tomatillo and lime), onions, cilantro (coriander), and a root beer or a Coke. And then, some sort of grilled beef, with mashed potatoes. And I’d round it all off with a few desserts: brioche French toast with persimmons and pecan and vanilla whipped cream. And a hot fudge sundae with bananas. I don’t have a very high alcohol tolerance, so I’d just stick with champagne, no other wines. A very young sencha tea, lightly roasted, with the sushi. And coffee with dessert. Niki Nakayama is the owner and chef of n/naka, the acclaimed kaiseki restaurant in Los Angeles, CA

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/feb/15/john-lydon-i-didnt-want-to-be-a-comfortable-mick-jagger-type-naughty-pop-star

Music

2018-02-15T12:39:55.000Z

Dave Simpson

John Lydon: 'I didn’t want to be a comfortable, Mick Jagger-type naughty pop star'

Sex Pistols – Anarchy in the UK “Har! Hahahahahahahah!” John Lydon’s throaty, mischievous cackle barrels down the phone from Los Angeles. It’s eerily reminiscent of the laughter at the start of Anarchy in the UK, with which the singer – then called Johnny Rotten – unleashed the Sex Pistols on the British public way back in 1976. “My laugh was spontaneous in the studio,” he explains. “I suddenly had a microphone and the realisation that words can be very powerful and thrilling. I was thinking: ‘Ah-ha! Look what I’ve got a chance to do.” Johnny Rotten in 1977. Photograph: Elisa Leonelli/REX Shutterstock It had been a troubled childhood. The eldest son of Irish immigrants in Holloway, north London, Lydon went into a coma after contracting spinal meningitis at the age of seven. When he awoke, he had lost his memory: “I didn’t know who I was, my parents. I couldn’t hold a spoon.” As he tells it, he recovered through anger, which would later become a key artistic drive. After being dubbed “Johnny Dum Dum” on his return to school, he squirrelled himself away in libraries, devouring literary classics to help him use words as weapons. And suddenly, aged 20, there he was – “Right up close to people playing very loudly” – fronting the seminal punk band whose music prompted questions in parliament under the Traitors and Treason Act. The Anarchy lyrics were written “almost spontaneously” in rehearsals – a volcanic eruption after years of frustration. “What Robin Williams described as ‘overflowing madness’,” he sniggers. “Mix that with a bit of James Joyce and out it comes. Repression, [anti-Irish] racism, the belief that class was all important ... I’d seen what was coming: Ikea-made shopping centres, the destruction of personality. I was lucky to have words to express what a lot of people were feeling.” The (in)famous opener – “I am an antichrist” – reflects Lydon’s Catholic schooling. “You either believe that nonsense or have something to say about it,” he cackles. “Hopefully maliciously, because that’s where the fun is.” Sex Pistols – Bodies “She was a girl from Birmingham / She just had an abortion” begins this equally controversial song, from 1977’s Never Mind the Bollocks. It was a true story. “She’d been in a mental institution and used to brag about living in a tree,” Lydon explains. “She turned up at my place one night with an aborted foetus in a see-through plastic bag. Shock horror and all that, but once you get over it, it’s a bloody good subject for a song.” The young lyricist – further informed by grim childhood experiences carrying his mother’s five miscarried foetuses from the house in buckets full of blood – respects no sensitivities here either. Bodies has been interpreted as being anti-abortion, but Lydon argues that it’s not clear-cut. “I could have been aborted. Any of us could. It’s about the value of life but also the pointlessness of bringing someone into the world and not caring for them, which is much more savage.” The word “fucking” rarely featured in songs in 1977, but Lydon says he reached for swear words to convey his “sheer rage”. “Silly people think swearing is fun,” he argues, “but if you use those words carefully they become very clever, full of poignancy: ‘Have a fuckin’ smack of this one, baby!’” Public Image Ltd – Public Image “The filth and the fury!” screamed the Daily Mirror’s front page as the Pistols’ Bill Grundy TV show appearance in December 1976 sparked moral panic and appalled one viewer in Essex so much he kicked in his television. Rotten was all set to be a pre-reality TV tabloid bete noire but he wasn’t playing ball. “I didn’t want to be that comfortable, Mick Jagger-type naughty pop star,” he explains. “I was in danger of becoming a parody.” Thus, with the Pistols having imploded, Rotten “became John Lydon again and exposed myself in a completely different way”. “I’m not the same as when I began,” he cries over PiL’s mission statement, a pioneering post-punk juggernaut. The band took its name from Muriel Spark’s The Public Image (about the corruption of fame) and brought together early Clash guitarist Keith Levene, jazzy drummer Jim Walker and rookie bassist Jah Wobble. “This was the first thing we did in rehearsals,” Lydon remembers, and for two albums, sparks flew thrillingly. “That band could not get on with each other. Musically didn’t understand each other, but this is a key to how I am. I love pub culture, opposing elements and angry people up against each other. Johnny Chaos can sit in the middle and, through humour, calm that into something brilliant, and there’s my space in life.” Time Zone – World Destruction In 1984, with PiL having already careered through various lineups, Lydon was “buggering around” in New York, when he started going to nightclubs, hearing hip-hop and early electro. He was particularly taken by Afrika Bambaataa’s “wonderful mix of Funkadelic and AC/DC, which made them sound as if they belonged in the same place”. After being introduced by producer Bill Laswell, Lydon turned up to work with the Planet Rock legend “completely out of my comfort zone”. “The studio was full of people, all strangers,” he says. “I felt nervous and frightened: ‘I’m going to make a fool of myself here.’ Perfect!” In fact, the pair’s joint apocalyptic raps plus Lydon’s wails make a perfect fit. “The rap thing hadn’t really existed until that point, but I related it to Jamaican toasting, which I loved. I didn’t mind singing someone else’s lyrics because the Pistols covered Who songs. The difficult bit is making them sound poignant and relevant ... so I was over-enunciating, exploiting every word.” Public Image Ltd – Rise In 1986, Lydon had settled years of wrangling with Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren out of court (“so much of my life was wasted on that childish nonsense”) when he was transfixed by a TV documentary about apartheid-era South African interrogation techniques. “I thought: ‘We’re all being tortured, mentally and physically, so let’s rise up against it and have a song about that.’” Hence Rise’s key lyric: “Anger is an energy.” PiL’s biggest hit since Public Image is “a cross between an Irish lilt and a Zulu war dance. I had to replace the band I was working with because they couldn’t cope with the studio technology, poor things, but I was amazed at the names putting themselves forward. I didn’t think I had any respect.” At the Hammersmith Palais in 1987. Photograph: Ilpo Musto/REX/Shutterstock Where Lydon had once toured with a suited, mulleted band he had found playing in a New Jersey Holiday Inn, the album Album united some of the world’s finest players, among them drummer Ginger Baker (“He’s nuts. If I was to worship a musician it would be him”) and guitarist Steve Vai. “Mr Twiddly twiddly,” chortles the singer. “He turned up playing 50,000 notes a second, but getting him to calm down was half the fun. The chorus, ‘May the road rise with you’, comes from an Irish saying for ‘good luck’. I was addressing everybody in the world, including myself. Stop the institutionalised hatred. A long way from the Pistols? I would hope so.” Leftfield – Open Up Lydon isn’t a of the disco era Bee Gees. “God, Stayin’ Alive. What a terrible song. That’s why people suddenly stopped using vocals on dance tracks – the Bee Gees – and the reason rave started.” He roars with laughter, and yet here we find him, in 1993, bringing angry energy to trance. In his teens, Leftfield’s Neil Barnes had somehow ended a mad night at Lydon’s place listening to reggae. So years later, when the duo wanted to make an album full of songs that would also work in clubs, he asked the former Pistol. John Lydon in Las Vegas, 1995. Photograph: Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc “They said: ‘If you’re rubbish, we won’t use it.’ That’s such a tease isn’t it? Because they’ve guaranteed you’ll put in 150%.” Lydon insists the pairing wasn’t that unlikely: “I was a disco boy in my early years, and as an avid record collector I’d fallen in love with trance rave.” He delved into his lyrics bag – “What you’ll hear from me in the studio first is 10 minutes of paper rustling” – and found a killer chorus: “Burn Hollywood burn!” It isn’t – as was believed – Lydon “cashing in” on LA’s forest fires (which almost engulfed his US home); it reflects his experiences in the movies. “I wanted to turn my life story into a film, but they kept wanting to turn it into a David Cassidy story, with generic love interest and fake scenarios.” He’s consistent on this: “If it’s not from the heart, it’s not going to work.” Public Image Ltd – Human It was financial wrangles with Virgin Records that stopped him making music for years. “Unbearable,” he says. “I ended up doing the butter commercial and that money got us out of it. I love butter! If I was selling tampons it would be different. I would have worn them but only outwardly. You’ve got to move on from safety pins.” With cash to restart PiL, the band were recording in the Cotswolds. “Getting on like a house on fire,” he chuckles. “Then the house caught fire.” A blaze caused by a faulty washing machine back at his London property almost killed his dear wife, Nora – “When I got back she looked like a chimney sweep” – and burned his lyrics to a crisp. Typically, he saw this as another chance to start afresh. Sign up for the Sleeve Notes email Read more Human – from 2012’s This Is PiL, the band’s first album in two decades – is unusually wistful, all cotton summer dresses, roses and beer, but melancholy. “It’s innocence lost, a nostalgic waltz through my childhood, and about how things that mattered have been thrown away for greed and chaos. My ambition in PiL now is to explore every emotion.” Public Image Ltd – Shoom Which brings us here, and a song that – despite being named after an acid house club (Shoom, which the drum machine thud reminds him of) and containing the word “bollocks” 50 times – is actually his inimitable way of addressing his father’s death. “The sadness is that I never really connected with him until he’d gone,” he sighs, and his voice is softer now. “He thought I blamed him for my illnesses and I thought he blamed me, until years later when we realised how foolish we’d been.” They became closer towards the end, and enjoyed each other’s company in the pub. So, in true contrarian fashion, this “old Irish sea shanty, happy Paddy thing with a load of ‘bollocks’” is a song John Lydon senior – who rarely swore – would have loved to hate. “He’d have said, ‘You can’t do that kind of ting!” the singer roars, in his dad’s Irish brogue. He can imagine what his mother would have told her husband. “‘Johnny, look what your son’s done to you now!’” Perhaps, throughout all these many cackles, genres, countries and emotions, the only real constants are laughter and upheaval. “I don’t like to be put in a box,” Lydon says. “So I will go kicking and screaming to my grave.” The Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks deluxe reissue and 1977: The Bollocks Diaries book are out now. PiL tour in May. Details at pilofficial.com Lydon has curated a longer primer on his work, featuring the above alongside other favourite tracks from across his career; you can listen and subscribe to it in Spotify below. This article was amended on 13 March 2018 to clarify that John Lydon isn’t a fan of the of the disco era Bee Gees.

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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/07/king-charles-sets-out-sunaks-election-dividing-lines-in-first-kings-speech

Politics

2023-11-07T13:32:07.000Z

Pippa Crerar

King Charles sets out Sunak’s election dividing lines in first king’s speech

King Charles has delivered his first king’s speech, outlining the UK government’s plans for laws to create potential dividing lines with Labour before the next general election with a tough approach to criminal justice and the green agenda, but little legislation to improve Britain’s struggling public services. The king paid tribute to his mother the late Queen Elizabeth’s “legacy of service and devotion” as he conducted the state opening of parliament for the first time as monarch. The government announced 21 bills for what is almost certainly the final session of parliament before voters go to the polls, the lowest number since 2014, including seven that were carried over. With crime and justice a big point of contention with Keir Starmer’s Labour party, the speech confirmed ministers would bring forward bills covering sentencing laws, police powers and the treatment of victims of crime. An annual system for awarding oil and gas licences was also announced, with the government saying it would protect jobs and bolster energy security. Labour would block new domestic exploration licences if it won power. However, the proposals that were left out of Rishi Sunak’s first king’s speech attracted as much attention. These included plans to stop councils bringing in low traffic neighbourhoods, regulation of artificial intelligence and a ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ people. In his introduction to the speech, Sunak attempted once again to define himself as the change candidate, despite the his legislative plan for the next year including no surprises. “We have turned the corner over the last year and put the country on a better path,” he said. “But these immediate priorities are not the limit of our ambition. They are just the foundations of our plan to build a better future for our children and grandchildren, and deliver the change the country needs.” Downing Street emphasised the law and order policies, including previously announced proposals for killers convicted of the most horrific murders to never be released from jail. Rapists and other serious sexual offenders would not be let out early from prison sentences under the plans. Other measures include handing police greater powers to enter a property without a warrant to seize stolen goods, such as phones. Senior Tories hope a focus on issues seen as traditionally Tory will help Sunak overturn Labour’s consistently double-digit poll lead. Allies of the prime minister also believe the Labour leader’s record as director of public prosecutions could prove to be a weak point. One mooted change that was not included in the speech was a ban on tents for homeless people, a measure that was reported over the weekend but triggered a backlash even from Conservative backbenchers. With a general election expected next year, the speech set out legislation to mandate annual oil and gas licensing in the North Sea – which the Tories hope will draw another political dividing line with Labour, which has said it would block new licence applications. Experts, including climate scientists and poverty campaigners, have warned against plans to keep drilling. The energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, has admitted that household energy bills may not come down as a result of the proposal. While public services including health and education were mentioned in the speech, there was no new legislation to either reform the NHS or to bring in Sunak’s plans to replace A-levels and T-levels with a new single “advanced British standard” qualification. The only health-related bill would introduce a gradual “generational” ban on smoking and “crack down” on vapes for children, despite promises last year of a big piece of legislation to modernise the Mental Health Act. However, Michael Gove, the housing secretary, will bring forward two of his long-promised reform packages, one to give renters extra rights and one to protect leaseholders. Both, however, have been watered down in significant ways. The boycotts bill is seen by some as an attempt to draw another dividing line with the opposition, as Labour fails to remain united in its response to the Israel-Hamas war. The move is designed to stop councils enacting boycott and divestment campaigns against Israel, and has caused anger among some Tories, who believe it gives special treatment to the Israeli government. A law to change the structure and operation of the railways in Britain by setting up a new body, Great British Railways, to control and manage all aspects of the railways, was only in “draft” form, meaning it is unlikely to happen before the next election. There was also legislation on self-driving vehicles, with buses, grocery deliveries and farm machinery potentially operating autonomously by the end of the decade. Pedicabs will be banned from the streets of London. The speech set out plans to abolish a key piece of press regulation law, which will result in the rolling back of a law that left newspapers liable for the legal costs of both sides in libel cases, regardless of the result. There will also be increased regulation of streaming services, giving the regulator Ofcom the authority to consider complaints about shows on Netflix and Disney+.

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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2008/may/26/heinekencup.munster2

Sport

2008-05-25T23:01:00.000Z

Robert Kitson

It wasn't pretty but victory is still sweet for Kidney's street fighters

Ranking European Cup final victories on style is to miss the essence of Munster. Toulouse can whinge all they like about their opponents setting out purely to negate them, but what else did they expect? Paul O'Connell sitting on the touchline making daisy chains? Two previous final defeats long ago taught the Irish province not to mess around on the big occasion and their forwards could not care less if their modus operandi won few admirers in the salons of the Midi-Pyrénées. If this resulted in an ordinary game made special only by the 60,000 red-clad supporters who roared themselves hoarse even before the outstanding O'Connell and Ronan O'Gara hoisted the trophy aloft, Munster felt scant need to apologise. As in 2006 they identified the best way to beat fancied French opposition and sprang the familiar steel trap as effectively as ever. Up in the stands their departing coach Declan Kidney sat alone, overcome by emotion, for almost a minute after the final whistle. People who decry limited gameplans do not always appreciate the commitment required to prosecute them. Munster's detractors also forget the reservoirs of desire created by their final loss to Northampton in 2000 and Neil Back's infamous back-hander which ensured victory for Leicester in 2002. The dam burst gloriously against Biarritz in this same stadium two years ago and Kidney's men are still tapping into that relentless source of motivational power. To dismiss them as passion killers because they failed to weave any pretty midfield patterns is to ignore that all the cleverest teams play to their strengths to some degree. "We had to do what we did today," argued Kidney, aware of Toulouse's preference for an open, sweeping contest over a street fight. Even the Toulouse coach, Guy Noves, having publicly queried the appointment of the Welsh referee Nigel Owens to yet another crucial Munster tie - they won all five of the games he presided over including the quarter-final and semi-final - was forced to concede the gnarled dogs of war had grabbed his pack by the throat. It was no coincidence that, aside from blood replacement cameos from Mick O'Driscoll and Tony Buckley, the champions started and finished with the same 15 individuals. At the end of an achingly long season some Munster players were still managing personal bests in the gym this past fortnight. They backed themselves to be patient and to outlast the French and duly did both. Toulouse's captain, Fabien Pelous, also did his best to help, getting himself unnecessarily yellow-carded and conceding two further penalties which resulted in three points for O'Gara. Referee Owens did not see Alan Quinlan stepping on Pelous's foot but he did see the soon-to-retire former France captain aim a petulant kick at the agent provocateur. "It's a real shame at my age to react like that," conceded the 34-year-old lock, whose loss of control was singled out by Noves as one of the game's two turning points. The other came straight after Denis Leamy was deemed to have lost control of the ball as he lunged for the line in a period of rare Munster first-half pressure. Toulouse had a chance to clear the danger but Tomas O'Leary pounced on some indecision at the base of the scrum and regained scrum possession. This time Leamy could not be denied from close range and Munster were never headed again. Their only wobble came when Cédric Heymans took a quick throw to himself some 65 metres from the Munster line and, with two sublime chips, scattered the cover defence. Yannick Jauzion toe-poked the ball ahead for Yannick Nyanga to score and Jean-Baptiste Elissalde's conversion tied the scores at 13-13 with Pelous still hunched in the sin-bin. Maybe he should have stayed there. Within three minutes of the big second-row rejoining the fray he conceded the decisive penalty for not rolling away, a kick made easier for O'Gara by a backchatting Jauzion. O'Gara did not have his best day in open play but his nerve has never been in doubt. It would have been more comfortable had a forward pass by Rua Tipoki not caused a second-half try for Doug Howlett to be disallowed. At some stage the game's authorities will have to do something about the cynical exploitation of the game clock, with an increasing number of teams sticking the ball up their jumpers and grinding out the last few minutes. Finding more referees who can speak French would also be an improvement; while Mr Owens showed few signs of favouritism, Toulouse had good reason to feel misunderstood. For the men of Munster who flopped at the World Cup, however, this success tasted every bit as sweet as two years ago. Munster Hurley; Howlett, Tipoki, Mafi, Dowling; O'Gara, O'Leary; Horan, Flannery, Hayes, O'Callaghan, O'Connell (capt), Quinlan, Wallace, Leamy. Try Leamy. Con O'Gara. Pens O'Gara 3. Toulouse Heymans; Medard, Kunavore, Jauzion, Donguy (Ahotaeiloa, 72); Elissalde, Kelleher; Human, Servat, Perugini (Poux, 56), Pelous (capt), Albacete (Millo-Chluski, 62), Bouilhou (Lamboley, 62), Dusautoir (Nyanga, 39), Sowerby. Try Nyanga. Con Elissalde. Pen Elissalde. Drop-goal Elissalde. Sin-bin Pelous, 51. Referee N Owens (Wales). Attendance 74,417.

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